Part 15 (2/2)

”I enthusiastically admired what Don was and what he became, but none of that would have meant much and little of it would have happened were it not for Shawn's daring and intuitive understanding of what sort of artist had turned up when Don began submitting his amazing early pieces,” Angell says. ”In the small flood of books about Shawn that appeared after he died, there was little mention of his genius as a fiction editor, which was held to be secondary to his other gifts and not an integral part of his influence over the writing and thinking of that time.”

As for ”suggesting that Don move in a particular direction, I couldn't,” Angell says. He had urged Don to expand beyond parody, but apart from that, ”I didn't know where he would go. n.o.body in the world had seen writing like this.”

Sometime in the late spring of 1963, Don met Andy Warhol in Times Square for a photo shoot. Without speaking much, the men arranged scenarios in a tacky Fotomat: Don reading a tabloid or sitting primly in a suit and tie.

In its June issue, Harper's Bazaar Harper's Bazaar ran two of the pictures. In one, Don sits grinning. The magazine's upper edge cuts off his head. In the other, Don lunges toward the camera as though about to vomit. The photo is blurry; his mouth is tight, his eyes half-closed. The pictures appeared with shots of other young talents making news around New York-the painter Larry Poons, the dancer Edward Villella. The magazine announced, ”Donald Barthelme's book of short stories will be published by Little, Brown.” ran two of the pictures. In one, Don sits grinning. The magazine's upper edge cuts off his head. In the other, Don lunges toward the camera as though about to vomit. The photo is blurry; his mouth is tight, his eyes half-closed. The pictures appeared with shots of other young talents making news around New York-the painter Larry Poons, the dancer Edward Villella. The magazine announced, ”Donald Barthelme's book of short stories will be published by Little, Brown.”

Don was working at a blinding clip now. Immediately after signing the agreement with The New Yorker The New Yorker, he submitted his latest draft of ”The Ohio Quadrilogy,” now called ”To Cleveland Then I Came.” Angell turned it down. ”It is almost impossible, of course, to explain acceptances and rejections of this kind of story,” Angell said to Don, ”but the events here did not seem to contribute to an area of comprehension, and all the changes and switches were often more exasperating than illuminating.”

Better news came in September, with the acceptance of ”Marie, Marie, Hold on Tight.” Angell told Nesbit this was the ”best story of his that we have seen.” Don instigated his comma war with Shawn. On September 3, Angell wrote: Dear Don:(Do people call you Don? Is it all right for me to call you Don?)Shawn would be happy if you could add just a little more punctuation to thispiece....

The story ran in the October 12 issue. Angell added a ”cost of living adjustment” to Don's payments for the ”quarter”-a matter of a few thousand dollars. On October 14, Angell wrote to Nesbit, accepting ”A Shower of Gold” and sending a ”15% quant.i.ty bonus for SHOWER and the three others” (”L'Lapse,” ”The Piano Player,” and ”Marie, Marie, Hold on Tight”). He said, ”[Don] certainly is one of the happiest events of the year for us.”

In mid-October, Angell asked Don to come see him at the office. He wanted to meet this brilliant young writer, and prepare ”A Shower of Gold” for its appearance in the magazine. The men hit it off. Angell's wedding was approaching. He was cheerful and buoyant, with a round, boyish face and a prim mustache. Books lined a wooden cabinet to the right of his desk, but the desk was remarkably clear. A bulky white typewriter sat atop a metal stand in the middle of the floor. Angell wore a tie and neatly pressed pants. Don, clean-shaven, grinned as slyly as he had in the Warhol photos.

Together, they discussed Don's paragraphing in ”A Shower of Gold,” which Angell found long and confusing. He would soon urge Don toward ”more customary” paragraphs and dialogue formats, to which Don was amenable.

Not long after their meeting, Angell mailed him ”a good-sized bundle of insults.” The magazine had received them in droves, in response to ”The Piano Player.” ”I can't remember when the readers were more stirred up,” Angell said. ”The people who liked it didn't write-they never do. I hope your agent told you about the fat checks we sent you. Write for the New Yorker New Yorker and own a Jaguar! P. S. Please don't think you have to anser [ and own a Jaguar! P. S. Please don't think you have to anser [sic] all these cranks. They have all received non-placating letters from the New Yorker New Yorker.”

By the end of the year, Angell had bought two more stories (he referred to them as ”casuals”): ”Margins,” a rewrite of ”Carl,” and ”Down the Line with the Annual,” a parody of Consumer Bulletin Consumer Bulletin. The stories were scheduled to run early in 1964. Don was learning that Angell responded well to satire or a version of E. B. White's ”reportorial fabulism”-stories with a recognizable New York setting tweaked into mild absurdity.

