When I discovered Jean-Paul Sartre's autobiographical sketch published in English as The Words (Les mots)
I felt that could easily identify with the young Jean-Paul.
Like Sartre, and my mother, I distrusted people, and viewed animals, particularly dogs and horses as my best friends. Again I knew him as a kindred spirit when I read his confession that the most significant figures in his life were fictional characters with whom he identified.
Whereas some kids frequented or patronised pool halls or sports fields or game arcades, when they were growing up, I patronized riding stables, magic shops, libraries, and bookstores. On weekends I was a cowboy or an Indian.
I think I chose fantasy as preferable to adult "reality" because I felt I had so little power in my own life, so little mastery over conventional reality. A rich fantasy life sustained me and gave me hope as well as escape.
Unlike most American boys of my generation I was never interested in following the doings of professional (or college) football, basketball, baseball, or other sports, I filled my mind instead with the stories of the ancient gods, goddesses, and saints. And I studied the biographies of (classical) musicians, writers and artists. In other words, I adopted the preference for high culture that prevailed in my upper middle class home, over the interest in popular culture more common among my high school and college classmates.
It was only in my mid-thirties, seduced by one of my students, did I abandon (temporarily) the institutions of high culture and begin what I called "social voyaging" exploring other ethnic and popular cultural forms, eventually crossing over completely, "going native," as anthropologists sometimes do, and becoming one of THEM!.
My religion--I was raised a devout Roman Catholic--encouraged my fantasy life by encouraging me to believe in the influence of angels and saints on my life, and to focus my admiration on the lives of saints and Doctors of the Church such as St. Paul, St. Augustine, St. Francis, and St. Thomas Aquinas as heroes. I was reminded of my fantasy filled Catholic youth, conversing with saints and all, when I saw the 1995 British film “Miracles.”
As a Roman Catholic, I was also encouraged to expect the "Second Coming" as immanent, and to situate myself in "sacred time" in sharp contrast to "secular time." Through my Catholic education I came to believe that my life was bounded by the first and second comings of Jesus, and I was taught to seriously expect the second coming as an event that could transpire at any moment. And just to be on the safe side of God, even if Jesus didn't come immediately, I was taught to say an act of contrition each night, so that if I should die during the night, I would be ready to face my maker in the morning with a clear conscience.
I was also given a unique perspective on American history and on modern American civilization through my New Orleans born French mother, who sincerely believed--and taught me to believe--that American society and culture was decadent, materialistic, and inferior in every way to French Italian, and Central European [especially Viennese] culture. As a result, not only did I make a point of learning several European languages in my youth, but as soon as I finished college in Washington, DC I moved to Paris intending to live there permanently as a "Frenchman," like the Lost Generation and particularly Henry Miller, who I so admired.
However, I was soon disabused of my naive fantasies about France and about myself as being "French" when I encountered the realities of Parisian rudeness and the widespread French hostility to Americans. Ironically, to my complete surprise, I discovered a completely opposite attitude across the Rhine in Germany, where Americans were welcomed as saviors and heroes.
After six months in Paris, having written little and squandered my meagre savings, I fled home, humbled, giving up my phony French accent, and admitting that I was just another "American" after all. Actually, I felt very grateful to return to the good old honest and seemingly uncomplicated lifestyle of fifties America then, and I soon enrolled at Claremont Grad School entering a special interdisciplinary program in "Medieval and Renaissance Studies" for which I wrote a Master's essay on "Symbolism in Dante's Paradiso."
I also got a part-time job teaching Ancient History at Webb School, my former high school, where I had loved that subject. In fact I was so fascinated with Classics (ancient Greek and Roman history, literature, philosophy, religion and culture) ever since I discovered them at Webb that when I got to college I voluntarily studied the ancient Greek language for two years while I was an undergraduate in order to be able to read Homer, Plato, Sophocles, Thucydides and the New Testament in the original ancient Greek.
In fact, to this day I still view ancient Greek religion, culture, and history as my touchstone, the measure of excellence in Western Civilization, as do many Brits who had the privilege of doing "Greats" at Oxford or Cambridge years ago. Very important to me along the way was reading The Golden String the spiritual autobiography of a former Oxford Greats scholar, Dom Bede Griffiths, who like Thomas Merton describes in his similar book,The Seven Story Mountain, how he reached a turning point where he was ready to exchange his rich humanist culture based largely on the study of pagan classics, for the riches to be reaped from silence and contemplation especially available to those who like Thomas Merton and Fr. Bede, chose an eremitic life centered on contemplative prayer.
