Apparently a biography of Eudora Welty that came out a few years ago “diminished” her because it accused her of turning to writing because she was homely. A friend of hers has written a new biography after getting a chance to thoroughly go through her papers in an effort to defend her friend.
What’s to defend?
I don’t understand… someone’s not too hot so they choose the most reclusive of all art forms?
This is news?
I haven’t ever read Welty, but of course I know about her. She’s one of the great Southern writers. She came to my attention because of an essay that I need to read desperately, called “why the novelist is not a crusader,” or something like that. People criticized her because she “portrayed” the south sympathetically, even though she was an outspoken proponent of Civil Rights. Writers have a hard time, since our work is so much easier to ‘get’ than most other art; it’s explicit, so people often conflate a positive ‘portrayal’ of a character as a larger statement about that sort of person or that sort of situation.
Welty famously argued that novelists should write good fiction and leave politics out of it. Moreover (I don’t know if she said this but I will), that people shouldn’t use people’s novels as evidence for political views that the novelist doesn’t necessarily have, and they certainly shouldn’t assume the novelist is trying to make some change in the world based on what they write. Welty didn’t think novelists should use their novels to crusade at all. Crusade on your own time, I say.
I agree with her for two reasons (wow, I’m really on a tangent here). First, I think crusading in fiction diminishes the art. Second, as a professional political guy, I also don’t think it’s good for much in 99% of all cases (yes, yes, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Great. Name a novel that did something for a political effort in the last twenty years? Now name all the billions that tried to. Thank you.).
Anyway, (back to my point – tangent over) I don’t understand why Welty needs to be defended for the shocking revelation that writing, as it happens, turns out to be a way for ugly people to win friends and influence people. No kidding! Have you ever looked at photos of writers? There’s a reason they don’t crossover to movie stardom very often.
Furthermore, who cares? We like their books. Their books are great. If it happens they developed the skill to make up for something else they lacked, then that’s worth knowing. But it isn’t an attack. It certainly isn’t a scandal. Why, that’s why a good number of people get good at art or sports or other means of success that don’t necessarily require looks. A lot of people have become great in one avenue of life because they were insecure about others.
I simply can’t believe there is a flap about this. The scandal is probably more that someone dared to say the truth. Welty was not an attractive woman. It’s true! If she had been a he, people probably would not have been stunned to see this in writing. In fact, it probably wouldn’t even have been observed. We can bemoan the fact that women have more pressure on them to be beautiful than men all we want, but at the end of the day it is what it is. Welty overcame it, at least to some degree, by writing very compelling fiction (and non-fiction). Her fans should celebrate that much rather than denying it.
And they sure as hell shouldn’t pretend like we should be surprised.
{ 5 } Comments
you write that welty wrote “very compelling fiction (and non-fiction)
but how do you know? earlier in your piece you state “I haven’t ever read welty”. incongruous.
personally, i’ve learned a lot from fiction over the years. john irving comes to mind with regards to political provocations – i guess overt preaching isn’t really fiction (and can be really lame and anooying – don’t get me wrong, mr moore and i get on OK), but i’ve never been one to argue over what “gets to be” part of any specific category.
brady, in response to aryan, am i wrong in saying that you were speaking more broadly about appreciated, tho perhaps ugly, authors at that point in your rant? if not, it’s all about the clarity in pronouns and congruous statements, buddy. tha’s how they git’ya.
What I meant was that her work was compelling enough to win her an enormous fan base and have her included in any “classics” section of any bookstore. I’ve never read more than a sentence or two of Stephen King, but I feel safe calling his work “compelling,” even if it doesn’t do crap for me.
In other words, the evidence of time and tide has shown her work was compelling enough to win her notoriety and social signficance despite her looks. You don’t need to have read her work to know that this is true. In this case, you can assume its compelling because people keep buying it.
As an aside, though, I checked out a Welty book from the library tonight.
Nat,
So, okay, this part is tricky.
I guess my hostility to the whole political novel thing comes from living in the land of politicos who tell me I ought to be using my work to advance some cause. This makes me very annoyed.
I also get very annoyed when people criticize work based on its political implications as opposed to the literary ones. This makes me very, very angry.
I don’t want to say what “gets to be art” either, but I will say this… politically driven fiction (not just rants or preaching) tends to be hollow.
The distinction I have always made is this… did the writer get inspired to write a story that had political elements??? Or did he want to make a point and set about coming up with a story that would make it???
As a last, unrelated point… there is a lot of novels that heighten political consciousness. This is true. Irving CIDER HOUSE RULES is a great example. As a professional organizer, though, I say: who cares. Consciousness raising is the great political red herring, the great waste of activist energy in our precious world today. I hate consciousness raising. If someone wants to pat themselves on the back for helping some random bloke understand the world better, I want to break their wrist so they can’t reach.
Political action matters when it has a clear goal, a constituency mobilized around that goal and that constituency’s energy is directed against some decisionmaker who’s actions can get them closer to attaining that goal.
Period.
Helping someone who might, maybe, possibly, if the moon’s right, join one of those constituency’s someday definitely does not count.
-BR
I see your point, Brady. Audience/intention and impact here are vital to critiquing the success of an artwork, or the success of a political act, when speaking in goal-orientated terms – and being pragmatic is sometimes the only way to do that. I also agree that you should not “have to” make overt political art, or that it would be very good at accomplishing anything with such an approach.
I’m just raising questions around the grey areas.
Can you not think of any politically inspired art that has done more than raise consciousness? What about art that was not politically inspired? Isn’t all art-making always already a poltical act? It has inspired riots, gotten people thrown in jail, created fundamentalist protests in the middle of Brooklyn as recently as 5 years ago – most of the time unintentionally…
Point being: reductive politics (or a reductive lack thereof) makes artists unhappy. Despite needing precise goals to make things happen in large-scale political forums, sometimes re-introducing complexity – politically intended, or not – is exactly what debates like this need; and it’s OK if it takes time to sink in. (Neither you nor I were big activists before College, and I doubt debating with didactic do-gooders, alone, is what inspired us to want to make a difference.) And sometimes, very rarely (tho perhaps not as rarely as activist movements trying to improve the world), art succeeds at this.
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