#19B - In conversation with Heather

A rich follow up conversation around Andrea Skinner's courage. A living document as our conversation continues to grow.

These are excerpts from an epistolary exchange with Heather, dear friend regarding the follow up on #19 - Andrea Skinner’s courage is art transcendent (published 7/20/24). You can see the early texts having influenced the original article.

From Ben July 18th, 2024 - text

Hi heather! Wow what a heartbreaking story and aftermath. I have so much that’s going on in my mind right now. You, cam, (giles if he wants) and I should have a call to discuss

From Heather July 18th, 2024 - text

I would love that! I felt - initially - very angry at Alice Munro. It felt like such a betrayal. I have been reading everything I can about the reactions to this story. The most common reactions amongst the AM fans are shock, sadness and a sense of betrayal. We thought she told “our” story with an insight and hard won wisdom that no-one else demonstrated as masterfully, and we assumed that that meant that she had emerged victorious from the trials that she obviously had lived first hand. It is much darker to now understand that she was herself trapped in the sort of ugly scenes she wrote about.

From Ben July 18th, 2024 - text

I think where I am now is there are degrees of moral failings. Let us not forget that the step father is first and foremost the real villain. His is a warped moral failing exploiting power and trust. There’s no positive from his actions. Hers is almost easier to pile on - she’s beloved as an author, a paragon for the details of a woman’s experiences, and it does feel like a betrayal, building such an intimate relationship to her readers. I can see why everyone is angry with her; her failing was doubly hurtful because one can excuse a horrible lascivious predator, but the failed love and protection of a mother, we cannot grasp, our stories never speak of maternal failure. But her moral failing is one of weakness, and when have any of us failed to live up to our morals because of weakness? All the time! I can only imagine the shame that she had to carry with her, the feeling of having failed her (or any) child. And I do think we should beware the double and high standards we hold mothers to. They deserve compassion for the prisons they are held to. Never having read her biography, I would assume that she was alone with the shame of this major failing. And most of all my compassion goes to Ms. Skinner. No child should ever have to face the breaches of trust without love and repair.

From Heather July 19th, 2024 - text

Hi, Ben. My thoughts keep returning to your comments about compassion and double standards. Eventually I started to think about the line, “To understand all is to forgive all” and to wonder if that was (mostly) true and how true it would be for AM.

But then I decided that all my theorizing about judgmentalism, cultural influences, power dynamics within relationships, etc was not what AM did in her stories. She unsentimentally wrote the truth about situations. She didn’t theorize, she captured the telling detail, the truth that came from the specific detail.

So, tomorrow I want you to do some more thinking about the daughter’s story.

And I think there needs to be compassion but also implacability. Because the wrong in what she did can’t be minimized, or partially sidelined - that seems to be the point of her daughter’s story and the one request her daughter makes: that we include the truth of her story when we discuss AM and her work.

I can’t figure out how to practice compassion and implacability, of course, but I am trying. I would be interested to hear what you have to say.

Cam suggests we try to talk on Sunday? He had some interesting ideas when we talked this morning, but I will let him discuss them:)

And

From Heather July 28th, 2024 - text

Hi, Ben. Thank you for the birthday pictures - Cam, Anna and I enjoyed them very much:). Would you be able to talk about Alice Munro today? My thoughts often turn to her bc…. I have read your blog several times and I wanted you to know talk to you about implacability, the gulf between knowledge and change, and what AM’s writings offer us now. Also, I think there is more to be said about the issues of sexism and culpability, domination and submission, etc.

You may well be busy today, but just in case you aren’t, these are teasers:)

From Ben Aug 1st, 2024 - text

I had read this previously. Just reread it again. There is an iciness to how observational she is in her writing. Sociopathic? Or is it ultimately atonement through writing? I am not certain. But it is clear that, of course, she knew. I spent a week with a few friends playing video games, 3 of whom are psychiatrists. In discussing Skinner’s story, they all said “Oof. Not having a parent have your back, fundamentally changes the world with which you view the world. The world becomes a scary place and it becomes irreconcilable.” They were referring to children who experience this. I think this got me to rethink the impact of Munro’s failure.

