The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/From Here to Eternity and The Naked and the Dead: Premiere to Eternity?: Difference between revisions
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'''''From Here to Eternity''''' Jones has been criticized for bad writing. The main site of this criticism and defenses against it is in writing on ''Some Came Running''. However, as we shall see, these criticisms had precursors in responses to ''From Here to Eternity''.{{sfn| | '''''From Here to Eternity''''' Jones has been criticized for bad writing. The main site of this criticism and defenses against it is in writing on ''Some Came Running''. However, as we shall see, these criticisms had precursors in responses to ''From Here to Eternity''.{{sfn|Garret|1984|p=100}} Writing on ''Some Came Running'', Edmund Fuller wrote, "[I]f you like bad grammar...shoddy and befuddled philosophy, ''Some Came Running'' is your book," and Time that "Choctaw rather than English would appear to be [Jones's] first language".{{sfn|Carter|1998|p=38}} And, J. Donald Adams attributed Jones with having a "fatuous pride in being illiterate".{{sfn|Carter|1998|p=38}} | ||
On ''Eternity's'' literary quality, Burgess{{sfn|Burgess|1984}} wrote the following in ''The Caine Mutiny'' section of his 99 Novels: "[Mutiny] stands somewhere between Mailer's ''The Naked and the Dead'' . . . and James Jones's ''From Here to Eternity''. It has some literary distinction, far more than Jones's, much less than Mailer's". {{sfn|Carter|1998|p=56}} | On ''Eternity's'' literary quality, Burgess{{sfn|Burgess|1984}} wrote the following in ''The Caine Mutiny'' section of his 99 Novels: "[Mutiny] stands somewhere between Mailer's ''The Naked and the Dead'' . . . and James Jones's ''From Here to Eternity''. It has some literary distinction, far more than Jones's, much less than Mailer's". {{sfn|Carter|1998|p=56}} | ||
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Similarly, I recall a 1960s episode of ''The David Susskind Show'' in which Gore Vidal dismissed Jones's book for bad writing after praising Fred Zin-Neumann's film Eternity. Although I am both a Jones and a Bloom fan, I was not surprised when I realized that Jones was entirely unmentioned in the extensive critical works of the stylistically finicky Harold Bloom. | Similarly, I recall a 1960s episode of ''The David Susskind Show'' in which Gore Vidal dismissed Jones's book for bad writing after praising Fred Zin-Neumann's film Eternity. Although I am both a Jones and a Bloom fan, I was not surprised when I realized that Jones was entirely unmentioned in the extensive critical works of the stylistically finicky Harold Bloom. | ||
Defenders of Jones’s style cast light on its positive and negative criticism. For example, Tom Carson writes, “[A]t its crowded, vernacular best [the prose] does just what he wanted to do, involve you in the events, and put you inside the characters’ heads with striking veracity and conviction”. {{sfn|Carson|1984|p=19}} George | Defenders of Jones’s style cast light on its positive and negative criticism. For example, Tom Carson writes, “[A]t its crowded, vernacular best [the prose] does just what he wanted to do, involve you in the events, and put you inside the characters’ heads with striking veracity and conviction”. {{sfn|Carson|1984|p=19}} George Garret writes that “Jones, as he wrote ''Running'', was involved in an experiment with language, a kind of discovery . . . he calls it working with ‘colloquial forms’ by which he means not merely the free and easy use of the living, spoken American language on dialogue or first-person narration but an attempt to carry it into the narrative itself, into third-person narration”.{{sfn|Carson|1984|p=116}} These defenses focus on that aspect of Jones’s writing that his critics seem to stress as his weakest attribute: his writing style. | ||
{{pg|326|327}} | {{pg|326|327}} | ||
One concentration of stylistic criticism seems to focus on Jones’s attempts to put readers “inside the characters’ heads” .{{sfn|Carson|1984|p=19}} This mainly consists of the use of the first-person indirect and free indirect, in which movement between a third-person mimicry of a character’s consciousness approaching stream of consciousness and authorial comment on characters’ consciousness or simple third person occurs, for Jones seldom lapses into the first person in ‘third person’ fictions like ''Eternity'' and ''Running''. This second paragraph of the book’s first page, already quoted above, illustrates the sort of writing: | One concentration of stylistic criticism seems to focus on Jones’s attempts to put readers “inside the characters’ heads” .{{sfn|Carson|1984|p=19}} This mainly consists of the use of the first-person indirect and free indirect, in which movement between a third-person mimicry of a character’s consciousness approaching stream of consciousness and authorial comment on characters’ consciousness or simple third person occurs, for Jones seldom lapses into the first person in ‘third person’ fictions like ''Eternity'' and ''Running''. This second paragraph of the book’s first page, already quoted above, illustrates the sort of writing: | ||
