The Adding Machine (28 page)

Like Proust I am very much concerned with Time and Memory; with tracing the lines of association and the intersection of points of memory. I am very concerned with sets, and objects; with scenic landscapes, and rooms, and streets. Where is the landscape in Beckett? Where are the rivers, the swamp, the cities, the rooms, the streets? And dialogue in Beckett — does it exist? It certainly exists in my work. I have an ear for dialogue. And so many phrases are phrases I heard from someone. ‘All a Jew wants to do is doodle a Christian girl.’ ‘Going to give you the chance, extraordinary.’ ‘He was an individual.’ ‘Rabies in the worst form there is.’

Beckett closes off whole areas of experience. These areas simply don’t interest him. Like the visit. He was meticulously polite and not at all nervous of or of making the visitors nervous. But clearly he was not at all interested in the visitors. Clearly he had not the slightest desire to see any of them ever again. You could imagine his turning in disinterest from an extraterrestrial.

I am concerned with characters and names and sets. Interzone, New York City, South America, Mexico.

In 1956 I was stranded in Algiers. I was trying to get back to Tangier, but it was during the civil war and there were no planes, so I had to spend two weeks there. I used to eat lunch in the milk bar. It was a small place with mirrors on the walls, square pillars covered with mirrors, and great jars full of fruit juice, salads, ice cream, bananas and so forth. A month after I left, there was an explosion in the milk bar, and Brion Gysin arrived just a few minutes after the bomb. He described the incredible scene for me: people with arms and legs blown off, covered with blood, brains, maraschino cherries, passion-fruit, bananas and whipped cream, and mirror shards. And Graham Greene gives an identical description of a milk bar explosion in Vietnam.

The Heart of the Matter
is the Graham Greene book most closely related to my story
The Health Officer.
This takes place in Central Africa, and concerns Major Scobie, a police official and a bad Catholic, of course. This Scobie is one of these types that dislikes other people and therefore feels guilty towards them because he doesn’t care about them. So he is always bending over backwards not to hurt people, and winds up doing much more damage than any wilfull and selfish person can do. No one does more harm than people who feel bad about doing it, in personal relations or anywhere else.

Scobie has a faithful servant named Ali, who has nursed him through bouts of fever and saved his life a few times. There is also in this town a Syrian operator, who has a shop and a warehouse and is into smuggling and receiving stolen goods and anything to make a dollar. He is constantly trying to get to Major Scobie. So Scobie drops in to buy a bottle of whisky:
’
Ah, but there is no charge, Major Scobie . .. please take a case, and some perfume for your wife.’

‘No thanks. I’ll pay for one bottle. And one of these days you’re going to find my foot up your fat ass.’

‘I should be sorry to think so, Major Scobie. I have for you a warm heart. If you ever need money ...’

It’s a good description of the operator: ‘He had a face that was both sincere and untrustworthy.’ This goes on for years, the Major fighting off whisky and dresses and perfume and offers of an interest-free loan, but the time comes when he does need money to keep his former girlfriend from coming from Africa and to avoid a scene with his wife. He doesn’t want either of them to be hurt, you understand, since this sort of thing upsets him, and he doesn’t like to be upset So he borrows the money from the operator.

‘Interest? Of course not, Major. Pay me when you can.’

Well, no sooner does the Major have the money in his pocket than he starts paying. ‘Oh Major, a small matter. . . a consignment held up at Customs over the weekend. A note from you .. .’ After that, the Major gets in deeper and deeper, more and more consignments to be passed through without inspection, and other matters too, letters to be sent by the Major so they won’t be opened by the censor. Finally the Major is worried about Ali, who may have sussed out some of this. He goes to see the operator. This is the highlight of the book, this passage:

‘Ah Major, I assure you there is no danger. A gentleman like you should not worry about such trifles. Excuse me a moment.’ Of course the operator is sending his boys to take care of Ali; Scobie really knows what’s happening, but he can’t admit it to himself. I mean, he’s getting someone else to do his dirty work for him, and he can’t even admit it to himself — how low can you get? Then the operator comes back and says, ‘And now Major we will talk of serious things ... God, the family, and Shakespeare.’ A scream offstage —

‘What was that?’