From Heather August 3rd, 2024 - text

Yes, for a while I started to imagine that AM stayed with the abuser bc she was somehow trapped, fearful, weak, etc. Then I read this article, (following), which I hesitated to send to you. It just “proves”, I think, that AM did not, in her heart of hearts, mourn the choices she felt she had to make. Rather, what came out of her under the duress of her husband’s arrest was simply base. Anger, vitriol, lies and rejection were aimed at her daughter, not herself or her husband.

On the other hand, I do believe that a mother who directs that rejection and scapegoating of a daughter must, in her core, have a contempt and rejection of herself which predates the daughter’s existence…

I also believe that AM had contempt for her husband. He wrote so poorly, his thinking was so self indulgently fuzzy, his threats to kill himself and Andrea, and publish compromising pictures of her were utterly contemptible. AM must have been contemptuous of him, her daughter and her self.

From Heather, December 28th, 2024

Hi Ben,

I hope your Christmas was merry and bright and all things good! I have been happily spending my Christmas with Giles and Tiffany.

There are some excellent articles that were recently published (Alice Munro’s Passive Voice in The New Yorker; What Alice Munro Knew in The New York Times; and Alice Munro’s Retreat in The New York Review of Books) which provide analysis of AM’s writings in light of her (now understood) personal life - which was difficult in the early days of the scandal. Remaining family provided more insight, which is a bonus.

I have puzzled over how to judge AM and her writings. Does her history “defile the artist and the art itself” as Rebecca Makkai suggested? But, is great art defiled by deeply flawed artists? Or, is the art possibly dependent upon - or fueled/birthed by - the darkness of the artist and their life?

Drawing a direct line between the artist and their art incorrectly enmeshes the art and the artist. Judgments bog down under the weight of all the unknowns: who is the artist, what are their motivations/traumas/etc and - most impossibly - how do we judge another person? There are two sayings which guide me: “To understand all is to forgive all”; and, “Judge not that you be not judged.” Both sayings are deeply wise - but dangerous if followed unwisely. This quote: “No one can be fully aware of another human being unless we love them,” is unforgettable - partly because it is a quote from that interesting cannibal, Hannibal Lecter¹. AM must be judged, yes, but without perfect understanding and love the attempt will always be flawed.

AM’s daughter suggested that AM mined the details of her life, then used her imagination to create gold. It is the imagination that stands between the artist and their work: that is the alchemy that transforms darkness into art of great beauty and worth, though the artists themselves remain as trapped and flawed and cowardly as was AM. Creativity as a trinity: artist, imagination and art, rather than artist and art. This distinction is important to me, simply because it provides the transformative buffer between a deeply flawed artist and their art.

Sometimes an artist talks about their art as if it were a gift: the story/song/etc “came to them”. Maybe, standing between the artist and the art, is a grace inherent in their imagination and creativity which redeems the art, if not the artist.

Recently a friend went through a traumatic breakup. I realized that I understood exactly what she was going through - I also had lived that once - but had forgotten the details. AM could write with such accuracy and insight because she remembered her past; she was still living it. We could not have had her stories without her life. We can speculate about what she could have taught us about hope, freedom and healing, but she couldn’t, could she - she never learned how.

Interestingly, there is a gender divide when talking about AM’s behaviour. The most sensitive and intelligent of men inquire about sexism in our judgments of her. I am not aware of any female that raises that issue as a primary consideration. Her behaviour so violates human/parental norms that we don’t see any double standard in abhorring her actions.)

