Faculty Forum You Cannot Conceive The Many Without The One -Plato-

Issue No. 2, Spring Edition March 25, 2005

This publication is available to our academic make use of him or her in some way? Or, community as contributors desire to publicly share rather, might it be better if we could push scholarly-based thoughts and opinions. Please sub- mit contributions (ten double-spaced pages or less) the artist aside in order to get a better view as a Word attachment, in 12-point font, to emer- of the art? [email protected]. Authors, please note that you are Does it help, for instance, to picture Beetho- writing for an audience that includes faculty, staff, ven, old and deaf, con ducting a premiere of and students. his 9th Symphony before an appreciative

full house, and hearing it, in all its glory, Why Tom Hanks is a Bad Actor; only inside his head? Does it help to know or, the Trouble with Biography. that Stephen Crane, author of the Civil War novel The Red Badge of Courage, was born In the car the other day, during a dis- after the war was over? That he never set cussion of a movie directed by Woody Al- foot on any battlefield? Does it help to len, one of my colleagues admitted that her know that James Joyce, novelist and author view of an artist’s work—movie director, of a collection of poems entitled Chamber actor, novelist, poet, painter, composer—is Music, heard music in the sounds of a colored by what she might happen to know woman tinkling? Does it help to know that about that person’s life. In her opinion, William Faulkner was from Mississippi? then, Woody Allen doesn’t come off too That Van Gogh cut off his ear? That all the well. Tom Hanks comes off better. women in Bob Dylan’s songs might re fer to a real woman who once was his wife? Such responses are entirely valid, That Madonna was, is, and will be a mate- and the psychology of their effects reminds rial girl? That Tom Hanks is a real nice us that a human being stands behind the an- guy? gles in a movie, the words of a poem, the strings of a musical concerto. That humans These historical and biographical exist behind every work of art raises impor- facts are interesting, and may contribute or tant questions about the relationships be- detract from our appreciation of the work tween art and life. Their existence raises a that we connect with such real people. particular question for the art consumer: However, does the presence of such facts as what are we to do with these people while these really help us to evaluate the art? we are in the midst of experiencing a work Well, it depends on what one means by of art, watching a movie or reading a novel? “help.” Does an artist’s life help us at all when it comes to the artist’s art? Undoubtedly, it The question is undoubtedly as old may. Should we then be encouraged to as art, and it could be argued that it is largely an academic question, since it is the Biography is a painstaking thing, essential objective of the academic to evalu- and, at best, a selective reconstruction of a ate, and to question and refine his or her human being’s life. Literary biography pre- fundamental approach to the objects of sumes, as its starting place, that this is the study. Then again, all readers, listeners of life of a great author. Shakespeare is the music, museum-goers, and moviegoers man who wrote Hamlet, and so a biography evaluate art as they experience it. And most of Shakespeare tells the life of the man who of us consider it desirable to size-up our ex- wrote Hamlet. Biography starts at the end perience by judging a painting or a book or and then tries to reconstruct who it was who a pop-song on its own merit. We recognize did such a great thing. Since literary biog- that historical context may supplement our raphy reads a life through the fact of an in- interest and understanding without provid- dividual’s written work, its selection and ing the ultimate measure of what we appre- arrangement of biographical “facts ” will ciate and disregard. Viewed in this way, always amount to a fiction. then, one could say that biography helps, but perhaps it shouldn’t be employed either Still, to reconstruct an author’s life to save or to condemn any individual work is a very valuable enterprise in itself. How- of art. ever, when it comes to reading books, the business of biography is time and effort Still, can biography hurt? This is a spent away from the books the authors have serious question. It goes beyond exploring, written, the books the authors want us to for instance, whether one should like or dis- read. In many cases, authors go to great like Woody Allen’s movies according to lengths to remove themselves from their whether one likes or dislikes Woody Allen work in hopes that we might spend our time himself. For matters of taste one is free to on the real prize. The real prize is the book, do as one sees fit. However, biographical whose existence, let’s face it, is the sole rea- considerations extend beyond questions of son that we take any interest at all in the relevance and questions of individual taste. human being who once wrote some words There are works of art, in fact, that seek to down on paper. detach themselves from their creators. In such cases, those of us who seek to judge a A famous example of biography’s un- work according to its own merit might do happy intrusion upon fiction is Herman better to forget the artist while we are look- Melville and Moby-Dick. The number of ing at the art. studies that explore the relationship between the life and experience of the man, Herman Literary fiction provides the readiest Melville, and the life and experience of examples of this phenomenon—of art works Moby-Dick’s famous narrator is staggering. that remove themselves from their authors. The narrator of Moby-Dick, Ishmael, signs However, readers often overlook this, and up for and embarks upon his first ever when they do, the author is likely to intrude cruise on a whaling ship. The cruise is a upon the work. Such intrusions can make tragic one. Everyone dies. Well, everyone, things pretty messy. When we put too that is, except for Ishmael, who lives to tell much interest in the authors, we let the au- his tale. Not only does Ishmael live to tell thors interrupt our reading, and these inter- the tale, but the point is that he does tell it. ruptions make things confusing. They take up our time and misdirect our efforts.

