In the current issue of the Weekly Standard, poet and editor J. Bottum reviews the new Patrick French biography of the celebrated Anglo-Indian-Caribbean author, V.S. Naipaul. I haven’t read the French book, but I have read some things by the 2001 Nobelist, who is not one of my favorite authors. I read the review more out of fondness for Bottum, who is a magnificent essayist and a fine third-rate poet. (Third-rate is not an insult in my book. If Shakespeare and Dante are first-rate, Yeats and Auden second-rate, and Rod McKuen ninth-rate, then third-rate is a good thing to be.)
Bottum notes the tendency in literary biography towards de-mythologizing celebrated writers by revealing their pettinesses, their narcissism, and their abysmal people skills. But even by the modern execratory standard, the French biography reveals Naipaul to be a world-class wretch:
Naipaul shows himself arrogant beyond belief, and vile-tempered, and as self-obsessed as a man simpering while he looks at himself in the mirror. His letters and conversation are full of references to “niggers” and dismissals of Africans and dark-skinned Indians.
The man was capable of bouts of extraordinary cruelty: Unhappy with Margaret at one point, Naipaul explains, “I was very violent with her for two days. .  .  . Her face was bad. She couldn’t appear really in public. My hand was swollen.” But then, he was capable of ordinary, everyday cruelty, as well: “You are the only woman I know who has no skill,” his wife’s diaries reveal Naipaul once told her, just in passing. “You behave like the wife of a clerk who has risen above her station.” He moved on to the mistress who would become his second wife because his inamorata Margaret had simply grown unworthy of his use: “middle-aged, almost an old lady.”
Bottum writes, not unreasonably, that “I didn’t need to know all this…” And he’s right. We don’t need to know this about the writers we admire, even if, as in the case of the all-too-much alive Naipaul, he apparently wants us to know it. Naipaul evidently authorized this biography, cheerfully turning over pages and pages of material documenting his sadism, his snobbery, and his deeply depressing inability to muster anything even remotely approaching empathy for other living creatures. There’s no sense, according to Bottum, that Naipaul is confessing behavior of which he is ashamed and for which he seeks absolution. Rather, he just wants the world to know who he is and what he was, without apology or embarrassment. It’s very ugly, and it walks the line between pathetic and appalling.
And more to the point, as Bottum rightly points out, it ruins Naipaul for any thinking reader. Bottum’s review is an excellent reminder of the reasons why I don’t enjoy reading literary biographies, at least not of authors whose works I admire. I’m not unhappy to know of the peccadilloes of great politicians or musicians, because my appreciation of their achievement is not contingent upon an imagination that they are a particular way in their private world. Whether or not Mick Jagger is a saint or a monster or something in between will not affect the pleasure I take in hearing him perform: whether or not FDR was faithful to Eleanor doesn’t change my view on the overall success of his presidency. But when it comes to novelists and poets, writers who draw me into their own particular vision of reality, who show me new ways of thinking about people and things and relationships, then yes, their private behavior does impact how I read their work. And to know too much can spoil things completely for me.
One of my favorite twentieth-century poets is Philip Larkin, who ranks as a near-equal with Auden in my book. But Larkin, alas, has never been the same for me since I read Andrew Motion’s biography of him many years ago. I rather like Motion, who was not yet the poet laureate of England when he wrote the Larkin book. I don’t blame Motion for telling his readers all of the details of Larkin’s many uglinesses, some of which are summarized neatly in the Wikipedia entry on the late poet’s life. It hasn’t ruined Larkin for me entirely — some of his stuff is just too damned good. But I find myself reading his work differently, looking for hints of his misogyny (and indeed, his generalized misanthropy) in almost every line. Bottum writes a similar thing of the Naipaul biography:
Perhaps, in some abstract sense, a novel is an independent thing, with the person who wrote it utterly beside the point. But in the real world of reading, when we know certain facts about a writer, we read them into the story and find them buried there. Books are responsible for their authors; in a kind of child labor, they carry their fathers on their backs. And the works of V. S. Naipaul are now so weighted down they feel like blocks of lead.
I’m open about my life and my foibles, at least reasonably so, here on this blog. And I like discussing other people’s lives and foibles very much; indeed, commenting on the little pettinesses that make us fallible humans is something inherently interesting to me. But I do everything I can to avoid reading unpleasant details about the writers whose fiction or whose poetry have moved me. I can accept that my politicians — and even my spiritual leaders — have feet of clay. I trust them to be effective guides and wise decision-makers, and hope that they make at least an earnest attempt at matching their public pronouncements with their private behavior. But when it comes to the writers whose words draw me into another country (not the “other country”, mind you), I am very reluctant to admit into my consciousness anything at odds with my longing to believe that these are very likeable people telling me a wonderful story.
I do a lot of reading. But give me no new books about Jeffers, or Elizabeth Bishop, or even poor Anne Sexton. Let the dead rest. What I need to know of them will bleed through in their art, and what they said — however nastily — in a letter to the Times or in divorce court can stay hidden from me. I won’t flinch from anyone’s naked truth, save the naked truths of those who made their living with words. If those words made me feel things I never felt before, then leave me in peace with those words and feelings, unspoiled by graphic and unhappy reminders that their authors were frail, petty, and all too often, just like me.
I don’t have a really rational defense of this, but somehow it feels odd to have this concern for novelists/poets over spiritual leaders. For the latter it seems like an ability to live well, and live out one’s ideals, ought to be more important than for a novelist or poet.
But then, I disagree with you about novelists/poets — or, perhaps I should phrase it, feel differently. But given our mutual admiration for Auden, I can’t help quoting:
Time that is intolerant
Of the brave and innocent
And indifferent in a week
To a beautiful physique
Worships language and forgives
Everyone by whom it lives
Pardons cowardice, conceit
Lays its honors at their feet.
