Famous writers behaving badly

kw: book reviews, nonfiction, visual arts, cartoons, caricatures, biographies

"Caricature" is used two ways. Most frequently, one says of an image, whether visual or verbal, that it is a caricature when it oversimplifies by discarding the valuable for the derogatory or the ridiculous. The frequently-seen image of Charles Darwin with a very ape-like look is just such a caricature, intended to impugn to his reputation.

Less frequently, but more accurately and positively, "caricature" refers to simplification in the service of understanding. While no portrayal can include everything, some are richer than others, and somewhere between the photo-image and the raw cartoon, lies the caricature that illuminates.

I am frankly puzzled by Edward Sorel's popularity. His drawings are mediochre at best, and frequently inferior. It is his satirical wit rather than artistic merit that wins him devotees. Thus, I must admit, his most recent little book Literary Lives kept me sniggeringly entertained for the half hour or so that it took me to get through it.

Here he skewers ten literary icons: Tolstoy, Rand, Proust, Yeats, Hellman, Jung, Sartre, Eliot, Brecht, and Mailer. This in itself is not particularly hard; they are very easy targets. None of the men could be trusted with your daughter, your pocketbook, or your reputation. The women were equally venal; indeed the ten range from the bad side of venal to downright evil.

So why to people read them, even idolize them? Barnum has the apt phrase: "There is a sucker born every minute."

The key religious cliché (or caricature) is the preacher who can't practice what (s)he preaches. The Bakkers come to mind. While speaking—or writing—what you see but cannot quite attain is the occupational hazard of all public figures, the ten writers Sorel skewers are among the ten worst examples of the trait.

So, this is really a gossipy little book about famous people who mostly managed to hold on to fame in spite of grossly decadent private lives. Easy targets, indeed.