The Abyss of Human Illusion

COMMENTARIES

— I —

… Kraft French Dressing, glowing weirdly orange … The label on the bottle describes this dressing as “creamy.” So it was in 1934, so it is now. No one has ever discovered why this dressing, with its odd tang of sugary vinegar, was and is called “French,” nor has anyone suggested a reason for its strange, pumpkin-like color. It is highly popular.

… a bottle of Worcestershire sauce … This sauce was Lea and Perrins, considered by virtually everyone to be the ne plus ultra of Worcestershire sauces. The brand has been made since 1835, and its paper wrapper surely adds to its special cachet. For many years, the label on the bottle noted that it was the recipe of a “nobleman in the county,” or, perhaps, “country,” but that information is no longer provided.

— II—

… the Shadow … The Shadow’s name was Lamont Cranston, and his assistant and (perhaps) fiancée and/or lover was Margo Lane. She was always described as “the lovely Margo Lane.”

… Philco floor-model radio … Philco radios have not been manufactured for many years.

… his black cloak and black slouch hat … While the Shadow wore such raiment in the pulp stories conceived by author Walter B. Gibson, producers of the radio version, which concerns us here, working within the constraints of the medium, imbued the character with a secret power that he had “learned in the Orient,” the power “to cloud men’s minds so that they cannot see him.” Nor, of course, could listeners: it could not have mattered what he wore.

… his unearthly laughter … The Shadow was good, a fighter of crime and oppression, yet the boy is terrified. This might suggest that children know that good may instantly become evil, and vice versa.

— III —

… standing at a dark window … Fictional characters who stand at dark windows are often constrained to look down at streets gleaming with rain. But not here.

— IV —

… his mother sits with a highball … In this instance, Canada Dry ginger ale and Seagram’s 7 blended whisky. The term “highball” is no longer in general use.

… he has been talking, quarreling … The quarrel was about money, specifically, a loan from his father-in-law on which the father would like to delay payment. His wife has taken her father’s side in this argument, not, perhaps, a good sign for the stability of the marriage.

— V —

… a drone of music … It may be inferred that the narrator does not like the music in question. But the conversation? What deductive inference are we to draw from the singular selection, for further commentary, of one type of “drone”?

… The cab was waiting … A checker cab, one of the small, lost pleasures of New York life.

… wearing his wife’s clothes … This is somewhat puzzling. Either the woman was the wife’s size, or the wife’s clothing was of the one-size-fits-all variety.

— VI —

… his wife dead for many years … His wife’s name was Constance (Connie), and his children’s Rose, Maria, Grace, and Alexander (Alex).

— VII —

… Carol and … the girls’ last names, in order, are: Brookner, Kalmas, Margolis, Imperato, Jorgensen, Pincus, Aquino, Griffin, Wasserman, Chaves, Newman, Bello, Scisorek, Vail, and Kirkjian.

… the shade of a birch tree … It may have been a poplar, or whatever you prefer.

— VIII —

… store-brand English muffin … The store, A&P; the brand, Jane Parker.

…peanut butter … The peanut butter is also the A&P’s own brand. Ann Page.

… a cigarette … He smokes Camel Lights and Marlboro Lights.

… the old story of the death camp survivor … The story: after being liberated from Auschwitz, a Jew tells another Jew that he’s going to leave soon for Brazil or Chile or Laos or Pakistan — someplace that is not in Europe. The other Jew says, “It’s so far!”, to which the first Jew replies, “Far from what?”

— IX —

… the sliding glass door … This suggests, but does not, certainly, prove, that the mise-en-scène is California.

… it presented a message … E.g., “Hello! You’ve been selected for a Caribbean vacation!”

… he’d had a friend … This unexpected event occurred a month or so after the friend had published his first book of poems. There is probably no significance to this, although another “friend” of the poet said that perhaps he’s read his own work.

— X—

… loves a girl, who, as it turns out … The reader may be reminded of the last lines of Swann’s Way (Moncrieff-Kilmartin translation): “to think that I’ve wasted years of my life, that I’ve longed to die, that I’ve experienced my greatest love, for a woman who didn’t appeal to me, who wasn’t even my type!” It should be noted, however, that Proust tells us that Swann said this to himself in a period of his “intermittent caddishness.”

… anything you can dream up … You might wish to make on the fly leaves of this book some of the things you can dream up, if you wish; the reader is the ruler.

… relentlessly invents its gods … It is, of course, distressingly clear that many societies believe that their gods have not been invented but have permitted themselves to be revealed. There were also many extinct societies that believed in revealed gods. The latter are also extinct, despite the occasional romantic attempt to pretend otherwise.

