Paul Delaroche as He Ought to Have Been

Posted on 17 Jul 2014 by Frank Moraes

On this day in 1797, the great French painter Paul Delaroche was born. He is known as a “historical” painter, because he painted scenes from history. As a result, there are some complaints that sometimes his history wasn’t quite right. Or maybe it is more likely that some pedantic graduate student had his way with Delaroche’s Wikipedia page. It is said he cared more about creating dramatic paintings than in portraying history accurately. And I say, “Thank God for that!”

He was an amazing talent. Just check out this painting Napoleon Abdiquant a Fontainebleau (Napoleon Abdicating in Fontainebleau). Was that the way it was? I don’t know. I don’t care. It is the way it ought to have been!

One painting the Wikipedia page has special criticism for is, The Execution of Lady Jane Grey. It says, “The Execution of Lady Jane Grey is represented as taking place in a dungeon, which is badly inaccurate.” Oh my God! It turns out she was actually executed in the open air. We should just burn the painting! After all, look at how poorly it is rendered:

The Execution of Lady Jane Grey - Paul Delaroche

Delaroche is best know for painting the Hemicycle, which is an almost 90 foot long mural at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. It was supposed to be in the style of Raphael, and it is; and as a result, I think it is some of his weakest work. It is still, however, insanely great. This is the middle of three sections with Phidias, Ictinus, and Apelles sitting up there like the kings of architecture, sculpture, and painting:

It is also said that he was so in love with his wife that he never got over her death, and confined himself to religious painting after that. I think that is largely true. Regardless, we shouldn’t remember Delaroche as he was but as he ought to have been. That’s how he would have wanted it.

Happy birthday Paul Delaroche!

Sweet Dorothy Fields

Posted on 15 Jul 2014 by Frank Moraes

Dorothy Fields Today is unusual, because I’m kind of going to write two birthday posts. But this is the real one. Or the regular one.

On this day in 1905, the great American lyricist Dorothy Fields was born. In her one way, she was as great as my favorite lyricist Lorenz Hart. And she wrote the lyrics to one of my all time favorite songs, “The Way You Look Tonight.” The music to that song is very simple: I-vi-ii-V. That’s even true of the bridge. (Those are the essentials, most people throw in other stuff.) But what makes it work are the “tenderness” of the lyrics. And it’s the ultimate “man” song. In my experience, women you love never age: you always remember them as they were when you first met them.

She was also a playwright, working with her brother Herbert Fields, on a number of successful plays, most notably the book for the Irving Berlin musical, Annie Get Your Gun. They also wrote the book for Redhead, which Dorothy also wrote the lyrics for. She seems to have had no problem working with any composer. She worked with such notables as Jimmy McHugh, Jerome Kern, and Cy Coleman.

With the last composer, she probably had her greatest success with the musical Sweet Charity. The big hit from that show was “If My Friends Could See Me Now.” But I can never really resist listening to “Big Spender”:

Happy birthday Dorothy Fields!

American Aristocrat Owen Wister

Posted on 14 Jul 2014 by Frank Moraes

On this day in 1860, American aristocrat Owen Wister was born. He was born on the “storied Belfield estate in Germantown.” His father was a wealthy physician and his mother was the daughter of the famous actor Fanny Kemble. When he wasn’t attending school in Switzerland and England, he would hire poor people to lie in puddles so he never got his shoes wet—shoes made of the skin of poor immigrant children. Okay, that wasn’t actually true. But he was a friend of Theodore Roosevelt. Of course, being rich, once the Great Depression hit, Wister was totally against the policies of Roesevelt’s cousin, who was President at that time. If you learn one thing from reading me it should be this: bad economic times are great if you had a lot of money. Wister had a lot of money.