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Examples of the second sort of blemished writing arise in “Book Four: The Stockade” when we shift into an authorial voice far from that dramatic mode in which the book’s style approximates a dramatic mode in which the audience experiences content directly. In the straight-out italics with which “The Stockade” opens, Jones writes, “''He was held in confinement at the Stockade as a general prisoner while he waited for trial''”.{{sfn|Jones|1951|p=405}} Clearly, “awaited” is the appropriate word. Later, still writing in a straight-forward third-person narrator (or omniscient narrator) voice, Jones describes the “many officers, officers’ wives and officers’ children” near Honolulu’s “tennis courts, golf course, and bridle paths as all are looking very tanned and sportive”. {{sfn|Jones|1951|p=409}}. Clearly, ‘sporty’ is the appropriate word. | Examples of the second sort of blemished writing arise in “Book Four: The Stockade” when we shift into an authorial voice far from that dramatic mode in which the book’s style approximates a dramatic mode in which the audience experiences content directly. In the straight-out italics with which “The Stockade” opens, Jones writes, “''He was held in confinement at the Stockade as a general prisoner while he waited for trial''”.{{sfn|Jones|1951|p=405}} Clearly, “awaited” is the appropriate word. Later, still writing in a straight-forward third-person narrator (or omniscient narrator) voice, Jones describes the “many officers, officers’ wives and officers’ children” near Honolulu’s “tennis courts, golf course, and bridle paths as all are looking very tanned and sportive”. {{sfn|Jones|1951|p=409}}. Clearly, ‘sporty’ is the appropriate word. | ||
In defense of Jones’s prose, | In defense of Jones’s prose, Garret refers to innovations with “colloquial forms” by Faulkner and O’Hara, and Carter extends this line of defense with a few brief evocations (e.g., of Bellow and Updike). {{sfn|Garret|1984|p=116}}{{sfn|Carter|1998|p=39}} However, I do not find these lines of defense persuasive. Where I see no lapse in an author’s use of the first-person and free indirect (e.g., for O’Hara, Faulkner, and Bellow), the defense does not seem worth extended comment in the time and space available. (I think that Faulkner, O’Hara, and Bellow employ idiomatic English more adeptly in using the free indirect). | ||
I see such a lapse when Updike lapses into language too literary (e.g., too metaphorically ornate) to credibly reflect a character’s consciousness, which, compared to the stylistically masterful Updike, seems inappropriate, despite Updike’s lapses. Although I see some dubious use of idiomatic language in straightforward third-person narration divorced from the first-person indirect and free indirect in the work of William Faulkner, the comparison again seems generally inappropriate (i.e., too much a matter of an idiosyncratic syntax), as well as rather too complex for this effort. | I see such a lapse when Updike lapses into language too literary (e.g., too metaphorically ornate) to credibly reflect a character’s consciousness, which, compared to the stylistically masterful Updike, seems inappropriate, despite Updike’s lapses. Although I see some dubious use of idiomatic language in straightforward third-person narration divorced from the first-person indirect and free indirect in the work of William Faulkner, the comparison again seems generally inappropriate (i.e., too much a matter of an idiosyncratic syntax), as well as rather too complex for this effort. | ||
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This mode provides almost all of the words of ''From Here to Eternity'' and ''Whistle''. It provides enough of Some Came Running to constitute nearly all of Jones’s 1958 Signet abridgment of Running. It perhaps does not apply well to ''The Thin Red Line'' because, in that novel, Jones is far more involved in using the free indirect, in which he shifts between dialogue and physical description. The first-person-son-indirect variant of stream of consciousness jumps so frequently and swiftly from consciousness to consciousness to virtually create a collective consciousness of ''Thin Red Line’s'' GIs. | This mode provides almost all of the words of ''From Here to Eternity'' and ''Whistle''. It provides enough of Some Came Running to constitute nearly all of Jones’s 1958 Signet abridgment of Running. It perhaps does not apply well to ''The Thin Red Line'' because, in that novel, Jones is far more involved in using the free indirect, in which he shifts between dialogue and physical description. The first-person-son-indirect variant of stream of consciousness jumps so frequently and swiftly from consciousness to consciousness to virtually create a collective consciousness of ''Thin Red Line’s'' GIs. | ||
