Hiding Man_ A Biography Of Donald Barthelme Part 22

Q replies, "That's not true."

The reader felt a similar push-pull. On the surface the stories were cold and abstract, but with a lingering and mysterious emotional power.

City Life was released to ecstatic reviews-the best of Don's career so far-including coverage on the front page of was released to ecstatic reviews-the best of Don's career so far-including coverage on the front page of The New York Times Book Review. The New York Times Book Review. The publication of The publication of City Life, City Life, Morris d.i.c.kstein said, confirms that "our best writers are doing radically new things" in the wake of traditional fiction's exhaustion, "of which Saul Bellow's novel Morris d.i.c.kstein said, confirms that "our best writers are doing radically new things" in the wake of traditional fiction's exhaustion, "of which Saul Bellow's novel Mr. Sammler's Planet Mr. Sammler's Planet is a current ill.u.s.tration." is a current ill.u.s.tration."

"Barthelme comes out of all his books as a complex and enigmatic person," d.i.c.kstein said. He "has discovered how crucially books mediate our access to our deepest experience, and he brings to his 'discussions' of literature his own large reserves of fervor and ambiguity." With City Life, City Life, he "undertakes larger, more positive projects" than before, "which betray him into new risks, new emotional defeats, and the deepest kinds of artistic victories." he "undertakes larger, more positive projects" than before, "which betray him into new risks, new emotional defeats, and the deepest kinds of artistic victories."

"Barthelme's subject in City Life City Life is the...production of symbols that pretend to clarify more than can be clearly seen," Peter Berek wrote in is the...production of symbols that pretend to clarify more than can be clearly seen," Peter Berek wrote in The Nation. The Nation. "Barthelme's creations help vivify our plight even if they do not clarify its outcome." "Barthelme's creations help vivify our plight even if they do not clarify its outcome."

Writing in Harper's, Harper's, Richard Schickel declared, "Mr. Barthelme has accepted, with great good cheer, the current cant that art may no longer be possible and has then gone cheerfully about the business of making it anyway, almost, it would seem, for the h.e.l.l of it." In Richard Schickel declared, "Mr. Barthelme has accepted, with great good cheer, the current cant that art may no longer be possible and has then gone cheerfully about the business of making it anyway, almost, it would seem, for the h.e.l.l of it." In Life, Life, Guy Davenport said that "it will be a while yet before we can tell just what [Barthelme] is up to," but he is "reinventing fiction...in a particularly brash and original way." Guy Davenport said that "it will be a while yet before we can tell just what [Barthelme] is up to," but he is "reinventing fiction...in a particularly brash and original way." Time Time listed listed City Life City Life as one of the "Year's Best Books"-"Barthelme is a genius," the magazine said; he "knows no peer." as one of the "Year's Best Books"-"Barthelme is a genius," the magazine said; he "knows no peer."

Not all readers agreed. Angell had to defend Don vigorously against accusations by a New Yorker New Yorker subscriber from the Bronx that a consortium of publishers had mounted a fifty-thousand-dollar "campaign" to "put across Donald Barthelme" to the public. subscriber from the Bronx that a consortium of publishers had mounted a fifty-thousand-dollar "campaign" to "put across Donald Barthelme" to the public.

"For all the acclaim [Mr. Barthelme] has received, his books are not the kind that will ever sell in large numbers," Angell replied, "and I doubt that the advertising and promotion budgets for all of his books together would total more than a thousand dollars. Publishers, you see, only spend heavily when they can see an almost guaranteed return; they are businessmen, and can't afford the kind of games you see as accounting for favorable reviews.... I'm afraid you'll have to dig a little deeper to explain the diabolical schemes and creeping phoniness that sustains a Barthelme and that keeps you so unhappy."

After another angry barrage from the subscriber, Angell wrote: I will...tell Mr. Barthelme that I am now on to his sly ways, which have enabled him to take advantage of my deep, underlying streak of phoniness. I will not be tricked again! Mr. Barthelme has been excused, and I will fling him into that corner of oblivion already occupied by such errant fakers as Joyce, Beckett, Pica.s.so, Pollock, and Vivaldi.Thank you...I can honestly say that yours is the most entertaining letter I have seen in months.

City Life opened with the intensely interior "Views of My Father Weeping" and closed with the communal portrait "City Life." In between, Don slipped in meditations on art, friends.h.i.+p, religion, philosophy, social order, and language. The stories were spare and austere. They were funny, obscure, and charming. opened with the intensely interior "Views of My Father Weeping" and closed with the communal portrait "City Life." In between, Don slipped in meditations on art, friends.h.i.+p, religion, philosophy, social order, and language. The stories were spare and austere. They were funny, obscure, and charming.

