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Lipton’s Journal/January 24, 1955/235: Difference between revisions
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Romance and realism. ''[[The Naked and the Dead|Naked]]'' seems to be a realistic journalistic novel. But I was actually taking on the first crude statement of what will probably be the intellectual theme of my life. Those who are ''Naked'' (homeostatic) and those who are ''Dead'' (sociostatic). For underneath, as Laughton{{refn|{{NM}} met [[w:Charles Laughton|Charles Laughton]] (1899-1962) in 1954, and over the next two years the great English actor and director tried and failed to write a screenplay based on ''Naked''. Laughton directed the Broadway production of [[w:George Bernard Shaw|G. B. Shaw]]’s ''Don Juan in Hell'' in 1951 and played the role of the Devil, with [[w:Agnes Moorhead|Agnes Moorhead]] as Doña Ana, [[w:Charles Boyer|Charles Boyer]] as Don Juan and [[w:Cedric Hardwicke|Cedric Hardwicke]] as the Commander, a production Mailer admired.}} has been saying over and over, the men in ''Naked'' are Heroes, and ''Naked'' is the story of a group of men who each individually makes a terrible journey, a long journey. All of ''Naked'' is a Journey, structurally, thematically, symbolically. It was prophetic for myself—up to a point. The men (me) that is (Me—N) orman) (Norman—No man but for his R)—his red ruddy root.) | Romance and realism. ''[[The Naked and the Dead|Naked]]'' seems to be a realistic journalistic novel. But I was actually taking on the first crude statement of what will probably be the intellectual theme of my life. Those who are ''Naked'' (homeostatic) and those who are ''Dead'' (sociostatic). For underneath, as Laughton{{refn|{{NM}} met [[w:Charles Laughton|Charles Laughton]] (1899-1962) in 1954, and over the next two years the great English actor and director tried and failed to write a screenplay based on ''Naked''. Laughton directed the Broadway production of [[w:George Bernard Shaw|G. B. Shaw]]’s ''Don Juan in Hell'' in 1951 and played the role of the Devil, with [[w:Agnes Moorhead|Agnes Moorhead]] as Doña Ana, [[w:Charles Boyer|Charles Boyer]] as Don Juan and [[w:Cedric Hardwicke|Cedric Hardwicke]] as the Commander, a production Mailer admired.}} has been saying over and over, the men in ''Naked'' are Heroes, and ''Naked'' is the story of a group of men who each individually makes a terrible journey, a long journey. All of ''Naked'' is a Journey, structurally, thematically, symbolically. It was prophetic for myself—up to a point. The men (me) that is (Me—N) orman) (Norman—No man but for his R)—his red ruddy root.) | ||
Anyway, Me, the Men, are mired in the jungle, the world, the contradiction, the depression—and then they are sent out to explore, to adventure—they end up climbing the mountain of Philosophy because their leader Croft (What is in his name?) (Coughed, roft—raft, rift, reft, ruft—coughed with rage—and indeed these days my cough is getting milder—Crift, Craft, (Kraft), Crowft, Cryft, Cruft, Crot (Crotch?) and Crof—I can’t find anything which seems really revealing. | |||
Anyway, because their leader Croft who is obviously the saint-psychopath in me, just as Cummings{{refn|General Edward Cummings is the semi-fascistic commanding general of U.S. forces on the fictional island of Anopopei in ''Naked''.}} is the Affected sociostatic version of Croft and me——anyway, Croft leads them up the mountain toward God. (Treating them incidentally like dogs, just as I in a part of myself used to treat the rest of me as if I were a dog.) But I couldn’t resolve it at the point where I was then. The neurotic Jewish boy had to condemn and put in a degraded form the highest expression of himself—Croft, McLeod, Marion{{LJ:Faye}}—and so I ducked out the back door, and left the mountain to God, and let the hornet’s nest (What a symbol! I sure kicked it open with ''The Deer Park'') chase the men down the mountain. Even Croft. But at least he knew that the mountain was Everything. The jungle is depression, the mountain is terror and exaltation. | |||
{{Notes}} | {{Notes}} | ||