Hello
Gentle Reader
In
the end of April and the beginning of May, two writers—worlds apart—committed
suicide. Both writers as well, were not what most would be considered the prime
targets, or characters who would commit suicide. When we think of literary
suicides, we think of them young, talented and prodigious; such as: the
American poet, who single handedly reshaped poetry in the twentieth century,
with her intensely personal and confessional style of poetry: Sylvia Plath
(30); the Russian futurist and innovative poet: Vladimir Mayakovsky (36); the
Japanese father of the modern day and contemporary short story: Ryūnosuke
Akutagawa (35); the Argentinean poet who opened her world of shadows, torture,
intense personal pain and suffering to the masses: Alejandra Pizarnik (36); the
influential and young dramatist and playwright, who would go on and move the
theatre away from the naturalist traditions, it found itself stagnating it:
Sarah Kane (28). There are many more that
could salt and pepper the list, such as: Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway,
Primo Levi, David Foster Wallace, Yukio Mishima and Stefan Zweig. If the list
could go on endlessly, it would give the impression that writing Gentle Reader,
is by all accounts not a [mentally] healthy task or job at hand, and it would
be wise to avoid giving off such impressions, as writing cannot be the blame
for the unfortunate personal hell which most certainly afflict many great
writers. For example, Stefan Zweig (who is finding greater popularity once
again), committed suicide with his wife in Rio de Janeiro, after he escaped the
Nazis in Europe, but suffered a great deal from depression and continual
disappointment at the affairs taking place in Europe at the time. All the
while, others suffer from severe mental health issues as in the case of
Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, or David Foster Wallace. Then of course is
the death by ego; in other words to make ones death as theatrical and a piece
of legend, to accompany one’s life, such is the case of Yukio Mishima, and his
own suicide by ritualist cultural means (seppuku).
Jean
Stein and Karel Schoeman, could not be any different in their respective
decisions, or their literary output and lives. Yet both committed suicide
within days of each other.
Part I: Jean Stein,
Jean
Stein was as much an icon and figure of the New York literary, an arts and
culture scene, as much as she was an institution in her own right. Much like
Dorothy Parker and the Algonquin Round Table, to landmark establishments like
Broadway or the Statue of Liberty or Time Square; to the acerbic and sarcastic
wisecracker, and famously slothful and sulking writer who does not write: Fran
Leibowitz. Jein Stein, came from a wealthy family—her father Jules C. Stein,
was an optometrist, musician and a businessman; and one of the founders of the
Music Corporation of America Inc. Because of her illustrious and well off
background, it should come to no surprise Stein was well educated from a
boarding school in California to a boarding school to Switzerland, to studying
at the University of Paris (Sorbonne). Despite her background with its
education, and seemingly envious ideas of wealth; Jean Stein was not some rich
heiress creature, who was found fame simply because she had fame like many
nameless pop culture monstrosities, who are seen in tabloid stories and
paparazzi photos, in compromising and attention grabbing positions. No; Jean
Stein was something else entirely; she became a legend in her own right, and
happens to deal with William Faulkner.
As
the legend goes, while Jean Stein was studying in Paris, she had an affair with
William Faulkner, and interviewed him. To solidify the story, it is propagated
that Stein took the interview to The Paris Review, and offered to sell it to
the magazine, on the condition they made her an editor.
Jean
Stein met her early legendary status, and her own well off past, and created
her own identity for herself, as she would go on to become a patron of the
arts, editor, publisher, and author of three books of oral
histories/biographies/personal anthropology studies, based off interviews she
conducted and the stories of the people who were in the peripheral of the
documented events.
Stein’s
apartment on Central Park West was a literary saloon of sorts. In it, Stein
would host some of the most interesting and famous people within the New York
scene, from writers, to show-businesses executives and managers, to artists and
politicians. It is in her apartment that Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal would
exchange barbs; but it also included the Leonard Bernstein and members of the
Black Panthers group, who would go on to influence Tom Wolfe as he developed
the concept of “Radical Chic.”
