This is part 2 of my “trilogy” of Donald Barthelme essays, wherein I tell you about Paradise. In a previous essay, Re The Dead Father, I introduced my plan to write about the three Barthelme books I recently purchased, which happened to published, if not written, in three different decades*.
* Snow White (1967), The Dead Father (1975), Paradise (1986).
If The Dead Father was allegory for (or acid dream about) the transfer of the family mantle from father to son, then Paradise proceeds into the next decade, when (after getting into cocaine) you decide to take it easy and find your(sober)self. Of, course, the novels are entirely unrelated-I only refer to the spirit, or tone of the novels.
In a sentence, Paradise is about Simon, an architect who is taking a sabbatical from his work and marriage, who invites three down-and-out models to live with him while they figure things out, and who recounts the events to (I presume*) a psychologist. Simon is not particularly interesting, nor are the models, but their banter amused me now and then.
* Consider this dialogue: “Sometimes I think I should have been a shrink.” “Why aren’t you?” “It’s not medicine.” (pg 29) More on this exchange-specifically the form in which it occurs-later.
I’m tempted to stop here, because I didn’t enjoy the book very much (so why spent more time on it?), yet I’m compelled to make some meaning of Simon’s time in “hog heaven,” as the girls describe his state of affairs while cohabiting with him.
Certainly, the title Paradise and occasional utterance of “hog heaven” hints at a theme. Barthelme wants us to think: What is the essence of such things as paradise and hog heaven? But the answer can’t be as simple as this, can it?-“Simon is an older guy who lives and has sex with three younger lingerie models, sounds pretty much like heaven, duh.”
Or is it that stimple? This dialogue between Simon and the (presumptive) psychologist-who, for all we know, may actually be a bartender, or a stranger on a bench-hints otherwise:
“These women spread out before you like lotus blossoms” “Not exactly like lotus blossoms.” “Open, blooming…” “More like anthills. Splendid, stinging anthills[..] The ants are plunging toothpicks into your scrotum, as it were. As the withdraw the toothpicks, little particles of flesh like shreds of ground beef adhere to the toothpicks” (pg 30).
I suspect “splendid, stinging anthill” is a euphemism for pubic hair of a certain length. In any case, Simon’s doesn’t sound like a conventional hog heaven.
Nor does Simon sound very conventional. Barthelme only scantly fills in Simon’s history. We learn tidbits about his past here and there. For example, he is a man who had, on formal occasions, worn a dog collar instead of a tie (“most sportif,” the narrator say) (pg 36); he describes his first sexual experience like so:
He thinks for a moment. “I was about ten. This teacher asked us all to make little churches for a display, kind of a model of a church. I made one out of cardboard, worked very hard on it, and took it in to her on a Friday morning, and she was pleased with it[..] Then another guy, Billy something-or-other, brought in one that was made of wood. His was better than mine. So she tossed mine out and used his” (pg 19).
Can such an explanation of a sexual experience be interpreted as anything other than ironic-as a commentary on naive awareness of sexuality as sexuality?
Here’s another thought: maybe Simon is in hog heaven, but not for the reasons other characters believe (e.g. sex). The narrator reflects, “Something to be said for being fifty-three [Simon’s age], you could enjoy the turning of the wheel. He feels every additional day a great boon” (pg 42). There’s something to be said for simply being alive, the narrator seems to imply. The awareness of opportunity implies the possibility of hog heaven, which is tantamount to living being in (realized or unrealized) hog heaven.
In other words, if Simon is not in hog heaven then it is only because he does not acknowledge it. “When he asked himself what he was doing, living in a bare elegant almost unfurnished New York apartment with three young and beautiful women, Simon had to admit that he did not know what he was doing. He was, he supposed, listening” (59). He either declines to make meaning of his situation, or simply doesn’t think to.
Consider that position in the context of this exchange:
[Veronica:] “Is this a male fantasy for you? This situation?” [Simon:] “It’s not a fantasy, is it.” [V:] “It has the structure of a male fantasy.”; [S:] “The dumbest possible way to look at it” (pg 55).
These questions come to mind: (1) what is a less dumb way to look at it, and (2) what makes Veronica’s way of looking at it “the dumbest”?
I’ll try to answer these questions by way of other questions:
Wouldn’t one’s awareness that they are in paradise be intuitive? Would they need to work it out, or be persuaded? Would that awareness be more endogenous than exogenous? Would it come from within, or without?
To me, acquiring such awareness by reason, or persuasion-based on such things as “structure”-seems “dumb.” The idea of convincing oneself, or another, to believe they are in paradise, seems dumb. Yet, these are analogous to the questions René Descartes considered when he came to the conclusion “I think, therefore I am.”
Simon once says “The absence of a plan is itself a plan” (pg 72). But what does that statement, applied as a philosophy, say about paradise? Something like this, maybe? Whether I’m in paradise or not, I’m in whatever I’m in, so I’ll operate without considering that variable.
