What do we know about Dickens?

When I wrote my blog post about writers and their politics, I had given the issue considerable thought. 

Now, these two writers, Thomas Mallon and Adam Kirsch take a look at the issue from a different perspective in this week's New York Times book review section. 

What do we know about the writer's life. 

Each of the authors have a different opinion and present a case from their own perspective and from and about the perspective of living and deceased authors.

Two examples that resonate for me are Lillian Hellman and William Shakespeare.

Lillian Hellman, 1939 © via NY Times review

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lillian Hellman was reviled by her protractors because they believed they, and not she knew the truth.

William Shakespeare, Martin Droeshout engraving, 1609, via Wiki

Conversely, the mystery that surrounds William Shakespeare both elicits favour and an untold number of conjectures.

Sigmund Freud, 1926, Ferdinand Schmutzer via the Freud Museum

And in typical Jungian fashion, and true synchronicity, the Washington Post reviewed Adam Phillips new book, " Becoming Freud: The making of a psychoanalyst" in which many illuminating statements are made about memory and the biographical state. 

A book I've put at the top of my long list of must reads.

The Children's Hour

The telly is showing Hellman's The Children's Hour today, and it made me think again about prevarication and how, or if, Hellman was inspired by Longfellow's poem.

But, no, after some research it appears Hellman based her play on the life events set out in Scotch Verdict:Miss Pirie and Miss Woods v. Dame Cumming Gordon (1983), by Lillian Faderman.

Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day's occupations,
That is known as the Children's Hour.

I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.

From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair.

A whisper, and then a silence:
Yet I know by their merry eyes
They are plotting and planning together
To take me by surprise.

A sudden rush from the stairway,
A sudden raid from the hall!
By three doors left unguarded
They enter my castle wall!

They climb up into my turret
O'er the arms and back of my chair;
If I try to escape, they surround me;
They seem to be everywhere.

They almost devour me with kisses,
Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!

Do you think, o blue-eyed banditti,
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old mustache as I am
Is not a match for you all!

I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon
In the round-tower of my heart.

And there will I keep you forever,
Yes, forever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away!

Poem: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

An accidental find: Hellman's history.

Occasionally I just search, in an aimless way, where one tangled path leads to another.

It was on such a search that I found this review of yet another biography of Lillian Hellman.

It was Hellman who inspired the title of this blog, a play on words, but still a phrase plucked from one of Lillian Hellman's memoirs.

A complex person, Hellman's memoirs fascinated me more than her plays, although they too had a ring that demanded attention.

Although there is nothing to argue with in the review by Carl Rollyson, there is also no room for forgiveness or understanding in his statements.

Writing is a skill, a craft, a path, a resonance, a fabrication and often a lie. It is difficult to judge where craft turns to crafty even for the person putting pen to paper, and I believe in Lillian Hellman's case, prevarication was part of her temperament.

A strong personality, with certain charms, but not the attractive woman she wanted to be, or even perhaps the writer she imagined she'd become, I can't fault her embroidering the stories she created, or the liberties she took in her fiction or her memoirs.

Not only do we live our lives, we remarkably and often unintentionally embellish our memories. If embellishment is a crime, Hellman is guilty, but if embellishment is to be understood, it should be granted more leniency than offered by those who knew her or wished they knew her--because to create a biography is a love affair, and for reasons of the unconscious, Mr.Rollyson seems to be enamoured with Lillian Hellman.