| December 1 2002 |  | |
In which our dilettante-columnist finds holiday cheer in essays, memoirs and poetry.
Sunday, December 1, 2002; Page BW15
"Every morning," confessed Jean Cocteau gloomily, "I tell myself, you can do
nothing about it: submit." I know how he feels. Periodically I awake -- usually
after a night of grinding my remaining teeth and a few director's-cut nightmares
-- to the conviction that I never could write, lack all critical intelligence,
and am, at best, nothing but a shallow dilettante. While public intellectuals or
cutting-edge critics are busy primping for their morning sound-bites and radio
spots, I shamble despondently to the bathroom with phrases like "bankrupt
imagination" and "where did I go wrong?" resounding through my otherwise bleakly
empty mind. But after a pot of black coffee, I start to look on the, well, less dark
side. I still love to read, and avowed dilettantism does free one from any kind
of parti pris zealotry. Specialization, ideology, intellectual turf --
none of these troubles the insouciant boulevardier of letters. While
single-minded scholars devote careers to learning everything about novelist
Charles Brockden Brown, while deep thinkers delve deeper and deeper into the
theoretical underpinnings of feminist philosopher Luce Irigaray, while with-it
assistant profs deconstruct Indian captivity narratives or hip-hop lyrics or
movie scripts, I simply read whatever catches my fancy. That shameless eclecticism is reflected in the sort of books that pile up
around my bedside during the fall. As Christmas approaches, these stacks grow
more and more precarious, rather like my own tenuous grip on reality. But it's
pretty clear that the common element among these livres de chevet is that
they tend to be highly personal works, nobly and steadfastly dilettantish even
when the authors hold passionate views about art and culture. Let's take a quick
look at 12, the canonical number for all 7) Vladimir Nabokov, by Jane Grayson; Samuel Beckett, by Gerry
Dulles (Overlook, $19.95 each). These two volumes -- on possibly my favorite
mid-20th-century writers -- inaugurate a beautifully designed new series called
Overlook Illustrated Lives. Roughly the size of trade paperbacks, the 150-page
primers surround scores of pictures -- one or more to nearly every page -- with
crisply related biography and commentary. (If you know the annual Pleíade
"Album" series -- e.g. Album Stendhal,Album Queneau -- you will
recognize this format.) Look no further for the perfect literary stocking
stuffer, especially for any admirer of Nabokov, Beckett or fine
book-making.