The ”new purchase[s]” ent.i.tled Don to an ”additional bonus,” Angell explained to Nesbit. He would receive 20 percent over and above the previous 15 percent ”quant.i.ty bonus.” Angell advised Don not to try to fathom the financial arrangement. ”[I]t just adds up to a nice bundle of extra bread,” he wrote.

Don got it: The more he produced, and at a faster pace, the more he could rack up bonuses. His journalistic training, working swiftly, meeting deadlines, served him well.

As 1963 drew to a close, Don no longer considered himself an immigrant to the island. He was a New Yorker now. He had planted roots in the literary world.

At Christmas, he flew to Houston, after talking Angell into a fourhundred-dollar advance on ”A Shower of Gold” (in exchange, he offered Angell a ”startling and perfect” Christmas gift; Angell does not now remember what it was). Over a year earlier, Don's father had told him to be ”prepared for failure” in New York. Now, Don returned to Texas in triumph, though his mother grieved over his moribund marriage. While in Houston, Don had no contact with Helen.

In the new year, as it became clearer that Location Location was sinking, Don pestered Angell for advances against future work. Along with the advances, Angell obliged him with a ”COLA” payment (a cost of living adjustment) and a new 35 percent quant.i.ty bonus for Don's ”current bonus cycle.” The lure of extra money for additional work within a certain time frame began to be addictive-the kind of ”pressureless pressure” that paralyzed many was sinking, Don pestered Angell for advances against future work. Along with the advances, Angell obliged him with a ”COLA” payment (a cost of living adjustment) and a new 35 percent quant.i.ty bonus for Don's ”current bonus cycle.” The lure of extra money for additional work within a certain time frame began to be addictive-the kind of ”pressureless pressure” that paralyzed many New Yorker New Yorker writers, who found they couldn't handle the pace. Don writers, who found they couldn't handle the pace. Don could could handle it, for the most part, though even with all the bonuses, he wound up owing the magazine money. At the end of January, he was indebted to handle it, for the most part, though even with all the bonuses, he wound up owing the magazine money. At the end of January, he was indebted to The New Yorker The New Yorker to the tune of eight hundred dollars. By June, another five hundred had been added to the total. Angell wrote to him, ”[P]lease don't start worrying about this; you are well within our limits on advances, and I don't want this small indebtedness to interfere with your work in any way.” to the tune of eight hundred dollars. By June, another five hundred had been added to the total. Angell wrote to him, ”[P]lease don't start worrying about this; you are well within our limits on advances, and I don't want this small indebtedness to interfere with your work in any way.”

The grip of addiction tightened. Don't worry. Keep working. But Don was doing what he loved, and he was finally being recognized for it in a widely circulated weekly magazine.

On June 28, Angell bought a new story, ”The President” (”a mighty strange and disturbing piece”), for $776.00. In effect, this money was already spent. Meanwhile, the final issue of Location Location had appeared, featuring ”For I'm the Boy.” Don had also published ”Will You Tell Me?” in had appeared, featuring ”For I'm the Boy.” Don had also published ”Will You Tell Me?” in Art and Literature Art and Literature, a new journal edited by John Ashbery. ”Will You Tell Me?” was a subtle collage, too formally extreme for The New Yorker The New Yorker. Don didn't even try interesting the magazine in it. But he had had begun a campaign to educate, cajole, and nudge Angell to take larger risks. In August, Don sent him two versions of a story called ”Then”: a regularly paginated ma.n.u.script (which Angell rejected) and a cut-up version, modeled after the cut-and-paste experiments of William Burroughs and Brion Gysin. Angell replied, ”I spent a happy fifteen minutes arranging [the lines of the story] in my own manner and came up with another text.” He was learning. begun a campaign to educate, cajole, and nudge Angell to take larger risks. In August, Don sent him two versions of a story called ”Then”: a regularly paginated ma.n.u.script (which Angell rejected) and a cut-up version, modeled after the cut-and-paste experiments of William Burroughs and Brion Gysin. Angell replied, ”I spent a happy fifteen minutes arranging [the lines of the story] in my own manner and came up with another text.” He was learning.

