At the recommendation of a blog commenter, I read the above-titled book by critic and memoirist Claire Dederer. The promotional material describes it as “a passionate, provocative, blisteringly smart interrogation of how we make and experience art in the age of #MeToo, and of the link between genius and monstrosity.” This didn’t sound so promising to me–it reminded me of about a zillion op-ed and arts page articles that I’ve come across in the past few years, and I didn’t feel like I needed another lecture about how we should separate the art from the artist, or conversely an explanation of how Kevin Spacey was never actually a good actor or whatever.
But the book was neither of those things. It was excellent and stimulated many thoughts which I’ll now share:
Who is worse, Pablo Picasso or Laura Ingalls Wilder?
This is not a serious question. Or, I should say, it’s a serious question that I am deliberately framing in a non-serious way, just as a way of demonstrating that there’s no unidimensional scale of badness.
Here’s the point. As a human being, Picasso seems like the worse of these two artists. As Dederer puts it, “The used-up women in his life make a fleshy pig-pile, so much that it can be hard to remember which is which: Fernande Olivier, Eva Gouel, Olga Khoklova, Marie-Thérèse Walter, Dora Maar, Françoise Gilot, and Jacqueline Roque. Two killed themselves–and so did Picasso’s grandson, Pablito–and most of the rest were left with their lives shattered after their time with Picasso. . . . . Picasso’s granddaughter Marina wrote in her memoir: ‘He submitted them to his animal sexuality, tamed them, bewitched them, ingested them, and crushed them onto his canvas. After he had spent many nights extracting their essence, once they were bled dry, he would dispose of them.’ It’s no crime to love a lot of women–even if it makes the women in question cross or jealous or crazy or suicidal. But of course Picasso was also abusive toward those women (beatings and burnings), and moreover he was a predator of young girls, who fascinated him and whom he used as models.”
On the other side, I have no reason to think that Laura Ingalls Wilder was an abusive person or that she did mean things at all (beyond the bad behavior that is occasional in all of us).
But . . . you can look at Picasso’s art and appreciate it straight up–as artifacts in themselves and in their role in politics and the development of art–without needing to concern yourself with his biography. No doubt his abusive behavior was connected to his artistic achievement, but the art was not about the brutality.
Wilder, on the other hand, embedded racism into the core of her books. Dederer informs us that the following sentence appeared on the first page in the early editions of Little House on the Prairie: “There were no people; only Indians lived there.” You can separate about Picasso’s art from his life in a way that you can’t separate Wilder from her political and social attitudes.
To look at this another way, consider scientists who held political views that you might now call odious, such as Francis Galton’s racism (which, like Laura Ingalls Wilder’s views, were close to the core of his statistical work) or J. B. S. Haldane’s communism (which seems more peripheral to his contributions to biology, although I expect that Haldane himself saw some connections there). My goal here is not to go around canceling people–it would be absolutely ridiculous to abandon the scientific insights or try to retroactively diminish the contributions of people with problematic social or political views, and it would be even more hopeless if we were to try to remove all the assholes from history too–at some point there’d be just about nobody left–even gentle Einstein had some strongly racist views, also apparently was not such a nice husband, perhaps in the manner of modern sports stars who go through life expecting that other people will take care of them and clean up all their messes–; rather, the biography is part of the story. When we talk about historical figures, we talk about when they lived and where they were from and sometimes about their personal lives; their political views and personal actions can be relevant to our understanding too.
Benefit of Clergy
Last time this topic came up, I brought up George Orwell’s classic essay, “Benefit of Clergy: Some Notes on Salvador Dali,” where he discusses how to simultaneously think of the famous Surrealist painter as both a great artist and a terrible person.
It really shouldn’t be so hard to say that Einstein was a brilliant physicist, also a campaigner for peace, also had some racist views, also was a bit of a pig who expected other people to clean up his messes. It shouldn’t be hard to say that Yuval Peres was a brilliant mathematician, a generous colleague, and a sexual harasser, or that Neil Gaiman went through life doing bad things but he also wrote influential books. But somehow it can be hard for people to do this. Dederer’s book is a thoughtful exploration of why this separation can be harder than it looks, why it is that, as she puts it, “The person does the crime and it’s the work that gets stained.”
To put it another way, if you don’t want to say, “X has been a good person and valuable contributor to society in many ways, but in some other ways he’s behaved badly and exploited his position,” it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re clueless–that X’s misdeeds blind you to his contributions–; it could just mean that, in your judgment, the misdeeds outweigh the contributions enough that you don’t feel comfortable celebrating the contributions, or that the misdeeds change your interpretation of the contributions. Although it can go in the other direction too. I know Yuval as a generous colleague, willing to put in the time and thought to work out a difficult math problem with me. Years later I heard he had a side career as a sexual harasser, and that’s horrible, also I wonder if that flowed out of his generosity as a mathematician. That is–and I say this without knowing any of the context, so I’m really just using his case to represent the general principles here–it seems plausible to me that he was following his usual practice of being a caring, involved colleague to these women, and this care engaged his emotions, which, when combined with poor judgment and lack of self-control, led to his repeated inappropriate behavior.