In Come Back, Dr. Caligari Come Back, Dr. Caligari and and Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts, Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts, the persona behind most of the stories was a negative version of the "Marivaudian being": a man who did not know what was happening to him from moment to moment, with no control of his environment, no sense of a foundational past (except for steady shocks of Oedipal guilt). The persona in the persona behind most of the stories was a negative version of the "Marivaudian being": a man who did not know what was happening to him from moment to moment, with no control of his environment, no sense of a foundational past (except for steady shocks of Oedipal guilt). The persona in City Life City Life was far more complicated, like the ironist in "Kierkegaard," able to examine his irony and admit its limitations, capable of a.n.a.lyzing his repressive mechanisms and facing his personal history. was far more complicated, like the ironist in "Kierkegaard," able to examine his irony and admit its limitations, capable of a.n.a.lyzing his repressive mechanisms and facing his personal history.

Even the book's t.i.tle, less showy and smartly knowing than its predecessors, suggested a more mature approach to Don's obsessions. Not that he had abandoned his love of wordplay. Far from it. Of "Paraguay," the second story in the collection-a kind of science fiction tale reminiscent of Vonnegut or Borges-Don said: What I like about "Paraguay" is the misuse of language and the tone. Mixing bits of this and that from various areas of life to make something that did not exist before is an oddly hopeful endeavor.... Every writer in the country can write a beautiful sentence, or a hundred. What I am interested in is the ugly sentence that is also somehow beautiful. I agree that this is a highly specialized enterprise, akin to the manufacture of merkins, say-but it's what I do. Probably I have missed the point of the literature business entirely.

The story "Sentence" ends: "[T]he sentence is...a man-made object, not the one we wanted of course, but still a construction of man, a structure to be treasured for its weakness, as opposed to the strength of stones[.]"

These are the words of a writer determined to refresh language, but one who knows the limits of his enterprise. This mix of invention and sweet resignation, the humor and fierce intelligence along with a gift for poetic compression, is what distinguished Don's work from the failed literary experiments that littered the streets around him.

"Elsa and Ramona entered the complicated city," begins the book's final piece. At first, the two young women in "City Life" appear to face a variety of choices-everything an urban environment can offer. But in fact their options are few: -Where shall we put the telephone books?-Put them over there, by the telephone.-Where shall we hang [the painting}?-How about on the wall?-What shade of white do you want this apartment painted?-How about plain white?

Like Snow White, they discover that they will never get all they've been promised: pa.s.sionate love, self-fulfillment. The law school they want to attend admits them only grudgingly, and refuses to take them seriously as students.

"Ugh!" Ramona groans.

It is only at the story's end, when Ramona absorbs the "fused glance" of the city's contradictory forces that her future blooms. She is impregnated with creative energy, "dancing little dances of suggestion and fear."

The city that emerges in Don's story is not the congested urban center of nineteenth-century industrialism, nor is it the well-ordered city of suburban pockets that began to develop immediately after World War II. It is a new, decentered city, barely held together by fading cultural traditions and highways connecting shopping hubs swarming with motion. It is a city first glimpsed, in literature, in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man Invisible Man-a city of wild electrical currents running underground. It is a place, Don wrote, of many "muddy roads," and the only way to live in it is to "accept" its impure muck.

It is city city as as anxious object. anxious object.

Don's story was itself an impure mix of influences, many from the experimental film world that so fascinated him. Around the time Don began "City Life," Andy Warhol, recovering from his gunshot wounds, was editing his movie Ramona and Julian, Ramona and Julian, in which a woman named Ramona (played by the actress Viva) is spurned by several potential lovers. Similarly, Don's Ramona is disappointed by love. At the time, Viva was also appearing in an Agnes Varda film called in which a woman named Ramona (played by the actress Viva) is spurned by several potential lovers. Similarly, Don's Ramona is disappointed by love. At the time, Viva was also appearing in an Agnes Varda film called Lions Love, Lions Love, in a menage a trois with two men, a situation touched on in "City Life." In 1960, Varda's husband, Jacques Demy, had made a movie called in a menage a trois with two men, a situation touched on in "City Life." In 1960, Varda's husband, Jacques Demy, had made a movie called Lola, Lola, in which a woman has to choose between three lovers-as Ramona does in Don's story. (Ramona's friend Elsa marries a man named Jacques.) Varda had once made a film called in which a woman has to choose between three lovers-as Ramona does in Don's story. (Ramona's friend Elsa marries a man named Jacques.) Varda had once made a film called Elsa la Rose, Elsa la Rose, about Elsa Triolet, the wife of the surrealist Louis Aragon. Varda's most famous film, about Elsa Triolet, the wife of the surrealist Louis Aragon. Varda's most famous film, Cleo de 5 a 7, Cleo de 5 a 7, follows a woman through a day on the streets of Paris-a quintessential portrait of city life. follows a woman through a day on the streets of Paris-a quintessential portrait of city life.

