Myra Breckinridge Read Online Free PDF Page B

Berets, a jingoistic work written in the spirit of Kipling with the art of Mickey Spillane. Apparently this work is a constant source of sadistic reveries. Time and again have I heard the students speak wistfully of fighting and torturing the Vietcong, or rather of other young men fighting and torturing the Vietcong on their behalf. Not only are the male students drawn to violence (at second hand), they are also quite totalitarian-minded, even for Americans, and I am convinced that any attractive television personality who wanted to become our dictator would have their full support. As usual, I am ambivalent. On the one hand, I am intellectually devoted to the idea of the old America. I believe in justice, I want redress for all wrongs done, I want the good life--if such a thing exists--accessible to all. Yet, emotionally, I would be only too happy to become world dictator, if only to fulfill my mission: the destruction of the last vestigial traces of traditional manhood in the race in order to realign the sexes, thus reducing population while increasing human happiness and preparing humanity for its next stage. No doubt this tension in me constitutes my uniqueness, and genius. Certainly everyone senses it. Students flock to my lectures. Craving my attention and advice, they giggle, fascinated and frightened, at what I say. They sense my power, particularly the boys who are drawn to it even as they fear it. Of course these students are not entirely typical of the nation. They are somewhat stupider than the average, while simultaneously rather more imaginative and prone to daydreaming. Like most members of the lower classes, they are reactionary in the truest sense: the unfamiliar alarms them and since they have had no experience outside what Dr. Montag calls their "peer group," they are, consequently, in a state of near-panic most of the time, reacting against almost everything. It was Myron who observed in 1964 that all of the male hustlers were supporting Goldwater for President. He wrote a fascinating analysis of this phenomenon and sent it to the ADA, but received no reply.
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    There is no denying the fact that Mary-Ann Pringle of Winnipeg is an attractive girl and I plainly dislike the fact since I am jealous of all women though I do not need to be. But then envy is the nature of the human beast and one must face that fact, like all facts. For instance, is it a fact that in my Posture class I have been unnecessarily cruel to Rusty, her boyfriend? Yes. I have been cruel. One must never lie to oneself or, for that matter, to others. No truth should ever be withheld. Without precise notation and interpretation there is only chaos. Essentially, each of us is nothing but a flux of sensations and impressions that only sort themselves out as a result of the most strict analysis and precise formulation, as RobbeGrillet has proposed but not accomplished (his efforts to revive the novel as an art form are as ineffective as his attempts to destroy the art of film are successful). Of course, a true naming of things is impossible. Our minds are too feeble and our sensory equipment is too mysterious and complex for us ever to do more than make approximate definitions. Yet we must continue to make the effort, no matter how inadequate the result. In fact, I have made it a rule that whatever I consciously experience, I promptly submit to analysis. Take Mary-Ann Pringle. I was in my office, just after lunch, looking over my notes for tomorrow's class in Empathy, when there was a timid knock at the door (despite my vow never to make anthropomorphic references in referring to things there was no doubt in my mind, even as I heard that knock, that it was the result of a fist striking wood directed by a frightened i. e. timid intelligence). Mary-Ann entered, wearing miniskirt (bright yellow) and sweater (dark green) and no bra. She is innocent, attractive, young. Her hands are those of a child, rather grubby with broken nails but marvelously