-2- What’s it called? Moby-Dick. It is These questions—rhetorical ques- an important point of the novel. Moby-Dick tions, it turns out—return us to the funda- is Ishmael’s story. Yeah, some guy named mental question about biography: does it Herman Melville wrote the book. But he really help to know these things? Most peo- puts it in the mouth of a fictional character ple would say yes, but when pressed to ex- who makes the story his own. plain why, most people are hard-pressed. One could say that knowing such facts helps This may seem like a rather simple to generate interest, to supply a context, to point. And rightfully it should be, on its establish credibility. That may be true. But face (it doesn’t, for all that, make Moby- isn’t it the job and the measure of a well- Dick any easier to read). However, a prob- wrought novel to do these things on its lem continuously arises by virtue of the fact own? To say that a novel’s success depends that there is this guy named Herman Mel- on an author’s biography, that the novel ville who actually sat down and wrote needs biography, comes very close to say- Moby-Dick. A once living and breathing ing that it’s not a very good novel. This, of human being, whose parents named him course, does not hold true. Remember, we “Herman Melville,” once invented a guy, a wouldn’t care about Tom Hanks if we didn sailor, who signs up for an adventure on a ’t care for his art. We would not be inter- whaler, experiences the adventure, survives ested in Bob Dylan if he hadn’t written the adventure, and then tells the tale of that “Like a Rolling Stone” and “Sad-Eyed Lady adventure, asking his readers to “Call me of the Lowlands.” It shouldn’t surprise us Ishmael.” Nobody like this Ishmael ever that the sad-eyed lady could be an actual lived and breathed in the physical world as woman who is part of the living man’s past. we know it. Then again, nobody named Enlightening as this might be, it doesn’t “Herman Melville” lives and breathes any- make “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” where in the world presented in the novel either a better or a worse song. It’s a Moby-Dick. mighty good song.

On the other hand, in the scholarly Beyond the inconveniences caused writings about Moby-Dick, Herman Mel- by the intrusion of biography, there are ville keeps showing up everywhere. Schol- other, more serious problems. Can biogra- ars have spent a lot of time trying to figure phy do damage to literary works? Here, the out what part of Ishmael’s whaling adven- answer is a resounding yes. ture has parallels in Herman Melville’s own whaling adventures. It is an interesting ex- Sometimes, an author’s intrusion ercise, but it begs the question : Is it surpris- into his or her fictional world leads to disas- ing that this man, Herman Melville, what- trous consequences. Just look at Moby- ever else he was and did, once sailed on a Dick. To go to great lengths to find the cor- whaling vessel? Is it surprising that Wil- respondences between Melville’s life and liam Faulkner, who invented an elaborate his fictive Ishmael is to miss out on the fictional world set in a place called world that Melville creates in that novel, “Mississippi,” was himself, in fact, born and because the world belongs to Ishmael. Eve- raised in a place called Mississippi? Is it rybody will admit that Ishmael “tells” any more or less surprising that Stephen Moby-Dick. Fewer readers have held faith- Crane was not a soldier? I think the answer fully to the consequences of this affirma- is no.

