Genius Page #3

I guess I could go back

to Hollywood and give

that another try.

I hope you don't do that.

Why?

You're a novelist.

Not anymore.

I should have died

when I was 24.

Right after

this side of paradise.

Did you get that

book I sent you?

Which?

General Grant's memoirs.

Do you know how he

came to write them?

This is interesting.

He was dying

of throat cancer

and he wanted to leave

something behind

for his family,

so he started writing

his autobiography.

He worked every day

for hours and hours.

He was in great pain,

anguish,

but he just

kept on writing.

And in the end, he produced

the most astounding book.

So very beautiful.

Just a little velvet

to see you through.

I'll write you

a great book.

I know.

Mrs. Perkins.

Mrs. Bernstein.

Hello.

You're designing

this production?

Yes.

Me and all the lost boys.

We know a few of them,

don't we?

You didn't know him

when he was young.

He was fresh out of Harvard

and he was all ready

to carve up the world.

He was unlike anyone

I'd ever met.

I understand.

I don't think

that you do.

You see, my husband

is a very kind man, but

he's a man without color.

He's a man

of wall street

and numbers.

I don't

understand numbers.

You have children,

Mrs. Bernstein?

Yes.

A daughter and a son.

They're grown.

I did a foolish thing

when I fell in love

with tom,

but I can't help

how I feel.

My heart was touched.

At the very time

in my life

when everything beautiful

was falling away

and no one needed me,

i met tom.

And tom made me

feel beautiful again.

But I know now

I've lost him

to your husband.

Mrs. Bernstein.

My husband always

wanted a son

more than anything

in the world.

We reached a point

when we realized that

wasn't going to happen.

And then he met tom.

I can't let him go.

Aline, go home

to your family.

They need you.

Tom doesn't.

Family,

husband,

dignity.

I gave that

all up for him.

Tom.

Come in.

Tom?

I have it.

You have it?

The new book.

With you?

Yes.

Well, let's have it.

Bring it in, guys.

Put it down there.

This is

of time and the river?

Here you go.

Thank you, sir.

Well done.

Now, go home

and get some sleep.

I need you...

Let me read it.

Read it kindly.

Please?

If we work every day

in the evening,

when we won't be disturbed,

we can do it.

How long?

Nine months.

If you work hard and

if you resist the temptation

to add much more.

I have to be able

to add more.

Tom, the book

is 5,000 pages long.

Point taken.

Now, to begin,

on page one.

Oh, lord. Page one?

Now, look here,

you've given 80

pages to Eugene

on the platform

before the train arrives.

That is, perhaps,

gilding the Lily a bit

as to suspense?

I mean, I'll only wait

so long for a train.

Those three sections

to me...

Here you are, Mr. Perkins.

When he meets the girl,

you've written this.

"As Eugene's eyes

became accustomed

to the haze

"of the cigarettes

and cigars swirling

miasma-like,

"he saw a woman,

in serge

"and gloves that crept

like living tendrils

"up her normally

ivory arms,

"but now sun-kissed

as a blush

"as the incarnadine discovery

inside a conch shell

"seen for the first time

by a bewildered zoologist

"as he is undone

by its rosy,

promising pinkness.

"Those were her arms.

"But it was her eyes

that stopped his breath

"and made his heart

leap up.

"Blue they were.

"Even through

the swirling vapors

of pompous chesterfields

"and arrogant

lucky strikes,

"he saw her eyes

were a blue beyond blue,

like the ocean.

"Blue beyond blue.

"A blue he could

swim into forever

"and never miss

a fire-engine red

or a cornstalk yellow.

"Across the chasm

of that room,

"that blue, those eyes

"devoured him

and looked past him

and never saw him

"and never would,

of that he was sure.

"From that moment,

"Eugene understood what

the poets had been writing

about these many years.

"All the lost, wandering,

lonely souls who were

now his brothers.

"He knew a love that

would never be his.

"So quickly did

he fall for her

"that no one in the room

even heard the sound.

"The whoosh as he fell,

"the clatter of

his broken heart.

"It was a sure silence

"but his life was shattered."

End of chapter.

You don't like it?

You know I do.

That's not the point.

So he sees a girl

and he falls in love

for the first time, yes?

Does his mind go

to deep-sea marine life?

At that moment, yes.

I don't believe it.

I think you fell in love

with the images,

not the girl.

So we cut the zoology

and the cigar brands.

I'll do it.

And the ruminations

on pink?

No. No!

The adjectives are true.

He's a man who

thinks that way.

Pink is never

just pink.

It's a thousand other things,

all profoundly

important to him.

All variations

on his psychological state.

Every image and the sound

of every word matters.

No, it doesn't.

Nonsense.

They're vital!

You're losing the plot.

Vital!

He's falling in love.

What was it like

the first time

you fell in love, tom?

Was it cornstalk yellow

and pompous chesterfields?

It was a lightning bolt.

And that's what

it should be.

A lightning bolt.

Save all the thunder.

I got you.

I got you.

Cut that.

Cut that.

All right.

We cut the textile.

"He saw a woman..."

Cut. Cut. Cut.

"But it was her eyes

that stopped his

breath in his throat,

"that made his heart

leap up."

No, cut the wordsworth.

"It stopped his breath."

"Blue they were..."

Cut the marine life.

"A blue beyond blue,

like the ocean."

Cliche.

"A blue beyond blue

like..."

Like nothing but blue.

"A blue he could

swim into forever

and never miss..."

Mmm, cut this.

Then pick up with...

Had there ever

been such blue? Had there

ever been such eyes?

Don't need the rhetorical.

Why?

It's not a lightning bolt,

it's a digression.

"A blue beyond..." No!

Her eyes were blue.

Better.

And cut.

He was worthless,

she was everything.

She was a girl

across a room.

That's enough.

And so, cut "the lost,

wandering souls..."

Cut.

"So quickly did

he fall for her

"that no one in the room

even heard the sound,

"the whoosh as he fell,

the clatter..."

The whoosh, the clatter.

Is that the point?

Well, what did you hear

when you fell in love?

What did you hear?

Clattering?

The point is it was all

happening inside him.

His life changed,

no one else in the room

noticed anything.

Then make that

the point.

I hate to see

the words go!

Maybe the larger

question is this.

In a book crowded

with great rolling

mountains of prose,

how is this moment

profoundly different?

Because it's simple.

Unadorned.

Like lightning.

Standing out

in the black sky

by its starkness.

Exactly.

God damn!

All aboard!

Track 12, southwest trunk line

now departing from track 12.

"Eugene saw a woman.

"Her eyes were blue.

"So quickly did

he fall for her

"that no one in the room

even heard the sound."

Period.

End of chapter four.

Only 98 more to go!

I love you,

Max Perkins!

...with Francis

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