CORRESPONDENCE
CORRESPONDENCE A Hard Truth Fremont, Calif. To the Editors: I noted in your issue of May 26 in the Television column that Philip Terzian called "one Catholic magazine's comparison of...
...and also noted that any lovemaking with Chopin was out of the question, as it would probably kill him...
...Moreover, for some hours during the night following, monks by turns kept vigil by the bed on which he was finally laid...
...I seem to have been in historical error only in identifying Merton's last bedroom as an upper rather than a lower one...
...Prof...
...The Thai nurse who took him around the Sawang Kaniwat or Red Cross, where the conference was held, had for all he knew been there at the time...
...Actually, the author never examined what had been his room at all...
...Of course ~hese American atrocities are not precisely similar to the Nazi atrocities-the unborn not being precisely the same as those who have attained maturity outside the womb, but I fail to see why the two are not comparable...
...What can he mean by this...
...You could never tell from their music that Mussorgsky was an alcoholic, that Debussy had mistresses, that Mozart wrote some buoyant symphonies while suffering physically...
...It is a lively and colorful piece...
...Benjamin DeMott admits as much in the essay "But He's a Homosexual . . . . " in Supergrow...
...ROY CHERNUS Commonweoh 509 of them...
...The quickest refutation would be to have Chernus listen to several unfamiliar compositions and then tell us the sexual preference of each composer...
...And his equation of my review of Bernard Gavoty's Chopin with "Salem witch trials" is surely more indicative of his own state of mind (delusions of persecution...
...But isn't this life-art connection the essence of what we mean by romanticism...
...They are incontrovertible evidence of Chopin's inclination towards Tytus rather than Konstancja Gladkowska...
...And to suggest, as Rudcki does, that perhaps Chopin didn't even know what a homosexual was, overt or not, makes him out to be even more infantile and out-of-touch with reality than I have already indicated he was...
...28], is so dumb it is hard to know where to begin or to stop criticizing it...
...To the Editors: Roy Chernus's review of Bernard Gavoty's book Chopin [Apr...
...As a poor but proud white southerner, I view Hee-Haw in about the same light a proud black person might view Amos 'n' Andy reruns...
...To the Editors: I noted in your issue of May 26 in the Television column that Philip Terzian called "one Catholic magazine's comparison of abortion in the U.S...
...Memory can play all sorts of tricks, so let me simply say that, as will be seen in a moment, it could only have been on December 11, the day after his death...
...Pilgrims to Bangkok's "Red Cross place" should definitely stop downstairs...
...Indeed, we have no other 4 August 1978:510 reccurse...
...But I know that from the time Thomas Merton was discovered lying on the terrazzo floor of his first-floor room, shortly before 4 P.M., those in authority at the conference had no alternative but to let him lie there till the Thai police arrived to check, about 6 P.M...
...Since no nurses were present in 1968 in what is now a "hospital," the author's guide evidently spoke from hearsay...
...Perhaps she had just forgotten...
...What can he mean by this...
...He reviews instead the book he thinks Gavoty should have written, one revealing Chopin's homosexuality and the effect it had on his music...
...I am not one of those who advocate violent action against abortion~but I cannot help being reminded of a line in the Moody Blues song, "A Question of Balance...
...My only regret is that he did not understand that I was describing only my own experiettce searching for Merton, not giving an authoritative historical account of the death...
...Photographs...
...R~v...
...Since the late sixties when "legalized" abortion became widely-used, approximately 8 million unborn human lives have been extinguished in this country...
...Or perhaps Rudcki would also like to contest the homosexuality of these and other artists...
...He mentions Chopin's love for a woman, but concludes that it was "superficial and inconsequential" because Chopin also expressed his love for a male friend...
...I readily and gratefully accept his corrections since he was "on the spot" when Merton died and since--as we have been told--"western" memories are superior to my guide's more imaginative, myth-making "eastern" ones...
...There is no way one can prove this thesis, and he doesn't try...
...Physical evidence...