Changing the subject I want to say that I have never fully understood why I never bought into the American ethos of specialization, as many of my mates did. Instead I decided from early on to become a Generalist, militantly refusing to opt for the narrow specialisations characteristic of most American intellectuals and scholars in the 20th century.
My scholarly Vorbilder (models) were late nineteenth and early twentieth century philosophically inclined novelists like James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Aldous Huxley, Jean Paul Sartre, Rainer Maria Rilke, Hermann Hesse, and Thomas Mann, on the one hand, and intellectual giants and polymaths like Jacob Burckhardt, Ernst Troeltsch, Georg Simmel, Max Weber, Paul Tillich, Theodore Adorno, and Max Scheler, about whom I wrote my Ph.D. dissertation, an intellectual biography.
At this point, you are probably asking yourself "why is he telling me all this?" I'll tell you why: I want you to understand how I became so interested already early in my life in the comparative history of ideas as found in works of philosophy and literature, and why parts of my memoir are packed with my reflections upon literary classics and their authors like Dostevesky, Kafka, Proust, Joyce, et.al.
How did it come about that I marched to a different drummer than many of my schoolmates? I believe it can be explained in part at least by my unique home environment, and the influence upon me of visitors to my mother's literary salon, to which she invited our neighbors in the Hollywood Hills Aldous and Laura Huxley, and of course Henry Miller and his longtime friend, Anais. Henry was sort of like a godfather to me, and guided my reading along with Lolyd Harkema, an astute bookseller at Pickwick Bookstore on Hollywood Blvd.
It was these unusual literary friends of my mother's who encouraged me to build my life around books, literature and ideas, rather than football, baseball, and Hollywood celebrities. From Laura Huxley in particular, I learned to engage with my heart and soul in imaginary dialogues with long gone creative spirits, who I constructed as my extended family, my true spiritual ancestors. And Henry Miller taught me to internalize and make my own the ideas I encountered in literature and philosophy that I found interesting, regardless of whether I felt that I agreed with them or not.
For me learning this grammar of ideas was rather like learning another language, a skill I had come by relatively easily being raised by a polyglot mother...
_______________________________________________
Finding Carlos: A Sample Chapter
I was fourteen years old when we moved into our new house in the Hollywood Hills in 1950. That evening, as usual, the family was sitting at the rectangular glass dining table in the dining room overlooking our large aquamarine swimming pool. My mother, whom I called Madole, sat at the head of the table. She was dressed in a full length Persian silk robe with a gold necklace she had made herself. Tony, my father, sat at her left, I at her right. He was drinking dry Bombay Gin Martinis, as he always did after coming home from the office. I was drinking 7-Up spiked with a slug of rum.
We had just finished our mushroom soup when my mother rang the bell and Edgar, our negro maid, wearing a black uniform with a white apron and a white starched cotton tiara brought in the main course, roasted leg of lamb with vegetables and roast potatoes on a silver serving platter.
Tony stood up to carve the roast while Edgar served the plates. Meanwhile Madole scooped up Pooh, her miniature French poodle, and began talking to him while stroking his nose, and pulling on his whiskers, making him sneeze.
“Pooh, you’re so sweet, but you’ve already had your dinner. You can’t have anything more,” she said while waving a cracker in front of his nose. He ignored this, for his eyes were focused on the carving table.
He then put some roast potatoes and string beans on the plate and told Edgar to serve it to her. Tony carved several slices into the meat and then pulled out a nice pink one for my mother and smothered it in au jus sauce.
He did the same for me. But before it could be served to me I said: “Not so rare for me. I like it more well done.”
Then my mother turned to me and said, “No you don’t John. You like it pink the way I do. If it is overcooked you can’t taste the flavor of the lamb.”
“I don’t like the flavor of lamb. That’s why I want it well done,” I said. “That’ s enough, Tony. I’m not very hungry.”
“Why, John?” my mother asked. “Have you been eating sweets between meals again.”
