The World Behind the Door

 

 

 

The World
 

Behind the Door

An Encounter with Salvador Dali

 

by

 

Mike Resnick

 

 

© 2007, 2011 by Mike Resnick

 

 

 

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ISBN: 978-1-61417-025-9

 

 

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Thank You
.

 

 

 

 

THE WORLD BEHIND THE DOOR

 

 

An Encounter with Salvador Dali

 

 

 

 

By Mike Resnick

 

 

http://mikeresnick.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To Carol, as always,

 

And to my daughter Laura,

Once more, with feeling

 

 

 

 

 

PREFACE

 

      
The unusual and the bizarre have always fascinated me. That's probably why I became a science fiction writer.

      
Science fiction boasts a number of fine writers, but over the years it has had an almost equal number of outstanding artists, artists who could give form and structure to the wildest imaginings of the writers: Frank Frazetta, Michael Whelan, Bob Eggleton, Kelly Freas, Ed Emshwiller, Virgil Finlay, a number of others.

      
But I persist in believing that the greatest of all science fiction and fantasy artists, even though he never illustrated a science fiction book or magazine, was Salvador Dali.

      
The first art book I ever bought, back when I was in high school just about half a century ago, was a collection of Dali's paintings. So was the second. And the third. The man's work was so different, so hypnotic, so unlike anyone else's, I just couldn't stop looking at it.

      
And a lot of it
was
science fictional. What else could you call
The Space Elephant
, or
Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate One Second Before Awakening
, or
Suburb of the Paranoic-critical Town
?

      
It wasn't long before I began studying Dali. How could I not? He himself was as interesting as his paintings. His mustache was longer than most men's beards. His clothing was outlandish, his behavior even more so. His statements were unbelievable
—
except that when challenged, he often managed to prove that he was telling the truth. He was the world's first great performance artist, long before the term "performance art" even existed.

      
And that was the key to my fascination. Dali was actually better-known than any of his paintings, as famous as
The Persistence of Memory
and the others were. Everyone had heard of Picasso, who was probably the greatest of the modern, 20th Century artists
—
but if you were standing next to him in line at the bank or the movie theatre, you'd have no idea who he was. The same holds true for Norman Rockwell, and every other famous painter of the just-ended century
—
except for Dali. You'd not only know him if he was standing next to you, you'd know him if you saw him across the street, or two blocks away . . .
and if you
didn't
recognize him, he'd probably do everything short of a striptease to capture your attention in such a way that there could be no doubt of who he was.

      
His descriptions of himself and his art grew more and more bizarre. It was hinted many times
—
often by Dali himself
—
that he was insane. Those who knew him socially were never sure . . .
but those few who worked with him on a daily basis, such as Alfred
 
Hitchcock and Walt Disney, often said the bizarre eccentricities were just an act, that when they were working with him behind closed doors he was a total (and totally sane) professional. Others swear that Dali had pulled the wool over Hollywood's eyes, that his madness came and went and the movie moguls caught him during his very few sane periods.

      
So which was he?

      
I didn't know when I started studying him all those years ago, and I don't know today.

      
But when the nice people at Watson-Guptill asked me to write another book in their Encounters series, I jumped at the chance to write about Dali and perhaps find out just how sane or mad he really was. I had done a book on Leonardo, who was a scientist, a painter, and an all-around genius; and I'd done one on Toulouse
-
Lautrec, an embittered and driven man. But I understood both of them, and I understood their work, whereas I would continue to learn about Dali and what inspired his strangest images as I researched and wrote
The World Behind the Door
.

      
Was Dali sane?

      
Was he mad?

      
Was there ever someone like Jinx?

      
Read the book. Then
you
can tell
me
.

 

      
      
      
      
      
      
      
      
– Mike Resnick

 

 

 

You can find
The Persistence of Memory
here:

 

http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=79018

 

and
Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory
here:

 

http://www.artinthepicture.com/paintings/Salvador_Dali/The-Disintegration-of-the-Persistence-of-Memory/

 

 

Chapter 1: Reality is a Bore

 

      
The elephant stands at least thirty feet high, its huge red body supported on incredibly thin, stick-like limbs.