So why on this day is the birthday post about just another American aristocrat? Well, partly is is because last year I did Woody Guthrie. And I could have done Ingmar Bergman, but I just don’t feel up to it. It may be a cliche, but he was a great filmmaker, and he deserves a lot of attention. And I think I have a cold. A cold! And it is supposed to be 99° today! My plan is to go back to bed as soon as I’m done with this. Anyway, so we were talking about American aristocrat Owen Wister and how when times got hard for the American people, he was angry that FDR tried to do anything to ameliorate the suffering of millions of Americans.

But the main reason that I’m writing about Owen Wister is because he is considered the father of the Western. He got that name for writing The Virginian in 1902. It’s an episodic novel with pretty much what we have come to expect. The Virginian character is a kind of natural aristocrat, who of course, ends up as an actual aristocrat by the end of the novel. He falls in love and marries a school teacher, Molly Stark Wood. (Wister’s wife’s nickname was Molly.) And generally, he fights for life, liberty, and the American way against the Tramps who are just evil because, well, they aren’t natural aristocrats.

Interestingly, Wister never wrote another western. He did work with diabetic playwright Kirke La Shelle to bring it to the stage. And it has been made into at least six movies. You’ve got to give it to the man though, according to Wikipedia, the book was reprinted fourteen times in eight months. In addition to not writing another western novel, he didn’t much write anything. There was a ten year period where he was writing novels. And had he been struggling financially, he probably would have pumped out other rambling novels about life in Wyoming with noble men and pretty and pure school teachers. But who needs to do that when you can be sipping brandy and soda at The Philadelphia Club?

Wister died in 1938 at the age of 78. He was tragically killed when the four servants carrying him, dropped from exhaustion. I mean, he was tragically crushed to death when a wall made of money collapsed on him. I mean, he died of starvation after his food tester was tragically killed moonlighting as a puddle-coverer for a rich fat man. The truth is, I don’t know how he died. But he was 78. And that’s one good thing you can say about American aristocrats: they eventually die.

Happy birthday American aristocrat Owen Wister, pioneer of the most tedious of American genre fiction!

Game Master Stewart Culin

Posted on 13 Jul 2014 by Frank Moraes

On this day in 1858, the great American ethnographer Stewart Culin was born. Ethnography is the study of cultures from the outside. I have long had a great interest in ethnomusicology, especially as it relates to the music in America. Mack McCormick’s work in the south, for example, found amazing differences just a couple of miles away; for example, in one town everyone played the banjo, but in another close by town, no one did. Culin spent most of his life looking at the games played by various groups, although later in his life he became interested in dress.

He was completely self-taught. It reminds me of a line from the movie Quiz Show where a student asks Mark Van Doren what he is supported to learn from Don Quixote, and the professor responds, “It means: if you want to be a knight, act like a knight.” People waste whole lives waiting for permission to do things. That’s what higher eduction is all about—especially the PhD. More than showing that you’re learned, it is about showing that you are one of the guys.

I was thinking about that last night as I was researching, Inequality Has Been Rising Steadily for 50 Years. The work was relatively simple and I made simplifying assumptions. But I know exactly how to do it as well as any PhD economist. It’s just that it would have taken a lot more time, and I’m not that interested. I got the results I wanted. Now it just so happens that I have a PhD and in a field that is kind of related to economics—physicists and economists are generally bound by their love of differential equations. But the truth is that anyone with a basic understanding of mathematics and an interest could do the same work.

And that was the case with Stewart Culin: he was smart and he was interested. And he managed do an amazing amount of work. He became involved in several ethnographic groups in his twenties. That’s one of the great things about that period of time. There was no television or radio, so people started groups with others of similar interests. It was the great age of the amateur. Now it is the great age of the conspiracy theorist. In this way, we have certainly slipped. But Culin rather quickly became a professional: first as the Director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Museum of Archaeology and Paleontology and then as the curator of Ethnology at the Institute of Arts and Sciences of the Brooklyn Museum.

His major work was Games of the North American Indians, a 900 page tome that divided the games into those of chance and those of skill. He did much the same with various other cultures, including those in Africa and especially Asia. Although he continued to study ethnic games all his life, he branched out into decorative art, furniture, and fashion. He seems to have worked pretty much to the end, when he died at the age of 70 in 1929.