I have wondered - a lot - about how anyone hurt by her could ever forgive AM? There is a passage by C.S. Lewis on the subject of forgiveness which is very helpful (even if one doesn’t share his religious beliefs):

“Now it seems to me that we often make a mistake both about God's forgiveness of our sins and about the forgiveness we are told to offer to other people's sins. Take it first about God's forgiveness, I find that when I think I am asking God to forgive me I am often in reality (unless I watch myself very carefully) asking Him to do something quite different. I am asking him not to forgive me but to excuse me. But there is all the difference in the world between forgiving and excusing. Forgiveness says, "Yes, you have done this thing, but I accept your apology; I will never hold it against you and everything between us two will be exactly as it was before." If one was not really to blame then there is nothing to forgive. In that sense forgiveness and excusing are almost opposites. Of course, in dozens of cases, either between God and man, or between one man and another, there may be a mixture of the two. Part of what at first seemed to be the sins turns out to be really nobody's fault and is excused; the bit that is left over is forgiven. If you had a perfect excuse, you would not need forgiveness; if the whole of your actions needs forgiveness, then there was no excuse for it. But the trouble is that what we call "asking God's forgiveness" very often really consists in asking God to accept our excuses. What leads us into this mistake is the fact that there usually is some amount of excuse, some "extenuating circumstances." We are so very anxious to point these things out to God (and to ourselves) that we are apt to forget the very important thing; that is, the bit left over, the bit which excuses don't cover, the bit which is inexcusable but not, thank God, unforgivable. And if we forget this, we shall go away imagining that we have repented and been forgiven when all that has really happened is that we have satisfied ourselves with our own excuses. They may be very bad excuses; we are all too easily satisfied about ourselves.

…Real forgiveness means looking steadily at the sin, the sin that is left over without any excuse, after all allowances have been made, and seeing it in all its horror, dirt, meanness, and malice, and nevertheless being wholly reconciled to the man who has done it.

When it comes to a question of our forgiving other people, it is partly the same and partly different. It is the same because, here also forgiving does not mean excusing. Many people seem to think it does. They think that if you ask them to forgive someone who has cheated or bullied them you are trying to make out that there was really no cheating or bullying. But if that were so, there would be nothing to forgive. In our own case we accept excuses too easily, in other people's we do not accept them easily enough.”

It has been a pleasure writing this to you, Ben. I hope you enjoy it.

All the best, Heather

Ben’s Response Jan 4th, 2025:

oh my. what a letter! my first instinct is to ask your permission to publish this in its entirety in my modest newsletter as a deeper dive of AM but ultimately on your mined insights into that deepest of human needs: acceptance, of which excusation and forgiveness are paths into. And I think subtly, as you suggest, acceptance of our own selves as well. CS Lewis is the bomb. Reminds me of another CL (Christopher Lasch) who wrote: "“we demand too much of life, too little of ourselves.”

I have been noodling on the topic of judgment. the multiple stages of it all: the reactionary, the moralizing and the reflective forms. more on this soon.

i agree with you on that real forgiveness is staring nakedly into the sin. that is the focus that art gives us, ironically in the case of AM. Art can transmute but it doesn't shed memory.

i will need to reread your letter several times more before I can consider more eloquently. Have just returned from the holidays in Taiwan with my parents, sister, brother and our collective children.

Happy new year!

B

From Heather January 6th, 2025:

Hi, Ben,

I have been eagerly awaiting your response - thank you for your email. It is such fun, isn't it, discussing ideas with friends. A buzzword in my studies is "lifegiving," and wrestling with ideas is exactly that for me. Please use anything I wrote in any way you wish - no need to ask:)

I have been wanting to ask you something: there is an author I really love - Charles Williams. He is one of the group of friends who called themselves the Inklings, and met weekly to discuss ideas and read whatever writing they were working on. The group was mostly made up of Oxford dons and included C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, G.K. Chesterton, Charles Williams, etc. Charles Williams was a bit of an anomaly - he was largely self-educated and very much an original thinker (even amongst a group of original thinkers). He wrote 7 very intriguing novels (as well as poetry and some theological treatises). The novels are unlike anything I have ever read; one critic writes this: "There is no other literature quite like that by Charles Williams: his writings are startling, convoluted, beautiful, unpredictable and obscure. Their obscurity is partly due to his love of esoteric allusions, partly to his creation of a layered mythology, and partly to his sinewy syntax. Thomas Howard calls his sentence structure "agile," I call it "labyrinthine." Every sentence is thrilling, dangerous, sinuous, and demanding."

