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Apr. 1st, 2011 10:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretZadie Smith has a construct in The Autograph Man called Dear Kitty Letters. These are the letters that Alex writes to movie star Kitty Alexander's fan club every week, religiously, asking for her autograph. He's done so since he was 14- since shortly after the sudden death of his father. The letters begin straightforwardly, as formulaic requests from a huge fan to the object of worship. At a certain point, though, Alex has an emotional transition and begins to write a different sort of Dear Kitty letter. His new Dear Kitty letters are short and they purport to tell Kitty about her life. They are in the third person singular, describing a 'she' who performs the mundane acts of life.
An example:
Dear Kitty,
When behind a young man on a bus, she finds herself staring at his neck. The urge to touch it is almost over-whelming! And then he scratches it, as if he knew.
Love,
Alex-Li Tandem
The obvious thing to do here is apply a Buberian analysis*. Alex had an I-It relationship with Kitty Alexander that he began to transition into an I-Thou relationship.(Obvious? Probably only if you're me. But I feel assured, having laid it out, that even in the unlikely situation that Smith's readings on Jewish mysticism didn't take her straight for Buber, my analysis still holds.) He begins to regard Alexander not as the impersonal matinee idol of his immature understanding, but as an active partner in his philosophical growth. He develops a closeness with her that allows him, uncannily at times, to have an understanding of who she is and what she wants out of the relationship. The relationship grows until it is bigger than both of them.
I've used certain words carefully in this conversation. 'Religiously'- 'Worship'- 'Idol'. Buber creates his concept of the I-Thou relationship to describe one's relationship with their deity. His idea of the sublime comes specifically from theological congress with a higher being. Smith takes advantage of the significant overlap between the language we use to describe celebrity and the language we use to describe religion to introduce Alex as a man who has substituted celebrity for religion. What I love about Smith's construction is how deep the substitution is- Alex's theological development is not hampered because Kitty Alexander replaces the Shekhinah as the feminine form of God. This is of course amplified by the tables with the names or autographs of celebrities taking the place of the Kabbalistic midos.
In any case, my first The Autograph Man ficlet was a Dear Kitty letter and I am enthralled with the form, with the way it lets you tell miniature stories with structure and narrative impetus. I'm going to keep writing them and I would encourage others to join me.
*I've written about Martin Buber's theology before on this journal, in this post from '07. It's been deeply influential for me, and additionally it serves as the theological framework for my favorite opera, Schoenberg's Moses und Aron. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. But let me highlight something a former roommate once sent to me about his perspective on Buber: "I would venture to say that the aspect of Hasidism that most interested Buber was the notion that in performing seemingly secular or daily tasks, one can be involved in divine worship."
An example:
Dear Kitty,
When behind a young man on a bus, she finds herself staring at his neck. The urge to touch it is almost over-whelming! And then he scratches it, as if he knew.
Love,
Alex-Li Tandem
The obvious thing to do here is apply a Buberian analysis*. Alex had an I-It relationship with Kitty Alexander that he began to transition into an I-Thou relationship.(Obvious? Probably only if you're me. But I feel assured, having laid it out, that even in the unlikely situation that Smith's readings on Jewish mysticism didn't take her straight for Buber, my analysis still holds.) He begins to regard Alexander not as the impersonal matinee idol of his immature understanding, but as an active partner in his philosophical growth. He develops a closeness with her that allows him, uncannily at times, to have an understanding of who she is and what she wants out of the relationship. The relationship grows until it is bigger than both of them.
I've used certain words carefully in this conversation. 'Religiously'- 'Worship'- 'Idol'. Buber creates his concept of the I-Thou relationship to describe one's relationship with their deity. His idea of the sublime comes specifically from theological congress with a higher being. Smith takes advantage of the significant overlap between the language we use to describe celebrity and the language we use to describe religion to introduce Alex as a man who has substituted celebrity for religion. What I love about Smith's construction is how deep the substitution is- Alex's theological development is not hampered because Kitty Alexander replaces the Shekhinah as the feminine form of God. This is of course amplified by the tables with the names or autographs of celebrities taking the place of the Kabbalistic midos.
In any case, my first The Autograph Man ficlet was a Dear Kitty letter and I am enthralled with the form, with the way it lets you tell miniature stories with structure and narrative impetus. I'm going to keep writing them and I would encourage others to join me.
*I've written about Martin Buber's theology before on this journal, in this post from '07. It's been deeply influential for me, and additionally it serves as the theological framework for my favorite opera, Schoenberg's Moses und Aron. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. But let me highlight something a former roommate once sent to me about his perspective on Buber: "I would venture to say that the aspect of Hasidism that most interested Buber was the notion that in performing seemingly secular or daily tasks, one can be involved in divine worship."
(no subject)
Date: 2011-04-03 02:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-04-03 02:06 am (UTC)Smith tries most of the time to skate around the Holocaust in The Autograph Man or turn it into something akin to an ironic joke (Not a tasteless joke, just an ironic joke- the moment I'm mostly thinking of is when Alex goes back to Poland, where his grandparents are from, on a spring vacation and spends the whole vacation getting completely pissed).