VAL ELIOT 1926-2012

       I note with sadness the passing of Thomas Stearns Eliot's 2nd wife, Valerie, much maligned even as his first wife, Vivienne, is in the media and academia now hailed as the real hero; there are those who say that Vivienne wrote some of his poetry, and that he drove her insane.  This...is...typical...of our age and strains the credibility of institutions who champion the insane over those who merely suffer their outrages. 

I would refer you to the Daily Telegraph article on Val and Tom which my literary son Stephen posted on his Facebook, which is always a delightful read in itself! Dated Nov 11.

It says that Eliot stopped writing poetry--and did a few plays instead--after they married. No wonder the academics rage!  Eliot had been their Major Angst poster boy for some decades--because the modernists still revel in human suffering and hate human happiness.  "I do not deserve such happiness," was Eliot's remark, a statement of fact as equally despised as his Christian conversion decades before. (Common denominator--grace/mercy)

"Tom Eliot is now curiously dull," remarked Aldous Huxley. "He felt he had paid too much to be a poet, that he had suffered too much," as Valerie later explained.

The idolatry of the addiction of revelling in gloom, other people's troubles, and disasters has become a trademark of our arts and culture.  Once portrayed as "realism," we have taken this into the realm of complete fantasy--the works of Bunuel, for instance, are nearly universally acclaimed as the modern standard for artistic achievement.  But I notice that those who promote these realisms take great care to shield themselves from reality, and to build up cushions of fame, fortune, and respectability so that they may not suffer themselves.  Of course they do suffer--but by their own hands and choices.

Made-up suffering or over-the-top portrayal of human misery are now as common as dirt--and unlike the Catholic-informed writings of Percy and O'Connor, it is considered anathema to inject the least element of grace into any stories or novels, but to leave whole families and dystopic societies grovelling in the dirt before overwhelming circumstances, by the end of their tales.  Of course I would except the works of some--Wendell Berry and Garrison Keillor come to mind--but on the whole- as I would take it from the experiences of my sister who is a professor at Univ. of Maryland,  "happiness" is not only dull but hateful. (Politics are considered a Love  Potion # 9 substitute; and one gives one's all to it--or suffer the consequences of shunning en masse.)

I note that there are two parallel movements of the human soul that tend to support views far more pessimistic than my own; the first would be the fundamental human response of Gossip.  According to my Dad re; his experiences at Carleton College, faculty gossip prevails over any discussion of ideas. Another would be the force of "social proof" which is the bedrock of any viable culture. More of the latter, later, perhaps.

Since my middle name is Eliot, I suppose there are many ways in which my life parallels Eliot's; not in the quantity of suffering but in the trajectory of it, also experienced by CSL by the latter part of his life with "Joy" Davidman.

Flo has sometimes wondered why I don't write poems about her, but I point out that I don't need to or want to.  Much as Eliot, once one discovers and imbibes in the reality for which men and women were meant, when one is "accepted in the beloved," one has no need to convince the beloved--who cannot be reduced to words at all. One becomes, "a man in full," but far beyond anything Tom Wolfe or others can even dare to imagine--and they dare not to do so, because they are too deeply invested in their output and the usefulness of their own sufferings, which they hold close to their chests, and brag about to the media and their colleagues. It rather reminds me of that Python sketch in which the old men compete to outdo each other by bragging of how bad their childhood was, telling of course the usual lies and exaggerations to which we aged are prone. "I walked 20 miles to school in the snow barefoot and uphill both ways..." etc.

"Oh you think you had it tough!  When I was a boy, we....."

I have not had it tough, but my disposition tends to aggravate my stories I tell myself, all too often. When we have few externally recognizable triumphs--or even if we do, as they are never enough--we tend to pride ourselves on suffering in silence, and the ultimate narcissism, "No one understands me. I'm just ahead of my time, etc"

Oh, please!