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PARTISAN REVIEW
we know, it's impossible for any artist not to have a transport, a mutual
exchange between his vulgar, trivial, social persona and the more pro–
found self. The writer is inspired and fed by his daily life. So there isn't
a wall there that separates this totally. Proust's essay deserves to be hon–
estly debated today. What you said about this combination between a
pure French kind of tradition-l am not sure that it is so pure-and the
more savage or trivial Judeo-homosexual or even Judeo-Christian
homosexual mixture is quite interesting. It's also about the elitist posi–
tion of the writer, which doesn't seem more possible in today's social cli–
mate. I'm not arguing for a total separation between art and life, but I
am arguing for the right criteria to judge or debate a piece of literary
work. I think misunderstandings will always be there.
Susan Suleiman: I
was struck by Leonard's very interesting rhetorical
structure. You begin by saying, "I never write about myself, really, except
everything
1
write reveals me." Then you say, "Here is this diary entry,
and it doesn't say all these things." Then, wonderfully, you give us all of
the very personal and painful and autobiographical facts that surrounded
that entry. You are asserting that you are not going to give us autobiog–
raphy, and then in the very structure of your talk you g ive us the autobi–
ography which you say you did not do in the diary. So, even if you didn't
do it in the diary, you certainly did it today-in what Andre might refer
to as a temporizing way, that is, some sort of ambiva lent way of
"I
am"
and "1 am not" writing autobiography. And then I thought that Nor–
man's talk had a similar structure, because you begin by saying, "The
only thing I really treasure is fiction," or at least that's what I thought
you were saying in the beginning; that even when you were writing in
Eastern Europe, you really spoke about your reality, but in some round–
about way that was ultimately fictional, and you never really wanted to
write in a direct, autobiographical way. And then, when you came to the
U.S., after a number of years you were forced
to
commit the sin, as you
put it, and you began to tell us a little bit about your latest book, which
is a memoir, without telling us a whole lot. But in a curious way, this is
not exactly the same thing. You seem both to be denying the need for
autobiography and giving in to it, but in a temporizing or indirect way.
Is it that one doesn't want to say things directly? Or that nowadays, there
are too many memoirs, so no writer worth his salt wants
to
say, "This is
the truth." Or is it that you don't believe in generic distinctions?
Leonard Michaels:
first of all, if I heard it correctly, you said that I
said that I don't write about myself. But all I said was that I find it
