Lipton’s Journal/February 7, 1955/443

From Project Mailer

Anyway, let’s go back to Give-And-Take. This is no mere crank attitude of mine. (A crank is a mystic frozen at a given point. All his energy to go on, to discover more, is blocked, and so his “faith,” his passionate conviction, is the expression of all his H energy flowing flowing flowing against the frozen impenetrable S which says “Go on, friend-enemy H and you die.” That is why cranks will say or do the same thing for years and years and years.

The miser, as a form of crank, is worth exploring. He is the man or woman terrified of giving all us away, and so he gives nothing, but invests Giving energy into Taking. He is the parody, the caricature, the intensification of passivity. He invests, he illumines passivity, taking, with all the passion of Giving. Ergo, Lulu[1] is a miser.



note

  1. Lulu Meyers, a Hollywood actress in The Deer Park who was once married to Charles Eitel, aspires to be the most popular actress in America and has an affair with Sergius O’Shaugnessey through most of the novel.