June 7, 2024

Research Day 2: Some Misses and Good Stuff about “Yoga”

I took a slightly different route walking to the Ransom Center this morning—just over two miles. Yeah, it’s hot in Austin; the official temperature is 70°F, but it feels closer to 179°F. The weather app says it “feels like 92°.” Sure. Still, I had a nice walk with some good music—a pleasant way to begin the day. Getting here early is the way to go, too: at 09:30, there’s only one other researcher in the reading room. I know I just complained about the heat, but the AC in the reading room must be set in the sixties, and I forgot my sweatshirt again.

Ad for the Story collection.

As I noted yesterday, I’m missing “The Greatest Thing in the World,” though it does not appear on boxes before 5, which it should. Maybe it’s later for some reason.

Today, I’m starting with Box 16, all about The Naked and the Dead it seems. Hm, there’s gotta be a reason I requested this box. Ah, I see, it contains “post-war stories,” dated 1946–1949.

• “The Devil’s Advocate” only contains a single chapter with just a bit of chapter 2; 20pp.
• “The Brute of Darkness” has three manuscripts with composition notes. 21 pp. including notes.
• A journal entry from April 12 discusses the police force in a capitalist society is there to protect the interests of the wealthy by criminalizing the poor. Sounds familiar.

A notebook in the back of the archive box states that these are “novels in preparation.” Poo.

There’s a lot of good stuff about Naked in this box, but I have to move on. Box 18 has a manuscript of “Greatest” that George Landy, a writers’ agent, calls “An exciting character and a blood-tingling incident around which can be built a smash-hit melodrama—by the top-flight, gutty writer of the day.” I wish someone would call me “gutty.” This is not the manuscript for “Greatest.” Maybe there isn’t one?

Box 962 contains notecards with short story ideas. Some, he actually wrote. Others could have been good, like this one, just labelled “Short Story” on the front and back of a single note card:

“      A young editor on Time say, takes on a group of paintings by a young artist in his home. He believes at the time that the artist is chic, and he will be doing something chic. His friends come and are not overly impressed. At one point, drunk, after several friends have disliked it, editor thinks to himself, "Poor bastard." He knows he won't by, dreads calling the artist, who seems hungry even to the eye, and who had said to him, "If you don't like any of the paintings, please don't feel obliged to buy them."
     He even tells his guests about the painter, a character, trying to charm them. Later, he has a not unpleasant and time with the painter, gracefully tells him he won't buy. Painter walks away disappointed, yet exhilarated. He did not deserve to put things up for sale yet. He was not good enough.
     Parenthetically, editor is a would-be writer. ”

This story could contain a Joycean epiphany, maybe like Mailer’s more mature, successful narrators—perhaps Sergius from “The Time of Her Time.” The defeat leads to a greater understanding of the character and his current place in the world. The narrative perspective would be interesting: would it be told from the editor’s perspective or the artist’s? The editor only sees the art as commodity, but the artist sees the whole situation existentially and takes his defeat as a chance to grow—a new experience that he finds uplifting. The trick here is that the artist understands, while the editor does not, making the artist a successful, prototypical Mailerian protagonist. Had Mailer actually written the story, that is.

Box 13 contains some more random stuff from the ’40s, including some clippings of serialized comics, mostly featuring scantily-clad women who were somehow being chased by men: “Diana Daw” and “Sally the Sleuth.” Some of the women had nipples drawn on their breasts.

• “Nostalgia” a 1945 short story, written in Luzon in January and February; 11 pp.

For some reason, I received several boxes about The Naked and the Dead and a couple containing documents about Barbary Shore. I’m sure it’s my fault, but I’ve been pretty careful in selecting the archives I want to see, and while Naked is fascinating, that’s not what I’m here for. I also received a box that I can’t even find on the index. Weird. I feel bad bring boxes right back, like I’m wasting the time of the librarians.

                    

Lunch today was the best I’ve had so far. Seriously, I had what was probably the best chili verde burrito of my life. It was spicy and had potatoes which tasted like they might have a bit of curry flavor. The burrito was small, but I got that and a soda for $6.5. You can’t beat that. I’ll definitely be going back to Jewboy Cantina again. It helps that it’s located conveniently to the Ransom Center.

                    

Seriously, I think I’m getting containers that I did not request. I just picked up Box 20, and the index says it’s all about Barbary Shore. I would not have requested that. It contains multiple drafts of the novel—again, interesting, but not what I’m here for.

