Lipton’s Journal/Correspondence of Robert Lindner and Norman Mailer/April 15, 1953: Difference between revisions

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I hope you’ll excuse this long delay, but things have been kind of up in the air. I’ve started working on the second draft of my book [''[[The Deer Park]]''], and the first month on a book (as I said this second draft is virtually a new book) is the worst kind of hell I know. If anything drives me to analysis in the near future, it’s going to be exactly that depression, ambivalence, anxiety, etc. etc. etc. which just comes upon me, predictably as a railroad schedule, whenever I start. Indeed at the moment this second draft strikes me as being conceivably a roaring error. No sooner had I gotten into it, than a whole set of ideas occurred to me on how to save the first draft, and I’m still debating whether to go back to that—hence the non-appearance of my promised manuscript in your mail. Will you be patient on that? I feel at the moment as if it would be very bad to have anyone read that first draft, for I’m so susceptible to opinion at the moment that I think a man I picked off the street to read a page of mine could depress or elate me according to his reaction. And since your reaction would be far more important to me than that, I think it best to bull through this on my own for the next few months.  
I hope you’ll excuse this long delay, but things have been kind of up in the air. I’ve started working on the second draft of my book [''[[The Deer Park]]''], and the first month on a book (as I said this second draft is virtually a new book) is the worst kind of hell I know. If anything drives me to analysis in the near future, it’s going to be exactly that depression, ambivalence, anxiety, etc. etc. etc. which just comes upon me, predictably as a railroad schedule, whenever I start. Indeed at the moment this second draft strikes me as being conceivably a roaring error. No sooner had I gotten into it, than a whole set of ideas occurred to me on how to save the first draft, and I’m still debating whether to go back to that—hence the non-appearance of my promised manuscript in your mail. Will you be patient on that? I feel at the moment as if it would be very bad to have anyone read that first draft, for I’m so susceptible to opinion at the moment that I think a man I picked off the street to read a page of mine could depress or elate me according to his reaction. And since your reaction would be far more important to me than that, I think it best to bull through this on my own for the next few months.  


[John] Lamont<ref>A friend of NM’s.</ref> mentioned to me that you had remarked how much you had enjoyed our luncheon. Well, I did too, Bob, and I hope we can make it a regular function on your trips to New York. In fact I’m looking forward to your next appearance. There are so many things to talk about. One of the things I’d like to go into with you, are the curious psychological prerequisites for writing a novel in the first person or the third person.<ref> See Mailer’s discussion of the opportunities and hazards of both points of view in ''[[The Spooky Art]]'' (2003), 84-88.</ref> I’ve been very aware of it the last few weeks, for there have been alternate days in which I’ve written in first person, third person, and finally both, and think I have a certain small knowledge of why. 

Lamont<ref>John Lamont is a friend of Mailer’s.</ref> mentioned to me that you had remarked how much you had enjoyed our luncheon. Well, I did too, Bob, and I hope we can make it a regular function on your trips to New York. In fact I’m looking forward to your next appearance. There are so many things to talk about. One of the things I’d like to go into with you, are the curious psychological prerequisites for writing a novel in the first person or the third person.<ref> See Mailer’s discussion of the opportunities and hazards of both points of view in ''[[The Spooky Art]]'' (2003), 84-88.</ref> I’ve been very aware of it the last few weeks, for there have been alternate days in which I’ve written in first person, third person, and finally both, and think I have a certain small knowledge of why. 



I read your article on the gambler with very great interest,<ref>Lindner’s classic article, “The Psychodynamics of Gambling” was published in the ''Annals of the American Academy of Political Science and Social Science'' 269 (May 1950).</ref> and I thought it a sound convincing piece of work—the necessity to both win and lose, finally to lose if sanity is to be maintained, seemed exactly right to me vis-à-vis my “friend” “Bernard.”<ref>An alias for Mailer’s father, Barney.</ref> I found that something happened in me too while I was reading. I had always felt about Bernard that it was a question of character as well as neurosis, and that there was something unpleasant about him above and beyond his gambling. While I read your monograph a fund of rare compassion for him began to form in me—I understood suddenly how terribly compulsively neurotic Bernard is, how helpless he is, and I felt more tender toward him, understanding for perhaps the first time—this may sound odd—that he is merely a sick man and not a despicable man, and that he has suffered the most. Incidentally, I never met his father, and he rarely talks about him, but his father is apparently or was like the father of Ralph, stern, cold, unfeeling, and it’s quite possible Bernard hated him. One difference, however, is that Bernard started gambling before his father’s death.  
I read your article on the gambler with very great interest,<ref>Lindner’s classic article, “The Psychodynamics of Gambling” was published in the ''Annals of the American Academy of Political Science and Social Science'' 269 (May 1950).</ref> and I thought it a sound convincing piece of work—the necessity to both win and lose, finally to lose if sanity is to be maintained, seemed exactly right to me vis-à-vis my “friend” “Bernard.”<ref>An alias for Mailer’s father, Barney.</ref> I found that something happened in me too while I was reading. I had always felt about Bernard that it was a question of character as well as neurosis, and that there was something unpleasant about him above and beyond his gambling. While I read your monograph a fund of rare compassion for him began to form in me—I understood suddenly how terribly compulsively neurotic Bernard is, how helpless he is, and I felt more tender toward him, understanding for perhaps the first time—this may sound odd—that he is merely a sick man and not a despicable man, and that he has suffered the most. Incidentally, I never met his father, and he rarely talks about him, but his father is apparently or was like the father of Ralph, stern, cold, unfeeling, and it’s quite possible Bernard hated him. One difference, however, is that Bernard started gambling before his father’s death.  

