June 24, 2024

Hot One

Today’s another hot one. I guess yesterday was, too, but it seems more mild as I walked to Home Slice Pizza. It was only about a mile, and the pizza was good. It kind of reminds me of Johnny’s back in GA. I might have had my favorite beer so far in Austin: from Meanwhile Brewing, a nice, hoppy IPA.

In a letter to Bea, dated April 24, 1953, Mailer writes about his work on The Deer Park:

“ I’ve been in a bad mood the last month. I’ve started the second draft and it hasn’t been going at all. Ever since Naked I’ve been so fucking constipated as a writer, it’s just terrible. I’ve decided that I’m going to try to blast this book through, or at least a second draft, writing quickly, not going back to rewrite, and just forcing it, forcing it, forcing it. By now I really hate writing, but I’m so darn lazy that I haven’t the stomach to go into something else. I’m beginning to realize how you felt in the days when you wanted to do something but just couldn’t get started. ”

In a letter to Chester Aaron, dated April 30, 1954, Mailer comments on the short story:

“ The fact of the matter is that I just don’t like the short story as a form—what I mean by that I guess, is that there are very few stories (my own not included) which make me enthusiastic. I’m just hipped on the novel as a form I guess, and I rarely can think of something constructive to say about short stories. ”

Mailer mentions the publication of a story in a November 15, 1954 letter, mocking his “profits”:

“ No particular news at this end outside of the moving. That story of mine, “The Notebook,” is to be published in an Italian magazine. The price: $35.00. So the “profits” continue to roll in. ”

This sale was set up by Bill Weaver, which he mentions to Mailer in an October 4 letter:

“ They saw a story of yours in the Cornhill called “The Notebook,” which they liked a lot (so did I, by the way, and they would like to buy the Italian rights. Their regular fixed price is $35, which is hardly the old Colliers standard, but anyhow if you're interested, please write me and say so. ”

And, in a letter to Fig Gwaltney, February 15, 1955, Mailer mentions the journal:

“ The journal is something I enjoy. I haven’t felt like starting a novel, but I have been teeming with ideas, odd ideas, big ideas, tiny ideas. It’s been a sort of intellectual ferment. So I figured what the hell I wouldn’t fight it but would follow my inclination and not worry about when I started my next book. I’ve been a worrier and a self-punisher for so many years that it took all my energy and all my depression to turn out a few pages a day on those days I could work. Now with the journal I write twenty to twenty-five absolutely unpublishable pages any day I work on it. But that’s good too. I’ve found that I’m finally able to stop worrying about the effect or the purpose or the success or the moral value of what I do and instead just concentrate on the work. So for the first time in seven or eight years I enjoy working, and I imagine although I don’t even much care for the moment that things may grow out of the Journal. If nothing else I’ll get stuff out of my system. And too for the first time in years I really have three or four real possibilities for novels. ”

Interesting: Mailer wrote short stories when he was down from the poor reception of Barbary Shore; likewise, the journal might be his playground this time around while fretting over the future of The Deer Park. I can see why he likes the journal more: it takes less work than fiction does. Fig’s response, February 10, 1955, comes after Mailer originally says something about keeping a journal (February 4, 1955):

“ What’s this about a journal? Why are you spending so much time on a journal when you could be using that talent on a real book. Gide, I know, got the Nobel Prize for his journals, but what did they contribute to the literature of the world? Not one fucking thing. You’ve already given Naked to literature and Deer Park will top even that, so why fool with a fuken journal? You’ve got one of the few authentic literary talents of this age; a journal would waste it. I’m aware that I’m sounding off out of turn—but Christ! A journal! ”

LOL.

Oh, I finally published v.1 of Norman Mailer’s Short Fiction bibliography.