Happy birthday Stewart Culin!

Modigliani, the Artists Not the Economist

Posted on 12 Jul 2014 by Frank Moraes

Modigliani - Self Portrait Tomorrow will be the economist Dean Baker’s 56th birthday. Last year I wrote about that. And I sent him an email telling him. I also noted that he should consider it a great honor because it had been Modigliani the day before. He wrote back and talked about how much he admired his work. It was clear he wasn’t talking about the painter and I thought he was putting me on. But sure enough, he thought I meant Franco Modigliani, the Nobel Prize winning economist. Talk to an economist and see what you get.

But this year, just like last year, I must tell you that on this day in 1884, the great artist Amedeo Modigliani was born. He is one of the artists that I would classify as not terribly creative. That is to say that his style was remarkably consistent. But I might have said the same thing of Picasso had he only lived to be 35. At the same time, I love his work—far more than anything Picasso did.

The story of Modigliani is the stuff of romance. It’s absolutely awful but it is the kind of thing that even I find beautiful in its way. He mostly bartered with his paintings. He lived and died in poverty. He only had a single solo art show, that was shut down by the police within hours because of his “scandalous” nudes. Three years before his death, he met Jeanne Hebuterne, who became his constant companion. Here is one of his many paintings of her:

They had a daughter the following year. But Modigliani was suffering from tubercular meningitis. In January of 1920, after his downstairs neighbors had not heard from him for days, they entered the flat and found him in bed, almost dead holding onto Hebuterne, who was nine months pregnant with their second child. Modigliani was taken to the hospital but there was nothing that could be done. He died on 24 January 1920. Hebuterne was so distraught that she killed herself and her unborn baby the following day.

Modigliani - Elmyr de Hory Many years later, Elmyr de Hory made something of a living forging Modigliani. He did a lot of other people’s work too, but I think his Modiglianis are his best. He was very good. Here’s the only one I could easily find, but you can well see how de Hory fooled so many people for so long—he was good.

With my recent experience at the Antiques Roadhow, it makes me all the more angry. I don’t know exactly what I think of Elmyr de Hory. He was an incredibly talented guy and also a charlatan. But that’s not it. The problem is the whole business of art that is just shameful. This painting would sell for tens of millions of dollars if everyone believed that Modigliani had painted it. But instead, it isn’t. It’s still doubtless worth a lot of money because now Elmyr de Hory is famous. But the professional art world is a pox on society.

Happy birthday Amedeo Modigliani!

Whistler Sans Mother

Posted on 11 Jul 2014 by Frank Moraes

Self Portrait - Whistler Another day, another birthday. Lots of interesting birthdays. But do you ever just wake up in a foul mood? (One morning my wife woke up in a fowl mood and flew away!) If it weren’t for caffeine, I don’t know what I’d do. But it hasn’t helped thus far today. So I specifically picked a birthday that would allow me to write as little about the person as possible and just rant. Are you ready?

On this day in 1834, the great artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler was born. He is best known for the painting he titled, Arrangement in Grey and Black No 1. But everyone knows it as simply, Whistler’s Mother. The reason that everyone knows it by that name is because it is a painting of Anna Whistler, also know as James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s mother, or if you prefer, Whistler’s mother. In some circles, it’s known as “Jim’s mum.” (It is not know as “Jim’s mum” in any circles.)

The original title of it is accurate. Basically, Whistler was trying to show what he could do with a very limited palette. And to me, it’s very clear: not much. Arrangement in Grey and Black, No 2 is actually a lot more interesting. What I think is most interesting about Whistler’s Mother is that it was the displayed in the 104th Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Art in London. But they were not keen on it. A short time later, he pawned it while in Paris. About twenty years later, someone from the Musée du Luxembourg acquired it and it became a big deal.