This name game would be meaningless were it not for the vision of art implied by Don's use of these cinematic materials. All of these films share the spirit of surrealism, the spirit, as Andre Breton said, of "systematic refusal" of the "whole series of intellectual, moral, and social obligations that continually and from all sides weigh down on man and crush him."

But Don's Ramona does not refuse. does not refuse. "I accepted," she says in the story's final paragraph. "What was the alternative?" "I accepted," she says in the story's final paragraph. "What was the alternative?"

By accepting, she swells with new life.

A refusal of surrealism's refusal. A bold new step beyond beyond the old avantgarde. the old avantgarde.

Significantly, Don uses eye imagery to convey Ramona's acceptance: The city's "pupil enlarged to admit more light," Ramona says, "more me." Eye imagery was central to many surrealist works, perhaps most notably Georges Bataille's erotic novels and Luis Bunuel's movie, cowritten with Salvador Dali, Un Chien Andalou. Un Chien Andalou.

Finally, readers will recall that the most famous fictional Ramona is Helen Hunt Jackson's heroine. Jackson openly condemned the United States' genocidal policies toward Native Americans, and Ramona Ramona (1884) was written to spotlight the plight of mission Indians in Southern California. In "City Life," Don's Ramona watches "sun dancers" beat the "ground with sheaves of wheat" in the middle of the city, an echo of Arapaho and Cheyenne ceremonies honoring the sun's life-giving power. In an early draft of "City Life," Moonbelly describes himself as "part Indian," composing songs of rage against a system that "cannot withstand close scrutiny." (1884) was written to spotlight the plight of mission Indians in Southern California. In "City Life," Don's Ramona watches "sun dancers" beat the "ground with sheaves of wheat" in the middle of the city, an echo of Arapaho and Cheyenne ceremonies honoring the sun's life-giving power. In an early draft of "City Life," Moonbelly describes himself as "part Indian," composing songs of rage against a system that "cannot withstand close scrutiny."

"The Indian Uprising" had touched on this theme: Modern urban life exists at the expense of the past, and because of crimes against Native Americans.

And yet...what are our alternatives now? Art and its devices cannot "change the government." Far from bringing justice to California's Indians, Helen Hunt Jackson's novel became just another popular entertainment. Two films were made from it, and a stage version...ultimately, Ramona Ramona turned into sludge: best-seller, polemic, trifle. Like turned into sludge: best-seller, polemic, trifle. Like The Phantom of the Opera, The Phantom of the Opera, like several cla.s.sic fairy tales, it was endlessly transformable, endlessly watereddown, especially in an age dominated by the technology of reproduction. like several cla.s.sic fairy tales, it was endlessly transformable, endlessly watereddown, especially in an age dominated by the technology of reproduction.

Best to accept the world's "muddy roads." At least therein lay the possibility of something new.

37.

FREAKED OUT.

"Donald Barthelme will quit writing and in five years he will commit suicide." This comment was attributed to a "well-known novelist, possibly envious," by Richard Schickel in a lengthy profile of Don ent.i.tled "Freaked Out on Barthelme," which appeared in the August 16, 1970, issue of The New York Times Magazine. The New York Times Magazine. In the article, Herman Gollob confirmed that Don was "one of the great despairers of all time," though he added that Don had a "great sense of camaraderie." Roger Angell said, "There's very little difference between Donald Barthelme the person and Donald Barthelme the writer." Harrison Starr characterized Don as "an extraordinarily gentle and ethical man" with a "very naked eye for pain and a very complex Catholic Christian guilt." In the article, Herman Gollob confirmed that Don was "one of the great despairers of all time," though he added that Don had a "great sense of camaraderie." Roger Angell said, "There's very little difference between Donald Barthelme the person and Donald Barthelme the writer." Harrison Starr characterized Don as "an extraordinarily gentle and ethical man" with a "very naked eye for pain and a very complex Catholic Christian guilt."

Starr's wife, Sally Kempton, told Schickel, "When he's dissatisfied with his work, he feels it's not good enough because he's not intelligent enough. He thinks of fiction in philosophical terms and I think he thinks that some s.h.i.+ft of vision, if he can manage it, will reveal the true nature of our existence to him."