I wondered if you would be interested in reading one of his novels, to see if they interest you? I would love to hear your feedback! The novels intrigue me and they are enticing, even though I can't articulate exactly why they are enticing. There is a quality to them... I have just re-read The Greater Trumps, and that novel, or The Place of the Lion would be good novels to begin with, if you are interested. The Greater Trumps has the most interesting ideas on love that I have ever encountered.

It was nice to read that you and your family were together in Taiwan - it must have been wonderful.

All the best,

Heather

Ben’s Response Feb 20th, 2025 in response to quote of Hannibal Lecter

Heather,

I LOVE THIS! Not quite the same but, per CS Lewis, an obverse look at potential and good? “Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained."

I believe I am often confused for the idealist… , which I seem to hear from them as a shallow brush off, a rube, someone easily taken in by sentimentality. I don't think that's true. I think it takes extreme work to be able to uncover potential in a beloved, because the act of loving is terror. But I truly do believe that seeing potential in others and helping them realize that potential, in this case through Hannibal's assertion of love, is virtue.

Best,

Ben

From Heather March 4th, 2025:

Hi Ben,

It was a pleasure reading your email - your comments about how others [might] understand you was intriguing.

Your comment about "being easily taken in by sentimentality" surprised me - I imagine you easily detect it's falseness. I used to puzzle over the difference between sentimentality vs simply a gauche or awkward inability to articulate genuine emotion. Then I read - and treasured -

an article in the New Yorker (Nov. 9, 2015, entitled: "Uneasy Rider", subtitled: "Mary Gaitskill's Fictions of Mastery" by Alexandra Schwartz) and happily dug it out of my papers so I could send these quotes to you:

"Novelists pride themselves on using artifice to get at the truth, but sentimentality is all falseness, emotion over-boiled by grandiosity of expression and served up rank and limp. 'Sentimentality, the ostentatious parading of excessive and spurious emotion, is the mark of dishonesty, the inability to feel,... The wet eyes of the sentimentalist betray his aversion to experience, his fear of life, his arid heart.' To engineer synthetic emotions for cheap effect is bad enough; even worse... is the sentimentalist who believes her own schlock, confusing the imitation of emotion for emotion itself."

I am living on the campus of UBC and I just had my proposal for a master's thesis - studying the writings of Charles Williams - accepted. However, now I am reconsidering this thesis. I wonder if I might be enamoured of his skill set (originality of thought, brilliant writer and poet, very unusual spirituality, esteemed lecturer at Oxford, etc) but might not find myself so enthusiastic after dedicating a year of my life to studying him. He used to set up the print for articles at Oxford University Press, and part of his self education was simply years spent reading the articles that he prepared for printing. Perhaps his originality of thought came, in large part, from his OUP readings. I am considering changing my thesis to a study of Søren Kierkegaard (existentialist philosopher and theologian). Williams was the editor at OUP who oversaw the publication of Kierkegaard (into English). I might try to weave together a study of Kierkegaard and Williams somehow. But, these are happy problems to mull over.

Wishing you all the best,

Heather

1. Sent to Ben from Heather, February 15th, 2025

Hannibal: "Why not appeal to my better nature?"

Will: "I wasn't aware you had one."

Hannibal: "No one can be fully aware of another human being unless we love them. By that love we see potential in our beloved. Through that love we allow our beloved to see their potential... Expressing that love, our beloved's potential comes true."

from Hannibal (Season 2)