Consider this diagram:
I put “brilliant mathematician” at the top here because, even if it might not be the most important thing about Yuval, it’s his most distinctive attribute: there are a lot more generous colleagues and sexual harassers in the world than there are brilliant mathematicians.
In any case, the point of the above triangle is that all three of its vertices go together. Yuval’s brilliance as a mathematician facilitates his generosity as a colleague. It’s a lot easier to be helpful if you have a deep understanding. And the generosity put him in a position that facilitated the harassment. My point is not to claim that if you want the brilliance, you need to accept the harassment–I suspect that had the consequences been clearer, Yuval would’ve been able to restrain himself–; my point is just that his misdeeds are connected to his virtues.
The principle of retroactivity
Dederer writes, “The principle of retroactivity means that if you’ve done something sufficiently asshole-like, it follows that you were an asshole all along.”
I guess this is true, in that everyone–well, just about everyone–really is “an asshole all along,” in some sense. Roman Polanski was an asshole, Albert Einstein was an asshole, Orwell and Dali were assholes of course, Terry Speed was an asshole long before he harassed that postdoc, also you and I and most of our neighbors–including those who have never done any harassment of any sort–are assholes in some aspects of our lives. Being an asshole is part of the human condition.
What I’m saying is that, once you have reason to look back in time for asshole behavior, you’ll be able to find it.
Dederer continues: “a current moment can remake the past anew, can imbue the past with new truth . . . the stain travels backward, affecting and defining the perpetrator not just at the time of the abuse, and not just after the abuse, but before he committed the crime.”
This reminds me of how it can be hard to assess how good a book or movie is, until you get to the end. A story of suspense or mystery can be very compelling, but only if the mystery is resolved in a satisfactory way. If the solution is a cheat, this reflects backward and makes the early parts of the story retrospectively flawed. Conversely, a great ending can retrospectively make earlier parts of the book or movie all make sense.
And this makes me wonder whether Dederer’s quote is revealing a problem we have when thinking about people and events, which is that we try to fit things into a storyline, whether that be a “Breaking Bad”-style decline into depravity or a redemption arc or an he-was-an-asshole-all-along narrative.
The idea of genius
Dederer talks about the problematic idea of the “genius,” which reminded me of my problems with the scientist-as-hero narrative. It’s a problem! There are geniuses, but they make their own characteristic errors. Even the best scientists make scientific errors; as I wrote here:
Brilliance represents an upper bound on the quality of your reasoning, but there is no lower bound. The most brilliant scientist in the world can take really dumb stances. Indeed, the success that often goes with brilliance can encourage a blind stubbornness. Not always–some top scientists are admirably skeptical of their own ideas–but sometimes. And if you want to be stubborn, again, there’s no lower bound on how wrong you can be. The best driver in the world can still decide to turn the steering wheel and crash into a tree.
But that’s the outside take. Dederer also looks at it from the perspective of the “monster”: “The experience of channeling something, of being a servant to something bigger than yourself, isn’t just for the prodigy, or even just the young–Picasso retained it throughout his life. . . . Part of Picasso’s livelong practice was to give himself to this greater power. This freedom was actually part of his job–paradoxically, part of his discipline.”
I can relate to that. I’ve been so lucky in my life to be able to work on problems that I think are important and interesting, and I do feel a sense of responsibility to make the most of my time here.
I don’t agree with everything Dederer says on the topic, though, for example: “Isn’t the genius the person who changes everything about his or her field? . . . If you go by that definition, Duchamp is actually a greater artist than Picasso. If a Renaissance artist time-traveled to the twentieth century, he would’ve recognized what Picasso was doing as painting. But Duchamp would’ve made zero sense to him as art. Duchamp changed everything. But Duchamp doesn’t fulfill an image that we have in our minds of genius.”
Sure, I’ll buy the what-the-Renaissance-artist-would-think bit, but . . . I don’t think that makes Duchamp a genius. Or, maybe he was a genius at promotion; it doesn’t make him a genius at art. In contrast, Picasso really was a genius as art! I know these judgments are subjective; my point is that I don’t think that being “the person who changes everything” is either a necessary or sufficient condition for genius.
Are we “excited by their asshole-ness?”
Later, Dederer writes, “Part of the reason so much attention has been trained on men like Picasso and Hemingway is exactly because they’re assholes. We are excited by their asshole-ness.”
Ummmm, who is this “we” you are talking about? I’m excited by the art that Picasso and Hemingway created, and then I’m interested in learning more about their lives. If they were super nice guys, I’d still be excited about their work. Now you might say that being an asshole was a condition for their work–perhaps the only way they could’ve made such contributions was through a single-minded focus that excluded all others–but, even so, at best that just means the asshole-ness was necessary, not that this is what attracts us to them.
Yeah, I know the trope of the sexy bad boy . . . here it is right here for you . . . but I think it’s orthogonal to the “genius” thing. Some people are fascinated by sexy bad boys, some people aren’t; I don’t think that’s the key to the appeal of Picasso or Hemingway.
Do writers and artists get special dispensation to be assholes?
