The Mailer Review/Volume 4, 2010/Authorship and Alienation in Death in the Afternoon and Advertisements for Myself: Difference between revisions

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 The fanfare is minimal but literal. The entrance of the Old Lady and the descent into hell are heralded by a trumpeter at the end of Chapter 6: “[T]he trumpet sounds and the very serious, white-haired, wide old man, his name is Gabriel, in a sort of burlesque bullfighter’s suit . . . unlocks the door of the toril and pulling heavily on it runs backward to expose the low passageway" {{sfn |Hemingway |1932| p=61-2}} In the next chapters, Hemingway will literally burlesque the Armageddon wrought on art by the capitalist system of production, performing his erudition (in what he will reveal as a direct response to Huxley) by alluding to several dramatic forms and specific dramatic texts, including the morality play (one more burlesque than apostrophic), tragedy, and Romeo and Juliet (specifically the line “He jests at scars who never felt a
-wound”). His purpose, although never more overt than the passing reference to Gabriel and the Café Fornos (from forno, Italian for “Hell”) (105), is to illustrate that authorship (as opposed to writing) is a burlesque performance,
+wound”). His purpose, although never more overt than the passing reference to Gabriel and the Café Fornos (from forno, Italian for “Hell”) (105), is to illustrate that authorship (as opposed to writing) is a burlesque performance, a low-comedy, symptomatic of a system of decay and putrefaction.
-a low-comedy, symptomatic of a system of decay and putrefaction. He invites the careful reader to compare his Author to Dante’s Virgil (addressed as “guide,” “Master,” and “Author” [1.85]) and to thus perceive the analogy and its scathing commentary on the degradation wrought on art and artist by the mechanisms of popular consumption. <sup>1</sup>
+He invites the careful reader to compare his Author to Dante’s Virgil (addressed as “guide,” “Master,” and “Author” [1.85]) and to thus perceive the analogy and its scathing commentary on the degradation wrought on art and artist by the mechanisms of popular consumption{{efn|The specifics of how, why, and to what effect Hemingway constructs this allegory are presented in full in Justice, “A Pilgrim’s Progress into Hell: Death in the Afternoon and the Problem of Authorship” in The Bones of the Others, 92–118.}}
 Although Hemingway lifts the structure of his dialogues from Dante, the specific sins do not map exactly. Most of Hemingway’s “sins” correspond directly to those described in Inferno’s circles, but he orders them differently as required by his own analysis. Once past the “Limbo” of the uncommitted (Chapters 1–6) {{sfn |Dante|1994| ch=1-6}}, the narrator states that, “At this point it is necessary that you
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 : Chapter 12: Literary Critics (Dante 5: The Wrathful/ Sullen)
 : Chapter 14: Impresarios, traitors to art (Dante 8/9: Flatterers/ Traitors)
-: Chapter 15: Crimes against nature (Dante 7: The Violent) <sup>2</sup>
+: Chapter 15: Crimes against nature (Dante 7: The Violent){{efn|There is no dialogue in chapter 13; for an expanded table of correspondence, see Justice, 105.}}
+What Hemingway does not say, does not seem to need to say, is that the decadent system of art, artist, and audience is always measurable against a Platonic ideal reality in which the artist performs for the aficion. His approach is clever—too clever by half—and pugilistic, rendered palatable only when revealed (a la the man behind the curtain in ''The Wizard of Oz'') as a deliberately contemptible construct: “What about the Old Lady? She’s gone. We threw her out of the book, finally. A little late, you say. Yes, perhaps a little late . . . Shall we try to raise the general tone? What about higher things?” (190). The “we” in the narrative voice is telling ''vis à vis'' the contamination of the writer, he who occupies the space of observer and from it crafts his narratives, by the Author, revealed finally as a performance required by the system.
+Once again in the voice of the singular, “I,” the text responds directly and specifically to Aldous Huxley’s accusation that Hemingway was too concerned with “Lower Things” and not nearly well educated enough to speak as a public authority (190). Countering Huxley’s critique, the narrator employs the words “writer” and “writing” twenty two times in the next two pages as though it offers an antidote to the poison of authorship (191–2). By comparison to the kind of performance required by Huxley and, by extension, the entire economic system of cultural capital, the “importance” the
+writer locates in the contrast between Domingo Hernandorena’s dirty underwear and the “clean, clean, unbearably clean "whiteness" of his exposed thighbone is a "higher thing" indeed.
 === Notes ===
 {{notelist}}
-. The specifics of how, why, and to what effect Hemingway constructs this allegory are presented in full in Justice, “A Pilgrim’s Progress into Hell: Death in the Afternoon and the Problem of Authorship” in The Bones of the Others, 92–118.
-. There is no dialogue in chapter 13; for an expanded table of correspondence, see Justice, 105.
-. This is perhaps most evident in Shakespeare’s plays, usually occurring in III.ii, and subsequent literary works pre-dating Modernism (Dickens’ Bleak House contains a striking meta-example; its central pivot occurs in iambic pentameter), but the phenomenon is hegemonic and not limited to literary prose writing. Bullfights and symphonies work on the same sort of narrative arc.
 ===Citations===