William Gaddis - A Folic Of His Own

— No that's good to know, you had it published? Access, see that's what we're talking about that constitutes access, chance for somebody to read it and lift whatever they…

— I didn't say it was published! No, I submitted it with some excerpts written as a novel, the way I'd treat the whole thing as a novel and they turned it down because of my age, they liked it they liked it a lot but they said I was too old to market, not the book but me, to market me! Talk shows, book tours all the rubbish that publishing's turned into, not marketing the work but selling the author in this whole revolting media circus turning the creative artist into a performer in this frenzy of publicity because I wasn't a baseball player with AIDS or a dog that lived in the White House I was just too old, try to deal with these publishers all they want is your coffee, put it down there Ilse not on the books! on those newspapers there, I sent a copy to myself registered mail in a sealed envelope against just such a piece of dirty work as this one, I did that when I…

— Takes care of your copyright then, already protected if it was never published or performed in public anyplace, send it to yourself in a sealed envelope you don't even have an audience of one if it never circulated out in the…

— I'm coming to that, just be patient. I sent it to some television director I can't remember his name, that was back when I wrote it when television was still occasionally doing things with some kind of artistic and intellectual content not this rubbish where a man's rushing around in a simian crouch jamming an enormous pistol at you, mindless action for the sake of action just like everything else out there, no. No, when Hector's body is dragged around the walls of Troy there's action, action with some meaning in it because Hector has meaning as a hero, put him up against Achilles and…

— Don't remember his name?

— Hector?

— This television director you sent your play to.

— No. It was a nice name like Armstrong, Montgomery but, no, I can't remember.

— He like it?

— No. He rejected it, he…

— You have his rejection letter? Did you sign a release? Usually they won't even read something without a release, won't even send it back without a postpaid envelope.

— It's around here somewhere no, I didn't sign a release. He probably never read it himself anyhow, probably some twit of a secretary right out of business school who'd ask which side George Washington fought on.

— Name couldn't have been this Kiester could it?

— God no! I said it was a nice name didn't I? You think I'd have submitted it to somebody named Kiester? That whole gang out there that's why I was told to call a firm like yours, dealing with a Montgomery or an Armstrong I would have called in Davis Polk or Cravath, but Kiester? you follow me?

— Can't say I do, Mister Crease.

— Go after that gang out there you'd better get a Jewish lawyer, that's what they told me.

— Why you were real surprised to see me walk in here.

— Well I, matter of fact, yes, I…

— Don't mean anything by it, no. You can send me right back you know, pay the consultation fee and that's it.

— Well that's not, no, no that's not what I meant at all we, after all Mister Basic we, you're obviously a civilized man with your theatre experience and the, and Yeats of course yes I think we're off to a good start here aren't we?

— That's good to know.

— Getting into slavery here and that whole sentimental myth about the old antebellum South, Thomas is leaving and trying to get his mother up to stay at Quantness while he's gone and the Major…

— You come to think about it though, it's those Jews in Hollywood you're talking about that pretty much gave us that myth, spread it around.

— That may well be yes, but…

— Butterfly McQueen twittering around and old Hattie McDaniel grousing all loving and faithful, horses and beautiful women and Leslie Howard off to fight the good fight?

— Just a shame they didn't win it, two separate countries like we've got right now but I mean really separate, borders, passports, import duties, rural economy down there growing God knows what for the mills in the North and religion, God, talk about another country, there's your nice Baptist lady on election day right behind the local bootlegger both of them voting dry, ever been in the South? Beautiful horses and bad teeth, sit down in a restaurant first thing you're offered is coffee, then the salad course and you finally get to the meal, getting it backwards like everything else. Ever been there?

— Been in Texas but that was…

— Well Texas of course. Texas is unspeakable. Here, you'll see what I mean.

THE MAJOR

Your, ah, mother, Thomas? Is she all settled in?

THOMAS

(SNAPPING HIS WATCH OPEN NERVOUSLY, LOOKS UP)

I had to send Henry down in a rig to get her. No one had told me about John Israel.

THE MAJOR

Told you what.

THOMAS

Why, that he ran off.

THE MAJOR

(TRANSFERRING HIS INDIGNATION)

John Israel, run off? We'll have them out to hunt him, and fit punishment…

THOMAS

No, it happened in winter, months ago.

THE MAJOR

Well why didn't… they didn't anyone tell us. William?

WILLIAM

(TURNING TO THOMAS SLOWLY, WITH A SMILE OF INNOCENT BUT ALMOST CUNNING INTIMACY)

'The punishment it inflicts on those who refuse to obey it is nothing more than a means of compelling them to be free…'?

THE MAJOR

(TO KANE)

Yes, you might have noticed the staircase out here? This same niggra John Israel built it. I offered Thomas six hundred dollars for John Israel. They'd taught him to read down there at The Bells. Isn't that the gratitude you bound to expect? Teaching a niggra like that to read, that he's bound to run off with his head full of nonsense? The newel post out there, it's carved like a pineapple, and then to go teaching him to read? A niggra that can turn wood like that, filling his head up full of ideas? How do they expect he's going to turn out?

KANE

A black Epictetus?

THE MAJOR

Yes, a black… what?

KANE

The philosopher Epictetus, a Greek slave…

THE MAJOR

Yes, they had the proper idea of these things now, didn't they. Aristotle, he was the Greek philosopher, I can show you somewhere what he had to say about natural slaves. That there's some just naturally meant to be slaves.

KANE

Ah… but to let a man's colour decide it, sir? Why, every Greek knew the threat of enslavement. Think, on the day he set off to war, how he must have pondered what the poet meant with "The day a man's enslaved, Zeus robs him of half his virtue.'

THE MAJOR

(HEATEDLY)

Exactly, sir! And who ended up taken prisoner and enslaved? Those with neither the skill to win nor the courage to die, like these niggras out here. What do we get over here from Africa? Not the ones with the courage to fight off the slavers, or smart enough to escape them, no. What we get here is the natural slaves, they're the ones that are already slaves where they come from, that can't do a thing but what they're told, that have to have everything laid out for them right down to the line, that can't do a thing but follow orders. We don't get the warrior class, the aristocrats…

(PAUSES, BUT is PROVOKED BY KANE'S SILENT APPRAISAL OF HIM)

Yes, I can show you in these same books, sir. The Acropolis there in Athens, Greece, it was built the same way this house was built.

KANE

(PROMPTS, AS THOUGH PRIVATELY AMUSED)

For the same 'arms-bearing aristocracy…'

THE MAJOR

Indeed it is, sir. I can show you in any Southern camp right today, the courtesies between officers and men, if you care to see these… arms-bearing aristocrats.