I
personally think of Jean Stein, as someone of a privileged background, who was
afforded the luxury, in which she could patron the arts, host her cultural
saloons and conversations, as well as edit and publish the numerous magazines
she would work for, and herself start up. Though, her life was privileged and
Stein certainly recognized this financial security and independence, as being a
great asset to her cultural activities, she also took aim and shot at this
world. Her final oral history: “West of Eden: An American Place,”—Stein
recounts the five larger than life families and characters of Los Angeles,
would who go on to succeed and gather fame; but not everything is rosy at dawn
and sunset; as much as these individuals are perceived as having life by the
balls, lacking a care in the world—Stein shows that even they suffer the human
frailties of every other common human being, with everyday mishaps, crisis, and
griefs—in which case not even fame or financial success can fill the void of
such suffering.
Despite
her own success and cultural patronage and good will, Jean Stein also suffered
at the cost of being human. On April 30th, it was reported: Jean
Stein had tossed herself—at the age of 83—from her fifteenth floor high rise
apartment balcony, and fell to her death. It is stated, Jean Stein was
suffering from depression and other personal issues. It has now also just been
disclosed that upon her death, Jean Stein was worth an estimated $38.5 million
dollars. As her will is becoming public knowledge with her contents and estate
divvied up and sorted out, numerous institutions and individuals are expected
to receive a gift from their patron, friend, muse, publisher and editor.
Part II: Karl Schoeman,
Jean
Stein’s suicide was rarely mentioned in some obituaries. Many literary
publications and cultural magazines had expressed their grief through the loss
of a dear friend, but rarely was her death associated with the tragic turn, in
which the individual herself committed the act. Perhaps it was out of respect;
or perhaps it was to resist appearing sensationalistic or indignant in
mentioning her death was a suicide. These very well maybe very true statements
as to why they avoided to publicly acknowledge her death as being a
self-inflicted act. Though I strongly believe, it was more out respect to Stein’s
life—in which they celebrated, in their mourning essays, eulogies and
obituaries; then it was shame or self-restraint to completely focus on her
death. On the contrary though, Karl Schoeman’s death has been more public then
his life.
Karl
Schoeman, was often referred to as: hermetic, reclusive, withdrawn, secluded, and
closed off from public life—and in all fairness, he was. Schoeman swatted
invitations and request for interviews, down like flies. The moment they arrived
in his inbox, mailbox, or answering machine, they were deleted, burned, or
ignored. It’s not because he was a antisocial being, but rather he had no
interest in partaking in the cult of celebrity, and any answer journalists or
inquiring readers, wished to ask him, they would only need to read his books
more carefully. Schoeman, after all, was not a public spokesman or writer of
publicity means. He did not stand on soap boxes or milk crates, pontificating
from the heavens above, trumpeting with the horn of Gabriel, promising the
rapture to rupture that would cause a revelation of morality and revolution for
the human race. No, Schoeman wrote historically poignant novels, of immaculate
detail and scathing lyricism.
Karl
Schoeman was more than just a writer; he was a historian, with a day job of
course, where he worked in the South African National Library as a Archivist;
and before that worked as a Librarian in Amsterdam and then as a nurse in the
Glasgow, Scotland. Though most well
known as a prose writer, Schoeman is equally well known for his historical non-fiction,
biographies, essays, travel reportage and autobiographies. During his quiet job
in the South African National Library, surrounded by history recorded to Cleo’s
detailed directions, numerous characters, personalities, thoughts, and writing
material would populate his mind and thoughts as he woud walk amongst the
records of a nation.
Despite
working and producing a extraordinary bibliography of fiction and non-fiction,
and being considered one of the most remarkable writers in South Africa, Karl
Schoeman evaded the lime light, avoided publicity, and for the most part exemplified
the traits of the brown recluse spider—a small threatening creature, which for
the most art was better left to itself the being disturbed. His works always
dealt with the past, as the precedence they created for both the present and
the future.
