What Makes Sammy Run?

“That’s a little more like it, I thought. ‘I’d settle for half their talent myself,’ I said. ‘I don’t mean talent,’ Sammy said. ‘I mean profit. That show must be cleaning up.’”

Once again, the differences between Sammy and Al are made apparent, this time with regard to art. While Al’s thoughts immediately go to the artistic value of a play, Sammy rates a production by the profit it makes. This is a prelude to their motivations in Hollywood, where Al will be focused on the craft of movie making while Sammy will only care about profit.

“Even though superficially we were similar, both columnists, both Jewish, both men, both American citizens, both awake for the same brief moment in world time, I stared at Sammy now, asked my question and waited for the answer like a mystic trying to reach another world.”

Sammy is often alienated from community by his own self-centered actions. While Al is concerned about other people, their lives, and his own cultural identity, Sammy refuses any association that does not provide profit.

“I leaned out the window and watched the taxi go ducking in and out through traffic like a broken-field runner.

Like Sammy Glick, I thought, as I watched the cab at the next crossing jump out ahead of the car that should have had the right of way.”

Al is developing his understanding of Sammy, knowing as Sammy heads to Hollywood that he has a definitively egocentric view of the world. The likening of Sammy to the cars on the streets of New York reflects not only this selfish outlook, but also his constant movement and need to get ahead.

“‘I shou’n’t’ve come,’ she whimpered, ‘only Sammy was always telling me you were his closest friend.’

I almost choked on a mouthful of steak. My God, that was probably true!”

Rosalie states that Al is the person Sammy is closest to, something that complicates their relationship. Sammy, always pragmatic, appreciates that Al is too good natured to expose him, while Al is fascinated by Sammy’s ruthlessness. This allows Sammy the closeness and comfort of making Al into a friend, even as Al is disgusted by him.

“I think that was because anybody who took life the way Sammy did, gangster, dictator or screenwriter, was doomed to be lonely.”

Sammy struggles with loneliness throughout the novel, never able to vanquish it due to his persistent self-interest. This is part of the reason he keeps Al around, as Al is the one person he can consider any kind of friend.

“I had been much too involved with Sammy already ever to be able to forget him. Or even want to. He rankled. He was like a splinter festering under my skin. If I broke off now, I had the feeling his memory would go on torturing me. I had the crazy feeling that only by drilling into him, deeper and deeper, could I finally pass through him and beyond him and free my mind of him at last.”

While Sammy relies on Al as his one friend, Al also relies on Sammy as the object of his fascination. This quote shows Al trying to reason through his obsession, wondering if when he finally understands Sammy, he will be able to stop thinking about him. This desire to know what makes Sammy act the way he does drives Al all the way through the end of the novel.

“That was the first time I had ever heard anybody make Hollywood sound like a job, instead of a happy hunting ground where the customary weapons were a fabulous gall and a mouth energetic and loud. I was settling down beside her, ready to hear more, when Sammy came over and dropped his arm around her.

‘I can’t understand it,’ he said, ‘a smart wench like her—just lousy with ideals.’”

This quote shows the intersection between Al, Kit, and Sammy’s life philosophies. Al is taken in by Kit’s ability to find real fulfillment in Hollywood, as he has become jaded in his time there. Sammy instead values Kit’s ability to accomplish her career goals and succeed within the operations of Hollywood, while disparaging her personal and artistic values.

“His eyes seemed to be forever crying. He kept cracking his knuckles, shifting his balance and looking everywhere but at me. The Jewish language has the best word I have ever heard for people like Julian: nebbish. A nebbish person is not exactly an incompetent, a dope or a weakling. He is simply the one in the crowd that you always forget to introduce.”

Julian is fully under Sammy’s control at this point, and his description here shows his development. By the end of the novel, he will have become successful and known in his own right, no longer forgotten, but his desperation must be shown here to show just how much he has been harmed by Sammy.