‘Do not concern yourself, Major. People fighting in the streets. They are animals, these people ...’

Re-reading Joseph Conrad’s
Under Western Eyes,
I find it stands up much better than I remembered. And I see the precise parallels between Razumov’s interview with Councillor Mikulin in
Under Western Eyes
and Carl’s interview with Doctor Benway in
Naked Lunch,
the chapter entitled ‘The Examination’.

Razumov has braced himself to confront the tough cop, General T—. Instead he is taken before the con cop, Councillor Mikulin, Razumov has placed himself in the category of informer by turning in Haldin. As he will find, this is not an easy pigeon-hole to escape from, and in fact Councillor Mikulin has no intention of allowing him to escape,

The con dick does a little dance step. . . ‘Why don’t you make the man a proposition? That’s the way General — you play fair with him and he’ll play fair with you.’

Councillor Mikulin and Doctor Benway both use the little dance step of the unfinished sentence; Mikulin: ‘I comprehend in a measure your. . . But indeed you are mistaken in what you ... Though as a matter of fact. . . Religious belief of course is a great... And so you say he believed in. . . That’s of course ... Naturally some curiosity was bound to arise. . . Everybody I am sure can
...
‘

Doctor Benway: ‘The Kleiberg-Stanislouski test. . . a diagnostic tool. . . in certain cases useful. . . I do hope not necessary ... indicative at least in a negative sense ... certain contagious diseases ... relatively rare ... such marriages often result in ... there must have been .. . and so.’

Here is Razumov’s meeting with Mikulin: ‘The mild gaze rested on Mm, not curious, not inquisitive — certainly not suspicious — almost without expression. In its passionless persistence there was something resembling sympathy.’

And Benway: Tor the first time the doctor’s eyes flickered across Carl’s face, eyes without any emotion Carl had ever experienced in himself or seen in another — at once cold and intense, predatory and impersonal. . .’ The same bureaucrat brought from 1906 to 1984, just a little further out in the open. As Razumov will find, Councillor Mikulin is also predatory in his dim passionless way.

Razumov’s vision of his brain suffering on the rack . . .’It is not to be seriously supposed that Razumov had actually dozed off and had dreamed in the presence of Councillor Mikulin, of an old print of the Inquisition.’

And from Carl’s examination in
Naked Lunch:
‘Carl dozed off. He was opening a green door. Benway: “Do you often doze off like that? In the middle of a sentence?” Carl: “I wasn’t asleep, that is . . .” Benway: “You weren’t?’”

Razumov: ‘The whole affair is becoming too comical altogether for my taste. A comedy of errors, phantoms, and suspicions. It’s positively indecent. . .’ ‘Councillor Mikulin turned an attentive ear. “Did you say phantoms?” he murmured.’

Carl: ‘It’s just that the whole thing is unreal. I’m going now, you can’t force me to stay.’

Razumov: ‘But, really, I must claim the right to be done once and for all with that man. And in order to accomplish this I shall take the liberty ...’ Razumov on his side of the table bowed slightly to the seated bureaucrat.’.. . to retire — simply retire.’

Carl’s examination: ‘He was walking across the room towards the door. A creeping numbness dragged his legs. The door seemed to recede . . .’

Under Western Eyes:
Razumov walked to the door, thinking ‘Now he must show his hand. He must ring and have me arrested before I am out of the building, or he must let me go. And either way .. .’

Benway: ‘Where can you go, Carl?’

Mikulin: ‘An unhurried voice said — “Kirylo Sidorovitch.’”

Carl: ‘Out — away, through the door.’

Mikulin: ‘Razumov at the door turned his head. “To retire,” he repeated. “Where to?” asked Councillor Mikulin softly.’

Benway: ‘The Green Door, Carl?’

As you see, the end is almost verbatim, and I was thinking of this chapter in
Under Western Eyes
when I wrote the chapter on Carl and Doctor Benway. There’s no reason not to use a framework or even words from another writer if they fit in a different setting, and this is done repeatedly. Both chapters are suitable for film treatment, and cutting back and forth between them would I think be a very effective device.