Let’s pivot now to consider the women in the story. Interestingly, while various personages describes Simon’s situation as hog heaven, they describe the women’s situation as a “waiting room” (pg 50).
Simon was a way station, a bed-and-breakfast, a youth hostel, a staging area, a C-141 with the jumpers of the 82nd Airborne lined up at the door (pg 168).
At the same time, Simon seems to be waiting too, so in a sense he is both a waiting man (name of a great King Crimson song), and a waiting room.
Now, a little bit more about the women. I mentioned they worked as lingerie models, then lived and copulated with Simon, but what else? They are frustrated. They want more, if not different. For them, no possibility seems to have long-term appeal. Barthelme says, “There was no place in the world for these women whom he loved, no good place. They could join the underemployed half-crazed demi-poor, or they could be wives, those were the choices” (pg 168).
Or, those seemed to be the choices. When Dore complains she feels useless, Simon challenges her:
What do you want to do? Be bad, imagine something bad. “Like what?” “I have to tell you what to imagine?” (pg 182).
Simon is supportive, but in a passive way-if things work out, great; if not, that’s OK too. Who’s to say whether or not that’s appropriate? Remember, Simon isn’t much more than a stranger. Yet, they have affection for one another. As such, Dore interprets Simon’s passivity as indifference, which creates tension. She wants more from him, but she’s aware that may not be appropriate.
Veronica has similar problems negotiating her relationship with Simon. “You’re not a father figure,” she tells him;”You’re more like a guy who’s stayed out in the rain too long” (pg 112), whatever that means. When Simon tries to comfort Veronica, she interprets it as coddling. Furthermore, she interprets it as enabling her dependence upon him, and by extension, men generally-as indicated by these quotations: “It’s the fault of men. As a group”; “They don’t want us to bloom and flower” (pg 197).
Tim, an amusing but not particularly significant character named who one of the girls dates, delivers the following line: “The idea of progress is philosophically dubious” (pg 118). I’m excited to explore this idea in a forthcoming essay vis a vis Bully For Brontosaurus, by Stephen Jay Gould. It encompasses a theme in evolutionary history: the fallacy of progress. Barthelme’s approach to the theme isn’t as academic, but his it may be as lofty, more accessible. For now, I’ll put it like this: aspire to equanimity, and mind the difference between it and complacence. Or, maintain a calm mental state, but not at the expense of passion.
Simon equanimity tends toward dispassion, and dull cynicism. Simon applies this tendency in some amusing quips about inane topics, like frozen pizza: “I could make a nuclear weapon with less stuff than this pizza’s got in it” (pg 92). Or, university systems: “Simon had opposed the Vietnam war in all possible ways short of self-immolation but could not deny that it was a war constructed by people who had labored through Psychology I, II, III, IV, and Main Current in Western Thought” (pg 169).
Anne describes Simon’s attitude as one of fatigue and disgust (pg 187), but those words are too strong. I prefer the word “dispassionate,” or “aloof.” He considers things with girls as “a state or condition visited upon him, like being in the army.” In both cases, his standard operating procedure consisted of “doing the best he could from day to day” (pg 187).
He gets by. He survives; he doesn’t thrive.
All this said, Simon’s a fun character. He’s charming, witty. If your impression has been otherwise, maybe I’ve weighted his “heavier” tendencies too heavily.
Or, maybe I’ve weighted his tendencies we tend to view as “heavier” too heavily. Simon’s description of life as “states or conditions visited upon us” may strike us as uninspired, even sad and impersonal, but should it? It may not be the most flowery language, but it is not inherently negative. If it seems negative, I believe it is connoted by others, not denoted by Simon. Like the expression a glass is “half-full,” or “half-empty.” Or like observing both (1) dying is a function of living, and (2) living is a function of dying. Both are versions of, as Anne says, “WAD”: Whirling Around the Drain (pg 195).
So let’s say life is a sequence of “states or conditions visited upon us,” then what’s paradise?
I don’t know. I think that’s the point: Paradise is not about paradise; characters think it is.
Earlier, I mentioned I would expand on the role of the presumptive psychologist-specifically, the form in which Barthelme wrote Simon’s dialogue with this character: short chapters resembling “Q&A” format pepper Paradise. Interestingly, “Q” is not always a question, and what follows “A” is not always an answer-or even a direct response-to the preceding Q. It doesn’t take long to learn you should treat “Q” and “A” as variables storing “Psychologist” (or whoever it is) and “Simon”, respectively. This is Barthelme using a conventional form in a creative way, which consequently piques the reader’s interest in a number of ways. We never learn much about Q, but this admission amused me:
Myself, I think about being just sort of a regular person, one who worries about cancer a lot, every little thing a prediction of cancer, no I don’t want to go for my every-two-years-checkup because what if they find something? I wonder what will kill me and when it will happen and how it will happen, and I wonder about my parents, who are still alive, and what will happen to them (pg 77).
Sheesh, you don’t need to stare into the drain as you whirl around it-look away!
6/10
ISBN # 0 14 010358 9