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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.{{sfn|Hemingway|1932|p=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. {{sfn|Hemingway|1932|p=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
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.{{sfn|Hemingway|1932|p=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. {{sfn|Hemingway|1932|p=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. {{sfn|Hemingway|1932|p=20}}
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. {{sfn|Hemingway|1932|p=20}}


The generic complexity of ''Death in the Afternoon'' reflects that of the multiple roles played by the man, writer, author, authority, and public figure; Hemingway presents the problem of performative authorship in order to{{pg|265|266}}deconstruct it (and to provide a windmill for his initial critics, all of whom turned their lances on it). With the Author unmasked, ''Death in the Afternoon'' returns to non-fiction prose and remains non-fiction prose until the end. Within the text, at least, the author/writer alienation was resolved; in professional and capitalist practice, however, the problem was irresolvable, and Hemingway would wrestle with it for the remainder of his life.
The generic complexity of ''Death in the Afternoon'' reflects that of the multiple roles played by the man, writer, author, authority, and public figure; Hemingway presents the problem of performative authorship in order to{{pg|265|266}}deconstruct it (and to provide a windmill for his initial critics, all of whom turned their lances on it). With the Author unmasked, ''Death in the Afternoon'' returns to non-fiction prose and remains non-fiction prose until the end. Within the text, at least, the author/writer alienation was resolved; in professional and capitalist practice, however, the problem was irresolvable, and Hemingway would wrestle with it for the remainder of his life.
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purpose was to confront alienation head-on in order to “clear a ground” for his next novel, which was already underway.{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=8}}
purpose was to confront alienation head-on in order to “clear a ground” for his next novel, which was already underway.{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=8}}


In the opening paragraph of his “Note to the Reader,” which precedes the two Tables of Contents, Mailer overtly distinguishes author and writer. “The author,” he says, “taken with an admirable desire to please his readers, has{{pg|266|267}}also added a set of advertisements, printed in italics.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=7}} In the next sentence, Mailer states that “[l]ike many another literary fraud, the writer has been known on occasion to read the Preface of a book instead of the book."{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=7}} The distinction is subtle and probably instinctive; the role of the author involves production and requires awareness of his reader, whereas the writer is here presented as private consumer. That authorship is a fraught space is evident in Mailer’s ironic comment that he “will take the ''dangerous'' step of listing what I believe are the best pieces . . .” [emphasis added].{{sfn|Mailer|1959| p=7}}
In the opening paragraph of his “Note to the Reader,” which precedes the two Tables of Contents, Mailer overtly distinguishes author and writer. “The author,” he says, “taken with an admirable desire to please his readers, has{{pg|266|267}}also added a set of advertisements, printed in italics.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=7}} In the next sentence, Mailer states that “[l]ike many another literary fraud, the writer has been known on occasion to read the Preface of a book instead of the book.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=7}} The distinction is subtle and probably instinctive; the role of the author involves production and requires awareness of his reader, whereas the writer is here presented as private consumer. That authorship is a fraught space is evident in Mailer’s ironic comment that he “will take the ''dangerous'' step of listing what I believe are the best pieces . . .” [emphasis added].{{sfn|Mailer|1959| p=7}}


Mailer then addresses the book’s structure with an explanation of his decision to provide two Tables of Contents, one chronological, provided for “anyone wishing to read my book from beginning to end,” and a second, organized by genre, “to satisfy the specialist.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=7}} That he considers formal decisions authorial, as opposed to writerly, is implicit in his overt conscious awareness of audience. It is thus not exceptional that a book concerned primarily with authorship reflects that concern in its structural form, and it therefore follows that its fractured structure reflects the shifting, multiple, and sometimes contradictory roles played by one man who is writer, author, authority (if only on himself), and celebrity. Further, as Mailer assigns interest in genre to “the specialist” (to whom he “offers” the second table of contents), his thinking implicitly extends alienation throughout other capitalistic roles—the “specialist,” or professional reader, will necessarily be always/already alienated from the text by virtue of its implication in their own labor. Mailer the professional writer thus extends a token of solidarity to the professional reader—that token being an acknowledgment that professionals must not relinquish awareness of hierarchies and protocols in the performance of their work, even when that work brings in a supposedly private space of consumption. Mailer’s conceptual thinking analogizes thus:
Mailer then addresses the book’s structure with an explanation of his decision to provide two Tables of Contents, one chronological, provided for “anyone wishing to read my book from beginning to end,” and a second, organized by genre, “to satisfy the specialist.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=7}} That he considers formal decisions authorial, as opposed to writerly, is implicit in his overt conscious awareness of audience. It is thus not exceptional that a book concerned primarily with authorship reflects that concern in its structural form, and it therefore follows that its fractured structure reflects the shifting, multiple, and sometimes contradictory roles played by one man who is writer, author, authority (if only on himself), and celebrity. Further, as Mailer assigns interest in genre to “the specialist” (to whom he “offers” the second table of contents), his thinking implicitly extends alienation throughout other capitalistic roles—the “specialist,” or professional reader, will necessarily be always/already alienated from the text by virtue of its implication in their own labor. Mailer the professional writer thus extends a token of solidarity to the professional reader—that token being an acknowledgment that professionals must not relinquish awareness of hierarchies and protocols in the performance of their work, even when that work brings in a supposedly private space of consumption. Mailer’s conceptual thinking analogizes thus:
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</blockquote>


Mailer develops this point by describing his struggle with Hemingway and Hemingway’s struggle with himself, concluding that he has come “to have a great sympathy for The Master’s irrepressible tantrum that he is the champion writer of this time” because to be any less “is tiring, much too tiring."{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=19}}
Mailer develops this point by describing his struggle with Hemingway and Hemingway’s struggle with himself, concluding that he has come “to have a great sympathy for The Master’s irrepressible tantrum that he is the champion writer of this time” because to be any less “is tiring, much too tiring.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=19}}