Time that with this strange excuse
Pardoned Kipling and his views
And will pardon Paul Claudel
Pardons him for writing well.
–And yes, I know Auden later disavowed those verses. As with his disavowals of “September 1, 1939″ and “Spain” — two of his best poems — I think he was simply wrong in all three cases (or perhaps I should say that the early Auden was right). And since I believe that poems and novels aren’t, finally, tethered to their maker, I feel no hesitation in saying so.
SF
Time pardons, yes, but I am not time. (I love those lines, and agree with the original sentiment too.) In Auden’s own case, reading about his relationship with Chester Kallmann was not a happy thing — I’d rather stick to the “Common Life.” It’s not that ignorance is bliss, it’s that I am sufficiently possessive of my authors to want them to be who I want them to be — and that requires a high amount of access to their work product, and a minimum amount of knowledge of their shortcomings.
Hmmm…Well, I am unlike you because people’s behaviors very much spoil my appreciation of their particular deeds, works, etc. You mention Mick Jagger and although I like some of his music, I am reminded of his conduct towards some of the women in his life and his children and I do think about it when I hear his songs. I often turn the channel or just turn it off. I boycotted the works of another famous rocker, because of his sexist commentaries towards women, which I found very offensive. If someone shoots their mouth off about their political viewpoints, like say a famous singer, I tend to write them off. I boycott them period. I pay money to see a concert to watch a music performance, not to hear about their political views. There are scant few politicians who I hold in high esteem and I find it difficult to not feel even greater disappointment in them than other groups. As for writers well they tend to be particularly prone to arrogance, narcissism, pettiness and just plain nasty dispositions. Still, even though there is much to despise about their character flaws and deficiencies I can find merit in some of their works.
I find the distinction you draw interesting. Personally I would have more of a problem with the imperfections of a spiritual guide than with a politician or musician/writer.
I reality I haven’t been too dissapointed probably because I don’t expect that much or perhaps I rationalize/make excuses for them.
But just realized that I tend to be more affected by political stances:
(1) When I found out that Lee Ann Womack publically endorsed Bush in 04 I didn’t listen to “I Hope You Dance” for a long time (http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081027/TUNEIN/810270305/1005) Apparently she now admits it was a mistake … so I guess I can listen without qualms
(2) When I found out that Eric Clapton had make anti-immigrant
comments back in the 60s, it seriously affected my opinion of him. I still listen to his music, but its not the same. (http://microsites.virgin.net/music/pictures/profiles/when-popstars-get-political.php?ssid=6) This is even more disturbing on second review.
(3) There was a another similar example I was thinking of here, but it has slipped my mind.
So I tend to be more affected by political opinions and I am also much more affected if I previously greatly admired the person (e.g Clapton). Finding out bad stuff about someone I merely think of as OK doesn’t really prevent me from enjoying their work.
So if I found out that Francis Ford Coppola, Ursula K. Le Guin, Bono and Quentin Tarantino were all secretly Nazi sympathizers that would be a rather major bummer!
(I hasten to add that this whole thing is rather arbitrary, I don’t claim my reactions are necessarily fair or rational )
I haven’t been clear enough in making my point about novelists and poets: they bring me into their world in a way that musicians don’t (at least for me), and that spiritual and political leaders do not. They invite me to see the world through their eyes, these writers; “too much information” about the author’s private failings spoils that nearly sacred relationship between text and reader. This is not true, in my case, with any other sort of art.
Hugo,
I think Orwell’s essay about Swift is apropos here….look it up if you haven’t read it. Although Orwell was criticicizing Swift’s moral and political views more than any personal failings. His point is basically that often, a writer’s failings and limitations are intimately linked to what makes him a great writer. Artistic vision depends on the ability to see one small aspect of reality in more vivid and brilliant detail than most other people: being a just and reasonable person, on the other hand, depends on being able to comprehend all aspects of (physical and moral) reality in their appropriate place. These abilities are seldom compatible, which is why so many writers seem to have major failings (either personal or political).
Yeats was a Fascist, but his fascist contempt for the masses was exactly what led him to see through the hollowness of the modern world in “The Second Coming”. Tolstoy’s views on sex were, to put it charitably, extreme, but they were exactly what gave him the power and vision to write “Anna Karenina”. Would the world be a better place if Yeats had been more democratic, or Tolstoy less ascetic? Possibly, but then we wouldn’t have “Anna Karenina” or “The Second Coming.”
I think, Hector, I’m more forgiving of political shortcomings than personal cruelty — Larkin and Naipaul were frequently mean and cruel to the people closest to them. That’s the sort of thing it’s more difficult to forgive.
I’ll look up the essay on Swift; I don’t know it. I do know that my beloved Robinson Jeffers had a vaguely fascist streak from time to time; I can live with that more easily.
And of course, with a very few exceptions (Pepys, etcetra) we don’t know the sort of things about writers of Swift’s era as we do about writers of the 20th century…
Should you read the excellent biographies of Swift by Victoria Glendinning and of Yeats by Maddox/Foster/practically everyone you will read ample and sad evidence of the mental cruelty those two particular giants meted on the women who loved them.
If there’s anyone such reputation has affected my view of, it’s Ted Hughes. He comes out as such an evil, controlling piece of work, well versed in the art of destroying women’s lives by stringing them along, pulling them in, pushing them back away.
But here’s the important question:
What rate poet is Shel Silverstein?
Fifth.
Oh, only fifth! My favorite poet: I’m thus cut to the quick.
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