Pentimento: "To be a true artist, the performer must give up being on stage"

Monday, June 14, 2010

"To be a true artist, the performer must give up being on stage"

One of the fringe benefits of rehearsing at my old university is the out-of-date magazines that someone has been leaving for years on a marble counter just outside of the elevators (on a floor that Music shares with the French, Classics, and Theater departments). I've gleaned many a few-weeks-old New Yorker and Chronicle of Higher Education there, and on this recent trip, picked up some New York Reviews of Books, in one of which I found this excellent short essay on J.D. Salinger.

26 comments:

cnb said...: This is true in the liturgy as well -- true, that is, of those, like the priest, who have a liturgical role to play. They need to disappear into their roles for them to be most effective.; June 14, 2010 at 3:25 PM
Rodak said...: Thanks for posting that. It gets to the very heart of what I have always related to--and loved--in Salinger's fiction.; June 14, 2010 at 7:48 PM
Rodak said...: At the time, I posted this brief acknowledgement of Salinger's passing.; June 14, 2010 at 8:35 PM
Enbrethiliel said...: +JMJ+

I really liked the essay.

There is someone I know who puts me in mind of Holden Caulfield, although I sometimes wonder whether that impression is just my literary fancy. But this person definitely fits the descriptions of Franny Glass (a character I have yet to read about) given in the article.

It can't be easy to be so disgusted by phoniness--and the person I know hasn't led an easy life. Yet I also think there's a natural phony in each of us and that it's not necessarily a bad thing.; June 16, 2010 at 12:08 PM
Rodak said...: I'm interested in how the phony in each of us is (possibly) a good thing.
It would seem to me that what created H. Caulfield's "existential nausea" was the constant exposure to individuals who were trapped in an "inauthentic existence."
That said, it is probable that only a saint's existence is authentic, through and through.
It is certainly easier to "go with the flow." But...; June 16, 2010 at 1:12 PM
Enbrethiliel said...: +JMJ+

Perhaps I should have said that there is a natural actor in each of us. All the world's a stage, etc. (There are times when I think that all the world's a Stanford Prison Experiment, but never mind . . .)

When I started teaching, I had to play a role five days a week, eight hours a day. It was very stressful; and judging by how many other members of the faculty liked being anonymous in dark nightclubs or pubs on the weekend, I wasn't alone in finding it so. But it's a professional fakery that is built into the secondary school system as we have it today. No wonder Holden flunked out of so many high schools.

Your mention of a saint's existence reminds me of St. Christina the Astonishing, who couldn't bear the way people smelled and would climb trees to get away from all the wafting humanity. (I can't recall if their smell was related to the state of their souls or whether she really was oversensitive.) I think Holden shares that inability to bear perfectly ordinary things and to be perfectly ordinary himself. That's not essentially a bad thing, either, but I can't blame anyone for finding him mentally ill because of it.; June 16, 2010 at 2:08 PM
Pentimento said...: I wonder if St. Christina the Astonishing had what we would today consider a sensory processing disorder. . .; June 16, 2010 at 2:19 PM
Rodak said...: I'm curious as to how a person who climbs trees to get away from her fellow man can possibly qualify for sainthood.
That said, it seems to me that Salinger's characters are all persons striving (even if the impulse is a subconscious one) toward sainthood. This is particularly evident, perhaps, in the title character of the short story "Teddy" from "Nine Stories."
Saints can't and don't "go along to get along."
But I don't consider most of the "saints" canonized by the Church to have really been saints, so what do I know, right?; June 16, 2010 at 2:35 PM
Enbrethiliel said...: +JMJ+

Rodak, we haven't interacted often enough for me to know whether you're being self-deprecating to "get along" or whether you'd rather not discuss the subject any longer, so I'm going to err on the side of being annoying, as I always do.

It seems that if we drop the idea of official canonisation from the discussion, you and I are saying the exact same things, at least about Christina the Astonishing and Holden the Catcher. (I haven't read any of Salinger's other writings.) In both their unusual lives, with the marked inability to deal with regular folk, there is a striving for sanctity--even if it is one that the rest of the world doesn't understand. In this light, climbing trees is not so far removed from flunking out of three (or was it four?) schools in a row.; June 16, 2010 at 3:03 PM
Rodak said...: I see two immediate differences between Christina and Holden. One would be that Holden doesn't avoid other people; it's only that they continually disappoint him. He is, in fact, moving toward other people throughout the novel. Holden does not find people disgusting because of what thehy are (i.e. how they smell), but because of how they treat each other.
The second is that Holden is not consciously religious, or trying to be holy. Holden is how he is without effort. It is hard work, climbing trees.; June 16, 2010 at 3:28 PM
Rodak said...: As for saints: take Aquinas as an example. He is known to have been fat. Ergo, he was a glutton. Ergo, in my universe he was demonstrably not saintly.; June 16, 2010 at 3:30 PM
Pentimento said...: Your universe's standards for saintliness strike me as rather impossibly high, Rodak. Saints are human, ergo sinners, and many canonized saints were rather spectacular sinners before they became saintly.; June 16, 2010 at 6:05 PM
Rodak said...: I think that my standards of sainthood are extremely, but not impossibly, high. I also think that they are reflective of "many are called, but few are chosen" and "be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect." Jesus didn't tell us, "Hey. Just do the best you can." (That would be our Little League coach, and our middle school guidance counselor speaking.); June 16, 2010 at 6:45 PM
Pentimento said...: Understood, but holiness is a strange and mysterious thing, and many of the saints were what we would call neurotic at the very least. Nonetheless, they were holy too.; June 16, 2010 at 8:36 PM
Rodak said...: The weird and the mad have often been considered holy. But what I believe no true saint did--or could do--is conform himself to the world. That is a deal breaker.; June 16, 2010 at 9:00 PM
Pentimento said...: IN *no* way, shape, or form? That leaves out just about everyone except Our Lady, possibly St. Joseph. . .; June 16, 2010 at 9:17 PM
Rodak said...: One can be in the world without being of the world. I can't, of course. But a saint can. I also think that, for this very reason, most real saints go completely unnoticed by the world; they become virtually invisible. Maybe living alone behind a dumpster in an alley in an inner city--considered "crazy" by the locals. Who knows?; June 16, 2010 at 9:27 PM
Enbrethiliel said...: +JMJ+

