Books and Flowers

I’ve reread two Icelandic mystery stories by Eva Björg Ægisdóttir. Good ones! 
The series now has four books, and the author will soon publish another one.

What is a monster? Claire Dederer devotes this entire book, Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma, to an effort define this term insofar as it relates to gifted men — geniuses — creators — who are abusers, sexual predators, racists, antisemites, or worse. Men whose brilliant creations are stained in the eyes of the audience member who loves their work but becomes aware of the reality of the artist. One way she says it:

“I realized that for me, over the past few years of thinking about Polanski, thinking about Woody Allen, thinking about all these complicated men I loved, the word had come to take on a new meaning. It meant something more nuanced, and something more elemental. It meant: someone whose behavior disrupts our ability to apprehend the work on its own terms.” (p 46)

This is a terrific book, full of interesting insights into the consumers of great literature, art, film, and music who struggle with the sins of the artists. As a combination of memoir, literary criticism, and general observations about works of art, it's wide-ranging and readable. One very interesting theme is the contrast between men who create with women who create. Though  creative women and men can both be monsters, it’s never for the same reasons, and there are many examples to show the differences.

Another theme is how critics writing about the arts deal with the impact of a creative person's immorality or evil-doing on the audience for their work. The author tries to get to the heart of the claim that a critic can be objective and judge the art independent of its maker: “Authoritative criticism believes in the myth of the objective response, a response entirely unshaped by feeling, emotion, subjectivity.” (p. 73) Basically the author concludes that objectivity about art is a myth: a male myth. 

I enjoyed a lot of the varied accounts of authors/creators and their history:

• I enjoyed Claire Dederer’s insights about a number of creators that I haven’t thought about recently, such as Gertrude Stein, Doris Lessing, Jenny Disky, Sylvia Plath, Woody Allen, Richard Wagner, Picasso, and many more, and the varied ways their biographies might affect their audiences.
• I enjoyed it when she reminded me of the strange 1960s life of Valerie Solanis (1936-1988), author of the SCUM Manifesto, but better known for shooting Andy Warhol: in case you don’t know about Valerie Solanis, SCUM stands for “Society for Cutting Up Men.”
• I enjoyed her examination of the challenges to women who want to be both creators and mothers, and maybe do terrible things to their children (or maybe just abandon them, terrible enough). Or maybe abandon their art.
• I enjoyed her short biography of the little-known artist Ana Mendieta, whose death “makes a kind of parable about artistic silence.” A few weeks ago, I read Anita de Monte Laughs Last by Xochitl Gonzalez, thinking it was purely a work of fiction, but I checked up and discovered that it wasn’t simply fiction, but a fictionalized life of Ana, who was actually killed by her husband — also an artist. He was tried but let off, which is a scandal and clearly an example of an artist monster. I appreciated Claire Dederer’s insights about this particular example of the artist/husband who gets away with murder — and of a victim who was spectacularly diminished by her abuser.

The author presents the reader with many questions about those who love the works of genius/monsters, and those who justify the monstrousness. One possible explanation: “We want the asshole to cross the line, to break the rules. We reward that rule-breaking, and then we go a step further, and see it as endemic to art-making itself. We reward and reward this bad behavior until it becomes synonymous with greatness.” (p. 111) 

If you would like to read about fairness, this is not the book for you. The number of ways that society is unfair to women are unbearably numerous, from the unfairness to the victims of artists’ self-justified cruelty and violence to the unfairness to women artists. Even “cancelling” an artist for his vices isn’t very satisfactory. Quotes:

• “The very term ‘cancel culture’ is hopelessly non-useful, with its suggestion that the loss of status for the accused is somehow on a par with the suffering endured by the victim.” (p.133)
• “The violence of male artists is tied to their greatness. It’s an impulse. It’s freedom. The violence or self-harm of female artists can be a sign of sensitivity, a sign of lunacy, but it is rarely turned inside out to become a sign of creative and moral strength.” (p. 222)

In this review, I have hardly begun to explore the many-faceted content of this book. (It goes without saying that the author presents her own view of Lolita.) I’ll just leave you with this:

“It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of patriarchy.” (p. 221)

Next book:  Sojourner Truth by Nell Irvin Painter.

Gardens Around Me

Allium, about to bloom.

On the Road Again

It’s Saturday, and we left home at 8 AM.
Our destination is St.Louis. We are half-way there, in Indiana, at my sister’s house.

We arrived in time for a fabulous lunch.

Blog post and photos © mae sander 2024