“What if I have? That’s my business.”
“No it isn’t when I have to pay your dental bills. I hate to see you spoil your appetite for dinner. Don’t do that again.”
“All right, Madole.”
Then Tony sat down and after pouring himself a glass of claret looked at me and said.
“John, Webb School starts next Monday and it’s already Friday night.
Don’t you think you’d better start packing tomorrow morning?”
“I don’t want to go there. I don’t want to have to be sent away from home again. Why can’t I go to Hollywood High like everybody else does?”
“Let’s not hear any more about this,” said Tony sternly, “You’re going to Webb and that’s all there is to it”.
“But I don’t like boarding schools. The kids are so mean. They hate being there so they pick on me as a scapegoat.”
“Well, if they do, you must be doing something to provoke them. Isn’t that true?”
“Well sometimes I say provocative thingws just to get their goats.”
“That may give you a temporary thrill, but who gets hurt in the end? You do.
If you’re nice to them, they’ll be nice to you.”
“You just don’t know them. If I show any weakness they’ll murder me. You know what boys are like.”
I looked to my mother for support, but she was involved with waving bits of lamb in front of Pooh’s nose and seemed to be ignoring what we were saying. Then suddenly she spoke up and said,
“Dear, he’s right. Boys can be so cruel. And he’s so sensitive…”
“He may be sensitive in some ways, Dear, but unfortunately he is almost totally insensitive to the feelings of others. He's totally self-centered because you’ve spoiled him so.”
“Let’ not get into that again, Dear.” My mother said sticking her chin out as she did when she felt angry.
Then Tony turned to me again and said:
Well if you want to take my advice you’ll try to take more interest in the other boys.
If you do, you’ll find it works like a charm.”
“OK,” I said, “I’ll give it a try.”
“But it has to be genuine. You musn’t fake it.If you do they’ll sense it and be even more angry at you.
“But I’m not really interested in them. They’re so boring and ordinary.”
“Then you’re going to continue to be lonely and isolated.”
Then my mother entered the discussion. “Perhaps things would be different if he went to a different kind of
school, one that’s more international. How would you like to go to the Verde Valley School, then? I talked to Mr. Shannon, the headmaster, on the phone yesterday and they are still holding a place for you. I’d like to see you go there. They have such an interesting program. Very avant-garde.”
“Dear, really. It’s already settled. Johnny’s going to Webb,” said Tony exasperated.
“Not if he wants to go to Verde Valley. I know you’d like it there, John,” Madole said, looking right through me as she tended to do when she was determined to get her way.
“Forget it, Madole,” I said contemptuously. “I’d rather go to Webb.
At least in Claremont I’ll be close to LA and can come home on weekends. But I’d really rather not have to go away to boarding school at all. Why are you always sending me away?”
“You know perfectly well why. We want you to have an excellent education,” said my mother.
“Yeah, sure. Is that why you sent me to Palomar? What a dump that was. And before that the Orme’s Quarter Circle V Bar Ranch School with all grades in one school room? That was a joke.”
“Well, I admit, that was a mistake. But how could we have known it would be like that? We took you out when we found out.”
“No you didn’t. I ran away,” I said proudly.
“That’s enough, John, said Tony, angrily. “Speak to your mother with respect.”
“I’m being respectful. I’m just setting the record straight. I’m asking you again: Why must you always send me away? Why can’t I stay home like other kids?”
“You know very well why, John,” said Tony. You are too difficult and too demanding of your mother’s time which she needs to pursue her art.”
“That’s a bunch of bullshit.” I exclaimed.
“That’s enough out of you. Now stand up and apologize to your mother and then go to your room right now. I’ll have Edgar bring your plate up to you.”
“Don’t bother,” I said blusteringly with my nose in the air as I got up from the table.
“Don’t you two fight again,” my mother said. “Stop it right now, Both of you. Sit down, John, and have dinner with us. Let’s change the subject now and after dinner I will talk with you about it.
“Dear, he’ll never learn manners at this rate. In your eyes he can do no wrong. You have been spoiling him all his life,” said Tony, wiping his mouth with a napkin.
“Well he’s my son and I’ll bring him up as I like. And I will decide where he goes to school, since I’m paying for it. Is that clear?”