… “in mysterious ways”… “God works in mysterious ways” is one of the supreme bromides of our age, and this is the age of bromides, many of them disguised as hardheaded observations of life.

— XI —

… the Angelus is heard … The morning Angelus prayer in the Roman Catholic church is announced by the ringing of church bells at 6:00 a.m. In this case, the bells are ringing in the belfry of the Visitation Academy, a school for Catholic girls, in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

… in Dr. Denton pajamas … One-piece children’s pajamas, often of cotton flannel, their distinguishing feature is the presence of foot coverings, so that the wearer has, so to speak, built-in “slippers” on the garment. They were especially popular in the thirties and forties.

— XII —

… smoking one cigarette after another … In this particular case, Philip Morris cigarettes, the package of which was designed to look like a cured tobacco leaf.

… the husband’s Zippo lighter … This lighter had a matte nickel finish.

… a gold graduation-gift fountain pen … This was an Eversharp Skyline fountain pen of 14K gold. Its companion mechanical pencil had been broken for years, and languished in a kitchen drawer.

… She was, of course, pregnant … She may well have been made pregnant by her husband, but he didn’t think so.

— XIII —

… sliced open his gum … The dentist — in a case such as this, surely, an oral surgeon — will replace the lost bone with liquid bone (biphasic calcium phosphate, or BCP), which ideally will grow as naturally as the patient’s own bones, ultimately replacing it, so that he is “as good as new.”

… and removes her skirt … Fantasies of sexual adventures with providers of medical care would seem to be well-nigh universal, at least among male patients.

— XIV —

… in the best tradition of the deathless cliché … “deathless cliché” is, of course, a deathless cliché.

… still famous for his charming mediocrities … That’s your opinion.

— XV —

… a sun-faded lime-green monster … The term “lime-green” does not truly describe the color of this vehicle, which was of one never seen or even approximated in nature.

… he took $147.34 … In 1960, this was a considerable sum. A yearly income of $5,000–$6,000 was enough to live on quite comfortably.

— XVI —

… at the Medical Field Service School … The school was attached to the Brooke Army Medical Center.

… The sky was turning rose and blue … Rimbaud dated “Rèvé pour L’Hiver” October 7, 1870, noting that it was composed “En Wagon,” or aboard a train. While it is rarely, if ever, a good idea to attempt a translation — a transliteration — of poetry into prose, this does have some of the flavor of the original — lacking, of course, Rimbaud’s brilliant casualness, his arrogant and elegant linguistic slouch.

— XVII —

… smelled of rancid and sour fat … In the early part of the twentieth century, this smell might have been called, in some working-class circles, “a far-away smell.”

… the way of Greek warriors … Other Greek warriors who dressed their hair in such wise: Agamemmnon, Menelaus, Ajax (both Great and Lesser), etc., etc.

… Odysseus … Odysseus was red-headed, a sign, perhaps, of his Achean roots.

… “a groove, man!”… Like, excellent. Back-formation, “Groovy.”

— XVIII —

… the booth of the diner … It might have been the Royal, Homer’s, Kirk’s, or the Bridge View.

— XIX —

… white rayon underpants … In the thirties, these were called “step-ins,” a curiously obvious name.

… her lunch dishes … Dishes probably bought at the local Woolworth five and ten. They were probably decorated with lead-painted flowers, or multicolored stripes.

— XX —

… under a mortar attack … The expertise of the Chinese with mortars was well-known among American troops during the Korean War.

… FECOM … An acronym for Far East Command.

— XXI —

… an improvisatory fantasia … There are many marriages that are based upon “improvisatory fantasias,” and why not? The notions of “honesty” in marriage, the revelation of all secrets, and “realism” seem to come from popular fiction of all sorts.

… “swell”… A word that is no longer in use, save ironically. The late painter and writer, Fielding Dawson, however, used the word without a trace of irony.

— XXII —

… a little girl in pigtails … These two figures looked vaguely dated.

… Handsome is as handsome does … This expression may, for some who are not concerned with linguistic subtleties, be transliterated, so to speak, as “actions speak louder than words.”

— XXIII —

… AMEN DICO VOBIS QUIA UNUS VESTRUM METRADITURUS EST … Which may be translated: “Amen, I say to you, there is one [of you] who will betray me.”

… in a summer pinafore … The pinafore is pink and white.

… The Make-Believe Ballroom … a radio program hosted by the D. J. Martin Block. The theme song, “It’s Make-Believe Ballroom Time,” was, I believe, the Glenn Miller version.