Revision as of 09:47, 3 August 2022

NORMAN MAILER’s Letters
To Robert Lindner
February 16, 1954


Dear Bob,

I hope you’ll excuse this long delay, but things have been kind of up in the air. I’ve started working on the second draft of my book [The Deer Park], and the first month on a book (as I said this second draft is virtually a new book) is the worst kind of hell I know. If anything drives me to analysis in the near future, it’s going to be exactly that depression, ambivalence, anxiety, etc. etc. etc. which just comes upon me, predictably as a railroad schedule, whenever I start. Indeed at the moment this second draft strikes me as being conceivably a roaring error. No sooner had I gotten into it, than a whole set of ideas occurred to me on how to save the first draft, and I’m still debating whether to go back to that—hence the non-appearance of my promised manuscript in your mail. Will you be patient on that? I feel at the moment as if it would be very bad to have anyone read that first draft, for I’m so susceptible to opinion at the moment that I think a man I picked off the street to read a page of mine could depress or elate me according to his reaction. And since your reaction would be far more important to me than that, I think it best to bull through this on my own for the next few months.

Lamont[1] mentioned to me that you had remarked how much you had enjoyed our luncheon. Well, I did too, Bob, and I hope we can make it a regular function on your trips to New York. In fact I’m looking forward to your next appearance. There are so many things to talk about. One of the things I’d like to go into with you, are the curious psychological prerequisites for writing a novel in the first person or the third person.[2] I’ve been very aware of it the last few weeks, for there have been alternate days in which I’ve written in first person, third person, and finally both, and think I have a certain small knowledge of why. 


I read your article on the gambler with very great interest,[3] and I thought it a sound convincing piece of work—the necessity to both win and lose, finally to lose if sanity is to be maintained, seemed exactly right to me vis-à-vis my “friend” “Bernard.”[4] I found that something happened in me too while I was reading. I had always felt about Bernard that it was a question of character as well as neurosis, and that there was something unpleasant about him above and beyond his gambling. While I read your monograph a fund of rare compassion for him began to form in me—I understood suddenly how terribly compulsively neurotic Bernard is, how helpless he is, and I felt more tender toward him, understanding for perhaps the first time—this may sound odd—that he is merely a sick man and not a despicable man, and that he has suffered the most. Incidentally, I never met his father, and he rarely talks about him, but his father is apparently or was like the father of Ralph, stern, cold, unfeeling, and it’s quite possible Bernard hated him. One difference, however, is that Bernard started gambling before his father’s death.

The amusing part of the article to me were the various interpretations advanced on gambling (i.e., not by you, but your patients). Psychoanalysis is so often in danger of explaining the soul by listing the features of the soul, so that I suspect on almost all the “delinquency” symptoms—homosexuality, alcoholism, gambling, dope, sex perversion, etc—the explanations are in danger of being merely big-word substitutions for the commonfolk’s little words—which indeed you practically say yourself. I remember that once after Bernard wrote me a chatty little letter in which he asked virtually in passing for several thousand bucks—it seemed that if I didn’t get it to him in forty-eight hours his bank account would explode—I flipped my lid and wrote him back that he had been masturbating all his life, and it was about time he quit. Thus my perception was equaled only by my stupidity, and as an amusing footnote to it, Bernard succeeded in punishing me by running the debt up to five thousand dollars. Also his answer to my letter was livid, the only time he has ever in my memory been abusive in a letter. Well, that for that.

How does your work get along? I’d love to read your manuscript if you ever feel the need or desire. As soon as I’m somewhere on this draft, I would still like you to see my first draft. Let’s get together soon.

My best to you, Bob,
Norman


notes

  1. ↑ John Lamont is a friend of Mailer’s.
  2. ↑ See Mailer’s discussion of the opportunities and hazards of both points of view in The Spooky Art (2003), 84-88.
  3. ↑ Lindner’s classic article, “The Psychodynamics of Gambling” was published in the Annals of the American Academy of Political Science and Social Science 269 (May 1950).
  4. ↑ An alias for Mailer’s father, Barney.
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