-3- tion. One simply can’t get into the game of fact. 2. They were not read as fact, because the novel if one fails to leave “Herman Mel- readers questioned their “truth.” So Her- ville” on the title page. As long as you’re man Melville, “the man who lived among thinking about Herman Melville you can’t the cannibals,” became a man whose cre- sit up and pay attention to Ishmael’s tale of dentials as an honest writer were brought survival. Ishmael’s very existence is justi- seriously into question. He could have just fied by his role as storyteller, and if we read been a novelist who wove fictional worlds Moby-Dick as Ishmael’s story (which it is), out of his own experience. That’s what he then we get a rather different book from the was. But false advertising and its conse- one that most readers of Herman Melville quences put such an easy definition beyond know. his reach.

Poor Herman Melville. How he Melville tried to deal with the dam- tried to keep himself on the title-pages of age in his third novel, Mardi; and a Voyage his novels. He struggled with the problem Thither (1849). He confronted the problem, from the start of his career. Moby-Dick was but he did so in a strange and complicated his sixth novel, published in 1851 when he way. He tried reverse psychology. In the was thirty-two years old. His first two nov- end it didn’t help him. He made a fascinat- els, Typee (1846) and Omoo (1847), were ing gesture in the preface to his wild and rather elaborate fictional constructions that very unreal allegory, Mardi. It is his first drew from his own Polynesian experiences. (but by no means his last) concerted effort It was difficult for a n unknown author to to get himself out of his books: get his first book published. To do so, he Not long ago, having published two had to convince a publisher that Typee was narratives of voyages in the Pacific, a work of non-fiction. So he claimed that which, in many quarters, were received Typee was “true.” People read the book and with incredulity, the thought occurred to they liked the book, and so they liked the me, of indeed writing a romance of guy whom they thought had lived through Polynesian adventure, and publishing it the experiences in the book. Melville be- as such; to see whether, the fiction came “the man who lived among the canni- might not, possibly, be received for a bals” (a label he could not escape until he verity; in some degree the reverse of my was forgotten). Well, it’s true that Herman previous experience. Melville was once, for a brief time, a real This thought was the germ of oth- castaway in Polynesia. But he was a fiction ers, which have resulted in Mardi. writer and his books were works of fiction, and so, though he passed them off as “truth” The man had turned to irony. He claims and though his readers received them as that since he wrote two books published as “true” accounts, many wondered whether “truth” and taken as “fiction,” he’d write a this stuff was real or if it was, in fact, fic- third one published as “fiction” to see if tion. Melville’s reputation began to suffer. readers might not take it as “truth.” Well, By the time he sat down to write his third this seemed like nothing more than a jab at novel, he had a problem. His books had the readers (not the last time that poor Mel- become entirely too much about him. The ville did that). However, the gesture failed damage was dual: 1. They were not read as to get Melville out of his books, and still fiction, because they were shelved under today, thousands of scholars are working overtime and in shifts, spending a lot of

-4- valuable time away from the valuable of Operation Shylock is a man named books, striving to separate the man from the “Philip Roth,” who says (in the first-person) myth, when instead they should maintain in the first clause of this novel, “I learned the separation between the author and his about the other Philip Roth in January books. 1988…” By naming two separate fictional The academics love the irony, and it characters after himself, the living, breath- turns out that such ironies growing out of ing man who wrote the novel emphasizes problems with biography not only persist and re-emphasizes that his life has no busi- among our contemporary writers, but au- ness intruding on his fiction. Roth under- thor’s real-life problems with biography scores this fact by subtitling his novel, “A have at times become the subjects of the Confession .” Confession is a word and fictional worlds themselves. A most inter- mode that we generally use to describe a esting case is that of Philip Roth, Jewish- highly personal work of autobiography. American novelist (who, for the record, Roth’s “confession” is a fiction that screams doesn’t consider himself a Jewish writer, an out on every page that this stuff cannot pos- American writer, or a Jewish-American sibly have anything to do with the life of the writer). real Philip Roth. So Philip Roth tries to kill himself off by canceling himself out. In 1967, Philip Roth published Port- noy’s Complaint, a riotously funny tale of Such a gesture reveals an author an oversexed Jewish adolescent named Alex who is hyper-aware of the tendency readers Portnoy. It is not a particularly reverent might have to confuse an author with his book and it is not a book for prudes. Its work, and clearly, this author is nearly des- fame scandalized a portion of the commu- perate to prevent the confusion from hap- nity of readers (Jews, Puritans, academics, pening. Philip Roth has good reason to be and others), and its author, Philip Roth, be- hyper-sensitive and desperate. He seeks to came the target of an aggressive backlash. rectify a problem comparable to Herman Philip Roth and Alex Portnoy became in- Melville’s own troubles with biography. separable, and, in the minds of many detrac- Readers keep confusing Roth’s earlier char- tors, indistinguishable. He’s been answer- acters—Alex Portnoy and Nathan Zucker- ing the charge ever since, trying as best as man (who showed up in a handful of novels he can to distinguish himself from the ac- in the 1980’s and ’90’s)—with their author. tions and ideas of his fictional characters. Readers assume that the perverse sexual tendencies and irreverent takes on life that In 1993, he published a novel that belong to all of Roth’s Portnoys and Zuck- works out, in its pages, some of Philip ermans are fictional representations of the Roth’s troubles with biography. In Opera- author himself. Too close for comfort. tion Shylock: A Confession (1993), Roth Read the books and you’ll see. The ingen- attempts to sever himself from the pages of ious self-cancellation that Roth performs in his novel by a reverse psychology that Operation Shylock makes for an interesting trumps even Melville. He draws attention read. Roth capitalizes on his troubling liter- to the distinction between biography and ary fate to construct a complex and satisfy- fiction by putting himself into his own fic- ing fiction. One can say that here biography tion, and not once, but twice. It sounds like has paid off. However, the gesture clearly a paradox. How does this work? The hero marks an attempt, on the author’s part, to