It rather reminds me of Moby-Dick. That book was widely panned when it was first published. It wasn’t until almost 70 years later that Carl Van Doren decided that it was a work of genius that it became the “great book” that it is today. And let’s be honest, in a standard sense, is Moby-Dick great? I don’t think so. That’s not to say that I think Moby-Dick isn’t a great book. I think it is a very great book. It is Melville. It is the book that Melville was meant to write. If you look at his other works, you can tell the man has talent, but he isn’t baring his soul the way he is in Moby-Dick and to a lesser extent The Confidence-Man. But the point is it little more than an accident than anyone outside of academia even knows who Melville is.

Having said what I have about Whistler, you might think I don’t like his work. That’s not true at all! He was a brilliant artist. I’m just not fond of Whistler’s Mother. Just take a look at a collection of his work and you will see: Google Image Search. What’s more, he was a master at the use of a limited palette. Here is one painting I very much admire, Symphony in White, No 2—generally known as The Little White Girl (Whistler was very annoying about naming paintings):

But the man could do color too. Here is Caprice in Purple and Gold No 2—generally known as The Golden Screen:

Happy birthday James Abbott McNeill Whistler!

Truckin’ Away With Blind Boy Fuller

Posted on 10 Jul 2014 by Frank Moraes

On this day in 1907, the great blues singer and guitarist Blind Boy Fuller was born. Among blues lovers, there is such a tendency to focus on the Mississippi Delta as to think that nothing else was going on. But as I wrote about last month, Elvie Thomas and Geeshie Wiley, who were both thought to be from Mississippi were actually from Texas. And Fuller was from North Carolina.

He learned to play the guitar while still a kid, but had no intention of making a living at it. But in his teens he began to go blind and by the age of 20, he was completely blind. Much later in life, he learned that he had neonatal conjunctivitis. This left him no real choice. He started performing on street corners and the occasional party. His talent was such that he didn’t remain unknown for long. It was especially other professional musicians who picked up on him.

He has a pleasant enough voice, but it is his guitar playing that really stands out. He is considered a major figure in Piedmont blues, but it is probably easiest to think of his work as ragtime on the guitar. It’s the kind of playing that makes me weep with jealousy. Here is a song that doesn’t show off his great guitar playing, but it is just so much fun, I can’t help it. It is the traditional “Rag, Mama, Rag”:

“Rag, Mama, Rag” was one of the first songs that he recorded. But unlike a lot of great musicians from that time, he was well recording, eventually producing over 120 songs. Here is one that better shows off his guitar playing, “Truckin’ My Blues Away”:

Fuller had a very good career for five years, performing and recording up and down the east coast. But in 1940, he began having problems with his bladder, even having surgery for it. This forced him to stop performing and he died the following year from blood poisoning due to an infected bladder. He was only 33 years old. But he did leave a great legacy of music that enrich us to this day.

Happy birthday Blind Boy Fuller!

Gothic Novelist Ann Radcliffe

Posted on 09 Jul 2014 by Frank Moraes

On this day in 1764, the pioneering Gothic novelist Ann Radcliffe was born. I’ll be honest, I’m not that fond of the Gothic novel. But Radcliffe had a great influence on novelists who I don’t even think of as writing in this style. Part of this is because a lot of her work wasn’t exactly Gothic. So she influenced Jane Austen, although not directly. She parodied her in Northanger Abbey where Catherine just loves the novels of Radcliffe. Austen did this sort of thing a lot. Most people miss it today, but Sense and Sensibility is a scathing attack on the Romantics and what Austen thought was an affected love of nature.

One thing is for sure: we would not know of the Bronte sisters if it weren’t for Radcliffe. Jane Eyre definitely has that Gothic thing going on in the middle of the book with the mysterious estate. But the worst part of book is the most Gothic when Jane’s considering marrying St John and she hears Rochester’s voice from the ether, “Jane! Jane! Jane!” If I were to rewrite the the novel, she would hear, “Jane, come back to me! But first kill St John because he is the most annoying character ever!” But certainly, it was Emily Bronte who perfected that Gothic novel with Wuthering Heights. To this day, while I admire that book, I feel very strongly that Emily Bronte needed to be slapped.