After spending time with Don, Schickel composed this portrait: Barthelme is neither tall nor short, neither fat nor thin. He s.h.i.+elds his blue eyes behind rimless gla.s.ses. He has red hair and a beard and dresses conservatively. He lives quietly in a floor-through walk-up on West 11th Street with his third wife, a Danish girl named Birgit, and his 4-year-old daughter, for whom he has made a most interesting pull-toy out of found objects. He is handy with carpenter's tools. His ma.n.u.scripts arrive at the New Yorker New Yorker very neatly typed. He works in the morning and is often seen walking around the Village of an afternoon. His social life has been described as "incredibly commonplace."...He is known to grow quite restless confronted by the quiet of a country weekend. He is likely to become "aggressively silent" at large gatherings of literary people, but he is also a talkative and loyal intimate. very neatly typed. He works in the morning and is often seen walking around the Village of an afternoon. His social life has been described as "incredibly commonplace."...He is known to grow quite restless confronted by the quiet of a country weekend. He is likely to become "aggressively silent" at large gatherings of literary people, but he is also a talkative and loyal intimate.

The article was accompanied by snippets from "Brain Damage"-text and ill.u.s.trations-and a photograph of Don standing warily in his apartment, hand on hip, in front of a framed Ingres poster. A music stand occupies a corner of the room, and an acoustic guitar sits on a tall dresser (sometimes Birgit tried to play).

"Freaked Out on Barthelme" appeared as City Life City Life was earning great praise, and it brought Don as much fame as a literary writer could expect in America. This pleased him and made him nervous. The Book-of-the-Month Club made was earning great praise, and it brought Don as much fame as a literary writer could expect in America. This pleased him and made him nervous. The Book-of-the-Month Club made City Life City Life an "alternate" choice one month. In his profile, Schickel said that Henry Robbins phoned to tell him the good news, insisting it would boost book sales. It's not much money, Robbins said, but it's a "chance to speak to a new audience," a more mainstream crowd. A few days later, Don called Robbins back. "Henry, is there some way we can politely turn down the Book-of-the-Month?" Absolutely not, Robbins replied. When Angell called to congratulate Don on the honor, Don was silent, Schickel related. Angell said, "Don, I don't think you want to be discovered." Don agreed. an "alternate" choice one month. In his profile, Schickel said that Henry Robbins phoned to tell him the good news, insisting it would boost book sales. It's not much money, Robbins said, but it's a "chance to speak to a new audience," a more mainstream crowd. A few days later, Don called Robbins back. "Henry, is there some way we can politely turn down the Book-of-the-Month?" Absolutely not, Robbins replied. When Angell called to congratulate Don on the honor, Don was silent, Schickel related. Angell said, "Don, I don't think you want to be discovered." Don agreed.

Of course, matters weren't so simple. It was one thing to refresh the possibilities of art, and to be recognized by one's peers; it was another to become a celebrity, even a minor one.

For "Kierkegaard Unfair to Schlegel," Don had composed a rueful paragraph (laterexcised) about the artist in a culture that values spectacle over substance: It is not true that Kafka wanted Brod to burn his ma.n.u.scripts after his death. Rather it is the case that Kafka was on fire to be published...rushed to the postbox day after day...ate with editors...intrigued for favorable notices...read the Writer's Digest Writer's Digest...consorted with critics...autographed napkins...made himself available to librarians...spoke on the radio...

Later, in a speech at the University of Houston, Don returned to these themes: I often think not enough attention is paid to dead writers. It was formerly the case that we had a lot of long winter nights with nothing much to do and on these nights dead writers-from d.i.c.kens to Conrad to Heinrich von Kleist-received their merited attention. We still have long winter nights but they are filled, for most people, with old movies. I have nothing against old movies, but the trouble with them is that they don't have first sentences, those amazing and wonderful first sentences that grip you, drive you inexorably into the work....

Hip readers "freaked out on Barthelme" would have been surprised to hear their latest cultural hero speaking so conservatively, but that was just the point for Don: He wanted to join the centuries-long literary conversation, not t.i.tillate thrill seekers looking for a Book-of-the-Month selection. By now, Don had seen enough of journalists and advertising to know fame's double edge. Schickel's article gave him tremendous visibility, but for most readers it would also freeze him in time. Forevermore, the phrase "freaked out" would link Don with what the media now called the "counterculture." From this point on, virtually everything written about Don, from dashed-off book reviews to more substantial critical examinations, saw him as representative of the anti-Establishment ethos of a particular moment. His aesthetic, psychological, philosophical, and theological investigations were largely ignored. Casual readers came to think of him as a "1960s writer." Academics came to see him as a "postmodernist"-a fancy way of saying a "1960s writer."