...I am sorry to have to tell you, however, that the author should have researched the information he gathered about the cottage where the tragedy took place and some of the details...
...Perhaps she was rationalizing a "western" scientific explanation for my sake...
...In neither case is there any evidence of sexual activity, yet Chernus, like the judges at the Salem witch trials, knows how to follow a hunch...
...Thus, unlike Mozart, for example, Chopin's crea~tivity was greatly dependent on his life circumstances...
...In fact, in the four-room cottage, his room was on the ground floor, to the right...
...In the face of all this, Rudcld naively demands "evidence of sexual activity"--as if the letters and journals were not proof enough...
...To begin with, Chernus fails to review the book...
...The room above Thomas Merton's, to which the author had been led by his guide, was actually mine...
...JAMES BAKER Commonweal: 511...
...Perhaps quite naturally an author tends to accept at face value what he hears in a distant land about events that happened there in the recent past--in this case it was nine years ago, only...
...Physical evidence...
...Astound(Continued on page 508) CORRESPONDENCE (Continued trom page 483) ingly, Chernus says " . . . so constricted was Chopin by his effeminacy and neurasthenia that he dared not act upon any sexual or 'patriotic impulses, but rather sublimated them in his music...
...In the face of all this, Rudcld naively demands "evidence of sexual activity"--as if the letters and journals were not proof enough...
...Never mind, to have been happy in their company was wrong of him and shows clearly that he must have been one 4 August 1978:508 of them...
...Rudcki's attempt to disprove Chopin's homosexuality conveniently ignores the two extraordinarily candid passages from his letters to Tytus Woyciechowski I quoted, and I still await his interpretation of them...
...If he passes that test, he's ready to tell us which triangles were drawn with a limp wrist...
...Regarding who is a homosexual, psychologists are fairly much in accord in holding that since we have so little information about what constitutes homosexuality, we can only call someone a homosexual who practices homosexuality...
...The author recounts how, in trying to locate the place where Merton died, he had met a priest at the Church of the Holy Redeemer...
...As Powers points out, even murderers have rarely had such scorn heaped upon them...
...It seems to point to the truth of the theory that we hate in others what we have been unable to root out of ourselves...
...He seems determined to keep sliding down back bedroom drainpipes forever...
...When so many classical musicians evince homosexuality, one cannot but conclude that a musical tradition of dandyism exists parallel to those traditions in literature (especially poetry), drama, and visual arts...
...Apparently, Chopin's infatuation for her went only so far as to inspire a few compositions...
...Thomas Powers's thoughtful balancing of Nixon's accomplishments against his crimes in The Mauling of Nixon" makes Frank Getlein's comments seem shallowminded and savage by comparison...
...But isn't this life-art connection the essence of what we mean by romanticism...
...than of the matter at hand, for even openly gay historians and literary critics like Martin Duberman, Robert K. Martin, and Eric Bentley, among others, have been re-investigating well-known and unknown homosexual cases...
...There are tolerant people like that, even though Chernus may not be one of them...
...Later, Chopin's interest in Maria Wodzinska was discou//lged by her family on account of his illness...
...The priest happily told him, he states, of "the mad race with the Thai Keystone Kops to an American Army morgue...
...and also noted that any lovemaking with Chopin was out of the question, as it would probably kill him...
...But a brief look into A New Charter /or Monasticism, Notre Dame University Press's publication ~ with the proceedings of the conference, would have set everything straight...
...The quickest refutation would be to have Chernus listen to several unfamiliar compositions and then tell us the sexual preference of each composer...
...Opposite his was a room occupied by a Philippine prior, and upstairs above that one was the third, occupied by a French-speaking monk...
...But Gladkowska, Wodsinska, and Sand did provide Chopin with a heterosexual front as well as images of idealized femininity to which he addressed his best music...
...Benjamin DeMott admits as much in the essay "But He's a Homosexual . . . . " in Supergrow...
