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[side_show]

Since we are an offshoot of a poetry site, I'm interested in a little discussion of writers - both musical and poetic. I know I'm not the only one out there drawn to complicated sadness in art here.  (Achewood, although funny had an underlying sadness to it, which I think, is what elevates it.)  So what draws us to the suicide cases?  

I've read most of Sylvia Plath's stuff, mostly because I took quite a few women's lit courses.   Mostly, I don't think her writing was "successful" - there was so much striving to be clever in her work that the work itself gets swallowed.  Yet the content that does come through - the sadness and distorted, lost girlhood of her work is beautiful and draws readers to her.  Certainly, the majority of her success came after her death.  She's not a bad writer, but also not a great one - she's no Adrienne Rich.  (As a side note, please for the love god, DO NOT rent the horrible, horrible movie "Sylvia".  It is so bad, my eyes almost started to bleed before I turned it off.)

Then there's Nick Drake.  I bought Pink Moon at a dark time in my own life, and I found his music so shattering that I couldn't really listen to more than one or two songs at a time.  Now that things are awesome, I recently I went to see a friend's band and they played a cover of "Place To Be" and I was reminded of this sad, sad man and his beautiful, naked music.  I understand that Drake has a huge following now, and though he never live to see major success in his life time, his influence is spreading thanks in part to a Volkswagen commercial!

So does doing violence to the self draw the attention needed for people to actually recognize good writing, or does the concept that someone died "for their art" impose the "good art" label on their work posthumously whether is warrents it or not?

[andalucia]

Interesting question... I'm a fan of both Nick Drake (excepting his middle album) and Sylvia Plath (though I prefer The Bell Jar to her poetry in general).  

I've often found myself interested in mentally ill writers, artists, and musicians, and in the concept of the difficulty of separating a clinical condition from a personality and a body of work.  I'm intruiged by the fact that two authors I respect highly, James Joyce and Kurt Vonnegut, had schizophrenic children (I highly recommend Mark Vonnegut's book on schizophrenia, The Eden Express), and I wonder to what extent their originality of idea and syntax was a reflection of a partial expression of inhereted mental illness.  Of course, that opens the discussion up to many more questions and issues (I've struggled with the question of to what extent I judge an artist by his or her life- taking the example of someone like Kerouac, who I consider a brilliant author, but a real asshole as a person).

I do think it's clear that there is to a large extent a martyr complex associated with artists who, as you said, did violence to themselves and are seen as having died "for their art", which is perhaps unfortunate.  But there's also the fact that people who have unusual minds experience things in a different way, which makes for unusual, hence interesting art.

As a final point, how do you distinguish complicated sadness from ordinary sadness?

[side_show]

...how do you distinguish complicated sadness from ordinary sadness?

I suppose by referring to "complicated sadness" I mean the sort of sadness that is contemplated and can not be necessarily pinned down.   I suppose the distinction is similar to that between depression and clinical depression.

For example:  My puffer giraffe died after months of trying to save her from a disease.  I was sad, but there was no need to ponder this sadness, to examine it, and it certainly did not permeate into my day-to-day life in a way that effected living.  This was not a complicated sadness.

Another example: I deal with Metis elders and veterans everyday.  They tell me stories of the genocide inflicted upon them - of their children being taken away, of attempts to eradicate their culture, of rape and abuse, and of hatred both from outside sources and inner torment.  This is a sadness that permeates these men and women's every breath.  Certainly they are not all totally possessed by sadness, and live lives that hopefully contain joy as well as sorrow, but each speaks to me of a desire to understand this sadness, which can be as broad as "why was my culture targeted?"  to as specific as "why didn't I know my parents."  Complicated sadness, to me has ties to a questing for meaning.  Drake and Plath, through their art, display a quest to put meaning to sadness, while this meaning may or may not be found, there is, typically, a path under taken.

In regard to mental illness and art, a friend of mine wrote a thesis, which in broad terms, concludes that mental illness in art is a metaphor for art itself.  It's an interesting idea - not one I agree with, but it is interesting.

I have a hard time seperating the artist from the work too - mentally ill or not.  Most people do.  This is why there is so much pondering as to who Chris Onstad really is.  Is there so much speculation about him because if we knew his dark and scary secrets that we would be enriched that much more as readers of his strip, or is it that we live in a cult of celebrity?

[Bozack]

For some reason, as of late, the literary and auiditory art I've been drawn to has been really, really, intensely bleak: sad, yes, but without any real meaning or hope for redemption. I see this in Faulkner and a lot of Southern authors/musicians, and also in the writings of World War I poets, like Sassoon. Also, I'm pretty much obsessed with alt-country, country, bluegrass and roots music, and I see a lot of stuff in that. Bill Monroe was born with one eye turned inside, and, as a result, spent most of his childhood hiding in the woods; he later attributed the "lonesomeness" of some of his work to the experience of hiding from his family deep in the dark, dark pines. I don't know, but something about living in an overarching, meaningless sadness is very interesting to me.