It was enough to turn you into a great despairer-if you weren't one already.

To Book-of-the-Month Club members, City Life City Life was pitched as a wacky youth-culture statement. Nothing could have been further from Don's intentions. Most of his prepublication correspondence with Robbins concerned page layouts. "I've asked for a new black square," he said with regard to the beginning of "The Explanation." "It solves the problem of having so little type on that page." And he noted that on page 73, he'd "killed a line to get a s.p.a.ce which should have been there. I need the s.p.a.ce more than the line." In a certain section of "Bone Bubbles," Don wanted exactly "33 lines. A nicety." was pitched as a wacky youth-culture statement. Nothing could have been further from Don's intentions. Most of his prepublication correspondence with Robbins concerned page layouts. "I've asked for a new black square," he said with regard to the beginning of "The Explanation." "It solves the problem of having so little type on that page." And he noted that on page 73, he'd "killed a line to get a s.p.a.ce which should have been there. I need the s.p.a.ce more than the line." In a certain section of "Bone Bubbles," Don wanted exactly "33 lines. A nicety."

These layout problems are the obsessions of an artist worried about every word, every line, every blank. No other prose writer in America thought as much as Don did about the look look of a page, about the way typeface and s.p.a.cing would affect the way a reader absorbed the meaning of a sentence. Don's literary project, exacting, exceedingly careful, was hardly countercultural; rather, it was cultural in the highest sense, that of nudging the culture forward. Like all such projects, it was bound to be misunderstood. Despite newspaper profiles and growing critical attention, Don discovered-as he feared he would-little real change in the world resulting from his efforts. Younger writers were beginning to imitate him. Mainstream magazines were publis.h.i.+ng "wilder" material than before. But these changes were superficial and left Don dissatisfied. of a page, about the way typeface and s.p.a.cing would affect the way a reader absorbed the meaning of a sentence. Don's literary project, exacting, exceedingly careful, was hardly countercultural; rather, it was cultural in the highest sense, that of nudging the culture forward. Like all such projects, it was bound to be misunderstood. Despite newspaper profiles and growing critical attention, Don discovered-as he feared he would-little real change in the world resulting from his efforts. Younger writers were beginning to imitate him. Mainstream magazines were publis.h.i.+ng "wilder" material than before. But these changes were superficial and left Don dissatisfied.

City Life performed very well, particularly in paperback, but it hardly reached blockbuster status. Bantam printed 110,000 copies of the book; Pocket Books followed this up with 30,000 more. The initial hardcover sales had been modest. In 1972, two years after the book was first published, Farrar, Straus and Giroux notified Don that they needed to reduce their warehouse inventory. They offered him copies of performed very well, particularly in paperback, but it hardly reached blockbuster status. Bantam printed 110,000 copies of the book; Pocket Books followed this up with 30,000 more. The initial hardcover sales had been modest. In 1972, two years after the book was first published, Farrar, Straus and Giroux notified Don that they needed to reduce their warehouse inventory. They offered him copies of City Life City Life at fifty cents apiece. Don bought twenty copies, and sent a note: "Why didn't we think of pricing it at 50 cents in the first place? We would have sold hundreds of thousands." In later years, he joked that books should be sold like paintings: one of each, priced at millions of dollars. at fifty cents apiece. Don bought twenty copies, and sent a note: "Why didn't we think of pricing it at 50 cents in the first place? We would have sold hundreds of thousands." In later years, he joked that books should be sold like paintings: one of each, priced at millions of dollars.

If the machinery of celebrity and success, or the perception perception of success, dropped Don deeper into despair, his old habits of walking the city and of studying art kept him afloat. These pleasures are reflected everywhere in of success, dropped Don deeper into despair, his old habits of walking the city and of studying art kept him afloat. These pleasures are reflected everywhere in City Life. City Life. Don had his Don had his own own cultural heroes, who gave him strength: Harold Rosenberg, Thomas Hess-and Willem de Kooning, still for Don the king of romance and artistic dedication. However, by 1970 the art world's publicity machine tended to ignore de Kooning in favor of Clement Greenberg's favorite painters, Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland-and it was harder for Don and his friends, who found Greenberg's enthusiasms soulless, to attain comfort from galleries and musuems. cultural heroes, who gave him strength: Harold Rosenberg, Thomas Hess-and Willem de Kooning, still for Don the king of romance and artistic dedication. However, by 1970 the art world's publicity machine tended to ignore de Kooning in favor of Clement Greenberg's favorite painters, Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland-and it was harder for Don and his friends, who found Greenberg's enthusiasms soulless, to attain comfort from galleries and musuems.