… to Jersey City?! … Jersey City was, and probably still is, unprepossessing at the best of times; in the “bitter cold” it could be thoroughly dispiriting.

… Lux Radio Theater … The hallmark of this radio drama series was its presentation, as aural dramas, of the popular movies of the era. Lana Turner may well have starred in the radio version of The Postman Always Rings Twice.

… Bix Beiderbecke’s “Margie”… “Margie,” a popular song, with words by Benny Davis, music by Con Conrad and J. Russel Robinson, published in 1920. It was performed, perhaps most famously, by Eddie Cantor in the film, Margie. The Beiderbecke performance, here noted, was recorded in New York on September 21, 1928, by Bix Beiderbecke and his Gang. The personnel were: Beiderbecke, cornet, Bill Rank, trombone, Izzy Friedman, clarinet, Min Leibrook, bass saxophone, Roy Bargy, piano, and Lennie Hayton, ordinarily a pianist, on drums. Bix plays with his usual heartbreaking clarity of tone. It’s pleasant to think otherwise, but Martin Block would probably never had had Bix’s “Margie” on his playlist.

— XXIV —

… had he a wife … This may suggest that Vince once had a wife but no longer had one, or it may suggest nothing of the kind.

… next shopping trip … To the A&P or Bohack’s….

the favored cereal … In this case, Post Toasties, the General Foods Corporation’s apparent attempt at whimsy.

— XXV —

… sunbaked funereal places … E.g.: Las Vegas, NV; Palm Springs, CA; Phoenix, AZ; St. Augustine, FL; Santa Fe, NM; etc.

… an accounting ledger … Purchased at his local stationery store, Laverty & Son, on Eighth Avenue between Thirteenth and Fourteenth Streets in New York. The store no longer exists.

— XXVI —

… canned 3.2 beer from a case … The beer, from an Army beer hall, had an alcohol content of 3.2 %, and was slightly more potent than water.

… the beer hall … The beer hall in question was at Fort Hood, Texas; at the time — Spring 1952—THE home of the Second Armored Division (“Hell on Wheels”). No officers were anywhere in sight on this wholly uneventful day.

… one had Lone Star, the other Pearl … Two brands of beer that were and, taking into account various corporate acquisitions, nominally still are indigenous to Texas.

… It was Rosie! … “Rosie” was Marvin Rosenthal, a corporal with the Seventh Infantry Division; “Koenig” was Walter Koenig, a PFC from the same division.

… chickenshit motherfucker platoon sergeant … The reference is to SFC Luther Crittenden, also of the Seventh Division.

— XXVII —

… More stories … The reader may make his own list, and may be astonished to realize how long it finally is.

… Henry James … No writer’s antennae have ever been as good at detecting well-mannered social and sexual sadism.

— XXVIII —

… its rejection slip clipped … I have no idea if the New Yorker uses or used formal rejection slips.

… printed-out “stuff”… Steve thought the word “stuff” democratic and non-elite, it perhaps made him feel like Clifford Odets, although in any case the word seems somewhat out of place in connection with electrostatically transferred, heat and pressure-fused printed documents.

… in a writing workshop with Steve at the New School … “Writing for Publication” was the official title of the course.

— XXIX —

… admitted to the hospital immediately … The hospital was the Caledonia, located on Prospect Park South. It is now called the Caledonian Campus of the Brooklyn Hospital Center. The nurse’s aides wore plaid jumpers.

… he’d drive him in his car … the car was a 1951 Olds….

… lit one of his Lucky Strikes … By now, of course, in their wartime white package, the switch from OD being a great advertising coup — profit in patriotism.

— XXX —

… at his wife’s office … The office was the Kew Gardens Branch of Thermo-Fax Sales, a division of 3M.

… a gym or an aerobics class … Aerobics classes were virtually unknown in the fifties and sixties.

… three “really encouraging” letters … There were no letters, but he began to believe that he had been praised and encouraged by various flunkeys working at Thanatos, Cistern, Blackfriars Review, and, amazingly, The New Cadmean.

… down in the romantic Caribbean … Natives usually do not use the word “romantic” to describe that part of the world.

— XXXI —

… days of Juicy Fruit … The flavor of this chewing gum has no relation to any fruit known to man.

… and the Milano Restaurant … This restaurant persists in memory as being located on West Fortieth Street near Eighth Avenue.

… existent only in his mother’s stories … One of which was that his father had spent $1,000 for a cigar as they left the Milano: the implication was that this “transaction” was slightly illegitimate, perhaps even criminal.

