Advancing Paul Newman -- Part 7

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 and Part 6

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I have discussed the first eight chapters of Eleanor Bergstein's novel Advancing Paul Newman. I have read  through page 102 of the 373-page novel.

I am critical of the novel, but I enjoy reading it. Much of it is difficult to understand, but so is much of Shakespeare and Joyce. I am reading the novel leisurely, stopping to figure out puzzles and re-reading.

I have become interested in the characters Kitsy and Ila -- two young women who have graduated from college and are trying to make their ways in New York City during the early 1960s.

The novel continues to jump back and forth between the early 1960s and 1968, but now I am focusing only on the 1960s parts and just glancing at the 1968 parts, which I will read later. I am interested in the insights into Eugene McCarthy's 1968 election campaign, but I prefer not to jump back and forth now between the two time periods.

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During the novel's first four chapters, I was puzzled  by 1) whether the man killed in Vietnam was the husband of Kitsy or of some other woman and 2) a mysterious character named Louis. These puzzles were solved for me in Chapter Five, which mentions that Kitsy, by 1968, had had two husbands. So, Kitsy's second husband was killed in Vietnam and his name was Louis.

I expect that the death of Louis in Vietnam will cause Kitsy to join McCarthy's election campaign.

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I am becoming more and more convinced that the novel is largely autobiographical. One indication is that many events in the novel happen at the same time as specific real events.

* Nikita Khruschev spoke at the United Nations

* Nelson Rockefeller announced that he intended to divorce his wife.

* The movies or Broadway plays Cold Blood, Savage Eye, Gigi, etc. were playing.

* Marilyn Monroe died.

I take these examples off the top of my head. If I went went through the book carefully again, I could make a much longer list and develop a detailed chronology of the novel's story. It's apparent that Bergstein wrote a diary during her twenties and thirties and used it constantly while she wrote this novel.

As one consequence, the novel is cluttered with thoughts and incidents that distract the reader from grasping a main narrative.

As an example of unnecessary distraction, the novel tells in some detail how Kitsy went to buy a ribbon from a milliner named "Mr. Louis". This name appears when the reader still is puzzling about the mysterious Louis. I had to stop and wonder whether the Mr. Louis and the Louis are the same character (they are not). I assume that Bergstein simply copied the name Mr. Louis from her diary, not realizing that the name might confuse readers.

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So far, the novel has not discussed Kitsy's family. By the end of Chapter Eight, only Kitsy's father has been mentioned -- and only very briefly a couple of times.

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The fact that Kitsy and Ila are ethnically Jewish is discussed during Chapter Two, when they are touring Europe in 1959. Otherwise through Chapter Eight, their Jewish ethnicity is not mentioned and seems to be irrelevant to their lives. During those chapters, each girl has one serious boyfriend. Ila has Loren (last name never mentioned), and Kitsy has Arthur Cornell. Neither boyfriend seems to be Jewish, and neither girl seems to care.

 Both girl want to have boyfriends, but neither girl obsesses about getting married soon. Ila seems more interested in marrying than Kitsy does. Kitsy's main aspiration is to become a professional writer. Kitsy clearly wants to postpone marriage and motherhood.

Ila is rather sexual and even promiscuous, and sexual enjoyment is a major reason why she wants to have a boyfriend. Kitsy seems to want a boyfriend rather more for intellectual, social, status and appearance reasons. She enjoys sex, but considers it to be a secondary consideration in her boyfriend relationship and sometimes criticizes him along sexual lines to herself and even to other women.

Neither girl is eager to give birth and raise children. In particular, Kitsy's basic conflict with Arthur seems to be that he wants her to become a housewife soon and then to write at home only in her spare time.

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I continue to develop the idea that Ila represents a manic-depressive mood disorder. For example, Ila seems to become depressed after Kitsy moves into Ila's apartment. Then, impulsively, she goes on a round-the-world trip. Ila is drifting through her life, with no clear goals beyond having a boyfriend.