“‘I’m afraid you flunk in citizenship,’ [Kit] said. ‘Didn’t you ever have to take Civics?’

‘Sure,’ [Sammy] said. ‘What a laugh. The teacher giving us all that crap out of a book when all we had to do to learn about politics was watch the Tammany guy on the corner.’”

Sammy lacks formal education, but he is repeatedly shown to be a quick learner. His background once again rears its head here, as his opportunity to “learn” civics that are valuable to his life experiences came from watching political corruption rather than in his school civics course.

“It struck me that Julian and Sammy must have been just about the same age, twenty-two or -three, probably brought up in the same kind of Jewish family, same neighborhood, same schooling, and started out with practically the same job. And yet they couldn’t have been more different.”

Though Sammy’s background is hugely influential on his adult personality and ethics, it doesn’t mean that Sammy had to be the ruthless individualist he is. Julian is a useful contrast, keeping Al from placing all the blame for Sammy’s behavior on his childhood rather than on his choices.

“[Kit] knew how to be just as tough as Sammy in her own way. I had to admit that the characteristics that had made me hesitate about her were the ones that might do Julian the most good.”

It takes a while for Al to be able to accept Kit’s own ruthlessness as he dislikes the similarities to Sammy he perceives. Kit is a complex person who is capable of both kindness and cruelty, sometimes at the same time. Al’s eventual acceptance of this shows his growth in worldview.

“Up till that moment, though I had to admire what Kit was trying to do, and though I thought unions were a good thing in general, I didn’t see much need or much chance for a screen writers’ organization. But now I was defending it. I suppose if Sammy had expressed a preference for Heaven, I would have launched into a defense of Hell.”

Al’s passive character means that he shies away from political engagement, preferring to act on an individual and interpersonal level rather than a larger social and systemic one. Sammy’s lack of community feeling forces Al to take a stance in favor of the union.

“Instead of answering my question directly, [Kit] said, ‘I wonder what would happen if Sammy used all that energy and imagination to create something—not just to devise ways of reaching the top without creating anything.’”

Though The Nature of Genius has been much debated already at this point in the novel, Kit here raises the point that perhaps Sammy could be a genius in the more traditional sense, if that was what he directed his energy toward. It is Sammy’s methods that are problematic, not his actual talents.

“Sammy Glick may get everything else, I thought, but by God this is a pleasure he’ll never know, the joy of writing that first line on the pad, which sounds so beautiful now and so lousy later, the tremendous pleasure and labor of creating something you believe in.”

Al is inspired by his work with Sidney Fineman, taking joy in both the collaboration and the individual creative process. Here, he realizes that despite Sammy’s wildly successful pursuit of wealth and power, his philosophy of life precludes him from ever experiencing the immaterial rewards of true creative work.

“Things had been moving so fast that it didn’t even seem strange to me any more than this copy-boy punk of mine should be taking it for granted that he was one of the spokesmen for the Guild elite without, as far as I could detect, ever having written a line. As I watched Sammy at the big-shot writers’ table in the commissary that noon, I kept wondering where the hell it was all going to end and how many pairs of shoes Sammy must have collected by now and whether he was twenty-four years old or twenty-five.”

This quote illustrates how far Sammy has come, and how audacious his rise through Hollywood is. Sammy, at such a young age, has managed to ingratiate himself with the elite even though only a few years before he had been running copy. The mention of his collection of shoes also ties his rise specifically to the way he runs, accruing status rapidly, thinking only of obtaining more and moving up, not appreciating what he has.

“We all got hysterical at Julian’s picture of Wilson foaming at the mouth because Sammy had appropriated the fruits of his treachery, but it would have been funnier if it hadn’t contained so much horror, the horror of a foetus called Sammy Glick sprinting out of his mother’s womb, turning life into a race in which the only rules are fight for the rail and elbow on the turns and the only finish line is death.”