Despite Mailer’s apparently visceral understanding of the struggle Hemingway dramatized in ''Death in the Afternoon,'' he, like Hemingway’s initial critics, seems to have missed the Dantean lens through which Hemingway refracts that struggle: “Hemingway has always been afraid to think, afraid of losing even a little popularity."{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=20}} (This is especially ironic given that Hemingway’s popularity took a nose-dive because he thought.) Mailer does provide a caveat, giving “credit to the man, he’s known the value of his own{{pg|268|269}}work, and he fought to make his personality enrich his books,” especially in ''A Farewell to Arms'' and ''Death in the Afternoon'', both of which are exemplary of how “[a]n author’s personality can help or hurt the attention readers give to his books.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=21}}  
Despite Mailer’s apparently visceral understanding of the struggle Hemingway dramatized in ''Death in the Afternoon,'' he, like Hemingway’s initial critics, seems to have missed the Dantean lens through which Hemingway refracts that struggle: “Hemingway has always been afraid to think, afraid of losing even a little popularity."{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=20}} (This is especially ironic given that Hemingway’s popularity took a nose-dive because he thought.) Mailer does provide a caveat, giving “credit to the man, he’s known the value of his own{{pg|268|269}}work, and he fought to make his personality enrich his books,” especially in ''A Farewell to Arms'' and ''Death in the Afternoon'', both of which are exemplary of how “[a]n author’s personality can help or hurt the attention readers give to his books.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=21}}  


Mailer’s preliminary conclusion regarding the problem of alienation is, again ironically, that “[t]he way to save your work and reach more readers is to advertise yourself, steal your own favorite page out of Hemingway’s unwritten ''Notes From Papa On How The Working Novelist Can Get Ahead''." {{sfn|Mailer|1959| p=21}} Seemingly unaware of the problem that those “unwritten” notes are implicit in ''Death in the Afternoon’s'' Author/Old Lady dialogues (and the consequent problem that those dialogues had the opposite of their intended effect), Mailer indulges in some gymnastic contortions of his own. Despite the fact that the “First Advertisement” does “steal” that page (topically and thematically, however un-self-consciously), and despite the fact that Mailer states how unsuited he is to that sort of self-advertisement, both happen within exactly that sort of advertisement in the service of that sort of advertisement.
Mailer’s preliminary conclusion regarding the problem of alienation is, again ironically, that “[t]he way to save your work and reach more readers is to advertise yourself, steal your own favorite page out of Hemingway’s unwritten ''Notes From Papa On How The Working Novelist Can Get Ahead''.” {{sfn|Mailer|1959| p=21}} Seemingly unaware of the problem that those “unwritten” notes are implicit in ''Death in the Afternoon’s'' Author/Old Lady dialogues (and the consequent problem that those dialogues had the opposite of their intended effect), Mailer indulges in some gymnastic contortions of his own. Despite the fact that the “First Advertisement” does “steal” that page (topically and thematically, however un-self-consciously), and despite the fact that Mailer states how unsuited he is to that sort of self-advertisement, both happen within exactly that sort of advertisement in the service of that sort of advertisement.


It seems evident that Mailer missed at least the “thinking” part that structured Hemingway’s burlesque according to Dante’s circles of Hell, yet one page further finds Mailer listing his own “sinners” or “criminals,” which map as neatly onto Hemingway’s as Hemingway’s do onto Dante’s: “I must get
It seems evident that Mailer missed at least the “thinking” part that structured Hemingway’s burlesque according to Dante’s circles of Hell, yet one page further finds Mailer listing his own “sinners” or “criminals,” which map as neatly onto Hemingway’s as Hemingway’s do onto Dante’s: “I must get
better at overriding the indifference which comes from the snobs, arbiters, managers and conforming maniacs who manipulate most of the world of letters."{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=22}} Mailer further defines his struggle as wanting to “write so well and so strongly as to call my shot, but unfortunately I may have fatigued the earth of rich language beyond repair.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=22}} Writing “so well and so strongly” was the ambition of both writers. Both discovered they could not call their shots (Hemingway in publishing ''A Farewell to Arms'' and after publishing ''Death in the Afternoon''; Mailer in trying to publish ''The Deer Park''). Both writers acknowledged the contamination and depletion of their central resource, language (Hemingway’s Author addresses this equally overtly, warning that “all our words from loose using have lost their edge."{{sfn|Hemingway|1932|p=71}} The six and a half declarative pages of Mailer’s First Advertisement thus provide an
better at overriding the indifference which comes from the snobs, arbiters, managers and conforming maniacs who manipulate most of the world of letters."{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=22}} Mailer further defines his struggle as wanting to “write so well and so strongly as to call my shot, but unfortunately I may have fatigued the earth of rich language beyond repair.”{{sfn|Mailer|1959|p=22}} Writing “so well and so strongly” was the ambition of both writers. Both discovered they could not call their shots (Hemingway in publishing ''A Farewell to Arms'' and after publishing ''Death in the Afternoon''; Mailer in trying to publish ''The Deer Park''). Both writers acknowledged the contamination and depletion of their central resource, language (Hemingway’s Author addresses this equally overtly, warning that “all our words from loose using have lost their edge.”{{sfn|Hemingway|1932|p=71}} The six and a half declarative pages of Mailer’s First Advertisement thus provide an
eerie echo of all nine Hemingway dialogues in both generalities (content) and specifics (language)—in the thirty years between their publication, nothing about authorial alienation had changed.
eerie echo of all nine Hemingway dialogues in both generalities (content) and specifics (language)—in the thirty years between their publication, nothing about authorial alienation had changed.


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