In contrast, Kitsy is rather self-controlled in pursuing her ambitious career to become a professional writer. She writes a detailed diary. She improves her personal appearance and conduct in order to earn promotions in the literary agency that employs her. She is calculating and somewhat exploitative in her relationship with Arthur. She delays in her decision to dump him, as long as she continues to benefit from the relationship.

Ila is a girl who swings back and forth between manic and depressive states, and Kitsy is a girl who remains largely in a normal mood state.

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Although Jewish ethnicity has been mentioned only in Chapter Two, Philip Roth's 1959 novel Goodbye, Columbus is mentioned in Chapter Eight. The circumstances are that Kitsy, Ila, Arthur and some of their acquaintances are spending time at a beach house in August 1962. A paperback copy of the book happens to be in the beach house, and it becomes the subject of a discussion. It seems that most of the people there have read the book or at least are familiar with it.

Paperback cover of Goodbye, Columbus

This general familiarity with Roth's book indicates subtly that many of the people at the beach house are ethnically Jewish. In this and other books, Roth mainly portrays secular Jews.

According to the Wikipedia article about Goodbye, Columbus, the book "deals with the concerns of second and third-generation assimilated American Jews as they leave the ethnic ghettos of their parents and grandparents and go on to college, to white-collar professions, and to life in the suburbs." In particular, the book is cynical and mocking about such Jews' romantic relationships, marriages and families.

I assume that Bergstein herself was such a secular Jew and that she admired Roth's novels, which were critically and commercially  successful.

Goodbye, Columbus is summarized and analyzed superbly by the Shmoop website. I have not read the novel itself (or watched the 1969 movie), but I did study the Shmoop treatment. I relate that novel to Bergstein's character Kitsy as follows.

The protagonist of Goodbye, Columbus is 23-year-old Neil Krugman (born in about 1935) who studied literature and philosophy in college, but did not graduate and now is working in a public library. He becomes romantically involved with Brenda Patimkin, a wealthy family's beautiful, intelligent, capable daughter, who is attending a prestigious college but is spending summer vacation at home with her family.

The romance between Neil and Brenda lasts through the summer. She would be happy to marry him, and he would be hired into the family business and would enjoy a financially comfortable married life with Brenda. However, Neil and Brenda break up at the end of the summer, right before she returns to college. He remains working at the public library, philosophizing about his life.

The apparent reason for their breakup is an argument about whether she should use a diaphragm when they engage in sexual intercourse. They apparently had used condoms during the first weeks of their sexual relationship, but he wants to enjoy direct skin-to-skin contact between his penis and her vaginal walls. Brenda eventually relents to getting a diaphragm, which she uses for a while, but then she "forgets" it at home when she meets him at an out-of-town event. Neil gets mad at Brenda. In addition, Brenda's mother finds the diaphragm in the home, and she too gets mad at Brenda. These diaphragm arguments ultimately cause Neil and Brenda to break  up.

When I compare Goodbye, Columbus with Advancing Paul Newman, I see some similarities between Neil and Kitsy. Like Neil, Kitsy is conflicted about an opportunity to marry well into a family that surely will be happy and prosperous. Neil and Kitsy really want to become independent, deep thinkers who are willing to defer happiness while they struggle to become writers who will "make waves" in the reading public.

Neil allows his promising relationship with Brenda to break up over a selfish, silly argument about using a diaphragm. Kitsy is breaking up her own promising relationship with Arthur, using a concocted excuse that he should go back to his previous girlfriend, who has married another man.

Both Neil and Kitsy are subverting their own marriage prospects in devious manners. The subversions are partially conscious and intentional, but also are largely selfish and reckless. They essentially are manipulating their romantic partners into breaking up the relationships -- as if the partners were the culprits.  

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I will continue my discussion of Advancing Paul Newman in my Part 8.

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Scenes from the 1969 movie.

(In the 1959 novel, the alternative to the diaphragm was condoms, but in the 1969 movie, the alternative becomes birth-control pills.)