Still, Don tried to engage the key issues driving contemporary art. Herbert Marcuse, formerly of the Frankfurt School, had recently said that art was dominated by the administrative structures of machinery. For this reason, the protests of May 1968 had failed, Marcuse said: Technological systems systems control everything, including social behavior and thought. control everything, including social behavior and thought.

Marcuse's remarks reflected the fact that many artists, including Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol, were working with engineers and scientists; John Chamberlain had accepted a commission from the RAND Corporation. Was art complicit in the horrors of Vietnam?

In this context, "The Explanation" and "Kierkegaard" are of a piece with Don's earlier stories, "Report" and Game," about military gadgetry. "Paraguay," with its futuristic vision of "sheet art," which is "run through heavy steel rollers," controlled by "flip-flop switches" and "dried in smoke," comes straight out of 1960s art-world conversations. "Each citizen is given as much art as his system can tolerate," Don wrote.

Of intense interest to artists and writers was the degree to which individuals were trapped by systems. Words like variable, feedback, variable, feedback, and and looping looping were entering everyday speech as a result of computer research, the s.p.a.ce program, and military research and development. Naturally, art absorbed these concepts. In asking, "Why is were entering everyday speech as a result of computer research, the s.p.a.ce program, and military research and development. Naturally, art absorbed these concepts. In asking, "Why is this this thing art?" conceptual and minimalist work tried to implicate viewers in the thing art?" conceptual and minimalist work tried to implicate viewers in the system system of structuring and authenticating aesthetic experience. In "The Explanation" and in "Kierkegaard," when Q or A gets stuck in a linguistic loop-"How is my car? How is my nail? How is the taste of my potato? How is the cook of my potato?"-language reveals itself as part of a system, self-testing, self-correcting, self-perpetuating. of structuring and authenticating aesthetic experience. In "The Explanation" and in "Kierkegaard," when Q or A gets stuck in a linguistic loop-"How is my car? How is my nail? How is the taste of my potato? How is the cook of my potato?"-language reveals itself as part of a system, self-testing, self-correcting, self-perpetuating.

At stake in these art-world debates are two sobering questions, one social, the other metaphysical: 1. To what degree can art humanize humanize an increasingly high-tech society, which is more and more efficient at war? 2. To what degree can an individual in a speeded-up culture live in the moment-and what does it an increasingly high-tech society, which is more and more efficient at war? 2. To what degree can an individual in a speeded-up culture live in the moment-and what does it mean mean to "live in the moment"? If nothing else, when confronted by a series of identical black squares, or an eight-hour film of the Empire State Building, you become aware, perhaps excruciatingly so, of each pa.s.sing second. If nothing else, when confronted by a hard metallic shape where you don't expect to find it, you may begin to question the beneficence, and the purpose, of machines. to "live in the moment"? If nothing else, when confronted by a series of identical black squares, or an eight-hour film of the Empire State Building, you become aware, perhaps excruciatingly so, of each pa.s.sing second. If nothing else, when confronted by a hard metallic shape where you don't expect to find it, you may begin to question the beneficence, and the purpose, of machines.

In mid-April 1971, Don entered St. Vincent's Hospital so the latest medical technology could be used to remove a basal-cell malignancy from his upper lip.

His hospital stay lasted four days. "In my mind, the basal-cell malignancy resembled a tiny truffle," he wrote in "Departures." " 'Most often occurs in sailors and farmers,' the doctor had told me. 'The sun.' But I, I sit under General Electric light, mostly." In fact, the cancer had been caused by his heavy smoking.

The doctor told Don that most people could lose up to a third of their upper lip "without a bad result." In an autobiographical section of "Departures," Don recounted his exchange with a Franciscan priest employed by St. Vincent's. The priest wanted to know why Don had marked "None" on his medical forms in the s.p.a.ce reserved for "Religion." "I rehea.r.s.ed for him my religious history," Don wrote. "We discussed the distinguis.h.i.+ng characteristics of the various religious orders-the Basilians, the Capuchins. Recent outbreaks of enthusiasm among the Dutch Catholics were touched upon."

He was given a local anesthetic and was aware, throughout the procedure, of "[s]omething...going on there," above his teeth. "I opened my eyes," he wrote. "The bright light. 'Give me a No. 10 blade,' the doctor said."

