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There have always been—and here I prefer to turn to my accomplice and friend Stendhal—writers without readers. In The Life of Henry Brulard, which was written in the 1830s and which is an absolute masterpiece, Stendhal quite rightly acknowledges that he will probably have to wait until 1880 before his books are finally read. Maybe there will be readers in 1935. Maybe the crying baby next door is his reader. Finally, quite late in life, he did find a reader, a great reader—Balzac, who wrote him a long letter, from one writer to another. I’ve always loved that story. Stendhal had no readers, whereas Balzac was extremely popular. Now, I would add that there has always been a certain universe that reads. There has always been Balzac for Stendhal. But it is unusual for a writer whose oeuvre is powerful, and therefore destabilizing for the reader, to be recognized. This is part of the destiny of writing. You must wait.
In my seminar, I am teaching students how to read, though not the way I read, because my way of reading is entirely singular. I read the texts in such a way that the students will discover the secrets of reading. For one thing, I historicize. This is vital, because a part of what one does when one writes is clearly a way of receiving and reworking the current, the contemporary, what’s in the process of happening. Our times are mixed into us. You can’t understand Balzac, Flaubert, or Stendhal without their historical periods—the wars, the conquests, the colonialism, everything that causes humanity to constantly transform. One cannot read Tsvetaeva without reading the admirable generation to which she belonged—Pasternak, Akhmatova—who suffered from Stalinist persecution, and corresponded with and read one another. One can’t read Dostoyevsky without trying to learn about the Tsarist world and revolutionary infiltrations.
What else. Neil called last night and said that I put him uptight and he really wanted things to be natural and flow. I said why didn’t he come to dinner tomorrow? He said he had to go to San Francisco, and I said, how about Friday, and he said [he would] if he could. He said, what was I doing tonight? And I said I had an appt with Marshall Lumsden, but afterward I would be hungry, so why didn’t he take me out for dinner. And he said he’d call me back at 8 but that I really put him uptight. I said, “What do you expect from a 26-year-old Hollywood spinster?” (which is how I feel around him), and I said, “I’ll give you one more chance” (very flippant). He didn’t call back, so there you are.
Let’s see. What else? I’ve been practicing how to make the perfect omelet. They really taste fantastic with jack cheese surrounded by mandarin oranges. Oh, it’s so good.
I’m reading Julian by Vidal. I read Passage to India by E. M. Forster, which I loved, and Burmese Days by Orwell which I liked. I read Esprit de Corps by Lawrence Durrell and a strange book by Niccolò Tucci called Unfinished Funeral which was more depressing than Burmese Days. Also Snow White.
this is fun actually. good eve diary inspo [funny that they have the same name and age]
Well, I’m so broke I’m overdrawn at the bank and it makes me very nervous, especially since I don’t know when the check from the P. G. & E. [cover] is coming in, and I’m just really broke.
This weekend I gained 3 pounds. Friday was Daddy’s birthday so I ate Chinese chicken and cake. Joe Pailburn came to perk me up and, oh, and he kissed my feet. I nearly died.
I saw Neil on Thursday and fell for another of those 15-minute things, so I figured it would be best to get the fuck out of the house for a spell.
I am pretty tired from all the society and haven’t had a chance to read anything. This week I’m staying home and trying to figure out good ideas for collages.
fun
Well—I’m already 132 lbs, which is very encouraging since I practically starved and exercised all day yesterday and nearly drove myself nuts. However, it seems to be paying off as starving inevitably will.
lolll
Danny O’Keefe really likes me. He has been over a lot of times, but he is so involved in tantric yoga that I feel he’s a fool. I can’t help thinking people who believe in Oriental magic are fools—it’s so boring and unsensual. I must be a confirmed sensualist because anything that pleases me on a grab-it-and-eat-it level just makes me completely happy. But if you have to exhibit any form of faith at all, I lose interest and start looking at the clock.
ha fair
[...] Somehow Rosaline managed to irritate both Elena and Theresa almost immediately, by describing herself as “just a social worker.”
“This is just not—you have to be confident. You have to be more confident. Social work is amazing,” Theresa said. But Theresa would never have been a social worker, Rosaline felt. Theresa had been a lawyer but now did some sort of charitable fundraising. Elena did interior design.
“Like, I just want to say, yes, my husband is the one who supports the family. But I do have a business. I was in New York magazine. You have to be confident about it,” Elena said.
Later, when they asked her where she’d studied social work, Rosaline for some reason said “Just NYU,” as if she’d intended to drive them crazy.
“Oh my God, I can hardly take it,” Theresa said.
“NYU is an amazing program,” Elena said.
that is kinda funny lol
He didn’t really believe she didn’t want a house on Cabot Lake, just as it was hard for him to believe she was ever truly angry with him. She thought of the cavalcade of workers required to keep two or more places running. She wanted something easily manageable, one small place in the world, entirely hers.
There was another reason she didn’t want the house. It surprised her—or, really, it was more like surprise and condemnation—that the rich always lived like the rich, coming to the same conclusion, which was to keep their money for themselves. The most surprising aspect of this was how predictable humans were, when often they seemed so unpredictable.
She disliked what it meant to bring this up in an argument. “You’re right, of course, you’re right,” Peter was forced to say, without ever changing his mind. She’d feel crabbed and ungrateful and even unrealistic. Indulging in his money only when it suited her—that was in part true. She ate nicer food, had nicer clothes than many of her colleagues. She never had to worry about a lack of money.
The next morning, she changed into her swimsuit and went swimming. She again found Eleu sitting on his dock.
“Do you want to come inside?” he asked her. Already she wondered if something would happen.
The walls of his house were paneled with dark wood. On them hung very ordinary photographs, which he’d taken, of leaves and birds and the lake in the light. He showed her these photographs, and then he put his hand on Rosaline’s hip, very briefly, directing her down a hallway, in which more photographs had been hung, and desire almost overcame her.
She had no experience with anything like this. She had almost no compunction either, strangely, though she’d assumed she would.
She was shocked it was happening, once it was. She noticed things she hadn’t noticed in years. That her entire body became sensitive just before orgasm, that she could feel everything all at once, that the stray hairs on her face drove her almost insane. It was after she came that she began to be filled with disgust, as if this were a part of the physical process as well, a deep disgust she could feel throughout her entire body.
She and Peter had begun dating at nineteen. She’d broken up with him twice in college. Both times, he’d convinced her to take him back, saying he couldn’t live without her. She didn’t really believe him capable of such extreme emotion. He’d always be stable and predictable, she felt.
She’d seen from the beginning that he was very ambitious. When she thought the worst of him, she thought that everything in his life—his friendliness, his interests in children’s charities and golf, every single one of his acquaintances—was in fact only his ambition in all its various forms, as if he were just one thing, really, like a little mechanical device clacking its way upward.
In his own way, Peter could be distant, simply because he was so focused on his work. But in his distance he assumed the best of her. So he seemed to have no sense that she was having an affair, once she was. She continued to sleep with Eleu after they returned to New York.