Box 24 has a little gem: a corrected manuscript for the prologue to The Deer Park: “The Man Who Studied Yoga.” It’s about 30 pages and is pretty clean. I don’t see anything about it in previous drafts of the novel. This may be the first time it’s added, and it’s been removed by the next draft in Box 25. This box contains later drafts and a “Journal on The Deer Park” (20 pp.). As “Yoga” was to tie The Deer Park into the eight-novel epic Mailer’s ambition compelled him to aim toward, he confirms that he must abandon this scheme. In the first entry dated January 13, 1953 (less than a year before he begins Lipton’s), he writes:

“ The virtues of the first draft of The Deer Park were those which belonged to the book itself, the weaknesses vere precisely those extensions and attempts to make it part of a larger work, . . . and their weaknesses came from a lack of knowledge and a lack of imagination on my part. (1) ”

I’m skimming through it looking for mentions of “Yoga,” and came across this fun passage in the same entry:

“ Another [problem] is to tell [The Deer Park] in third person. The difficulty there is exactly that of going into these people’s heads, something which gives me pause. Also, the question of form which becomes just a sheer bastard. (2) ”

I might have suggested something similar before, but Sergius may just be the narrator of “Yoga,” as he is in The Deer Park and “The Time of Her Time.” Mailer seemed to struggle with the perspective of the narrator, and it’s definitely confusing when looking at “Yoga” as a stand-alone short story. Later, Mailer does get to the prologue:

“ Possibly the prologue might just be presented at the beginning of The Deer Park with a note to the effect that the reader should not bother his head over the subtle literary relations between the two pieces—the relation exists only between more or less ordinary experience, and experience which is not ordinary, and that it is my feeling as a writer that the very short novel which precodes The Deer Park is necessary to make the book more satisfying as a literary experience. Think about this. (8) ”

Interesting. Why would the narrator of the prologue be different than the narrator of the novel? Of course, it could be, but this unity of voice would certainly contribute to making The Deer Park a “more satisfying as a literary experience.” Variations of Sergius O’Shaugnessy do show up in “Yoga”: Sam’s therapist is Dr. Sergius; the actual man who studies yoga is named Cassius O’Shaugnessy; and he has a brother Jerry O’Shaugnessy, the “hero-worker.” I think these connections might point to the magnum opus that Mailer had I'm mind, and these echoes do connect otherwise disparate narratives.

Here’s some more about the prologue:

“ There is now the idea of having Sam Slovoda work on the film, and the countess introduce him in the prologue as a typical person in the capital of cinema, as opposed to most people there. (11) ”

Indeed, Sergius is also an outsider in Desert D’Or, as he is in “Her Time” and “Yoga” (if he is the narrator). The idea of having Sam work on the film goes against his characterization in “Yoga.” It seems as if Mailer is really trying to force the prologue at this point.

By the end of the journal—it has run over a few days—Mailer seems to decide to remove the prologue:

“      If prologue is kept, it might be handled this way:
     I know that in a little while, everyone will begin to wonder why I have bothered to say so much about Sam Slovoda when he will not appear again, not Sam, nor Eleanor, nor any pf the people I have introduced so far. And in answer, I can only say that I do not exactly know. I felt it was right to begin with Sam, I feel if I cannot express more exactly that he has a certain relation to what comes now. Shall we say that there is no direct connection between the appetizer and the entree in a meal, and yet one prepares the other.
     Let us leave it that way. My only hope is that I have irritated no one irremediably by so deserting Sam. The rest of what I have to tell will prove equally interesting I believe.
     I am going to begin with Sergius O’Shaugnessy who is a young air force pilot. He has appeared at a resort town which I chase to call Desert D’Or situated in the California desert a hundred odd miles from that enormous city where movies are made. (19) ”

There it is, in the last paragraph. Mailer waffles to the very end, yet I wonder why he felt so strongly about including the prologue in the first place? If nothing else, it got him an excellent short story. Mailer suggests that “Sergius could end as a writer” (19). Maybe “Yoga” does have Sergius as narrator—perhaps not getting the implications of Sam’s dreadful life. Then, he grows in The Deer Park, especially through his relationship with Lulu, then we see the more mature Sergius in “Her Time”—at least mature enough to learn from Denise. In Mailer’s subsequent notes, Sergius does seem to feel similarly to Lulu as he does with Denise.

OK, that’s all for today.

                    

This evening I met several of the other research fellows at a Fellowship Happy Hour arranged by Danica, the manager of the program. Everyone that I spoke with was interesting, and I look forward, hopefully, to getting to know some of them better. We took the bus to a place on Austin’s east side called The Wheel, about 1.5 miles from campus. It was a cool and intimate college bar. After, I decided just to walk back (only three miles, or so) and pick up some dinner along the way.

OK, so it was a lot tougher than I thought it would be. By the time I got to Boca Bob’s, I was a bit woozy. I’m not sure why I just didn’t eat my burrito there, but I wanted to shower and get comfortable before noshing. By the time I got back—having made a pit stop into the Circle K for a Gatorade—I was done. A look at my health app says that I walked 8.7 miles today. I believe it. At least I had earned my bigass burrito.

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