His "truffle" was taken to a pathologist for examination. The next day, he was wheeled into surgery, where the "doctors were preparing themselves for the improvement of my face," he said. "I felt the morphine making me happy. I thought: What a beautiful hospital."

He emerged from St. Vincent's without the delicate, full mouth he had inherited from his mother. His upper lip was almost totally gone, leaving a large white s.p.a.ce below his nose and a tiny triangle of flesh near the center of the absent lip. His grin was more elfin than ever. In the 1980s, when Phillip Lopate met Don, he thought Don was cultivating an "avant-garde" look by growing a beard without the mustache. Don told him he couldn't grow a mustache because of his cancer surgery. Lopate was abashed.

Don left the hospital with st.i.tches in his face and a lingering morphine high. "I had my pants on and was feeling very dancy," he wrote. " 'Udbye!' I said [to the nurses]. 'Hank you!' "

A piece Don wrote about his surgery was "handsomely done," Roger Angell said, "but somehow it still sounds like someone talking about his operation." The magazine turned it down (until it appeared later as part of "Departures"). Medical, grocery, and other bills piled up, and The New Yorker The New Yorker's accountants continued their arcane practices with all the glee of medieval alchemists. By the beginning of June 1971, Don had once more reached the magazine's "debt ceiling of two thousand dollars." "[W]e are not allowed to exceed" this, Angell told him. Though Don's first-refusal renewal was imminent, The New Yorker The New Yorker did not make advance payments against the renewals, nor did it allow "our writers to repay a debt to us out of that particular source of income." Angell added, "I'm sorry to let you down, especially for such complicated reasons." did not make advance payments against the renewals, nor did it allow "our writers to repay a debt to us out of that particular source of income." Angell added, "I'm sorry to let you down, especially for such complicated reasons."

With the st.i.tches out, Don was free to smile again, but he didn't much feel like smiling. He stuck his new face into the wind and walked.

He pa.s.sed the Museum of Modern Art. He recalled an exhibition there, a few years before, ent.i.tled "The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age." It featured work by Jean Tinguely, Nam June Paik, and Kurt Schwitters. Soon, Don would draft a story called "At the End of the Mechanical Age." "It was a good age," he would write. "I was comfortable in it, relatively. Probably I will not enjoy the age to come quite so much. I don't like its look."

These days, it was hard to like the look of the city's West Side; for years, it had endured the nation's largest urban-renewal experiment, overseen by the all-powerful developer Robert Moses. As Don walked to Lincoln Center for music and film festivals, he pa.s.sed newly dead-ended streets, torn-up avenues reminiscent of Paris under Baron Haussmann. Eventually, Don would write a story about a struggling family called "110 West Sixty-First Street." The setting played no part in the story except as the unspoken context in which it unfolds. But the context said it all. West Sixty-first Street was chopped off right where Don placed his beleaguered couple.

City life.

As he walked, Don felt "freaked out" about many things...and harbored a persistent suspicion that he'd missed something important.

"I have reached an age where I am ready to indulge myself in the luxury of not understanding everything, of not having to understand every last motherf.u.c.king nuance," he had written in an early draft of "City Life." Eventually, he cut the lines. He didn't mean it. He took a long, ragged breath and kept walking.

38.

SLIGHTLY IRREGULAR.

One day, Birgit asked Don if she could initiate an affair with a professor she had met at the New School. Don didn't answer, a.s.suming her whim would pa.s.s and that she was trying to provoke him. He worried about his drinking. Sometimes he blacked out in the evenings after several scotches. The following morning, he'd have no memory of the night before. Birgit's scowl told him they had argued.

Eventually, Don forced a separation. His innate restlessness and the increasing difficulties of living with Birgit's disease led him to want "more freedom," Harrison Starr believes. "He didn't want the restraints and the kind of narrowness they had. He got Birgit settled around the corner on Seventh Avenue, where Waverly Place comes across, in an apartment that was kind of triangular because the Waverly intersection was oblique. Birgit began to unravel. I would go to pick Anne up, or I was taking her somewhere, and it'd be thirty degrees out and she'd have a T-s.h.i.+rt on. Birgit became increasingly depressed and had a couple of very self-destructive affairs...with Anne in the apartment."

The apartment was "dark, and it had a feeling of transience to it, as if [Birgit] was just pa.s.sing through...which of course she was," says Sandra Leonard, an art historian and gallery director who fell in love with Starr in 1971, after Starr's separation from Sally Kempton. Don introduced Starr to her and the couple spent many evenings with Don and Birgit. Leonard recalls the Eleventh Street apartment as "immaculate," but after Birgit moved out, it slipped into "complete disarray."

