John A. Meixner, June 12, 1965: Difference between revisions

Dear John,

Thank you for your letter, I read it over several times with interest, and I’m afraid I agree with much of what you said, maybe most of it. This is a dreadful thing to say, and I know that I should never compare myself with other swords, but if I had known last year that the best thing in Bellow’s,<ref>The Saul Bellow (1915-) novel Mailer refers to is ''Herzog'' (1964).</ref> next novel was going to be that his professor was really and truly a professor in the details of his mind, then maybe I would have taken a little more trouble with mine, or had the sense to make him a ''Life'' photographer. The main fault with the goddamn book I think is that I was saying to the reader, “Look, you know I can create a professor and I can give him intimate insides of his mind, I just don’t want to be bothered with that. I’m too busy to go through the three or four or five months of reading, and you’re all too lazy, now admit it, to have your heads stuffed. So let’s just accept the fact that the man’s a professor, call it a convention, and let it go at that.” But of course no one did. And now I have to wonder myself. Perhaps it was a mistake to do it the way I did it. Perhaps I should have reworked the book, but then if I had, the pace would have been lost. And I am guilty of having liked the pace of the book. Maybe all of this is what happens when you write in installments.