… drunk on cheap whiskey … E.g., Wilson “That’s All,” Paul Jones, Schenley Silver Label, Fleischmann’s, Four Roses, Three Feathers.

… whom he always thought of, to be truthful, as a hambone…. Although he was a wonderfully demonic Mr. Hyde, an erotically charged fiend.

— XXXII —

… who lived in the apartment above his … Perhaps he had what used to be called a “club foot.”

… whose wife had died in misery … Cause of death unknown.

… whose children were callous … They were minimally attentive, but cold and distant; this may have had something to do with the fact that they believed he had little or no savings.

… lovely of face and figure … The phrase is not actually “written,” but lies at the side of the road.

… did not say what he thought … Let’s assume that he thought nothing at all.

— XXXIII —

… the book of poetry … Title: The Future of Eternity; the publisher was Knopf. The reviews compared the poems — famously — with those of Elizabeth Bishop, a bad sign.

… his street crusted over … This was in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, where Colonial Road “becomes” Marine Avenue.

… that he’d never given up smoking … It was too late, anyway: he had developed lung cancer which had metastasized to his brain (these are some of the brands of cigarettes he smoked over some sixty years in rough chronological order: Wings, Twenty Grand, Sweet Caporal, Old Gold, Philip Morris, Pall Mall, Herbert Tareyton, Lucky Strikes, Camel, Gauloises, Marlboro Lights, Camel Filters).

— XXXIV —

… into the mountains … The mountains are easier to imagine than the sea, which almost always confounds memory.

… amusement park … Cf. Steeplechase, Luna Park, Dreamland.

… blew her skirt up … This was one of the cruder amusements at Steeplechase in the 1940s.

… the Big Lasso … This was a ride much like the Whip — rough and unsubtle.

… his convertible … A 1948 Buick.

… real ferryboats once made regular runs … The boats were small and painted a curiously drab olive green.

… or so Boys’ Life reported … In a piece by Carl Olssen, “Temptation in the Woods.”

… “My beer is Rheingold, the dry beer” … Rheingold beer was brewed in Brooklyn, NY, and was famous for its Miss Subways monthly displays in subways, cars, and buses.

… Flagg Brothers … These shoes were highly popular among high school boys ca. 1945–1947. They had to be dyed cordovan or were considered beneath contempt and unwearable.

— XXXV —

… to ride up to her thighs … Women always seem to know when they are “showing something,” as they say. (This phrase maybe obsolete or quaint.)

… intentions were very clear … Crude behavior often mutely begs forgiveness if presented or enacted as impossible to reign in, “natural.”

… roughly, angrily yanked her skirt down … Eros is to be found everywhere at this party, working, however, rather fitfully.

— XXXVI —

… mediocre state university … What was called, in saner times, a “rube school” or a “football school.”

… Redwood Review … Its original title was Eldorado Review, rather pointedly named after the erstwhile Cadillac model.

— XXXVII —

… King Assembly Agency … An assembly agency consolidates freight and packs it into freight cars for countrywide destinations. In New York, the working platforms for such labor were in the West Forties near the slaughterhouses.

… this frozen center of his body … This figure may be considered a metaphor, a metonymy, a synechdoche, or a blunt symbol.

— XXXVIII —

… impressed his teachers … These teachers knew, in effect, nothing about art, and taught their students from color reproductions of “famous paintings.” The course in art appreciation was taught once a week.

… Provincetown softball games … Some of the players and onlookers became very famous, others simply disappeared or taught at the Art Students League for many years.

… he moved to England … An excellent way to get him offstage.

— XXXIX —

… Talmud, Buddha … These are, of course, not religions.

… her White Robe … The devil, it is said, has many wiles, white robes on well-built women being but one of them. Satan calls this costume “Jerry Falwell’s Breakdown.”

— XL —

… scrub woods and dry grass … Of whatever kind. (This passage sounds like a dream, at any rate.)

… picturesque seaside town … E.g., Carmel, Tiburon, Sausalito: these are not really towns but theme parks representing quaint charm (there used to be a good seafood restaurant in Tiburon).

… is performing oral sex … This is definitely a dream, or an invented dream — makes little difference.

… he begins to cry … It’s about time to reread “The Interpretation of Dreams”: Freud is right even when he’s wrong.

— XLI —

… that performer’s weary shtick … Which shtick is, astonishingly, admired by many, Crown Heights accent included.

… Kamenstein’s, Forest Green … The color was very close to one called North Woods. It somehow breathed depression and despair.

