Intellectuals by Paul Johnson
Intellectuals by Paul Johnson
This is an excellent book.
It is upsetting and it might affect the reader, so a cautionary or warning sign might be in order on the cover somewhere. Like the adult or Paternal Guidance ratings for some films, one such sign would be advisable.
And why is that?
After you read this book, you will not feel the same about Tolstoy, Hemingway, Shelley…a young adult might feel inclined to avoid their books altogether.
Again; this is a great book, even if it has over four hundred pages, I have read all of it, with the exception of the chapters on Marx and Sartre. I hate Marxists anyway, so what would be the point of learning what loathing characters these two had. In fact, because the book is so good and paints such an accurate picture of these intellectuals, I leafed through the pages on Marx and Sartre.
And I had the confirmation that these two were devious and monsters. In the case of Sartre, a rather short demon.
Do we need to learn about what is behind a great book? Shouldn’t be satisfied with astonishing literature? Why must we know that Hemingway was a liar, drunkard, smelled awful, was abusive to his wives and others, quarreled with other writers for no good reason- with dos Passos , Hemingway was plainly in the wrong. He diminished and insulted Scott F. Fitzgerald, by saying that he called him into the bathroom to show his penis.
Most of these Intellectuals had children that they abandoned. In the case of Jean Jacques Rousseau, we are talking about many children, basically left to die. In those days, to take a baby to the door of an orphanage and leave it there meant to sentence him to near certain death.
In fact the cruelty, meanness of most of those presented here is incredible.
You would be tempted to say that, in order to describe the complete range of human emotions, great authors need to plunge into the abyss.
Still, it doesn’t make them any less charming, if we find reasons for debauchery and the vilest behavior. In two cases, Marx and Sartre I kind of expected the worse, even if there’s always room for surprises: like the fact that Sartre, even after he learned many of the real facts about his Soviet friends- maintained that “the Soviet citizens are allowed to travel, but they just do not have any desire to do so”.
And then the drugs, the addictions of so many of these “role models” (?). In some cases, alcohol abuse was a way out of sickness. Hemingway suffered from depression, which probably pushed him to commit suicide, and forced him to drink often. But the scale of the excess is formidable: he drank enormous quantities of alcohol- whisky, wine, vodka…he even invented some “Papa drinks”.
His relationship with his mother, most of his wives and a number of mistresses was terrible. One aspect of his life that I find repulsive was his despicable compulsion to kill any number of animals- from pigeons to lions and anything that walked the earth basically. He did have a huge number of cats, associated with a repulsive smell around the house. Stray cats from my neighborhood came to my house and I know what Hemingway’s third (?) wife was complaining about.
The biggest disappointment though was Tolstoy. I had the impression, based on his masterpieces that the count was a kind of prophet. It turns out this is the way he saw himself at times, but I learned from this book that he had such a dark side that I am happy to have read twice War and Peace, Anna Karenina, The Death of Ivan Ilici and many of his stories. After reading about Tolstoy and the others presented in this fabulous book, I would have qualms about reading their (still great) creations and not think how unbearably vicious, mean, vile and contemptible they all acted, for incredibly long periods of time and with so many people.
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