A Writer’s Dual Worlds: Personal and Professional
Dive into this thought-provoking discussion on the morality, vulnerability, & humanity of creative minds in this narrative where the author discusses the complex relationship between art and the artist from her personal experience.
We are human and flawed, we have our moments of weakness, we create stories that our readers love to read, they put us up on pedestals, then one day when they find out that we too have had our moments of vulnerability; they judge us and then drop us to an unfathomable hellish depth from where there’s no comeback. The written word perishes and all that’s left of us is a villainous, ugly shadow of what we used to be.
The first time that I was totally disappointed was when my favourite author, Enid Blyton’s persona was exposed by her younger daughter, Imogen. She opined that “the truth is Enid Blyton was arrogant, insecure, pretentious, very skilled at putting difficult or unpleasant things out of her mind, and without a trace of maternal instinct. As a child, I viewed her as a rather strict authority. As an adult, I did not hate her. I pitied her.” Then I happened to see the movie based on the life of the author who gave us Noddy, the Famous Five, the Faraway Wood series, Malory Towers and created that fantasy world where I would escape as a child and ensconce myself in the soft, cushiony cosiness of her words, lose myself in one of those cottages of Toyland. The movie revealed the fact that she was quite cold as a mother. The reading of stories to her children was just photo-ops. Imogen further added, “The nursery was directly over my mother’s lounge, where she did her writing. There was a big round lamp, like a dish, hanging from the ceiling, and bumps or bangs from the nursery above rattled it alarmingly. Any screams that I emitted when my sister tickled or teased me were easily audible downstairs. Most of my mother’s visits to the nursery were hasty, angry ones, rather than benevolent. The nursery was a lonely place. The nannies lingered in the warm kitchen and I had no friends to come and play with me.”
How can I judge the person who gave me so much comfort wrapped in delicious scones and ham sandwiches, the lovely picnics, the exotic and bizarre lands that would come atop the Faraway Tree; the list is long and I can go on and on. The debate continued in my mind; can we separate the art from the artist? Even the gods have feet of clay, and we are but writers, human beings. Sometimes, we express more wisdom in writing than we do in everyday life. At times, a story—much like a dream—reveals truths we aren’t yet prepared to acknowledge consciously.
The second blow came upon me when I read about the treatment meted out by Charles Dickens to his wife, Catherine. Just after marriage, over the next fifteen years, Catherine experienced ten full-term pregnancies and at least two miscarriages. The couple, who had been in love and enjoyed parties and holidays together, eventually became unable to live under the same roof. This began to take its toll on her health and general well-being. Catherine, in addition to being a mother, was an author, a very talented actress, an excellent cook, and, in her husband’s words, “a superb travelling companion”. She wrote a book called, ‘What Shall We Have for Dinner?’. It was a guide for young wives, ways to look after the house, and “produce menus for up to 18 people”. It is said that Dickens could not bear to live with her, now that he had a mistress too, and wanted to put her in a mental asylum, on the pretext that she had psychological problems.
I still am a huge fan of Charles Dickens’ writings, from Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, to A Tale of Two Cities, The Old Curiosity Shop, I had read them all…and probably had Great Expectations from him who was a mere mortal and had fallen on Hard Times before tasting the fame and glory in Victorian England. His style of writing, the choice of words, his characters, and his plots, they have all played a great role in improving my writing skills and also that of my students. How could he behave thus with his wife? Could I ignore his personal flaws and read him without a cluttered mind, like I would do before I learnt about his cruel ways as a husband?
Then came the latest jolt, as if somebody had stabbed me in my back. The horrid revelations by Alice Munro’s daughter, about how her mother never saved her from being sexually abused by her step-father, Munro’s second husband. I looked up to her as a teacher, my Dronacharya, from whom I was learning the craft of writing short stories. As I read through Dear Life, there were lines in her stories that seemed to reflect the nature of her personal life, for example, “It was unnatural for people who saw each other daily, constantly, to have to go through explanations of any kind.” It was as if she was absolving herself from facing reality, by writing it down in her stories. For me, a mother is one person who would fight till her last breath to keep her children safe. We uplift mothers to a divine height and here was a woman who completely ignored the cries of her daughter, who was undergoing agony day in and day out. Do we barter silence for peace, often unseeing crimes happening right in front of us assuming that it will all vanish into thin air, but such miracles don’t happen.
To Reach Japan, one of her short stories had this line- “It would become hard to explain, later on in her life, just what was okay that time and what was not. You might say, well, feminism was not. But then you would have to explain that feminism was not even a word people used.”
One of the most common arguments in discussions like these is the idea that we should separate the artist from their work. Alice Munro, a Nobel Prize-winning author, has made immense contributions to literature, particularly in the short story genre. Her works are celebrated for their depth, subtlety, and exploration of the human condition. Some argue that her personal actions or attitudes should not detract from her literary achievements. This perspective maintains that the value of her art stands independently of her personal life, and judging her based on her response to a deeply personal and traumatic event could diminish her work’s significance.
On the other hand, there is the argument that public figures, especially those as influential as Alice Munro, have a moral responsibility that extends beyond their professional achievements. When a person of Munro’s stature takes a particular stance on an issue as serious as rape, it can have broader implications. If her attitude was perceived as dismissive or lenient towards the rapist, it could be seen as undermining the gravity of the crime and the suffering of the victim, in this case, her own daughter.
Another aspect to consider is the complexity of human reactions to trauma. Munro’s attitude towards her daughter’s rapist could have been shaped by a multitude of factors, including her emotional state, familial dynamics, and personal beliefs. Trauma can elicit responses that might seem irrational or even morally questionable to outsiders, but they are deeply personal and context-dependent. Judging her solely on this basis might not take into account the full complexity of her situation.
Our minds are like complicated labyrinths, especially those of creative artists. I have stopped feeling ‘cheated’ by these writers and have accepted the fact that they are mere human beings and then when I look into their writings now, I read them keeping in mind that sometimes the moral compass gets tilted due to the magnetic fields created by the umpteen number of parameters that life throws at us; and like Alice Munro wrote in Away from Her,
“Because if she let go of her grief even for a minute it would only hit her harder when she bumped into it again.”
I do relate to this.
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