“Yes, dear. I give up. Have it your way.”
“Well, to change the subject, as you suggested, Marguerite, have you talked to Ted about his plans for building your new studio? Does he think he can do it?
“Yes. He thinks he can. He’s applying for a permit from the city. It could take forever, but he says he knows some people in the bureaucracy who can push it through. We should know something by the end of the month.”
I felt jealous at hearing about this. They are always doing things for her and never enough for me.
So the conversation at dinner went on from one thing to another until we finished the dessert. It was one of my favorites, deep dish apple pie with vanilla ice cream on top. I always have plenty of room for that.
After we got up from the dinner table, my mother told me I could go to my room as I wanted to do, but then to come upstairs to her room before going to bed because she had some things she wanted to discuss with me.
I listened to Rosemary Clooney singing “Harbor Lights” and other pop songs on the radio for a while. I knew all the songs on the hit parade and the position of each one on the list from week to week.
After about an hour I climbed the stairs up to my mother’s room, as she had asked me to do. I knocked and went in. She was in bed, reading a French novel, in French of course. It was by Bernanos. She liked that French Catholic stuff.
“Sit down, John. Right here beside me on the bed. Now I really think you’d be happier at the Verde Valley School. It’s much more…”
“Forget it. If I have to go to boarding school, I’m going to Webb.”
“All right. That’s settled then. There’s something else, something very special I’ve been wanting to tell you for a long time, and now is the right moment, I think, before you begin high school.”
I was very curious what this could be and sat quietly waiting eagerly for her to go on.
“You remember that when you were a little boy our maid, Bessie Phillips, told you that you were adopted. You were very upset and came to me and asked me if it was true and I told you it was indeed true. You cried, and it was very hard for me to see you so unhappy, but you were too young to understand the whole story. You see while it is true that you were adopted by Tony when you were two and we got married, I had no need to adopt you because you are my own son, born of my womb.”
“What? I don’t believe it. You’re lying. You’re a liar. I hate you. Why are you telling me this now?”
“Because you have been so hostile to me lately, and I thought that if you knew you are my real son and that I am your real mother we would be much closer.”
“I don’t understand. How is this possible? I think you’re making it up. This is a sick joke. Stop.”
“It’s very simple. I was an innocent Catholic girl, a virgin, in my thirties. Then I fell in love with a Mexican artist in Los Angeles and I gave myself to him and one day the inevitable happened, and you were the result.”
“But…but…if this is true, why didn’t you tell me you are my real mother long ago rather than let me believe I was adopted?”
“Because I couldn’t. I was worried about what people would think if they knew you were born out of wedlock.”
“So you cared more about them and their ideas about you than about me. That’s not very motherly, is it?”
“I don’t know what more to say. Please forgive me.”
“My parents were an Indian prince and princess. They died in a terrible plane crash.
I dream about them. You’ve spoiled my story. What a come down to find out that you are my mother…Well, why don’t you tell me the rest of the story, then, who is my father?”
“Just another Mexican. I don’t know what’s happened to him. We’ve lost touch. It’s just as well. You’d be disappointed if you met him. Tony has been a good father to you. He’s your father now.”
“Sure he has. Having sex with me when you’re away and cumming all over me.”
“Now, John. Don’t be disgusting. And don’t start on that nonsense again. You know that never happened. You just say things like that to hurt me. But I know it’s not true. Tony promised me that no such thing ever happened. Where do you get such ideas anyway? In some of those trashy books you read? I don’t want to hear anymore about that, understand?”
“Fine. Be an ostrich, Mom. I don’t care. But I’ll kill him if he ever touches me again.”
“Don’t talk like that; it’s not Christian. You must learn to forgive your parents. We do the best we can. Now, John, it’s way past your bedtime and I think you should go to bed now. We can talk more tomorrow. Give me a hug before you go.”
“No way. I don’t want to hug you. I just want to get away from you. You’ve hurt me more than you’ll ever know. And I don’t forgive you and I never will. Good night.” I said closing the door behind me.
As I crept down the stairs to return to my room my stomach was in knots. This was a shock, and it was going to take me a while to recover. One thing I decided that night, though. No matter how long it took, one day I was going to find and meet my real father!
No comments:
Post a Comment