SHORT VERSION: I like it when sadness DOESN'T mean stuff!

[V-Adore]

The idea of "overarching, meaningless sadness" is an interesting idea to me, but it's not one that's viscerally satisfying to me on any level. I guess I prefer constructive, dynamic sadness -- a sense of depression you move through, that develops in its own way and eventually meets some sort of resolution or conclusion. Intellectually I can appreciate sadness for sadness's sake, but viscerally -- well, viscerally half the time I'm listening to someone like PUSA or TMBG* or the Dead Milkmen anyway. I'm a plebe.

I have a lot of friends who are desperately into Plath, but I've never really quite cottoned to her. She certainly had a gift for writing, but she was so tied up in seeming clever and in deliberate obfuscation of her own issues that I just don't get anything from it. I admire writers who write transparently to work through or struggle with their own issues, but reading Plath to me feels like having one of those "conversations" with a very smart but deeply troubled friend where she rants at you for four hours about her relationship to her parents (or whatever), you nod occasionally, and by the end she's made no progress and you have no comprehension. Her work is interesting to examine but somehow feels like it's not worth my time -- intellectually intriguing, viscerally repulsive.

In summary: I probably have no taste.

* One of the things I have always found admirable about They Might Be Giants is their facility at writing listenable, even enjoyable songs grown out of sadness and tragedy. The poppiness of songs like "My Man," "A Self Called Nowhere," and "Dead" somehow manages to complement the content without dulling it or being overshadowed by it.

[AugustWest]

My cats' breath smells like cat food.

[AlohaDawg]

My cats' breath smells like cat food.

Amen.

I'd like to point out that as we get older and further away from the insulated warmth of academia, we realize even more that life has so much actual sadness to experience that going to the effort to absorb someone else's becomes moot at best and selfserving at worst. This is not to say sad things don't happen on college campuses, by the way.

It only gets worse from here, kids. Stay in school as long as you can.

[Bozack]

It only gets worse from here, kids. Stay in school as long as you can.

I read this, and was kind of sad, and then I saw that swinging nutsack again. GOD. Can you somehow edit your avatar so the squirrel isn't even in it, and it's JUST a tiny, swinging nutsack?

[jough]

I know I stepped down as a mod on this board, but for the love of god will someone please disable that avatar?

Sweet fuck*ng CHRIST.

[AugustWest]

I don't know how.

Also, I think it has hypnotized me.  I'm getting sleepy...

[side_show]

I'd like to point out that as we get older and further away from the insulated warmth of academia, we realize even more that life has so much actual sadness to experience that going to the effort to absorb someone else's becomes moot at best and selfserving at worst. This is not to say sad things don't happen on college campuses, by the way.

It only gets worse from here, kids. Stay in school as long as you can.

Despite my interest in the discussion of sadness and suicidal artists, I have to interject that my life has been majorly up hill since university ended for me a few years back.  I'd gladly go back to school, yes, but things aren't going to hell in a hand basket.

Also, Aloha, I love how we we're all having a serious discussion of art and then your avatar soiled us by it's presence.  I know I've taken issue with your other avatar - the one that made me think of unspeakable acts of cannibalism, but I gotta say I enjoy the squirrel nuts, and yes, I agree with Bozack that it'd be an improvement to just see the swinging sack alone. Extra points for choosing two avatars in a row that arouse disgust!

Side story:  My hyperaware-of-pop-culture friend and I were out shopping when I spotted X-mas wrapping paper with the above mentioned squirrel all over it.  I thought it was funny and I said "hey Bill look at this-  he's got big nuts!"  to which my friend sniffed and said " Yeah, I saw that, like three months ago. Do you want to go get lunch?"  Burn.  Too-cool-for-school type street cred. for having seen the swinging nut sack squirrel before me?  How can this be?

[jough]

I don't know how.

Also, I think it has hypnotized me.  I'm getting sleepy...

Okay, no problem.  I changed it to a photo of a really ugly person.

He can change it to something else later.

[V-Adore]

Also, Aloha, I love how we we're all having a serious discussion of art and then your avatar s one that made me think of unspeakable acts of cannibalism

Wait, which one was this? Did I miss an AD avatar somewhere?

The only ones I remember are "dancin' orangutan," "a dog wearing a lei," and the squirrel thing (and now jough's m4d h4xing). Did I miss something horrible, or do dogs with leis just make you think of cannibalism?

[jough]

It was the one where it looked like the cartoon AD was going to eat the baby.

Anyway, those squirrel nuts... just HAD to go...

All apologies AD, but I thought you would've known better than that.

[AlohaDawg]

I still take extreme umbrage at the alleged cannibalism overtones of the other avatar, for shit's sake, all I did was fill out the form at the site.

Sorry you guys have a problem with a rodent with bigger balls than you. I'll see what I can do to keep your panties from bunching up next time.