Come Back, Dr. Caligari was published on April 1, 1964. In addition to the standard bound galleys, Little, Brown provided reviewers with what it called a rare ”Advance Preview” of the book (a sign of the editors' pride and/or nervousness). It was presented in an elegant red box containing two of the stories, ”Me and Miss Mandible” and ”Florence Green Is 81,” in loose ma.n.u.script form, with Don's neat Smith Corona typeface. Accompanying the stories was a letter from Herman Gollob, identified as ”a.s.sociate Editor”: was published on April 1, 1964. In addition to the standard bound galleys, Little, Brown provided reviewers with what it called a rare ”Advance Preview” of the book (a sign of the editors' pride and/or nervousness). It was presented in an elegant red box containing two of the stories, ”Me and Miss Mandible” and ”Florence Green Is 81,” in loose ma.n.u.script form, with Don's neat Smith Corona typeface. Accompanying the stories was a letter from Herman Gollob, identified as ”a.s.sociate Editor”: Dear Reader:You are about to discover one of the most exciting, uniquely gifted new writers of the past decade: Donald Barthelme...We feel that this will be the most dazzling-and daring-literary debut since the emergence of John Updike, and when you've finished these two samples, we think you'll know why.Mr. Barthelme's bizarre vision of life may terrify you, confound you, infuriate you, or just plain amuse you, but we guarantee that it will not leave you indifferent.

The book jacket, designed by Milton Glaser, featured a pair of purple sungla.s.ses and a false-face beard: a ghostly clown. In his author photo, on the back flap, Don looks puffy and tired, with dark circles under his eyes. The picture appears to have been taken at night, against the brick wall of a jazz club.

The collection contained a dizzying array of references: to Husserl, Eliot, J. D. Ratcliff (a Reader's Digest Reader's Digest writer), Pamela Hansford Johnson (an English literary critic), Kenneth Burke, I. A. Richards, Le Corbusier, Mandrake the Magician, Batman and Robin, Cyril Connolly, Gertrude Stein, Joyce, popular jazz, Futurist manifestos, Oscar Wilde, writer), Pamela Hansford Johnson (an English literary critic), Kenneth Burke, I. A. Richards, Le Corbusier, Mandrake the Magician, Batman and Robin, Cyril Connolly, Gertrude Stein, Joyce, popular jazz, Futurist manifestos, Oscar Wilde, Parsifal Parsifal, Edmund Wilson, Coriola.n.u.s, the Third Reich, Beckett, Shakespeare, Conrad Veidt, Glamour Glamour magazine, movie tabloids, Kierkegaard, Lawrence Durrell, Buber, and Sartre. magazine, movie tabloids, Kierkegaard, Lawrence Durrell, Buber, and Sartre.

Each story came densely layered: collages, fragments, palimpsests. At every turn, language was challenged, poked, and prodded.

More than half the stories were written or first drafted in Houston. It is tempting to look for tonal changes between these pieces and the stories written in New York. For example, ”Hiding Man,” composed entirely in Texas, offers a claustrophobic setting, a character in flight from everyone around him. An expression of Don's isolation in Houston? ”Marie, Marie, Hold on Tight,” written in New York, is an exhilarated shout, a declaration of intellectual interests. There appears to be a movement, between the stories, from alienation to comrades.h.i.+p, from despair to exuberant irony.

But this is reductive. Texas held many intellectual pleasures for Don. And ”Marie, Marie, Hold on Tight” stands as an early example of the emotional displacement that would mark much of Don's fiction. The narrator is blurry, subsumed within a communal ”we.” In New York, as well as Houston, Don lived as a hiding man.

What Manhattan did did bring to his fiction was a wider range of urban references, experiences, and detail. ”Marie, Marie, Hold on Tight” had its genesis in the activities of a young man named Henry Flynt, who was making waves in New York art circles when Don landed in the city. Flynt called for an bring to his fiction was a wider range of urban references, experiences, and detail. ”Marie, Marie, Hold on Tight” had its genesis in the activities of a young man named Henry Flynt, who was making waves in New York art circles when Don landed in the city. Flynt called for an end end to art, which, according to him, had become a cheapened commodity, mere ”entertainment” whose ”function” was to ”regiment...people.” Flynt urged citizens to pursue aesthetic fulfillment by shunning commercial art and doing whatever they liked to do, whatever ”is not physiologically necessary (or harmful), [and] is not for the satisfaction of a social demand.” to art, which, according to him, had become a cheapened commodity, mere ”entertainment” whose ”function” was to ”regiment...people.” Flynt urged citizens to pursue aesthetic fulfillment by shunning commercial art and doing whatever they liked to do, whatever ”is not physiologically necessary (or harmful), [and] is not for the satisfaction of a social demand.”