      
Dali stares at it, curiously unafraid. There is a howdah on the elephant's back, but it's too far away for him to see who, or
what
, is riding in it. He should be concerned about what kind of creature could tame such an elephant, could bend it to his will, but instead he finds he is more interested in how the rider got into the howdah. Dali has never seen a ladder that high. Did he fly?

      
He hears a growl off to his left, and turns to look. There is a woman standing there, quite the loveliest woman he has ever seen, wrapped in a thin white shroud that flutters in the breeze. Standing next to her is a huge black-maned lion, glaring at him with baleful, bloodshot eyes.

      
"I hope he's under your control," Dali says to the woman . . .
or, at least, that is what he
tries
to say. But what comes out is a nursery rhyme:

 

      
"One, sir, two, sir,

      
Who are you, sir?

      
Three, sir, four, sir,

      
Tell me more, sir.

      
Five, sir, six, sir
. . .
"

 

      
Dali stops. He can't remember the next line, the one that rhymes with "six," and besides, he feels incredibly silly uttering the rhyme in the first place. He decides that it was a momentary aberration and tries again. He opens his mouth to speak, and suddenly gibberish comes out. Well, not
quite
gibberish; at some deep level he knows he is speaking a logical, coherent language, but it is not one that he recognizes. He wonders if he's making any sense at all.

      
The woman smiles and opens her mouth to answer—but instead of words there is another roar, louder and more frightening than the first one.

      
"I hope she is not distressing you," says the lion in exquisite Spanish.

      
Dali stares dumbly at the huge cat.

      
"I just washed her," continues the lion, "and now I can't do a thing with her."

      
"Why is she roaring?" Dali manages to say.

      
"You hurt her feelings by being more interested in the elephant," answers the lion.

      
"But I didn't know she was here when I saw the elephant," protests Dali.

      
"Where else would she be?" replies the lion.

      
"This is sillier than most of my dreams," says Dali. "I've got to wake up."

      
The lion shrugs. "You can if you can."

      
"What does that mean?" asks Dali.

      
The lion begins to answer him, but every time it tries to speak the woman's roars drown it out.

      
"I guess you'll just have to wake up without my help," apologizes the lion at last, and the woman smiles, yawns, and stretches like a cat.

      
"Why are all my dreams like this?" asks Dali.

      
"Like what?" inquires the lion.

      
"There's no shred of reality in them," he explains, puzzled. "Elephants so tall they could walk right over the Tower of Pisa and not scrape their bellies, rivers that flow upstream, birds that walk and fish that fly, and now a woman who roars and a lion who speaks calmly and rationally. The world is not like this, so why are my dreams?"

      
"Have you considered the obvious?" asks the lion.

      
"What do you mean?"

      
"That what you are experiencing at this moment is reality, and when you sleep you dream that you are a talented painter whose work shows some promise but is totally derivative."

      
"No," says Dali firmly. "I
am
a painter. This much I am sure of."

      
The lion shrugs. "I'm sure I'm a lion."

      
"No," says Dali. "Lions can't talk."

      
"You're certain of that?"

      
Dali nods his head vigorously. "Yes."

      
"I'm sure I am, you're sure I'm not. One of us must be wrong."

      
"One of us is," says Dali. "
You
are."

      
"So I am a mock lion, an ersatz lion?"

      
"Yes."

      
"Let us pretend for a moment that you really are a painter, over in that dull country you call reality. Here I am: head, fangs, mane, flanks, loins, claws, tail. How would you paint me to show that I am not a lion?"

      
Dali stares at him for a long moment, considering his question. "I don't know," he admits.

      
"If you cannot paint the difference between a real and a false lion, what makes you think there
is
a difference?"

      
"Either something is real or it is not," insists Dali.

      
"All right," says the lion. "Paint me. Capture every detail exactly as you see it. When you are done, is the lion in your painting real or not?"

      
"I don't understand," says Dali, frowning.

      
"Can it bite you? Can it move? Can it roar?"