Councillor Mikulin — 1900’s sets, pen holders, signet rings, gold-plated telephone. . . Doctor Benway — cold clinical Swedish modern set. . . The two faces flickering in and out, Benway’s face projected onto Mikulin’s with Mikulin’s voice, Mikulin’s voice in Benway’s face. Mikulin’s face with Benway’s voice. . . Antony Balch and I performed this experiment of projecting his face onto mine and my face onto his, then mixing faces and voices in various combinations, in a film called
Bill and Tony.

Critics constantly complain that writers are lacking in standards, yet they themselves seem to have no standards other than personal prejudice for literary criticism. To use an analogy: suppose the Michelin Inspectors were equally devoid of consensual criteria for judging food. Here is one inspector. . . ‘food superlative, service impeccable, kitchen spotless’ and another about the same restaurant . . . ‘food abominable, service atrocious, kitchen filthy’. Another inspector strips an Italian restaurant of its stars because he doesn’t like Italian cooking. Another would close a restaurant because he disapproves of the chef’s private life or the political opinions of the proprietor or complains that the chicken on his plate is not roast beef.

Admittedly it is more difficult to set up standards for literary criticisms but such standards do exist. Mathew Arnold set up three criteria for criticism: 1. What is the writer trying to do? 2. How well does he succeed in doing it? Certainly no one can be justly condemned for not doing what he does not intend to do. 3. Does the work exhibit ‘high seriousness’? That is, does it touch on basic issues of good and evil, life and death and the human condition. I would also apply a fourth criteria I learned at the age of twelve. I had written a romantic story about a thirsty traveller who sees a mirage of water and dies from disappointment when it fades. It so happened that a professional writer was staying with the family next door. I cannot remember his name but he had published a novel and was therefore a hero to me. I submitted this childish effort to him and he left a note which was delivered after he had departed for New York and the glamorous life I thought that all writers must lead:
‘Write about what you know.
More writers fail because they try to write about things they don’t know than for any other one reason. I do not know whether you have ever seen a mirage. I feel reasonably certain that you have never seen a man die from seeing one.’

Now apply these criteria to
The Godfather:
1. What is the writer trying to do? He is trying to entertain and tell a story and to give the reader some insights into the workings of the mafia. 2. Does he succeed in doing this? He succeeds admirably. 3. Does the book possess ‘high seriousness’? Yes. Some very profound things are said about power. He also points up the contrast between personal responsibility and the lack of responsibility that hides behind such phrases as national security. The Godfather assumes responsibility for the murders he orders. His button men even enjoy these murders. Nobody does more harm than those who feel bad about doing it. Godfathers defend us from a ‘difficult decision’ in the Pentagon. 4. Does the writer know what he is writing about? Obviously he does and this is what gives the book its impact. The reader immediately senses that the writer has
been there,
that these are actual events and people he is describing.

Now here is a critic who doesn’t like Italian cooking ... This book is completely devoid of life enhancing qualities. The writer subjects us to one scene of brutal violence and sexual depravity after the other until one is literally numb and in the end abysmally bored. His preoccupation with Sonny’s enormous member is a transparent compensation for his own failing sexual and artistic powers. He emerges as the arch apologist for murder and gangsterism attempting to stifle the nauseating stench of red wine and garlic under the silken robes and perfumes of a Renaissance court. Clearly he would plunge America into Neolithic savagery. Fortunately the vast majority of Americans retain sufficient sanity to reject his message and it is to be hoped his book as well. This is not a book to read. It is a book to be consigned to a cesspool or buried under a stone leaving free access to rats, insects and other crawling things, who if they cannot read can at least eat the filth off these pages.’ If this seems exaggerated, the bit about the stone is quoted almost verbatim from a review of
Nova
Express
in the Chicago
Tribune
by someone named Sullivan. Is this literary criticism or is it the foul-breathed curses of a toothless crone?

And here is the same critic some years later. . . ‘The fame which Mr Puzo achieved with
The Godfather
is sadly tarnished by his latest book. The Godfather is indeed dead and the hands of his descendants are empty of gifts, at least for the reader.’