5 force himself back out of his earlier nov- Some such coloring—light or els—to use biography in order to get rid of dark—is, as my colleague said, inevitable. it. He wants to get back in his proper place, It can go both ways. So be it. But if we let and remain there, on the title page. our coloring take us out of the game of reading, which is all-too-often the case, then Poor Philip Roth. Do his cancella- the problem is not one merely for the aca- tions work? Probably not. Do the confu- demics. We might miss the very thing that sions between the author and his characters we set out to do—and that was to read the damage our reading of his books? For book. I try my best not to miss out on that many it did. It’s one thing to have an ob- game and so I do what I can to put poor scene, irreverent fictional character. It’s Herman and poor Philip back where they another thing entirely to have an obscene belong. But I know I’m not free from the irreverent man parading himself and justify- evils of biographical intrusion. They color ing himself on the pages of a work sup- my own responses to art. They color some- posed to be fiction. Still, the books did sell. thing as pleasurable, even, as my experi- But the main point to come from these ex- ences as a moviegoer. Don’t even talk to amples has to do with the books and not me about Charlton Heston. And what’s with the authors. It is the books, really, that worse, I strongly suspect myself guilty want to be read, and the authors are usually when it comes to old Tom Hanks—I might only too well aware that in order for the not think he was such a bad actor if I’d books to get what they want, the authors never found out that he’s such a damned need to kindly step aside. nice guy.

Of course we will ever be colored by the lives and the times of the creators of the art we admire. And of course we have the right to reject the work of any artist whose life or lifestyle conflicts with our own. Philip Larkin, once the unofficial poet lau- reate of England and the darling of its peo- ple, died and left behind journals and letters that reveal a chauvinistic and racist person- ality. His value as a poet came into ques- tion, when perhaps only his character should have. The two are not one and the same. But perhaps that’s just the point. Be- fore the “true Philip Larkin” came to light, the poems were gems. The poems are the same, but they are re-evaluated in the light of new biographical evidence. Such evalua- tions and re-evaluations are food for debate among the academics as well. And no side can be right or wrong. On questions such as these we come back, once again, to matters of taste.

-6-

Sean Ford is an assistant professor of English at the Salkehatchie Campus of the University of South Caro- lina. He has written about the poetry of John Donne and Lord Byron, and about the fiction of Laurence Sterne and Herman Melville. Melville's prose is the subject of his Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Alabama (2003). Dr. Ford may be contacted at [email protected] for responses or comments

FACULTY FORUM IS A NEWSLETTER PUBLISHED ELECTRONICALLY ON OUR WEBSITE AT http://uscsalkehatchie.sc.edu/ AND IN PAPER COPY BY THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA SALKEHATCHIE CAMPUS 807 HAMPTON STREET (P.O.B. 1337) WALTERBORO, SOUTH CAROLINA 29488 EDWIN O. MERWIN JR., MLS SENIOR EDITOR MARY HJELM, PHD EDITOR

-7-