Subscribe to Posts
Subscribe to CommentsIndividual Entry: Saying Farewells
« In Praise of Wikipedia |
Main
| Self-Referential Aptitude Test »
If you read this blog, PLEASE sign in to my guest book on frappr.
No personally identifying information is needed, so this is risk-free. Just provide a name (even a nickname), your zip code, and any statement you want to make ("hi" is sufficient).If you want to know more about me, click here.
May 07, 2005
Thoughts : Saying Farewells
Being middle age now, those individuals who I appreciated for their contributions to culture and society when I was young, have begun to depart this realm with increasing frequency. This is just the nature of things.
What I noticed today however was my disparate reaction to the deaths of various kinds of people.
When a politician I admired passes away, I tend to summarize their contribution in my mind; but there is no sense of loss. Perhaps it is because most have (or should have) retired by the time they die, so there is no sense of "what they might have done"; but even with those who died young, there is gratefulness for what they did; but no emotions bound to what they left incomplete..
In much the same way, when an actor dies, it is a time for me to recall their great performances; but the fact that there will be no "next movie" or "next show" doesn't seem to effect me much.
On the other hand, when a songwriter I have liked dies, I do tend to feel some sense of loss – that there will never be another song by them. My strongest reactions however are reserved for when authors I have loved pass on. The sense that there will be no "next book" tends to weigh very heavily on me. I recall when I heard that Roger Zelazny (one of my youthful favorites) had died, that it brought me to tears. To never hear the end of the Madwand saga – that, for me, was loss. The death of Robert Forward, even though I knew he was failing, was also a sad moment for me.
I think the difference is in the uniqueness of individual voices in the different media. In politics, no cause moves forward unless there are many people speaking with a common voice, so the loss of one voice, however eloquent, does not end the cause. Actors, by the nature of their job, speak with someone else's voice, so their uniqueness is lost in the role. Songwriters do have their own voice; but so many songs get reinterpreted by different musicians that that uniqueness gets blurred somewhat.
Books however always remain the clear and unique voice of the author (or authors). While they may get adulterated in TV or film, the original book will always continue to speak clearly in a way that only that author could have produced; and when you have grown to love that voice, to know it has been silenced forever is difficult to process.
Or perhaps it is just that books are a more intimate form of interaction – Author to Page to Reader, which lull you into thinking of the author as a friend where more collaborative ventures, like film, keep their distance.
Posted by Steven at May 7, 2005 05:05 PM
Comments
This is a *really* interesting perspective. Rather than just type in a knee-jerk reply, I went away and thought about it. I find I mostly agree.
The one area that isn't mentioned in this is slow decay - a baseball player of great talent, like Willie Mays, playing out the string with the New York Mets for one more year. Or an author like Heinlein writing novel after novel after a certain point in his life and generating *nothing* of real worth.
In the cases of decay, the final stilling of the voice is almost a relief so that you can go back to appreciating what they did well without the clutter of what they're doing now.
Roland
Posted by: Roland at May 11, 2005 10:17 AM
Ah yes, "decay".
I agree. There are authors who continue to publish long after they have nothing more interesting to say, and their comes a point at which their new books only serve to dilute their legacy. As you say, the passing of such an author is not a cause of sorrow, and can in fact be a relief to the author's fans.
Posted by: Steven at May 11, 2005 01:05 PM