This quote reinforces the theme of The Community Versus the Individual, showing the sense of community Al, Kit, and Julian share in comparison to the writers Sammy aligned himself with and then double crossed. Though the three of them are far worse off financially than the men they’re laughing at, they’re the ones laughing.

“‘I wasn’t going to,’ I said, ‘but, oh, hell, if you were just willing to trail me around and wait for me to come home for supper—I suppose that wouldn’t be you any more.’

She clasped her hands in back of her head thoughtfully.

‘I’m going to miss you,’ she said.”

Al is showing his understanding of Kit, recognizing an essential part of her personality and acknowledging its importance, despite the pain it causes him. In turn, Kit appreciates Al’s kindness and understanding, expressing that appreciation so he will know it is real. Though they cannot be together at this moment, their communication here sets up their eventual happy relationship.

“Half an hour later I was walking into the world of his childhood, a foreign world of clotheslines, firetraps, pushcarts and pinch-faced children that stretches for too many blocks along the East River. I walked down Avenue A, down Allen, down Rivington, wondering at the irony of the fascist charge that the Jews have cornered the wealth of America; for here where there are more Jews than anywhere else in the world, millions of them are crowded into these ghetto streets with the early American names.”

Having arrived at Sammy’s childhood home, Al can see just how far he has come. Looking around the impoverished neighborhood, he reflects on the ridiculousness of the fascist propaganda that says Jewish people control the world’s wealth. Sammy is an individual, and for every one Sammy there are a multitude of other poor Jewish people trying to eke out a living from poverty.

“I saw Sammy Glick on a battlefield where every soldier was his own cause, his own army and his own flag, and I realized that I had singled him out not because he had been born into the world any more selfish, ruthless and cruel than anybody else, even though he had become all three, but because in the midst of a war that was selfish, ruthless and cruel Sammy was proving himself the fittest, the fiercest and the fastest.”

Al has now realized that Sammy is not an entirely original model of person, but just one who is exceedingly good at what he does. Having lived in Hollywood and seen what fear and desperation can do to people, he is able to recognize in his own obsession a knowledge of just how talented Sammy actually is at winning the terrible race he has chosen for himself.

“The trouble with Hollywood is that too many people who won’t leave are ashamed to be there. But when a moving picture is right, it socks the eye and the ear and the solar plexus all at once and that is a hell of a temptation for any writer.”

Al, despite his distaste for the politics of Hollywood, has realized the artistic value and rewards to be found there. In debating whether or not to return, it is not the increased monetary rewards of screenwriting that entice him, but the creative satisfaction of a well-done screenplay.

“‘But now I’ll really show you something,’ [Sammy] said. ‘My grounds.’ He turned on the floodlights that illuminated the garden. ‘I’ve got my own barbecue pit and my own badminton court. And have I got flowers! Do you realize you’re looking at twelve hundred dollars’ worth of hibiscus plants?’

‘And you’re going to live here all alone?’ I said.”

As Sammy moves up through society, he also continually moves his living situation. He never stays in one place, untethered by personal emotion and sentimentality. He is only able to enjoy his house when showing it off to someone, finding no value or satisfaction in anything but putting himself above others.

“It can’t be broken down like that. Sammy isn’t making a mechanical play for her because he thinks he can use her. It’s all mixed up together. The fact that her name is Harrington must be just as sexually exciting to Sammy as that moist red mouth or those snooty boobs of hers.”

Kit’s assessment of Sammy’s love for Laurette Harrington shows how adept Kit is at understanding his psychology. He is unable to love someone purely based on affection, as affection has no value for him. It is only Laurette’s unique blend of culture, wealth, and beauty that entices Sammy into a kind of love.

“I could see the house as I turned in the Bel Air gate. It stood up there on top of a hill like a feudal castle. Bright lights from every room cast their yellow geometric shafts out into the black night.”

Sammy’s house is brilliant and aglow, but empty. The comparison to a feudal castle recalls images of cold stone and drafty corridors, emphasizing the sadness of Sammy’s living situation despite its grandeur.