— XLII —

… an orphanage … There is no information as to whether or not the orphanage was run by sadists, but given the era, it seems likely.

… Patton’s Third Army … The Second Armored Division was Patton’s favorite division, called “Hell on Wheels.” Its soldiers wore their unit patches on their left pockets, “close to their hearts.”

… the moment he put a brush to canvas … Many painters love to tell this story about their early beginnings.

… blood and agony and horror … A good argument can be and has been made for the opinion that everyone killed in war is killed in vain, but it’s the dying man’s job to point out that we survive in vain.

— XLIII —

… written by a stranger … His best books were Farsighted, Ghost Talk, Azure Piano, and A Small Hotel. He couldn’t bear to reread any of them.

… He wasn’t much good for anything else … Despite what seemed to be rueful protestations, he didn’t want to be good for anything else.

… doomed to blunder through the shadows of this pervasive twilight … This is, admittedly, a melodramatic phrase.

— XLIV —

… diet and exercise and meditation … As everyone knows, Death is always standing on the corner, sucking on a toothpick and waiting for an assignment.

— XLV —

… a touch of the whore … A deliberately inflammatory phrase.

… he no longer desired his wife … This is a not-uncommon state of affairs.

… Lawton, Oklahoma … Fort Sill had made this grim burg possible.

… “the old homestead,” as the whole family liked to call it … This is not true.

… too-tight sweater … Satan was happy to reveal her nipples to Dad.

… smoking and looking out … She was partial to Pall Malls, which one Jack McCarthy called “the whore’s cigarette.”

… slept in bathtubs or in the car … And sometimes without a pillow.

… If he even knew she’d left … This is an exaggeration. Of course he knew.

— XLVI —

… makes us look anew at literature … This “anew” look seems to occur every publishing season — something like the annual return of the flu.

— XLVII —

… one dump after another … E.g., Far West Cafe, Bejar Saloon, Juan’s Chili Cellar, Hot Pepper Place. All these places served Pearl beer, Jax beer, and Carta Blanca beer, with small bowls of salted green olives on the side.

… a hideously figured shirt … Sometimes known as a “Hawaiian” shirt, it was often referred to in the army as an “AWOL” shirt, and was, fittingly, a magnet for vindictive M.P.’s.

… the Cactus Hotel … Not a bad name for a Southwestern fleabag circa 1950.

… chaotic Sunday look … The barracks looks as if it will never be clean or orderly again.

… hot Meskin ass … The speaker might have said “pussy”; in this context, the words are interchangeable.

… “Fuckin’ A”… this expression was supposedly first used by soldiers of the 1st Army, which patch was a stylized capital A. The expression implies strong agreement.

— XLVIII —

… “Eyetalians”… Few people, save for clusters of yahoos, pronounce the word this way: a triumph for tolerance.

… a faint accent … His accent, like hers, was almost pure New York (see The Oxford Companion to the English Language, p.693–4).

… gray Persian lamb coat … A prized fur in the forties and early fifties, thought to be more fashionable and chic than black fur.

… Black Hand … An “American” term for the Mafia or Cosa Nostra: never used by Italians or Sicilians, a kind of tabloid name.

— XLIX —

… like cultists … And/or those who chat with God.

… smoked a lot of marijuana … E.g., Bangalore Blast, Mexicali Mania, Super Head, etc.

… rebels … The word is used with pronounced irony, of course.

… broccoli-rutabaga casserole … This dish may taste better than it sounds.

… a macramé class … An “adult education” class….

… carrot cake … Her secret ingredient was a pinch of thyme.

… Akina … whose real name was Arlene.

… diligently fake disreputability … This was about the time when the Dom closed and the Electric Circus took its place. It was the beginning of the end of the Lower East Side, now a neighborhood of staggeringly, albeit carefully disguised, bourgeois sensibilities.

— L —

… didn’t understand Los Angeles … Los Angeles cannot be understood.

… sunny, blue Los Angeles day … the sort of day that rapists and mass killers come out to pursue their interests.

… performed fellatio … No dream: the man wore a filthy Deere cap.

… New York was of no help … It didn’t even look as if it could be of help, unlike L.A., which seemed to explode with optimism and gold in the streets.

… pull-out Carlyle couch … This may well have been a Carlyle copy.

… Svengali … A lot has been written about Svengali, but few are prepared to believe that he ran a Kosher dairy restaurant in Minsk.

… What did St. Louis look like? … He imagined a different city each time he thought of the place.

… strange and alien St. Louis … Well … maybe, but pedestrian.

Some of these commentaries may not be wholly reliable.