Saturday, April 22, 2006
Didion
I’ve been listening to a podcast called TimesTalks. It is from the NYT company and is meant to be tony — the person introducing the players always seems a bit awestruck. The interview I’ve been listening to is one conducted by Joe Lelyveld with the writer Joan Didion. Lelyveld did just about all you could do at the Times before retiring, ending his career as Executive-Editor (if I remember correctly) and even then it wasn’t enough, as the Times had to “steady the ship” after the debacle of Howell Raines’ editorship and brought him back briefly.
Lelyveld is an Old World type, courteous, well-spoken, intelligent, never overwrought. He is the man the New Yorker was written for, the old New Yorker. He is a man who is used to people hanging on his every word — Lelyveld had power. This is not a good trait in an interviewer: the assumption that people are rapt with your every utterance can quickly become tiresome. Rather than have formed questions, he launches into a stumble of words that eventually may land on an interesting query. This lassitude leaves you feeling irritated with his self-indulgence; at the same time, he is a man who is comfortable and relaxed with himself — which cues the audience with that same ease. Take your pick as to how to react.
Didion won the National Book Award for her account of her grief and attempt to cope after two disasters in her life, happening very close together in time. The shocking sudden loss of her very bright and talented husband, John Gregory Dunne, and an agonzing death of a beloved adopted daughter, which over a period of two years involved three major hospitalizations. All within a short period of time, she lost the anchors of her life. She and her husband, both writers, were scarcely apart over a period of many years.
I am practically at the end of the one hour and fifteen minute interview and there is little that has come out that is of much interest. With subject matter so compelling this is surprising. Didion herself is withheld as a person, somewhat mincing in manner. In combination with Lelyveld’s lack of focus it might be that she couldn’t say things that were within her capacity.
Her book, reportedly, is a distanced, somewhat clinical account of her feelings. That distance is said to be very effective in communicating the deep impact on her life of the traumas she suffered. She offered little insight in the interview — the one thing she read that did have resonance was written by Emily Post in her 1922 book of Etiquette. To show you how insightful and emotionally acute Post was in her book — a time when people died at home and the audience addressed had servants — here is an extended excerpt:
Funerals
At no time does solemnity so possess our souls as when we stand deserted at the brink of darkness into which our loved one has gone. And the last place in the world where we would look for comfort at such a time is in the seeming artificiality of etiquette; yet it is in the moment of deepest sorrow that etiquette performs its most vital and real service.
All set rules for social observance have for their object the smoothing of personal contacts, and in nothing is smoothness so necessary as in observing the solemn rites accorded our dead.
It is the time-worn servitor, Etiquette, who draws the shades, who muffles the bell, who keeps the house quiet, who hushes voices and footsteps and sudden noises; who stands between well-meaning and importunate outsiders and the retirement of the bereaved; who decrees that the last rites shall be performed smoothly and with beauty and gravity, so that the poignancy of grief may in so far as possible be assuaged.
CONSIDERATION FOR THE FAMILY
Persons under the shock of genuine affliction are not only upset mentally but are all unbalanced physically. No matter how calm and controlled they seemingly may be, no one can under such circumstances be normal. Their disturbed circulation makes them cold, their distress makes them unstrung, sleepless. Persons they normally like, they often turn from. No one should ever be forced upon those in grief, and all over-emotional people, no matter how near or dear, should be barred absolutely. Although the knowledge that their friends love them and sorrow for them is a great solace, the nearest afflicted must be protected from any one or anything which is likely to overstrain nerves already at the threatening point, and none have the right to feel hurt if they are told they can neither be of use nor be received. At such a time, to some people companionship is a comfort, others shrink from dearest friends. One who is by choice or accident selected to come in contact with those in new affliction should, like a trained nurse, banish all consciousness of self; otherwise he or she will be of no service—and service is the only gift of value that can be offered.
FIRST AID TO THE BEREAVED
First of all, the ones in sorrow should be urged if possible to sit in a sunny room and where there is an open fire. If they feel unequal to going to the table, a very little food should be taken to them on a tray. A cup of tea or coffee or bouillon, a little thin toast, a poached egg, milk if they like it hot, or milk toast. Cold milk is bad for one who is already over-chilled. The cook may suggest something that appeals usually to their taste—but very little should be offered at a time, for although the stomach may be empty, the palate rejects the thought of food, and digestion is never in best order.
It sounds paradoxical to say that those in sorrow should be protected from all contacts, and yet that they must be constantly asked about arrangements and given little time to remain utterly undisturbed…