Since I was asleep for most of this conversation, I don't know if I should jump back in again, but I might as well continue in the annoying key in which I began . . . ;-)

For what it's worth, I didn't mean to shove the idea of canonisation down anyone's throat. (When someone says "saint," a Catholic simply thinks of "the saints" first.) But I think it's wonderful that many of the canonised saints (who are, of course, not the only saints) are "just like us."

It's only natural to conform oneself to the world, while it takes supernatural grace to be in the world and yet not of the world. All of us are being dragged back, kicking and screaming, from what is only natural to us; so a saint is not someone better than the rest of us for beating the odds, but someone "worse" for having been handicapped by God. Sainthood is God's work, not ours. And I think that some saints who seem to have completely conformed to the world have also had some amazing handicaps.

PS--Pentimento, I'm sorry if this gets submitted twice (or even three times). I've been having bad luck with Blogger all day. =(; June 17, 2010 at 4:38 AM
Pentimento said...: If you scroll all the way down to the end of this page, you'll see a picture of recently canonized St. Gianna Beretta Molla, who died in 1960. She was a doctor, and, from what I've read, she loved opera and nice clothes (a saint after my own heart). In this wise, she was conformed to the world. But her holiness was undeniable in her life and death, and she's met the stringent criteria for being declared a saint since her death (which really only means that we *know* she's in heaven).; June 17, 2010 at 7:56 AM
Rodak said...: It's only natural to conform oneself to the world,

Yes. And, as we know, nature is fallen.
In order to achieve sainthood, one must transcend the natural and be in constant touch with the supernatural; that is, with what is Real.

Sainthood is God's work, not ours.

There, I completely disagree. God provides the opportunity, but the saint does the "work."; June 17, 2010 at 8:01 AM
Rodak said...: Maybe I should simply stop using the word "saint" to describe what I'm talking about, since what I'm talking about has absolutely nothing to do with Catholic criteria for sanctification.; June 17, 2010 at 8:06 AM
Pentimento said...: There are lots of saints in the Catholic tradition who have never been canonized. Popular recognition of their holiness during their lives and testaments of their miraculous intercession after their deaths are what makes them saints. Saint Cecilia, for one, who is named in the canon of the Mass. Also Blessed Julian of Norwich comes to mind.; June 17, 2010 at 9:28 AM
Enbrethiliel said...: +JMJ+

"Saint" can be a confusing term, but its most general and yet most accurate meaning is a soul who made it to Heaven.

Terms aside, Rodak, I think where we really disagree about is the "work." I really do think that some people can work against God nearly all their lives and yet be dragged by Him, kicking and screaming (to use that cliched phrase again), into Heaven and into sainthood, anyway.

I don't know if another example from literature will help me make my point--especially since it happens to be another Catholic. =P I'm thinking of Sebastian Flyte from Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited. Fought God all his life, became an alcoholic who was taken in by some monastery (but not made a full member of the community), and yet gave off a real sense of holiness and the mercy of God.; June 17, 2010 at 10:43 AM
Rodak said...: By "work" I don't mean anything like doing good works. I mean something more like what I think is meant by St. Paul when he says "pray constantly." That is, one must "work" to focus one's attention at all times, in order to try avoid unconsciously forming those attachments which bind one to externals and "conform one to the world." So the "work" often consists more of not doing than of doing. I know that the Church condemns something that it calls "quietism," but I don't go along with that. If what the Taoists call "wu-wei" is analogous to "quietism," then I think that the Church is wrong in condemning it.; June 17, 2010 at 2:05 PM
Enbrethiliel said...: +JMJ+

By "work," I don't mean anything like doing good works, either--or for that matter, bad works. But I'd rather hear your definition of "saint" than your definition of "work." Do you just mean someone who is not conformed to the world?

I think the reason we're having trouble here is that Catholics believe that even one's love for the things of the world--such as opera and nice clothes--can be sanctified by God so that it is no longer a distraction from Him but another way to know and love Him.; June 19, 2010 at 11:25 AM
Rodak said...: By saint I mean an individual who has emptied himself of "self" to make room for God at the center of his being.

A Christian expression of this can be found here:

"...I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and delivered Himself up for me." (Galatians 2:19-20).

I don't believe that one needs to be a Christian to attain this state, however.

I don't believe that this kind of saint would have any interest at all in nice clothes, etc.; June 19, 2010 at 1:12 PM