Reactions: Dance reviews, Joyce Carol Oates, envy of the rich

My miscellaneous reactions to some recent BSR posts:

The best is still to come

Re Tom Purdom's review of guitarist Allen Krantz at Laurel Hill Mansion—

Tom mentions ten sonatas by Wencelas Matiegka that Krantz considers comparable to Beethoven or Schubert but that have been neglected since the composer's death in 1830— only to be rediscovered lately by guitarists exploring the digitalized scores that libraries are posting on the Internet.
That reminds me of the story about Isaac Bashevis Singer, the last of the Yiddish novelists, that I mentioned in this column just three months ago. (Click here.) To wit:

Singer was asked before his death in 1991 whether he was concerned that in the future his novels would be read only in translation. Not at all, Singer replied: A century from now, he said, there will be 150 billion people in the world. In order to make a living, people will have to specialize. Some of them will specialize in Yiddish. Out of 150 billion on the planet, there might be a few million learning Yiddish, or at least a few hundred thousand.

Wencelas Matiegka, it appears, has already proven Singer's thesis.

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A dance writer's biggest challenge

Merilyn Jackson's insightful "How to write a dance review has generated positive responses from a veteran dance critic and a Swarthmore theater professor. But as the editor of an arts publication, I felt Merilyn's piece overlooked what to me is the toughest challenge in dance writing: How do you describe in words what dancers are doing on a stage?

Precisely because the world lacks an adequate dance vocabulary, dance is to my mind the most difficult of the arts to write about.

The former secretary of Health, Education and Welfare John W. Gardner once remarked, "When a top executive is selecting his key associates, there are only two qualities for which he should be willing to pay almost any price: taste and judgment. Almost everything else can be bought by the yard." I'm all for taste and judgment, but when it comes to dance criticism, I'll pay any price (OK, figuratively speaking) for dance writers capable of rising above jargon and conversing with a general audience, instead of simply writing for dancers and choreographers.

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Joyce and Emily: Twins or opposites?

In "Thelma and Louise? No, Emily and Joyce," Carol Rocamora remarks on Joyce Carol Oates's long fascination with Emily Dickinson and concludes that the two have much in common: Both are women of small stature, she says, with oval faces and hair parted severely in the middle. Both have struggled against significant scorn as writers. And both "became towering figures, thanks to their strength, their tenacity and their determination to write at any cost."

True. But to me the differences between these two writers outweigh the similarities.

Oates has been recognized and appreciated in her own lifetime; Dickinson was not. Oates has published 50 novels as well as dozens of short stories, plays, articles and critical studies; Dickinson confined herself to poetry, and only 12 of her 1,775 poems were published during her life. Oates is a public figure and a married woman; Dickinson was a recluse and a spinster.

It's true, as Rocamora notes, that Oates has often been subjected to withering and abusive criticism. But criticism is the price one pays for the stimulation of entering the public arena. It's a compliment; it means people are paying attention. "Better to be criticized than ignored" is a mantra recited daily by all writers (except maybe Buzz Bissinger).

On the other hand, Emily Dickinson's work has survived more than a century after her death. Perhaps that's why she so fascinates Joyce Carol Oates.

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On envying the rich

"I'd gladly exchange most of my problems for most of theirs," writes Robert Zaller, referring to America's ruling class. (See Letters.)

Ah, yes— envy of the super-rich, coupled with a presumption that money and power bring happiness and fulfillment. I'm not sure how many super-rich people Robert has actually met, but I can speak with some authority on this subject.

In a previous life, I made a specialty of interviewing, profiling and writing about the super-rich for magazines like Town and Country, Forbes and American Benefactor. (For a sampling of my subjects, click here.)

In the course of profiling Rockefellers, Roeblings, Drexels and Biddles as well as the patriarchs of Citigroup, Fidelity Investments, Hartz Mountain and Domino's Pizza, I've met some folks who were happy and some who were miserable. (Walter Annenberg, a man who seemingly had everything, told me his mantra for survival: "Harassment is just around the corner.")

Of course it's probably better to be rich than poor, as Bessie Smith, Joe E. Lewis and Tevye put it. But those extremes don't really prove anything.

In general I found that the happiest billionaires and centomillionaires I encountered were those who had managed to approximate an upper-middle-class lifestyle, pretty much like mine. And I came to concur with Joseph Thorndike's conclusion in The Very Rich: that "great wealth may give its possessors a more than normal opportunity to become either happy or unhappy, depending on their own natures."

In the course of my specialty I met some rich people I despised and others whom I liked and admired, but none that I envied. I did, however, meet one who professed to envy me.

In 1985 I was commissioned by Town and Country to write a series of research papers about "the new characteristics of affluence in America." The finale required me to find four affluent couples in different parts of the country who were willing to talk candidly on-the-record about how they make and spend their money (no small feat). As one of my subjects sat in his living room dutifully cataloging his homes, his cars, his wardrobe, his yachts, and his global vacations for my benefit, suddenly he interrupted himself.

"It's true I have a lot of material possessions," he said. "But you have a craft, and that's something I'll never have."

Enough already with the rich envy. Martin Luther had it right 500 years ago: "Riches are the least worthy gifts which God can give men. Therefore, God commonly gives riches to foolish people, to whom he gives nothing else."♦


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