The Last Don - Mario Puzo [49]
“You’re a very lucky girl,” Vail said. “You’re not a novelist, you’re a screenwriter. You will never be a novelist.” Then without malice or derision he spent the next thirty minutes trying to strip her novel bare and showing her that it was a piece of nonsense, that it had no structure, no depth, no resonance in characterization, and that even her dialogue, her strong point, was terrible, witty without point. It was a brutal assassination but carried out with such logic that Claudia had to recognize its truth.
He ended up with what he thought was a kindness. “It’s a very good book for an eighteen-year-old woman,” Vail said. “All the faults I’ve mentioned can be repaired by experience, simply by getting older. But there’s one thing you can never repair. You have no language.”
At this Claudia, though crushed, took offense. Some of the reviewers had praised the lyrical quality of the writing. “You’re wrong on that,” she said. “I tried to write perfect sentences. And the thing I admire most in your books is the poetry of your language.”
For the first time Vail smiled. “Thank you,” he said. “I wasn’t trying to be poetic. My language sprang out of the emotion of the characters. Your language, your poetry in this book is imposed. It’s completely false.”
Claudia burst into tears. “Who the fuck are you?” she said. “How can you say something so terribly destructive. How can you be so fucking positive?”
Vail seemed amused. “Hey, you can write publishable books and starve to death. But why, when you’re a genius screenwriter? As for my being so positive, this is the only thing I know, but I know it absolutely. Or I’m wrong.”
Claudia said, “You’re not wrong but you are a sadistic prick.”
Vail eyed her warily. “You’re gifted,” he said. “You have a great ear for movie dialogue, you’re expert in story line. You really understand movies. Why would you want to be a blacksmith instead of an automobile mechanic? You are a movie person, you are not a novelist.”
Claudia looked at him with wide-eyed wonder. “You don’t even know how insulting you are.”
“Sure I do,” Vail said. “But it’s for your own good.”
“I can’t believe you’re the same person who wrote your books,” she said venomously. “Nobody could believe you wrote them.”
At this Vail broke into a delighted cackle. “That’s true,” he said. “Isn’t that wonderful?”
All through the next week he was formal with her while they worked on the script. He assumed their friendship was over. Finally Claudia said to him, “Ernest, don’t be so stiff. I forgive you. I even believe you’re right. But why did you have to be so brutal? I even thought you were making one of those male power moves. You know, humiliate me then push me into bed. But I know you’re too dumb for that. For Christ’s sake, give a little sugar with your medicine.”
Vail shrugged. “I have only one thing going for me,” he said. “If I’m not honest about those things then I’m nothing. Also, I was brutal because I’m really very fond of you. You don’t know how rare you are.”
Claudia said smilingly, “Because of my talent, my wit, or my beauty?”
Vail waved his hand dismissively. “No, no,” he said. “Because you are blessed, a very happy person. No tragedy will ever bring you down. That is very rare.”
Claudia thought about it. “You know,” she said, “there’s something vaguely insulting about that. Does that mean I’m basically stupid?” She paused for a moment. “It’s considered more sensitive to be melancholy.”
“Right,” Vail said. “I’m melancholy and so I’m more sen-sitive than you?” They both laughed and then she was hug-ging him.
“Thank you for being honest,” she said.
“Don’t get too cocky,” Vail said. “Like my mother always said, ‘Life is like a box of hand grenades, you never know what will blow you to kingdom come.’ ”
Claudia was laughing when she said, “Christ, do you always have to sound the note of