Flynt hung around George Maciunas, Yoko Ono, and the Velvet Underground (and turned bitter when, in his view, they sold out for successful careers). In February 1963, he printed flyers, posters, and a press release advertising a lecture he'd planned in Walter De Maria's loft. The publicity material said ”Demolish Serious Culture!”; ”No More Art!”; ”Demolish Lincoln Center!”

Whether or not Don attended Flynt's talk, he was certainly aware of the man. Flynt noticed that Don parodied his press release in ”Marie, Marie, Hold on Tight” when the story appeared in The New Yorker The New Yorker.

”Marie” is a mirror image of ”Hiding Man”: instead of a lone fellow escaping the church, we have a band of comrades picketing St. John the Precursor. Their placards (in ”Kierkegaardian spirit”) say, ”MAN DIES! / THE BODY IS DISGUST! / COGITO ERGO NOTHING!” Their flyers ask, ”Why does it have to be that way?” and ”What is To Be Done?” Other signs read: NO MORE.

ART.

CULTURE.

LOVE.

REMEMBER YOU ARE DUST!.

Flynt's crusade provided raw material for a witty philosophical meditation-and gave Don a structure for combining metaphysical ideas with a New York happening. Finally, he burnished the story with his usual layers. The t.i.tle is a line from The Waste Land The Waste Land and evokes an elegiac longing for love and faith. Mentally, Don's narrator addresses a woman named Marie, who is apparently watching the demonstration on television at home. He remembers once buying Marie a ”cerise” bathing suit-the color of the hyacinths in and evokes an elegiac longing for love and faith. Mentally, Don's narrator addresses a woman named Marie, who is apparently watching the demonstration on television at home. He remembers once buying Marie a ”cerise” bathing suit-the color of the hyacinths in The Waste Land The Waste Land.

Marie is Don's sister's middle name. The three demonstrators could be seen to parallel Don's three brothers. On a personal level, this very New York piece appears to be a postcard home.

The stories in Come Back, Dr. Caligari Come Back, Dr. Caligari are jazz on the page. If, on the surface, their range of subjects seems too varied and light to suggest a coherent worldview, a deeper reading reveals a remarkable consistency of thought. Art, humor, philosophy, and music offer important, if limited, escapes from despair, despair born of Western culture's attempts to exploit and direct people's desires. This exploitation takes the form of false ”signs”-”wifesigns” (beauty, charm), company mottoes (”Here to Help in Time of Need”), modernist architecture (built for our betterment), and b.l.o.o.d.y national symbols honoring ”righteousness.” Cultural hollowness litters the world with fractured marriages, spiritually hungry individuals, and ma.s.s devastation (whispers of n.a.z.i horrors haunt the stories). are jazz on the page. If, on the surface, their range of subjects seems too varied and light to suggest a coherent worldview, a deeper reading reveals a remarkable consistency of thought. Art, humor, philosophy, and music offer important, if limited, escapes from despair, despair born of Western culture's attempts to exploit and direct people's desires. This exploitation takes the form of false ”signs”-”wifesigns” (beauty, charm), company mottoes (”Here to Help in Time of Need”), modernist architecture (built for our betterment), and b.l.o.o.d.y national symbols honoring ”righteousness.” Cultural hollowness litters the world with fractured marriages, spiritually hungry individuals, and ma.s.s devastation (whispers of n.a.z.i horrors haunt the stories).

The only alternative to material greed and social climbing is self-creation. At the end of ”A Shower of Gold,” Peterson, a ”minor artist” appearing on a game show to earn money, tells a television audience, ”In this kind of world...absurd if you will, possibilities nevertheless proliferate and escalate all around us and there are opportunities for beginning again. Turn off your television sets, cash in your life insurance, indulge in a mindless optimism. Visit girls at dusk. Play the guitar. How can you be alienated without first having been connected?”

In a scene reminiscent of Ralph Ellison's ”King of the Bingo Game,” the television producers try to shut Peterson up, but he refuses to be silenced. In the existential moment, he performs an act of self-transformation. Ident.i.ty, he says, is not based on received images or social roles; it is an ongoing process. Borrowing from the myth of Perseus and from Hamlet Hamlet, he declares, ”My mother was a royal virgin...and my father a shower of gold....As a young man I was n.o.ble in reason, infinite in faculty, in form express and admirable....”

”Peterson went on and on,” the narrator says, ”and although he was, in a sense, lying, in a sense he was not.”

28.

OLD FOGEY.

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