June 7, 2024

Research Day 2

I must come up with better titles. I took a slightly different route walking to the Ransom Center—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 artists a successful, prototypical Mailerian protagonist. Had Mailer actually written the story.

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.