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Coming Soon:

The following books by Robert Paul Wolff are available on Amazon.com as e-books: KANT'S THEORY OF MENTAL ACTIVITY, THE AUTONOMY OF REASON, UNDERSTANDING MARX, UNDERSTANDING RAWLS, THE POVERTY OF LIBERALISM, A LIFE IN THE ACADEMY, MONEYBAGS MUST BE SO LUCKY, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE USE OF FORMAL METHODS IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
Now Available: Volumes I, II, III, and IV of the Collected Published and Unpublished Papers.

NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON KANT'S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for "Robert Paul Wolff Kant." There they will be.

NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON THE THOUGHT OF KARL MARX. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for Robert Paul Wolff Marx."





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Friday, February 13, 2015

PUBLIC MUSINGS ABOUT PRIVATE MATTERS


I am sure we all remember the famous scene from The Wizard of Oz in which Dorothy, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion finally gain admittance to the inner sanctum of the Great Wizard, each hoping to ask there for his or her heart's desire.  They are met by a terrifying spectacle -- a large curtain, from behind which emanate clouds of smoke and the loud voice of the wizard.  As they stand there, frightened and uncertain what to do, Dorothy's Cairn Terrier, Toto, jumps out of her arms, grabs a corner of the curtain in his teeth, and pulls it back to reveal the mountebank, Frank Morgan, cranking levers and wheels and shouting into a big horn.  I evoked that scene last Wednesday when I was explaining to my students the concept of demystification, so central to the opening chapters of Capital. 

I did not think to tell them about a personal experience I had almost forty years ago of which I was reminded this morning on my early walk while musing on how to weave The Wizard of Oz into some thoughts I have been having about the experience of being a writer.  In 1977, my first wife, Cynthia Griffin Wolff, published A Feast of Words, a brilliant literary biography of Edith Wharton, and was invited to speak at a little book event [a sort of micro-mini book tour.]  On the program with her was Garson Kanin, who had just published Hollywood, a memoir of his time as an actor, writer, and director.  Kanin was married to Ruth Gordon, a very highly regarded actor and film writer.  I had the impression that Kanin felt about Gordon the way Mel Brooks feels about Anne Bancroft -- that she was the light of his life and that it was a blessed miracle that she had agreed to be his wife.

I was too nervous about the affair simply to take a seat in the audience, so I stood at the side of the room.  After Cindy spoke -- quite well, of course, I needn't have worried -- Garson Kanin was introduced.  He was a dapper little man with a lively, charming manner.  He clasped his hands behind his back casually and proceeded to tell a series of delightful stories about Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn, and all the famous movie folks he knew.  He appeared to the audience relaxed and entirely at ease.  But from where I was standing, I could see his hands, and throughout his talk, he wrung his hands violently, his fingers writhing like snakes in a basket.  It was obvious to me, but not to the audience, what it was costing him to project his easy, casual manner.

I take both of these stories as metaphors for my experience as a writer and teacher.  I strive to achieve a light, easy, casual style as I expound the most complex matters, seeming, I imagine, merely to be putting out words as they pop into my head -- a garrulous old man full of stories.  The truth is that out of sight, my hands are clasping and unclasping, my fingers writhing, as a search for just the right phrase.  Even when my writing goes well, as for the most part it does, I am exhausted when it is done, and I turn compulsively to solitaire games, crossword puzzles, or low-brow television to recoup my energies.

There are some writers -- and a good many philosophers -- who do their best to show the anguish, fearing, I imagine, that they will not be thought serious if it seems that what they are doing has cost them too little effort.  But I am not one of them.  My hero is David Hume, who skewers a doctrine or dismantles a tradition with such ease that if you are not paying very close attention, you may fail to notice the full power of his disarmingly charming sentences.

Now I must clasp my hands behind my back and thrash out my preparations for next Wednesday's class.

4 comments:

bobfelton said...

Might interest you to know that Hunter Thompson's 'spontaneous,' you-are-there Gonzo style required endless tedious rewriting ...

Jacob T. Levy said...

Thank you for this, Robert-- a delightful story and terrific reflection.

Magpie said...

Prof.

Relax. If the effect your posts have on me are any indication, you are doing well. You are clear, interesting and humorous, too.

Your students are lucky.

Jerry Fresia said...

Thank you for sharing your writing process. One of the features of your writing, particularly in your biography, is how fearlessly you allow your readers to witness your vulnerabilities - an approach we should all emulate.

It is interesting to me, too, that both Eugene Bodin and Edouard Manet used precisely the same adjectives in describing their process: "what a 'joy,' what a 'torment'." I am assuming that apart from the torment or anxiety that you describe, when your thoughts issue in a clarity that simply sings off the page, do you not, as well, feel a certain joy?