The middle section of Jane Eyre is actually more in keeping with what Radcliffe wrote. In her novels, things seem strange but there is always a rational reason for it. Intellectually, she was definitely part of the Enlightenment, even if she was a big source of inspiration for the Romantics. Edgar Allan Poe was clearly aware of her work, although (as usual) he didn’t think much of her. And she was an influence far past that. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier is clearly influenced by her.

Like a lot of the early novelists, I think that Radcliffe thought of herself as more a poet than a novelist. Just like Cervantes, she peppered her novels with poetry. And just like with Cervantes, everyone agrees she was a mediocre poet. Walter Scott, who was an admirer of her, noted that “her prose was poetry and her poetry was prose.” But you have to give artists credit who, while slogging out what the people want, still take the time to do what they love. I’ve always admired that about about Thomas Hardy, although in his case it is generally admitted that he was a rather good poet. And anyway, given his trajectory, any novel after Jude the Obscure was certain to cause widespread suicide.

As you can probably tell, I’ve never read any of her novels. It’s just not my kind of thing. I have read some of her poems, however. They aren’t bad — at least in a technical sense. In fact, she a fine feel for the formalism of the time. But given her reputation for evocative descriptions in her novels, it is shocking how banal her poetry is. Again, as with Cervantes, I think that the rigidity of the form suppresses the great creativity that existed in her. So I think you can take a pass on reading any of her poetry. But if you are in love the Brontes, Ann Radcliffe is probably worth checking out.

Happy birthday Ann Radcliffe!

Brilliant and Strange Arthur Evans

Posted on 08 Jul 2014 by Frank Moraes

On this day in 1851, the great archaeologist Arthur Evans was born. What I find fascinating about Evans is that he was an incredibly important scientist, and yet he was totally wrong in his central idea that the Minoan civilization was distinct from the Bronze Age Greeks who he thought were just a backwater. But that take on his career is undoubtedly colored by my love of the Iliad and my admittedly childish wish that it be true. But Evans really blasted Heinrich Schliemann’s idea that the Trojan War had taken place, and during Evans’ lifetime, it was generally thought that the war was a myth. Now the evidence is overwhelming that it was not—it was a real thing.

Of course, that was just one thing and he was hugely important, especially his excavation of Knossos. And he was the guy who first discovered early Bronze Age Greek writing. Of course, he was absolutely certain that it is was not Greek. And then right after he died, the linguist Alice Kober noticed that the language seemed to have the some words with different endings. This indicated that the language had inflections. For example: call, called, calling. This indicated that although the writing had more the look of Egyptian, it acted more like Greek or Latin. This clue led the brilliant young self-taught amateur linguist Michael Ventris to make some brilliant educated guesses, which eventually led to his discovery that the Minoans spoke Greek—or at least a very early form of Greek. (Ventris died in an auto accident at the age of 34, a couple of weeks before the official publication of this work, but by that time everyone in the field knew.)

All of this perhaps makes Evans seem less than a brilliant scholar. That is wrong. As for the writing, I think the man can be forgiven. Here is a little Linear B. It looks nothing like Greek to me. And I understanding the issue in translating is not really the look of the text, but this was a difficult problem that many great minds worked on with little success for 65 years.

More important, Evans excavation of Knossos is arguably the greatest of any settlement ever. I’m especially interested in his work on the Neolithic settlements. It seems that around 9,000 years ago, a group of people arrived in Crete, most likely from the sea. Of course, Evans wasn’t really interested in the Neolithic settlements. His great interest was the palace that was first constructed around 4,000 years ago. I think I have a greater interest in the earlier periods because of the relative egalitarianism of it. It seems that as humans have advanced, they have used technology more and more to separate themselves. The rich were further above the poor 4,000 years ago than 9,000 years ago because they could be, not because they were better. This is a problem that haunts us more today than ever, and one I’m afraid that we must solve or will eventually destroy us.