...JOHN MOFFITT Poetry Editor, America magazine Reply Thank you for this chance, to res~ nd to John Moffitt's letter correcting some of my "facts" about Thomas Merton's death...
...Perhaps the confusion of rooms lay not so much in the maid's attempt to mislead me as in her attempt to dramatize, to recreate the scene of death in a room more like the death room than the real one now is...
...I don't mind helping it along (my fan was quite real--though mythical too) so long as I do not misrepresent any hard facts...
...Or perhaps Rudcki would also like to contest the homosexuality of these and other artists...
...But what are the facts that every biographer has "evaded...
...Chopin's and Sand's break in 1847 ended his creative life altogether and, not surprisingly, his health deteriorated quickly...
...Getlein's vindictiveness is reminiscent of the search and destroy tactics for which Nixon was notorious...
...Or could it be that he enjoyed and respected their creative talent and didn't care which way they swung...
...But Gladkowska, Wodsinska, and Sand did provide Chopin with a heterosexual front as well as images of idealized femininity to which he addressed his best music...
...His most preposterous claim, however, is that homosexuality leaves its mark on music, something "virtually ignored by musical scholars," (no doubtbecause they are scholars and not idiots...
...Or could it be that he enjoyed and respected their creative talent and didn't care which way they swung...
...But I am relieved to know that he found me in error on just one of my hundred or so details, though that error is a large one and miscolors several other details and interpretations, though too he suspects my tendency to exaggerate on other details_9 (Keystone Kops for Thai police and "whisk" for "expedite" are of course exaggerations...
...Sorry to say I cannot comment on the Hee-Haw wisdom he quotes...
...Chopin's and Sand's break in 1847 ended his creative life altogether and, not surprisingly, his health deteriorated quickly...
...I should also state that in 1968 both my fan and Merton's were connected to outlets inside the rooms...
...Unfortunately that is not all...
...Charles Ires, arguably America's greatest composer, was singular in his rage against the effeminacy of European and European-derived classical music--see his Memos and Essays Be/ore a Sonata...
...A cleaning lady who recalled the afternoon when Merton's death took place evidently embroidered the legend further...
...what else can explain his failure to even approach her for months while both were students at the Warsaw Conservatory...
...And surely Rudcki can discern some difference between the preening narcissism of, say, Chopin's, Tchaikovsky's, and Rorem's music and the galvanic physical confrontation of indigenous American music like Ives, blues, jazz, and rock music...
...Do we have (or need) such evidence to determine the inclinations of Proust, Gide, Gertrude Stein, Diaghilev, Cocteau, Tchaikovsky, Wilde, Pater, Symonds, Whitman, Genet, Burroughs, etc...
...Please don't mistake me...
...Her explanation of the fan's frayed wire, caused by the door's friction, as was the case with my fan's wire, is harder to explain...
...For protecting me from myself, from the "eastern" mind I was beginning to develop, I am in John Moffitt's debt...
...Thus, it is most likely that Ires went into insurance not for money, but to avoid the homosexual politics of the classical music world which still control what music is performed, recorded, published, funded, academic appointments, etc...
...Rudcki, a supposedly professional academic, to resort to puerile epithets like "dumb" and "idiot" in discussing such a large, complex subject as homosexuality in artists...
...They are incontrovertible evidence of Chopin's inclination towards Tytus rather than Konstancja Gladkowska...
...We generally look to the press for our facts...
...However that may be, it is clear that another legend is in the making here (there were many equally fanciful ones at the time the first news reports of Merton's death were flashed to the West), and I think it should be nipped in the bud...
...His most preposterous claim, however, is that homosexuality leaves its mark on music, something "virtually ignored by musical scholars," (no doubtbecause they are scholars and not idiots...
...And his equation of my review of Bernard Gavoty's Chopin with "Salem witch trials" is surely more indicative of his own state of mind (delusions of persecution...
...with the Holocaust an "insane comparison...
...It is very largely based on misinformation...