''From Here to Eternity'' can only receive glancing blows from the criticisms of Jones’s writing for that book because these are largely irrelevant to most of the book’s writing. The same can be said for ''The Thin Red Line'' and ''Whistle''. ''Some Came Running'' may be another story. (For convenience, I ignore all of Jones’s books, but only the four that were mentioned.) On the one hand, the power of its underlying narrative, documentary scope and cogency, and rich characterization seems to compare to that of ''From Here to Eternity''. (Here we have aspects of Jones’s creativity perhaps even more effectively expressed by Minnelli’s 1958 film than by Zinnemann’s excellent 1953 one.) Moreover, Jones scholars have claimed with great zeal thematic and spiritual merits for the voluminous stretches of writing in ''Running'' that do not conform to the model of transparent writing and drama-like novelistic presentation described here for ''Running''. Alas, with ''Running'', critics of Jones’s style have a large target. Perhaps champions of Jones might devise defenses for his literary style—say via elaboration of | ''From Here to Eternity'' can only receive glancing blows from the criticisms of Jones’s writing for that book because these are largely irrelevant to most of the book’s writing. The same can be said for ''The Thin Red Line'' and ''Whistle''. ''Some Came Running'' may be another story. (For convenience, I ignore all of Jones’s books, but only the four that were mentioned.) On the one hand, the power of its underlying narrative, documentary scope and cogency, and rich characterization seems to compare to that of ''From Here to Eternity''. (Here we have aspects of Jones’s creativity perhaps even more effectively expressed by Minnelli’s 1958 film than by Zinnemann’s excellent 1953 one.) Moreover, Jones scholars have claimed with great zeal thematic and spiritual merits for the voluminous stretches of writing in ''Running'' that do not conform to the model of transparent writing and drama-like novelistic presentation described here for ''Running''. Alas, with ''Running'', critics of Jones’s style have a large target. Perhaps champions of Jones might devise defenses for his literary style—say via elaboration of Garret’s claim that what looks awkward about the style of ''Running'' has an unappreciated idiomatic grace. However, such a defense seems to me no more than sketched.{{pg|329|330}} | ||
'''''The Naked and the Dead''''' Some critics found the structure of The Naked and the Dead baggy.{{efn|Dickstein refers to Jones’s The Thin Red Line as “a tighter, more disciplined rejoinder to The Naked and the Dead” and charges Mailer with filling in his characters’ backgrounds “clumsily”.}}{{sfn|Dickstein|2005}} | '''''The Naked and the Dead''''' Some critics found the structure of The Naked and the Dead baggy.{{efn|Dickstein refers to Jones’s The Thin Red Line as “a tighter, more disciplined rejoinder to The Naked and the Dead” and charges Mailer with filling in his characters’ backgrounds “clumsily”.}}{{sfn|Dickstein|2005}} | ||
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* {{cite book |last=Dickstein |first=Morris |url= |title=Leopards in the Temple: The Transformation of American Fiction, 1945-1970 |publisher=Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP |year=2005 |isbn= |location= |pages=25 |ref=harv }} | * {{cite book |last=Dickstein |first=Morris |url= |title=Leopards in the Temple: The Transformation of American Fiction, 1945-1970 |publisher=Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP |year=2005 |isbn= |location= |pages=25 |ref=harv }} | ||
* {{cite book |author=Frye |first=Northrop |url= |title=Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays. |publisher=Princeton: Princeton UP |year=1957 |isbn= |location= |pages= |ref=harv }} | * {{cite book |author=Frye |first=Northrop |url= |title=Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays. |publisher=Princeton: Princeton UP |year=1957 |isbn= |location= |pages= |ref=harv }} | ||
* {{cite journal |last=Frye |first=Northrop |title=The Four Forms of Prose Fiction Hudson Review |url= |journal= |volume= 2 |issue= 4 |date= |pages=582-598 | | * {{cite journal |last=Frye |first=Northrop |title=The Four Forms of Prose Fiction Hudson Review |url= |journal= |volume= 2 |issue= 4 |date= |pages=582-598 |date=1950 |ref=harv }} | ||
* {{cite book |last=Garret |first=George P. | * {{cite book |last=Garret |first=George P.|title=James Jones |date=1984 |publisher=New York: Harcourt |isbn= |edition= |location= |pages=100 |ref=harv }} | ||
* {{cite book |last=Jones |first=James |url= |title=From Here to Eternity |publisher=New York: Scribner, 1951 |year=1951 |isbn= |location= ||pages=|ref=harv }} | * {{cite book |last=Jones |first=James |url= |title=From Here to Eternity |publisher=New York: Scribner, 1951 |year=1951 |isbn= |location= ||pages=|ref=harv }} | ||
* {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |url= |title=The Naked and the Dead |date= |publisher=New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1984 |isbn= |location= |publication-date=1984 |pages=|ref=harv }} | * {{cite book |last=Mailer |first=Norman |url= |title=The Naked and the Dead |date= |publisher=New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1984 |isbn= |location= |publication-date=1984 |pages=|ref=harv }} | ||