Evans was also a curious fellow. He not only excavated the palace at Knossos; he restored parts of it as you can see in the following picture. I still don’t really get it. I guess it gives visitors a better idea of what it was like 3,000 years ago. But I doubt that’s why Evans did it. And that blue on the wall? I don’t think that flies. Homer lived a thousand years after the palace was abandoned, and he didn’t seem to know the color blue. Blue is a hard color to make, and only showed up much later. But what the hell?

Happy birthday Arthur Evans!

Satchel Paige

Posted on 07 Jul 2014 by Frank Moraes

On this day in 1906, probably the great baseball pitcher ever, Satchel Paige was born. I think it’s funny that after the recent steroid scandal in Major League Baseball, people were wondering what this was going to do to the hallowed baseball statistics. Yet for many decades, blacks were not allowed to play for MLB teams, but when blacks and whites did play together as they did in the California winter league, the blacks very often totally out-shined the whites. That was more true of Paige than anyone.

When the Sporting News put out its Baseball’s 100 Greatest Players, it rated Cy Young, Grover Alexander, Christy Mathewson, and Walter Johnson ahead of him. As much as I admire Walter Johnson, all he did was pitch fast. He never developed a decent curve ball. Paige threw everything well. Of course, in that regard, he had the advantage of having such a long career. As he got older and his speed lessened, he increasingly used other pitches including the knuckleball.

Because Paige was black he was forced to pretty much play year round. At the beginning of his career, he played as a freelancer—something that he couldn’t have done in MLB. And he played outside the country on a number of occasions, causing various problems with his relationship with the Negro League. The end of that was when he played the 1939-40 season in Puerto Rico where he ended the season with a record of 19-3, 1.93 ERA, and 208 strikeouts over the course of 205 innings. In one game, he struck out 17 batters.

The next seven years he played with the Kansas City Monarchs and “barnstormed” in the off season. It wasn’t until 1948 that Paige was allowed in MLB with the Cleveland Indians. He was 42 years old—the oldest rookie ever. His first season he had a record of 6-1 with an ERA of 2.48. He played four more seasons where he wasn’t as good, but he was a decent relief pitcher. He was in his late 40s by then. It’s just sad to think of what he would have been able to do had he been allowed to play 20 years earlier. Of course, lots of people got to see him play. He was a huge star. But the man doesn’t get as much respect as he deserves. I mean: Christy Mathewson? Really?!

Happy birthday Satchel Paige!

Sylvester Stallone

Posted on 06 Jul 2014 by Frank Moraes

Sylvester Stallone As you may have noticed, I’m not writing as much as usual. It isn’t that I am busy. I just don’t feel well. And it is a strange thing because I’m not sure if it is physical or mental. Of course, there really isn’t much difference. The whole endorphin system in the body is there to help in the management of pain. So when one is depressed, one does necessarily feel physical pain. But I don’t especially feel depressed. I feel more exhausted and uninterested in much of anything. Still, I come here each day and grind out a birthday post and a few more things. And I can’t say the work suffers especially; yesterday I wrote something I think is rather good, Anthony Cumia and How Racism Works. But it feels like a lot of work—like I’m grinding it all out. And then this morning I noticed that last year’s birthday post gave me very few options for what to write about today. Oh well. Do you hear the grinding? Well, that’s because I haven’t started yet.

If the world were fair, I would write many words about and show many pictures of Marc Chagall, because I do love his work. In fact, I think it’s kind of weird that I am a very strong analyst with an unfortunate tendency toward over-intellectualizing, yet I am strongly drawn to the sentimental, silly, and colorful. So maybe next year, I’ll feel up to the task of writing about him. As for this year, I’m just going to rant a bit.

Today Sylvester Stallone is 68. In some ways I admire him. He is a reasonably good writer. And as far as genre writing goes (it’s all he writes), Rocky was great. He developed a number of very interesting and real characters. And there are wonderful scenes. In particular, the scene where Mickey comes to ask Rocky to be his manager. And, of course, pretty much every scene between Rock and Adrian. The whole thing works because Stallone understands structure and he knows how to pander.

