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I have studied the first four chapters of Eleanor Bergstein's novel Advancing Paul Newman. Before I continue into Chapter Five, I will recapitulate here what I have learned so far.
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Karen "Kitsy" Frank was born on January 20, 1938 -- in the same year when Bergstein was born.
Kitsy's father is a doctor, perhaps a psychiatrist. On one occasion, two Jewish young women in the neighborhood came to her father at home and asked him to commit their mother to a facility. He refused to do so, saying that he "didn't want the responsibility".
Kitsy's family is ethnically Jewish, but is not involved in religion. When Kitsy was 11 years old, she became involved briefly in a Young Zionist group, which was led by an Israeli female named Dina, who seems to be somewhat older. From Dina, Kitsy learned to dance the hora and heard stories about how Jewish refugees were smuggled into Israel.
Kitsy did not belong to the group long, because it soon disbanded. Shortly before that happened, the group performed at a school assembly. During an intermission of the performance, Kitsy went into the room where the performers were changing costumes. Dina had removed her upper clothing and was bare-breasted briefly in the presence of a male performer who likewise was changing costumes. Kitsy's glimpse of Dina -- "thin and not pretty" with that male -- impressed Kitsy negatively. "Being Jewish was something ... sadly sexual".
Ten years later, in 1959, Kitsy remembered her brief involvement with the Young Zionist group as "the most Jewish thing she'd ever done".
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It seems that Kitsy attended a women's college. She had applied to attend Vassar, a women's college, but she was not accepted there (she was put onto the waiting list) and so had to attend another college. Kitsy graduated in the spring of 1959. In the summer of 1959, Kitsy participates in a bus tour in Europe with some other graduates of women's colleges.
The tour was advertised as a "traveling seminar of ideas with statesmen and journalists in informal settings". The tour guide is "the elderly widow of the martyred publisher of a Danish resistance newspaper". The widow is conducting such a tour for the first time. The girls (Bergstein calls her young-women characters "girls", and so will I) travel about nine hours a day in a Volkswagen bus. Then in the evenings, after dinner, this guide engages the girls in conversations along the lines: "Shall we talk together of what we have seen this day. The people by the road, their faces were not happy ones, yes?"
The girls soon become dissatisfied that they were not experiencing a "traveling seminar of ideas".
The tour begins in Switzerland and proceeds through France and into Germany. Already in Switzerland, Kitsy becomes friends with another girl, Ila Rappaport. I assume that Ila had attended a different women's college than Kitsy attended. Since Ila too is Jewish, I assume also that the tour was organized specially for Jewish graduates of women's colleges.
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Kitsy has pink cheeks and dark hair, which she wears in a pageboy with bangs and with a pink hairband. Her best dress on the tour was "a pale blue linen sack, hung straight and chaste from her neck except for the two sweet thumps of her breasts and buttocks". Kitsy is a "sturdy rounded lively girl".
Ila is taller and her hair is light-colored -- "silvery tan". She has Slavic cheekbones. She has "heavy breasts" and skinny legs that look "spectacular" in short skirts.
In encounters, men are attracted to Ila much more than than to Kitsy.
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In Paris, the Kitsy and Ila go to a bookstore and buy two pornographic novels -- still illegal in the USA -- written by Henry Miller. Kitsy buys The Tropic of Cancer, and Ila buys The Tropic of Capricorn.
Kitsy intends to become a writer and spends much of her time during the tour writing her detailed observations in a notebook.
Ila says that she might want to become a writer too, but she shows no effort and does not know what she might write about. For now, she prefers to talk about learning to play the French horn.
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Neither Kitsy nor Ila know of any relatives who suffered during the Nazi period in Europe. It seems that both their families have lived in America for generations and have become prosperous.
Ila is emotional -- sometimes bursting into tears -- about visiting Germany as a Jew, and Kitsy is relatively objective. Sometimes Kitsy even treats the experience as a lark.
While traveling in West Germany, Kitsy and Ila escape from the tour group and travel together to Berlin, which was located in the middle of East Germany. In West Berlin, Kitsy and Ila become acquainted with a couple of West German, who take them on a one-day excursion into East Berlin.
After the group returns to West Berlin, Ila goes alone with one of the men to his apartment, while Kitsy returns to her hotel room. Kitsy still is a virgin and is angry and that Ila has involved herself so quickly with this German man, who is 31 years old and who served in a Hitler Youth militia during the War.
In the German photographer's apartment, Ila undresses, gets into bed with him and (I assume) poses for nude photographs. She does not, however, engaged in vaginal intercourse with him. After her sexual adventure, Ila returns to Kitsy in the hotel room.
Kitsy and Ila buy tickets for an airplane flight out of the West Berlin airport. Because they dawdled at their hotel, though, they miss their flight. Ila calls the German photographer and goes back to his apartment for more naked fun with him. Meanwhile, Kitsy wanders in downtown Berlin. When she tries to call the German photographer, he does not answer her phone calls.
Eventually Kitsy and Ila fly out of West Berlin on another flight.
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In earlier articles in this blog, I have developed the idea that Baby Houseman suffers a manic-depressive disorder, Type 2. While reading Advancing Paul Newman, I already am developing the idea that the novel portrays such a disorder in the two leading characters.
* Kitsy is a character in a normal emotional state.At the end of Chapter One, Bergstein states her theme explicitly:
* Ila is a character alternating between depressive and manic states.
This is the story of two girls, each of whom suspected the other of a more passionate connection with life.Kitsy lives her life in self-disciplined, objective manner -- practicing her writing skills with a goal of becoming a professional writer. Ila bursts into tears at the thought of being a Jew visiting Germany, but then she impulsively gets naked and into bed with a 31-year-old German man. Which girl has the "more passionate connection with life"?
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I will continue this series in Part 5.
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