Artists wringing their hands about the effect of their betrayal of their subjects - Graham Greene used to go in for a lot of it - becomes even less attractive when you realise that the issue isn't really their need to write, or to create art in some other form, at all. It's their desire to publish. The problem with Carrere, as with all of the others, isn't that he has an obsessive need to create art. It's that, having created it, he'd quite like to exchange it for money. "I feel terribly bad about it all, but on the other hand, I'd rather not have to get a proper job".
I admit to being plagued by the questionable ethics of writing -- and I address that in the memoir I'm now posting here on Substack. Woe is me, as I recount the good, the bad, and mostly the foolish that is me.
The one incident that threw me a bit was Bellow's terrific novel Ravelstein when Bellow was attacked or, one could say, criticized for "outing" Allen Bloom -- but what a book Bellow wrote with its ending that is so lyrical and unforgettable.
The questions of ethics is complex, indeed. But Bellow's brilliance overcomes. And then there's the critic Joseph Epstein in _Essays in Biography_ who even attacks Bellow's ability to construct a plot, He damns _Seize the Day_ that I think is brilliant and comments that Bellow's many wives should have written a book about him--a highly unfavorable one at best.
So where is the line? Good question, indeed. As always, Sam, you fascinate and intrigue.
Great piece. Carrere is an interesting fellow, no doubt. I enjoyed his book about Philip K. Dick, although it does very little for my studies. I'd probably move to a country that ignored Western law if a divorced ex-wife tried to place that settlement on me, however.
Some would love to think it's about money, because that's how THEY would feel about it and because that's what American literature has become: greatness = NYT bestseller list and selling copies, doesn't matter if you sell them a good product or not. But for literature to be life, it has to draw from it. While I thankfully find in my own fiction that I don't need to simply import characters wholesale from reality, if I did my wife is going to have a much bigger role in my life than somebody else's wife for reasons so obvious I shouldn't have to list them: I don't see why that's so hard for some people to understand. In any case, the greatest artists have never had the luxury of actually thinking about ethical conundrums. (Many of them, anyway) Americans think of Hemingway going from wife to wife, but a big factor for Joyce with Ulysses and other works was him getting revenge against his "enemies" in Dublin, like Oliver St. John Gogarty. Revenge was the point, not the side effect. It's probably one big reason why America will never have a novel that holds a candle to a book like Ulysses. The law in America hinders the free flow of emotion needed for great works of literature.
I don't know if you've read it, but Australian great Patrick White wrote a novel called The Vivisectionist about an artist and his cruel exploitation of the lives of his friends and family in this manner. Perhaps it would interest you.
As for confessional literature, you're absolutely right: it's not brave, in fact it's the exact opposite. (With exceptions, of course) This confessional, open-book attitude of today is very much a Stalin show trial situation except that rather than telling Comrade Stalin about our secret correspondence with Trotsky, we tell the faceless mob around us that we're a good little guy, and that they shouldn't hurt us. I know it's the trend to be autobiographical and honest right now, and each writer should do their thing. But we've come a long way since Henry Miller, and it's not as brave of a stance as people think.
Artists wringing their hands about the effect of their betrayal of their subjects - Graham Greene used to go in for a lot of it - becomes even less attractive when you realise that the issue isn't really their need to write, or to create art in some other form, at all. It's their desire to publish. The problem with Carrere, as with all of the others, isn't that he has an obsessive need to create art. It's that, having created it, he'd quite like to exchange it for money. "I feel terribly bad about it all, but on the other hand, I'd rather not have to get a proper job".
I admit to being plagued by the questionable ethics of writing -- and I address that in the memoir I'm now posting here on Substack. Woe is me, as I recount the good, the bad, and mostly the foolish that is me.
The one incident that threw me a bit was Bellow's terrific novel Ravelstein when Bellow was attacked or, one could say, criticized for "outing" Allen Bloom -- but what a book Bellow wrote with its ending that is so lyrical and unforgettable.
The questions of ethics is complex, indeed. But Bellow's brilliance overcomes. And then there's the critic Joseph Epstein in _Essays in Biography_ who even attacks Bellow's ability to construct a plot, He damns _Seize the Day_ that I think is brilliant and comments that Bellow's many wives should have written a book about him--a highly unfavorable one at best.
So where is the line? Good question, indeed. As always, Sam, you fascinate and intrigue.
Great piece. Carrere is an interesting fellow, no doubt. I enjoyed his book about Philip K. Dick, although it does very little for my studies. I'd probably move to a country that ignored Western law if a divorced ex-wife tried to place that settlement on me, however.
Some would love to think it's about money, because that's how THEY would feel about it and because that's what American literature has become: greatness = NYT bestseller list and selling copies, doesn't matter if you sell them a good product or not. But for literature to be life, it has to draw from it. While I thankfully find in my own fiction that I don't need to simply import characters wholesale from reality, if I did my wife is going to have a much bigger role in my life than somebody else's wife for reasons so obvious I shouldn't have to list them: I don't see why that's so hard for some people to understand. In any case, the greatest artists have never had the luxury of actually thinking about ethical conundrums. (Many of them, anyway) Americans think of Hemingway going from wife to wife, but a big factor for Joyce with Ulysses and other works was him getting revenge against his "enemies" in Dublin, like Oliver St. John Gogarty. Revenge was the point, not the side effect. It's probably one big reason why America will never have a novel that holds a candle to a book like Ulysses. The law in America hinders the free flow of emotion needed for great works of literature.
I don't know if you've read it, but Australian great Patrick White wrote a novel called The Vivisectionist about an artist and his cruel exploitation of the lives of his friends and family in this manner. Perhaps it would interest you.
As for confessional literature, you're absolutely right: it's not brave, in fact it's the exact opposite. (With exceptions, of course) This confessional, open-book attitude of today is very much a Stalin show trial situation except that rather than telling Comrade Stalin about our secret correspondence with Trotsky, we tell the faceless mob around us that we're a good little guy, and that they shouldn't hurt us. I know it's the trend to be autobiographical and honest right now, and each writer should do their thing. But we've come a long way since Henry Miller, and it's not as brave of a stance as people think.
Wow. How on earth do you have time to write four sharp cultural critiques in one week? Bravo!