...The incredible neglect of Ives's music until recently stems largely from this fact, and one has only to read com~poser Ned Rorem's candid diaries, John Gruen's The Party's Over Now, or the interviews in various gay magazines ~o appreciate the situation Ives was rebelling against...
...And surely Rudcki can discern some difference between the preening narcissism of, say, Chopin's, Tchaikovsky's, and Rorem's music and the galvanic physical confrontation of indigenous American music like Ives, blues, jazz, and rock music...
...When so many classical musicians evince homosexuality, one cannot but conclude that a musical tradition of dandyism exists parallel to those traditions in literature (especially poetry), drama, and visual arts...
...but he has been sufficiently punished by being forced into a shameful (if perhaps wealthy) retirement...
...If he passes that test, he's ready to tell us which triangles were drawn with a limp wrist...
...Thus, unlike Mozart, for example, Chopin's crea~tivity was greatly dependent on his life circumstances...
...When battling with someone of John's skills, it is always an advantage to have two swings to his one...
...9 because the truth is hard to swallow--that's what the wall of blood is for . . . . " CHARLES MARTIN Chopin sub-rosa Chicago, Ill...
...Later, Chopin's interest in Maria Wodzinska was discou//lged by her family on account of his illness...
...For instance, the author, after being taken to a small building, which he was correctly told was Merton's, was informed: "He had wanted to be alone so he had taken the upstairs...
...MICHAEL WHITENER Merton on the Lain Unionville, Va...
...So I read "Merton on the Move," James T. Baker's account of his search for Thomas Merton-and as a part of it, his search for the place where he spent the last three days of his life--with great interest Apr...
...ROY CHERNUS Commonweoh 509 Nixon: Two Views Arlington, Va...
...In her journal, George Sand remarked the psychosomatic nature of Chopin's neurasthenia with statements like "Who knows where his spiritual ills end and his physical ills begin...
...In her journal, George Sand remarked the psychosomatic nature of Chopin's neurasthenia with statements like "Who knows where his spiritual ills end and his physical ills begin...
...Thus, it is most likely that Ires went into insurance not for money, but to avoid the homosexual politics of the classical music world which still control what music is performed, recorded, published, funded, academic appointments, etc...
...Do we have (or need) such evidence to determine the inclinations of Proust, Gide, Gertrude Stein, Diaghilev, Cocteau, Tchaikovsky, Wilde, Pater, Symonds, Whitman, Genet, Burroughs, etc...
...Charles Ires, arguably America's greatest composer, was singular in his rage against the effeminacy of European and European-derived classical music--see his Memos and Essays Be/ore a Sonata...
...than of the matter at hand, for even openly gay historians and literary critics like Martin Duberman, Robert K. Martin, and Eric Bentley, among others, have been re-investigating well-known and unknown homosexual cases...
...The line runs...
...Granted that Nixon is a "crook...
...There is no way one can prove this thesis, and he doesn't try...
...You could never tell from their music that Mussorgsky was an alcoholic, that Debussy had mistresses, that Mozart wrote some buoyant symphonies while suffering physically...
...Meanwhile, a Thai physician examined the body and reported that death had come as a result of "acute cardiac failure and electric shock...
...It is quite possible that there was a "mad race" to the Army morgue early the next day...
...Under the guise of supporting evidence, Chernus states that "Chopin lived and worked most happily (italics mine) in a milieu dominated by almost overt homosexuals . . . . " I wonder if Chopin knew what an "almost overt homosexual" was...
...sT~LEY B. sua~cra Chairman of Fine Arts Niles College, Loyola University Reply It is indeed appalling for Rev...
...Because of Thai beliefs about the likelihood of return of spirits of the dead, the room to the right on the first floor, where Thomas Merton died, was immediately denuded of all its furnishings, the wall separating it from the entrance hall was removed, and it was turned into a sort of sitting room--as I found it when I myself returned there in 1970...
...I never heard about it...
