Simon Leys - The Hall of Uselessness - Collected Essays

Although Kane might have been interesting for the Americans, it is completely démodé for us, because the whole film is based on a misconception of what cinema is all about. The film is in the past tense, whereas we all know that cinema has to be in the present tense. “I am the man who is kissing, I am the girl who is being kissed, I am the Indian who is being pursued, I am the man pursuing the Indian.” Any film in the past tense is the antithesis of cinema. Therefore Citizen Kane is not cinema.

The impact of this condemnation was devastating. The Magnificent Ambersons was shown soon afterwards in Paris but failed miserably. The cultivated public always follows the directives of a few propaganda commissars: there is much more conformity among intellectuals than among plumbers or car mechanics.

A few years earlier, Jorge Luis Borges (who wrote superb film reviews) had also expressed a critical opinion of Citizen Kane , but whereas Sartre’s censure now appears odious and ridiculous in its self-importance and dogmatism (it was actually dictated by a “politically correct” anti-American prejudice), Borges made a point that should retain its validity — even for the admirers of Citizen Kane :

We all know that a feast, a palace, a huge enterprise, a lunch of writers or of journalists, a cordial atmosphere of frank and spontaneous comradeship are all particularly hideous. Citizen Kane is the first film that made conscious use of this reality… It is not an intelligent film, but it is the work of a genius —in the most nocturnal and Germanic sense of this ugly word.

Sartre had an unquestionable genius (and we just learned what this means) — which may not be enough to reach posterity; in this respect, Borges was perhaps better equipped: he had a sense of humour — which is also the other side of a genuine humility.

* * *

Trans-cultural literary comparisons are sometimes risky. The basic problem was aptly summed up in a fable by Randall Jarrell: “The Patagonians have two great writers; the name of the most famous one is Gomez. The Patagonians call Shakespeare ‘the English Gomez.’”

Only once did I have a chance to attend a public lecture given by Manning Clark; it was in many respects a memorable experience. The topic of the talk was Henry Lawson, and it took place in one of Canberra’s largest lecture halls. The vast auditorium was jam-packed with a respectful and enthusiastic public, young and old, all communing in fervour and anticipation. When Manning Clark climbed onto the stage, there remained not one empty seat in the hall; people were standing against the walls and sitting on the stairs. At once, the small and frail old man commanded effortlessly a silence that had a monumental quality. He spoke with eloquence and passion, without notes. The ultimate test for a lecturer is always the ability to think on his feet and to talk empty-handed: then you know what he has to say — and if he has something to say. Manning Clark captured and retained the total attention of his huge audience for the full hour of the lecture.

As I came to Australia relatively late in life, I had never read anything by Lawson. The gist of Manning Clark’s lecture was that Lawson was “Australia’s Chekhov,” and the point was made with such convincing force that as soon as the lecture was over, I rushed to the nearest bookshop and bought a copy of the Portable Lawson . I started reading at once — but this was an anti-climax. The stories were readable, for sure, interesting, even touching — but in what one might call a Patagonian fashion: this was more Gomez than Shakespeare, if you see what I mean.

Retrospectively, the brilliant lecture suddenly appeared to have been built around a hollow core of myth and fantasy. And yet I felt not so much disappointment or cynicism as a genuine gratitude: after all, my mind had been stirred and my curiosity aroused; I had felt a compelling urge to look for the original sources and to read them; as a result, I had been able to form my own opinion on an interesting subject. Could any teacher aim for more?

* * *

Should I buy Patrick White’s Letters ? I am still hesitating. The truth is, I was never able to finish any of his novels — I confess this with shame. I always watch with envy and frustration the true connoisseurs who derive from his impenetrable prose an enjoyment that remains obstinately denied to me. Although I am perhaps not alone in suffering from this singular disability (actually I know a number of people who share it, and not all of them are illiterate), it is always stupid to flaunt one’s infirmities as if they were a badge of originality; thus, Roger Stéphane, having once foolishly declared to Gide that he found Goethe unreadable, was coolly put back in his place by the Master: “ Tant pis pour vous .” And whenever I re-read “The Screaming Potato” (this prose-poem is scarcely a page long but it ranks on an equal footing with the masterpieces of the genre, from Baudelaire to Lu Xun), I feel that I should — and I know that I will — attempt once more to find an access point to his fiction. Meanwhile Flaws in the Glass had moved me — but in the way one is affected by the groaning of a man in pain. And now all the extracts and quotations from the Letters which have been published in the newspapers have further stimulated my desire to read this volume. Yet $50—which should be no obstacle for a true aficionado , however penniless — seems a steep price for someone who merely wishes to satisfy an idle taste for literary gossip. The traditional method which enables writers to obtain new books is to secure a free copy for reviewing, but this entails a double pitfall:

1. You have to write the review;

2. You have to read the book (even if you discover that, after all, it was not really your cup of tea).

And the obligation to finish a book when you do not enjoy it is a ghastly prospect. I would sooner sip, spoonful by spoonful, an entire bottle of cod-liver oil. Since the reviewing formula appears fraught with too great a risk, only one solution remains: wait for the paperback edition to appear. Meanwhile, I keep browsing the hard-cover volume in bookshops.

The other day, in the course of this exercise, I came across his letter to Dorothy Green. I am not absolutely sure of this attribution: one can hardly take notes when browsing. (Oh, for a civilised bookshop that would provide deep sofas where one could read and write at leisure, under a cloud of tobacco smoke, with good coffee at hand!) In that letter, White was vilely berating his correspondent for the disgraceful lack of self-respect she had displayed in accepting a perfectly respectable Australian honour; and then, practically in the same breath, he expressed his own desire to visit the Soviet Union — on the condition that the Communist authorities invite him, and pay for all his expenses. Obviously he had not perceived any contradiction between the two halves of his letter. I found this hilarious. I cannot wait for the paperback edition.

IN PRAISE OF LAZINESS

WE HAVE just visited old neighbours who recently retired and settled on the coast. As I was congratulating them on what appeared to me a blissful state of unlimited leisure they replied rather defensively that, actually, in their new situation they found themselves much more busy than they ever were during their professional lives. Now, they proudly explained, there were so many activities and commitments that they had to draw up a tightly organised timetable which was posted on the door of the fridge: yoga classes, bowling club, bush-walking, reading group, bingo, lectures, cooking classes, arts and crafts (in the latter field, the hand-painted plates that covered the walls made one regret that the lady of the house had not opted instead for judicious Doing Nothing).