But as great as the film is, and I still really enjoy it, it is hard not to think that it was so successful because it gave white American audiences the chance to see something they didn’t much see in boxing: a white guy hold his own against a black guy. This isn’t to suggest that Stallone is some kind of racist. I don’t think that at all. For one thing, Apollo Creed was original supposed to be played by Chuck Norris, who backed out very late to be on some television reality series. (As I recall; I know it was some white guy.) What’s more, the script does a great job of showing that Creed doesn’t take the fight seriously because at this point he’s more interested in managing Apollo Creed, LLC. The later films flirt with racism and of course the fourth film is total nationalistic garbage.

I don’t mind that Stallone panders to audiences. That’s a given. But he’s a stereotypical stupid conservative. He believes a lot of things that just aren’t so. In First Blood, he pushes the ideas that the troops weren’t “allowed” to win and that there are all kinds of soldiers who were left behind. The real story of John Rambo is that of a man who has real psychological trouble. If we were to make an honest movie about him, it should be about his difficult getting help from the under-funded VA.

Of late, he makes watchable action films. He’s certainly aged better than Arnold Schwarzenegger. But Stallone has the luxury of writing his own parts, but still. I’ve never especially seen the appeal of Schwarzenegger. How is it that one of the great American action heroes can’t speak without a strong Austrian accent? Regardless, 16 year old boys want to see the kind of films these guys make, so they make them. Stallone is not the cause of our cultural decline, just a symptom of it. And above all, we must keep his taxes low so he will continue to make formulaic action films. Sadly, had he not have become a star, he might have turned into a fine writer instead of the hack that he is.

Happy birthday Sylvester Stallone!

Art, Opium, and Jean Cocteau

Posted on 05 Jul 2014 by Frank Moraes

On this day in 1889, the great writer Jean Cocteau was born. But really, it is wrong to limit him as a writer. I have this little annoyance with Wikipedia where it will list someone as “actor, director, author, musician, and political activist.” Normally, this means they are actors, once directed a play, had a ghostwriter produce an autobiography, once sang a song in public, and told Barbara Walters that it was wrong to drown kittens. But in Cocteau’s case, he really did do a lot. If he had only been a film director, he would be listed in Wikipedia. He was also a prolific poet, novelist, and screenwriter—any of which would have made him an important writer.

He is best known for his 1929 novel, Les Enfants Terribles. It was first translated by our old friend Samuel Putnam, who most of you know for having written what I think is the greatest English translation of Don Quixote (not that later translations aren’t better, but they have the advantage of Putnam’s work). It is an amazing book about a brother and sister (Paul and Elisabeth) who play a game to see who can annoy the other to the point of exasperation. In my generation, it would be forcing the other to say “uncle.” But Paul is the passive one; it is Elisabeth who actively tries to annoy Paul while he tries to annoy her by not reacting. This game continues long into adulthood where Elisabeth actively sabotages Paul’s love life. This causes Paul to drink poison. While he lays dying, Elisabeth thinks that Paul is going to beat her so she kills herself with a gun, “winning” the game. Of course, it is all more complicated than that. Elisabeth is fundamentally in love with Paul. The game is how they show their love. And Elisabeth cannot live without Paul.

I know Cocteau best because of his book, Opium: Journal of Drug Rehabilitation. Literally, that is: “Journal of Drug Rehabilitation.” But for some reason, it is now published under the English title, Opium: The Diary of His Cure. And earlier editions were “a cure” and not “his cure.” But the latter translation of the book is probably better, because the book is more Cocteau than opium. He does a better job of describing opium than most authors because he admits to why the drug originally had a great pull but then how it turned into a trap. But when it is all done, he notes, “Now that I am cured I feel poor, empty, broken-hearted, and ill. Yeah, that’s about right. Of course, the book is more just his reflections of his life and art. It is scattered but brilliant.

Happy birthday Jean Cocteau!

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