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Happy birthday, Kim!
The substance of my grousing stands. I'm concerned with the elements behind the corrosion and the breakdown of Community, and I think this is one of them. When it happens on the Maury Povitch Show, not much is at stake, this is a well-understood ritualistic Festival of Fools for Fools. But when we praise as our highest art and literature the revelation of all past intimacies, this, I think, does great harm. It tells and teaches our best-educated, the keepers of the flame of our highest culture, that there are New, Improved rules about loyalty, the expectation of privacy, discretion. I remember something E.M. Forster said about the Kim Philby et al spy scandal ... that if he were caught between a choice of betraying his country or betraying his friend, he hoped he would have the courage to betray his country. I think what I'm saying here is that I think we're being asked to believe that loyalty and discretion were some kinds of falsities of the past, and that now our artists wish to construct a Brave New World with no expectations of trust or the personal secrets of intimacy. I have yet to get the slightest inkling that it has resulted in any kind of Superior art or literature. Quite the contrary. Bob Kim Ponders wrote: Actually, I didn't know that Paul Auster and Lydia Davis were married, but I am a fan of L Davis' wonderfully obsessive stories. I'm certain that the emotions behind the events if not the events themselves were keenly experienced by the author. There's no way she could have duplicated that sense of confusion and emotional tumult otherwise (I'm thinking of stories like 'The Letter' in particular.) I have not read the Glenn Gould story but am eager to since author and pianist both have a kind of compulsion that shows itself in their work. I can't help but ask about such a story--why Glenn Gould; what is L Davis' connection with him (ie. why did she choose him over, say, Horowitz?) These ARE questions about the author's personal life, but so what? What's wrong with wanting to know about her as a creator of fiction? Knowing that she was married to Auster gives me some sort of clue into the person she is and helps me understand what drives her to write the kind of fiction she does. I can't tell if Elmer is displeased because she is baring part of her private life to the world in the form of fiction or if he's displeased because someone has noticed it. Either way, if fiction doesn't come from the heart--what good is it? BTW, Jim, thanks for the birthday wish...(I came out of the closet for you.) |