One afternoon, Starr, who had bought a carriage house on Charles Lane, and who had, he said, "always been the practical one for Donald," got a call from Don. He said, " 'Birgit.' I said, 'What is it?' And he said, 'I think she's dead.' And I said, 'I'll be right there.' I could see that she had overdosed about ten or twelve hours earlier, and I could see that she was alive. She wasn't going to die. Now whether she was brain-damaged or not, I couldn't tell. We picked her up...and carried her to St. Vincent's, cradling her."

When Birgit recovered, she and Anne returned to the Eleventh Street apartment with Don. Soon thereafter, he took a studio apartment down the block, close to the Hudson River. Anne thought of it as her father's "writing studio." "It wasn't a writing studio," Starr says. "It's where he moved."

Finally, early in 1972, Birgit insisted on returning to Denmark. "I think Dad knew that if he didn't let her go back to Copenhagen, she'd try to kill herself," Anne says. She and her mother flew to Denmark and stayed with one of her mother's friends in a beautiful apartment in the center of Copenhagen. Don moved back to his old place on West Eleventh. Six months later, Birgit and Anne returned to New York, but they did not move in with Don. They took a place on Perry Street. Don and Birgit tried to work things out, but the marriage was damaged beyond repair. Birgit went back to Copenhagen for good. "Anne was locked in to Donald and did not want to go," Starr says. "He and I had a fight about it because [by now] I was kind of a G.o.dfather to Anne. She did not want to go, and I told him, 'Absolutely not.' Then there was some psychiatrist who said, 'The daughter must stay with the mother, blah blah blah.' It was bulls.h.i.+t."

"Living with my mother was...well, you know...you're a kid. I didn't know any different," Anne says. "But I wanted to be with my father. He was more grounded."

Around the time Birgit left with Anne, Don met the Swiss novelist and poet Max Frisch, whose work he greatly admired. Frisch had come to the States with his new young wife, Marianne, for an extended series of lectures and readings. Marianne was translating City Life City Life into German, for an edition to be published by Suhrkamp Verlag. Don was charmed by her intelligence, humor, and openness. While Frisch-at sixty, nearly thirty years older than his wife-relished his literary celebrity, and indulged in an affair with a publisher's a.s.sistant, Don and Marianne began to spend time together. into German, for an edition to be published by Suhrkamp Verlag. Don was charmed by her intelligence, humor, and openness. While Frisch-at sixty, nearly thirty years older than his wife-relished his literary celebrity, and indulged in an affair with a publisher's a.s.sistant, Don and Marianne began to spend time together.

"Of the women I knew that [were around] Donald, she was quite different," Sandra Leonard says. "Physically different, first of all. She was really really a woman. And she was just a delight to be around." a woman. And she was just a delight to be around."

Starr concurs that Marianne was "physically powerful." In the past, Don had tended to be drawn to pet.i.te women with rather boyish figures. For him, this new pa.s.sion was tinged with desperation: He was shaken by his separation from Birgit, though it had long been coming, and by the fear that he might lose his daughter. He had come to feel he couldn't survive without his little girl.

Marianne was drawn to Don's "tense" attentiveness, his "sparkling, cunning, laughing eyes," and his rueful humor. In a remembrance written shortly after his death, she recalled the day she told him she was translating his book. She was standing at a traffic light, waiting to cross the street at Sixth Avenue and Tenth, when she spotted Don. She asked him what he was doing there. In her remembrance piece, Marianne wrote of Don's reply and the conversation that ensued: "Intersections interest me. Sometimes cute girls cross.... Time for coffee?"Three meters from the light there was a brightly lit, sad-looking coffee shop."Do you always cry on Sat.u.r.day afternoons?" "Often." "Are you crying today because I don't write as well as Samuel Beckett?"..."I'm crying, first, because I'm nervous, second, because it's Sat.u.r.day, and, third, because I have something difficult I should tell you.""Something criminal?" "Possibly...I signed a contract some weeks ago." "You're too young for contracts, much too young." "But I've signed to translate City Life. City Life." "That's no reason for a grown-up girl to cry." "I'm worried that Donald Barthelme's prose is too difficult for me-untranslatable.""I will translate him from English into English for you. No problem. That's my specialty. I have translated Tolstoy, Balzac, Kafka, Borges, and many, many others from English into English. I can help you even though my German is non-existent."

As she worked with him, he was a "dinosaur of patience," she recalled, "a true master." He "spoke of music, the music of words that was the most important thing, the rhythm of the sentences."

"Pretty funny, isn't it? Is it crazy enough?" he would ask her about a particular line.