Dederer writes, “Writers want to be left alone to write, and be waited on. . . . at least a few men are onto themselves. The novelist John Banville told the Irish Times that he was, not to put too fine a point on it, a shitty dad, and what’s more, probably most writers are. ‘[Writing] was very hard . . . on the people around me, on my children. I have not been a good father. I don’t think any writer is. You take so much and suck up so much of the oxygen that it’s very hard on one’s loved ones.”
What an asshole (Banville, that is, not Dederer). Indeed, Banville’s a double asshole in that quote, first by being a bad father (I’ll take his word on that) and second for blaming it on being a writer. Lots of writers have no problem being good fathers. There are 24 hours in the day, and there’s enough “oxygen” to be a good writer and a good parent. Look, Banville: if you or Neil Gaiman or Philip Roth or whoever wants to go around being an asshole, that’s you, and that’s all. Get over yourself, dude. You can take your Prince of Asturias Award for Literature and stick it where the sun don’t shine. That said, you might be a good writer; I’m not claiming otherwise.
George Orwell, Rebecca West, Claire Dederer, James Wolcott
I have the above list of names in my notes from reading the book. Unfortunately, I can’t remember what I wanted to say about them! It’s like a puzzle–What do these names have in common?–but I can’t figure out what it is. I read Dederer’s book several months ago.
One thing is that George Orwell and Rebecca West are pseudonyms, and Dederer writes about writers taking a new identity. I’m not sure where Wolcott fits in, though.
The monsters in our lives
Dederer’s deepest message is that the real issue with being a fan–or choosing not to be a fan–of art “monsters” (including monsters in their actions such as Roman Polanski and Pablo Picasso and monsters in their ideologies such as Laura Ingalls Wilder) has nothing to do with famous people and everything to do with people we love.
Not to get all Freudian about it, but the real challenge is dealing with the monsters of our childhood. Whether this is family members who physically abused or neglected us, or authority figures who abused their trust, or loved ones who treated us well but were abusive to others, we’re reliving those original contradictions of the people who were important in our lives. That’s why it’s so hard. The decision to reread Harry Potter or not, or to enjoy the dramatic stylings of Kevin Spacey . . . ultimately these are easy questions. If they feel hard, it’s because they stand in for closer, more personal questions.
Similarly, when thinking about academic misconduct, the fundamental challenges come when people who we’ve loved and respected have taken advantage of us–or of others.
We write about Francis Galton or Woody Allen or Yuval Peres because that’s less uncomfortable than writing about people closer to us.
An email from Jenny Diski
Also, Dederer wrote about the author Jenny Diski, which brought to mind an email exchange I had with Diski back in 2010. I wrote:
I’m writing to you because of a reaction I had to an offhand remark in your recently published review of a book on Psycho. You wrote:
“Skerry isn’t really one to let go of jargon. In the preface he explains how to read his book, not as most books are doomed to be read, from beginning to end, but differently and ‘in keeping with the multiplicity of voices that make up the text’. It gets quite scary: ‘The temporal structure of these chapters goes from the present-tense narrative of my research trip in Chapter 1 to the achronological, “cubist” structure of Chapter 3 . . .”
I don’t know any of the people involved, but I suspect that Skerry was not intentionally writing in jargon; it’s just hard to write clearly. Harder than many readers realize, and maybe harder than you, as a professional writer, realize. My guess is that Skerry was trying his best but he just doesn’t know any better.
I had a similar discussion with a friend on this topic a while ago, where he was accusing academics of deliberately writing obscurely, to make their work seem deeper than it really is, and I replied that we’d all like to write clearly but it’s not so easy to do so. I’ve written several books myself, but I’m a statistician, not a creative writer, and I’m always struggling to write clearly and with minimal jargon.
There are some fundamental difficulties here, the largest of which, I think, is that the natural way to explain a confusing point is to add more words—but if you add too many words, it’s hard to follow the underlying idea. Especially given that writing is one-dimensional; you can’t help things along with intonation, gestures, and facial expressions. There’s the smiley-face and its cousin, the gratuitous exclamation point (which happened to be remarked upon by Alan Bennett in that same issue of the LRB), but that’s slim pickings considering all the garnishes available for augmenting face-to-face spoken conversation.
My full reactions are here.
Anyway, I hope this is useful to you in giving a slightly different perspective on academic writing. In short: when we write badly, it’s not always on purpose!
To which Diski replied:
Thanks for your email. I’m sure you’re right when it comes to your field – any field involving maths, but I’m not so sure about the humanities. I think there is very little that can’t be said about movies or even literature and history plainly (by which I mean well written) enough to be accessible to any literate person.
In any case, Skerry was, I thought, using the idea of postmodernism idiotically and unnecessarily in order to make his book appear more scholarly. Just my opinion, of course.
It’s always so great when a person responds in a serious way to a serious question.
Last words
Not the last words of Dederer’s book, but the last words of the second-to-last chapter. She writes:
You will solve nothing by means of your consumption; the idea you can is a dead end. The way you consume art doesn’t make a bad person, or a good one. You’ll have to find some other way to accomplish that.