Schoeman’s
life was deeply protected in secrecy as he avoided interviews, never returned
calls for requests of his opinion, nor did he engage in public forums. Now though,
on the contrary, Schoeman’s death has become a public and political statement
in his native land of South Africa. There is no hiding the cause of Schoeman’s
death; not out of respect for the reserved author, nor to avoid indignation or
sensationalism, or to further celebrate his grand career—Schoeman committed
suicide, and had made it public knowledge, as well as public and political
protest, with a letter her wrote to his attorney.
In
this letter Karl Schoeman confessed, he had aged enough and had very well had
enough of it; and had attempted two years earlier to commit suicide, though he
was hindered by circumstances at the time, and now at the age of seventy-seven,
he succeeded in killing himself. He described his decision, not as a reaction or
response of emotional distresses or crisis, but rather cold, clinical, detached
and logically planned, deprived of any emotional thought processes whatsoever. He
described how his literary inclinations and historical research and interests
had become more a burden then they had become enjoyment, and was happy to have
done away with them. Despite this, he admitted and confessed his refusal to
become a burden on anyone or any system, as his spiritual and physical degradation
by time, had slowly begun to whiter him away to a husk of his former self, and
so Schoeman had resigned and resolved himself to his end by his own hands,
leaving as one would put it with dignity rather than any further humiliation perpetrated
by time, administered in punitive fashion. The decision was not made lightly, and he
could not profess that enough.
Karl
Schoeman’s death has reignited the debate in South Africa about assisted
suicide and dying with dignity—one of those social issues, which appear to be
taken to the courts on grounds of appeal, because the legislative and executive
branches of government, avoid at all cost, unless they are to fall upon their
political swords, and die a politicians death, by attempting reform a social
issue, or stand behind already set moral ideals of life over death.
Despite
his intensely private life, in which he was renowned and recognized for his
prose and historical research, Schoeman has left the world in a bang, and with
a startlingly revelation which most certainly has ruptured the moral stagnation
of: preservation versus termination. In his last hours, and now after his
death, Schoeman has left a social activist mark on South Africa, as it coincides
and stands in as much admiration as his life’s work and literary output.
There
is no other way to describe Karl Schoeman other then: he certainly belonged on
this world; though he was not entirely of it. His reclusive nature made him
legend and all that more esoteric and precious; like a rare jewel, was one of a
kind, and radiated solely on its own, in its own way.
Two
very different writers, who were physically speaking: worlds apart; their literary
outputs were vastly different; from Jean Stein’s oral histories of American culture
through the ages; to Karl Schoeman’s vast personal library of literary works
which stretched from fiction to historical non-fiction to biography and
autobiography. Their deaths could not be any more different, nor similar. They both
committed suicide, but on one account: Jean Stein’s was hushed when mentioned,
in order to avoid offense; while on the other, Karl Schoeman’s was in complete
contrast to his life: public and actively willing to begin debate and
conversations on the right to die with dignity.
The
truth is Gentle Reader, writers are human beings. Though in many minds eyes,
they are next to Gods. If of course I am to quote Fran Lebowitz:
“When
I was very little, say fix or six, I became aware of the fact that people wrote
books. Before that, I thought that God wrote books. I thought a book was a
manifestation of nature, like a tree. When my mother explained it, I kept after
her: What are you saying? What do you mean? I couldn’t believe it. It was
astonishing. It was like—here’s the man who makes all the trees. Then I wanted to
be a writer, because, I suppose it seemed the closest thing to being God.”
Much
like the Greek Gods and their pantheon of jealousy, envy, lust, rage, love,
war, and hate—even these mortal gods, of imagined universes must suffer the
human faults of existence. It is with great sadness the world would lose both
writers, for very different reasons.
Thank-you
For Reading Gentle Reader
Take
Care
And
As Always
Stay
Well Read
M.
Mary
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