Ways of Seeing

I heard from a friend, female, via email, regarding my “Crossing the Lines” essay of Jan. 11. Her comments are always smart, reasoned, and telling. In this case, however, she had not read Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita—and perhaps my essay did not explain enough of the plot line—and so she had a quite obvious question. Since she didn’t comment on this site, I shan’t mention her name, for confidentiality, but I will quote from her email a couple lines that touched off my answer to her, and this short essay.

Where do you think the line should be drawn in sexual relationships between children (or teenagers) and adults? […] Your article’s point, however, is that great art happens when lines like that are crossed or obliterated altogether, whether the subject be sexual or anything else. But what line has been set in the first place?

I ultimately answered her first question: besides the established law on “age of consent” between adults and children, we all have a line we set for ourselves—or at least I imagine we all do. Perhaps it’s a line that we learn from society (likely) or a line we learn from just being human (not likely, but the thought is nice). Although this answer (and subject) is a “way of seeing,” it does not deal with art directly, so I’ll move on to my answer to her comment and second question, which are really the impetus behind this essay:

I’m glad you brought up that Lolita conundrum. That’s exactly the kind of “line” I was talking about….but more toward how writers create art through social controversy. Humbert Humbert was an early-40s, never-been-married man, who fell in deep lust with a 13 yr old girl (a coquette, really, but hardly precocious). That’s the “line” that Humbert (the character) crossed, and Nabokov (the artist) needed to breech to show many things about the human psyche, not to mention societal mores.

I took a class while working on my MFA, in which Lolita was taught, but not discussed as “well, what’s it all about?” kind of round-table seminar. We in fact looked at how the author created art out of this human drama: how Nabokov built tension through his scenes; the psycho-drama between Humbert and Lolita; how Nabokov actually brought characters from one state of mind to another; and of course all the images (and imagery) that made the reader see things happen. However, there were several students in the class who simply thought that Nabokov was sort of disguising his lust for little girls by writing about Humbert Humbert. If one knows anything about Nabokov, that kind of thought is ridiculous. But I was astounded how some of my classmates couldn’t get around their own notions of mores, society, etc, to discuss the book as art…or discuss it as a piece of literature and what makes it work that way. They simply kept pointing to the book and saying “how could someone think this up who doesn’t have that urge to molest children?” Needless to say, none of them were good writers themselves, and didn’t know a metaphor from their kneecap. But that reader mindset is the battle most artists have to fight if they are going to break barriers of what is considered “decency” in society. Nowadays, I don’t think any subject has gone without discussion or put somehow into art (with varying results as to their “low” art or “high” art value).

There’s another reason i’m glad you brought up the age thing with Lolita: I put that up front in the essay because that’s just the sort of thing people latch onto and, perhaps, obsess about and thus miss the point of the essay. (I’m not saying you did this….). I mentioned several authors in that essay, and their famous works in which they crossed lines. Why should only the prurient, most sordid, story be the only one rebutted? (again, i’m not singling you out, but rather touching on the sort of focus that many people have when “hot button” issues come up in conversation or essays). Perhaps at the time, Lolita may have been the grandest issue a literary writer could have tackled. Yet Flaubert’s Madame Bovary was seen as a scandalous story, and all she was doing was having lots of affairs (and even died in the end for her “sins”—always a just punishment back in those days of writing…characters didn’t get away with being “bad” until Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie, a story about a young woman who slept her way to the top of society, and lived to enjoy it (thank you very much) ). But in the 1850s, especially in Catholic France, marriage was still sacred, and to step out of it in any way was scandalous.

One more thing…artists need lines to cross, and they don’t want those lines to be “obliterated” as you say. If one obliterates the lines, then the drama from which an artist can extract is diminished.

Yes, my friend did not mention the other several writers I included in the essay—she was emailing me a quick note, which included lots of other subjects, and so I didn’t expect an essay in reply—but she understood the essay’s overall “point” about crossed lines. My argument is not with my friend, but with my former classmates, who as college students nearing graduation (of the four I speak, three where undergrads in their final semester) should have known better, and as writing student should have been able by then to distinguish between art and … whatever else there is in “real” life.

No, no, no! I don’t expect everyone to “get” something, or everything. Mere appreciation of art forms can be difficult; understanding art forms is difficult. But comprehending where the artist is coming from should not be a hurdle at all. Sorry, that’s where I draw the line. British artist Damien Hirst preserves a shark in formaldehyde. Stupid? Perhaps to some, but who can argue the man’s sincerity in creating art for some effect, even if most people who see the exhibit “don’t get it”? Christo and Jeanne-Claude wrap buildings, walkways, even around islands. Incomprehensible? Lots of people think so—they just don’t get it. But again, Who can argue their artistic vision and integrity? Now, any reader can say these two examples don’t broach any “unseemly” subjects, such that Nabokov did with the budding sexuality of a young girl, taken advantage of by a middle aged man.

So perhaps then it becomes a subject matter issue for people. But which subjects should not be touched by artists, and who should arbitrate the guidelines or—should it come to that again out of history’s long past—laws for their use? “Government!” cry the masses. Okay. Bad idea, but okay, let’s look at that. Government writes laws banning obscenity, which include pornography of any nature, in art forms of various kinds (but today people think of photographs when “pornography” is mentioned). Lots of pornography laws exist in America, and especially the American South, the buckle on the country’s Bible Belt. Yet look at this fact: South Carolina has the youngest “age of consent” law; 14 years for female to consent to sex with an adult, 16 years for male. Talk about a problem of subject matter! These facts create all kinds of possibilities—lines—for artists to cross, not the least of which points to Humbert Humbert’s infatuation with 13-year-old Dolores Haze. As I see this problem now, the dangers do not lie with artists crossing lines. The dangers lie with people who can’t deal with a subject not only dreamed up by an artist, but one that exists in their very laws.

My female friend asked me, “what line has been set in the first place?” for which artists must cross to create art. Perhaps it is this line I just mentioned, the line created between what people—governments—impose on one segment of society, while in another that line has been broken to create just that sort of power breech that confounds people’s view of society, and humanity.

Tags: Seeing in Progress //