Too Far to Go or Going too Far?

Klaus Mann, Staff Sergeant US Fifth Army (photo: United States Fifth Army)

In her review of Frederic Spotts Cursed Legacy, The Tragic Life of Klaus Mann, Anna Katharina Schaffner quotes the author and Mann himself as follows: “In his diary Klaus complained that his father’s 'general lack of interest in human beings is especially strong towards me.'” Schaffner also quotes Spotts thusly, “Klaus Mann was six times jinxed. A son of Thomas Mann. A homeless exile. A drug addict. A writer unable to publish in his native tongue. A not-so-gay gay. Someone haunted by all his life by a fascination with death.” But the case of Thomas Mann raises another question, that of the camouflage of humanism under which artistic depredations are allowed to fester. A great writer may have an exorbitant appetite for life while at the same time being life’s deadly enemy. Look at Tolstoy who early on exercised his doit du seigneur with his serfs while ending his last days, abandoning his wife and dying in Astopovo railway station. Norman Mailer famously stabbed his wife Adele on the eve of his candidacy for Mayor. V.S. Naipaul’s sadistic treatment of his mistress which involved beatings and disfigurement has been documented in Patrick French’s biography. And what can we say about Picasso. His portraits of the many women in his life appear to be the kiss of death; when he could no longer “palate” them they became works of art. It’s no revelation to learn that successful creative people often possess enormous egos which sucks up experience like a black hole light. When one reads Too Far to Go the short stories that comprise Updike’s eulogy to his first marriage, one wonders if the tristesse of the break up, so beautifully rendered, didn’t, in fact, represent the author sacrificing life for the sake of art. In this view creative work is a form of taxidermy, in which the skinned animal is used to make the head which hangs over the fireplace.

Why Some Writers Refuse to Submit?

Portrait of Dostoevsky by Vasily Perov (1872)

It is easy to see how writers like Mailer, Hemingway and Plimpton (who all boxed), Isak Dinesen (who hunted game), Gloria Steinem (who became a Playboy bunny) Jean Genet (who was a hustler and criminal), Peter Matthiessen (who explored dangerous places like the Himalayas)  and most recently William Vollman (who explored his dark side in varying dangerous milieu ) challenged bulls or  added tails to their tales. It was the only way to differentiate themselves from their colleagues, meek Kafkaesque creatures who lived in fear of rejection and waited for telephone calls or the return of sases (remember them) from imperious editors who could make or break their careers. Even running for your life at Pamplona or performing half naked in a sex club and facing the leering eyes of inebriated businessmen was better than dealing with the literary world in a places like London, Paris or New York. Graham Greene was another writer who put himself in danger whether exploring the criminal world of Nice (J’Accuse: The Dark Side of Nice) or in his varying travels through Mexico, Africa and Caribbean. V.S Naipaul chased his high in his well documented sadistic relationship with his mistress. Many writers and artists, whose art evolves from their quirky and eccentric way of doings things and ofttimes their inability to conform to the more narrow lifestyles afforded by run-of-the-mill professions, occupied the world of haute boheme. But few would go to the lengths of colorful figures like Norman Mailer who stabbed his then wife on eve of his candidacy for the mayoralty of New York. What made Dostoevsky engage in dangerous revolutionary activities that in a famous instance found him in danger of execution? Was he looking for material or was he just trying to escape from the lot of being your typical weirdo and egghead whose ego would one day be trampled by an insensitive world? “Not having heard from you, I was wondering about the status of my submission,” is the kind of note that writers today may text or e mail. Even a firing squad is better than that.