won’t do when he’s got two boys in Exeter!’ ” Woodrow chuckled. “Rather John Cheeverish, no? Respectable but hard-up suburbanite shagging ass to pay his country-club dues and keep his kids in a proper prep.”
“No.”
“No what?”
“Cheever is too cagey a writer to ever risk a cock-peddling stockbroker. Simply because no one would believe it. His work is always realistic, even when it’s preposterous—like
The Enormous Radio
or
The Swimmer
.”
Woodrow was irritated; prudently, I deposited his hundred dollars inside an inner pocket, where he would have had some trouble retrieving it. “If it’s true, and it is, why would anyone not believe it?”
“Because something is true doesn’t mean that it’s convincing, either in life or in art. Think of Proust. Would
Remembrance
have the ring that it does if he had made it historically literal, if he hadn’t transposed sexes, altered events and identities? If hehad been absolutely factual, it would have been less believable, but”—this was a thought I’d often had—“it might have been better. Less acceptable, but better.” I decided on another drink, after all. “That’s the question: is truth an illusion, or is illusion truth, or are they essentially the same? Myself, I don’t care what anybody says about me as long as it isn’t true.”
“Maybe you ought to skip that other drink.”
“You think I’m drunk?”
“Well, you’re rambling.”
“I’m relaxed, that’s all.”
Woodrow kindly said: “So you’ve started writing again. Novel?”
“A report. An account. Yes, I’ll
call
it a novel. If I ever finish it. Of course, I never do finish anything.”
“Have you a title?” Oh, Woodrow was right there with all the garden-party queries.
“
Answered Prayers
.”
Woodrow frowned. “I’ve heard that before.”
“Not unless you were one of the three hundred schlunks who bought my first and only published work. That, too, was called
Answered Prayers
. For no particular reason. This time I have a reason.”
“
Answered Prayers
. A quote, I suppose.”
“St. Teresa. I never looked it up myself, so I don’t know exactly what she said, but it was something like ‘More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.’ ”
Woodrow said: “I see a light flickering. This book—it’s about Kate McCloud,
and
gang.”
“I wouldn’t say it’s
about
them—though they’re in it.”
“Then what is it about?”
“Truth as illusion.”
“And illusion as truth?”
“The first. The second is another proposition.”
Woodrow asked how so, but the whiskey was at work and I felt too deaf to tell him; but what I
would
have said was: as truth is nonexistent, it can never be anything but illusion—but illusion, the by-product of revealing artifice, can reach the summits nearer the unobtainable peak of Perfect Truth. For example, female impersonators. The impersonator is in fact a man (truth), until he re-creates himself as a woman (illusion)—and of the two, the illusion is the truer.
AROUND FIVE THAT AFTERNOON, AS offices were emptying, I found myself trawling along Forty-second Street, looking for the address listed on Miss Self’s card. The establishment turned out to be located above a ground-floor pornographic emporium, one of those dumps plastered with poster portraits of dangling dongs and split beavers. As I approached it, an exiting customer, someone of respectable and unimportant appearance, dropped a package, which opened, scattering across the pavement several dozen black-and-white glossies—nothing extra, the usual sixty-niners and marshmallow gals getting a three-way ride; still, a number of pedestrians paused to stare as the owner knelt to recover his property. Pornography, in my opinion, has been much misunderstood, for it doesn’t develop sex fiends and send them roaming alleyways—it is an anodyne for the sexually oppressed and unrequited, for what is the aim of pornography if not to
“No.”
“No what?”
“Cheever is too cagey a writer to ever risk a cock-peddling stockbroker. Simply because no one would believe it. His work is always realistic, even when it’s preposterous—like
The Enormous Radio
or
The Swimmer
.”
Woodrow was irritated; prudently, I deposited his hundred dollars inside an inner pocket, where he would have had some trouble retrieving it. “If it’s true, and it is, why would anyone not believe it?”
“Because something is true doesn’t mean that it’s convincing, either in life or in art. Think of Proust. Would
Remembrance
have the ring that it does if he had made it historically literal, if he hadn’t transposed sexes, altered events and identities? If hehad been absolutely factual, it would have been less believable, but”—this was a thought I’d often had—“it might have been better. Less acceptable, but better.” I decided on another drink, after all. “That’s the question: is truth an illusion, or is illusion truth, or are they essentially the same? Myself, I don’t care what anybody says about me as long as it isn’t true.”
“Maybe you ought to skip that other drink.”
“You think I’m drunk?”
“Well, you’re rambling.”
“I’m relaxed, that’s all.”
Woodrow kindly said: “So you’ve started writing again. Novel?”
“A report. An account. Yes, I’ll
call
it a novel. If I ever finish it. Of course, I never do finish anything.”
“Have you a title?” Oh, Woodrow was right there with all the garden-party queries.
“
Answered Prayers
.”
Woodrow frowned. “I’ve heard that before.”
“Not unless you were one of the three hundred schlunks who bought my first and only published work. That, too, was called
Answered Prayers
. For no particular reason. This time I have a reason.”
“
Answered Prayers
. A quote, I suppose.”
“St. Teresa. I never looked it up myself, so I don’t know exactly what she said, but it was something like ‘More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.’ ”
Woodrow said: “I see a light flickering. This book—it’s about Kate McCloud,
and
gang.”
“I wouldn’t say it’s
about
them—though they’re in it.”
“Then what is it about?”
“Truth as illusion.”
“And illusion as truth?”
“The first. The second is another proposition.”
Woodrow asked how so, but the whiskey was at work and I felt too deaf to tell him; but what I
would
have said was: as truth is nonexistent, it can never be anything but illusion—but illusion, the by-product of revealing artifice, can reach the summits nearer the unobtainable peak of Perfect Truth. For example, female impersonators. The impersonator is in fact a man (truth), until he re-creates himself as a woman (illusion)—and of the two, the illusion is the truer.
AROUND FIVE THAT AFTERNOON, AS offices were emptying, I found myself trawling along Forty-second Street, looking for the address listed on Miss Self’s card. The establishment turned out to be located above a ground-floor pornographic emporium, one of those dumps plastered with poster portraits of dangling dongs and split beavers. As I approached it, an exiting customer, someone of respectable and unimportant appearance, dropped a package, which opened, scattering across the pavement several dozen black-and-white glossies—nothing extra, the usual sixty-niners and marshmallow gals getting a three-way ride; still, a number of pedestrians paused to stare as the owner knelt to recover his property. Pornography, in my opinion, has been much misunderstood, for it doesn’t develop sex fiends and send them roaming alleyways—it is an anodyne for the sexually oppressed and unrequited, for what is the aim of pornography if not to
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