From Here to Eternity_ The Restored Edit - Jones, James [505]
Jones continued to travel and write. On November 18, 1949, he was in Tucson, Arizona, and working on the chapter in which Prewitt was killed: “I kind of hate to do it in a way, I’ve got so used to the son of a bitch being around. But my first loyalty goes to the book I guess,” he wrote Harry Handy.
Living in a trailer in North Hollywood, Jones finished Eternity on February 27, 1950, and mailed the last chapter to Mitchell, writing him that he was drinking his third martini. He felt “peculiar. Not elated. Not depressed. But peculiar.” He planned to send acknowledgments soon. On March 18, 1950, he wrote Mitchell that he thought Eternity was a “magnificent memorial to Perkins.”
The editors at Scribner’s—Mitchell, John Hall Wheelock, and others—were enthusiastic in their praise of the novel. Jones had remained in North Hollywood, and on March 29, 1950, the edited manuscript reached Jones. Jones was blindsided. There was nothing in Perkins’s letters to Jones about avoiding obscene language. Mitchell told Jones in November 1947 that Jones’s “reproduction of the army talk, the idiom, is remarkable. . . .” There had been no objections to using the word Mailer had spelled “fug.” There had been no objections to sex scenes, but in the revised manuscript page after page had deletions of words, sentences, paragraphs, and pages.
Jones was distressed by what he saw. He responded to Mitchell that day in a long letter indicating he was not amenable to many of the deletions and changes. He softened his letter somewhat by indicating that in some instances he had rewritten paragraphs and improved them. He particularly objected to the many deletions of the word “fuck” for, he wrote in the manuscript margin, removing it interfered with the rhythm of sentences.
Jones decried the removal of an extended scene between Warden and the clerk about painting; he thought the deletion was perhaps a way to remove “cunt” from the text. Jones fought to keep that scene because it showed the depth of character and knowledge of Warden.
Jones explained why be used the slang term “cunt-pictures.” The words were not used for their shock value but because “cunt” was as common a word in the Army as “latrine” or “chow down.” He argued that cunt is what “us American men of the lower classes, especially in the Army, are interested in.” He concluded, “But that term, and not the term ‘pinups’ was the term used in the Army.”
Jones objected to the deletions in Prewitt’s masturbation scene. He argued that Prew was a proud man and would not have done it unless it was necessary, “not on account of the loneliness and frustration . . . but on account of the pure subject of the fact that guys are forced to masturbate in the Army.”
Jones objected to the removal of Red’s wet dream. He was willing to make some minor changes, but he wanted to keep that scene. He argued that “the people of this country don’t know what the hell goes on in it,” and perhaps that was why “they’re such sanctimonious bastards.” Jones failed to save the scene. He was also aware that many of the changes were dictated by Horace Manges, the attorney for Scribner’s, who was concerned about possible “obscenity” charges against the novel.
Jones also objected that “piece of ass” was removed everywhere it was used. He pointed out that “piece of tail” was commonly used by other writers. Manges was adamant.
Jones felt that Mitchell and Manges were being too cautious and that the editing was heavy handed. He agreed to some changes because he did not want Eternity “to be a Henry Miller ‘limited edition.’’’ During this emotional time Jones sometimes argued that passages in the novel should be printed exactly as he wrote them, and at other times, he was agreeable to deletions or to his making changes in the text.
The editing of the manuscript soon became a farce. Manges kept a “score sheet” while he was reading and found “259 fucks, 91 shits, and 5 pricks. He did not count the pisses for some reason.” Jones and Mitchell went through the manuscript in the Scribner’s office and “cut the fucks to 146 and shits