...She showed the author just how the wire of the fan had become frayed (because it had had to be connected by an extension that ran under the door to an outlet outside the room), and he concluded that many of the details earlier reported about the bathroom and the floor of Merton's room were incorrect--which they surely would have been if Merton had lived on the second floor...
...R~v...
...Music is too abstract an art to reveal anything specific about a composer's personal life...
...Actually, Gayety was on the right track when he compared the personalities of Chopin and Proust and how both lived apart from reality in their own mythic pasts...
...To the Editors: In December 1968, I was a delegate to the monastic conference in Bangkok where Thoma] Merton died...
...He had been called, the priest had told him, on December, 1968 to "help whisk Merton's body out of Thailand before the Thai police could tie it up for weeks with red tape...
...And surely Chernus ought to know that not every effeminate man is gay, any more than every football player is straight...
...Lesbian and other heterosexual affairs were Sand's recourse, and Chopin turned to Delacroix...
...If the Thai police had really wanted to "tie [the body] up for weeks in red tape," one would guess they would have acted with more KeystoneKop-like dispatch than they did...
...What her error means is that the Merton myth is still growing--in Asia as well as in the West...
...The incredible neglect of Ives's music until recently stems largely from this fact, and one has only to read com~poser Ned Rorem's candid diaries, John Gruen's The Party's Over Now, or the interviews in various gay magazines ~o appreciate the situation Ives was rebelling against...
...And to suggest, as Rudcki does, that perhaps Chopin didn't even know what a homosexual was, overt or not, makes him out to be even more infantile and out-of-touch with reality than I have already indicated he was...
...Perhaps her "eastern" mind was making a new myth...
...He admits that "Every biography of Chopin I have read, including M. Gavoty's has evaded or denied his crucial homosexuality and dandyaesthete sensibility...
...Apparently, Chopin's infatuation for her went only so far as to inspire a few compositions...
...There are tolerant people like that, even though Chernus may not be one of them...
...Someone else has contributed to the legend --again someone whom an author would have no reason to distrust and who, indeed, probably thought he was telling the truth as accurately as the nurse and the cleaning lady did...
...I have no precise knowledge of what happened on December 11...
...On the one hand we are asked to believe Chopin was homosexual, and on the other hand we are told he had no sex life...
...Rudcki's attempt to disprove Chopin's homosexuality conveniently ignores the two extraordinarily candid passages from his letters to Tytus Woyciechowski I quoted, and I still await his interpretation of them...
...Why "insane" I would like to know...
...what else can explain his failure to even approach her for months while both were students at the Warsaw Conservatory...
...Evidently the Sawang Kaniwat is now, as the author states, a "home for the aged," but in 1968 it was something like a small hotel with a number of buildings scattered about, one of which was the commodious hall used for conferences...
...Actually, Gayety was on the right track when he compared the personalities of Chopin and Proust and how both lived apart from reality in their own mythic pasts...
...Music is too abstract an art to reveal anything specific about a composer's personal life...
...Photographs...
...In the present instance I am forcibly reminded of that classic line from "Hee-Haw": "'Fact' is stranger than truth...
...Upper room" is of course more mythically apt, and by John's account the real death room (due to Thai superstitution) no longer exists as a room...
...but then "western" minds have trouble making such distinctions...
...This exchange has been extremely beneficial because now my original thesis stands out in bolder relief: Merton has escaped, is still escaping, and will continue to escape us all, especially us westerners who might think we have him...
...Rudcki, a supposedly professional academic, to resort to puerile epithets like "dumb" and "idiot" in discussing such a large, complex subject as homosexuality in artists...
...To the Editors: I admire the inclusion in your May 26 issue of two such divergent opinions on the publication of Nixon's memoirs...
...sT~LEY B. sua~cra Chairman of Fine Arts Niles College, Loyola University Reply It is indeed appalling for Rev...
...Prof...
...Almost every sentence sounds like it was written by someone who flunked Psych...
...Lesbian and other heterosexual affairs were Sand's recourse, and Chopin turned to Delacroix...
Vol. 105 • August 1978 • No. 15
