Farther Away: Essays Read online

  MRS. BERGMANN: Great God Almighty—, that’s just it, you’re not married!

  Mrs. Bergmann, who is herself so guileless that she lets Mr. Gabor take Melchior’s legally incriminating letter away from her, is last seen telling Wendla sugary, protective lies as she ushers an abortionist neighbor into Wendla’s sickroom. There are, to be sure, a few genuinely vile adult characters in the play—Moritz’s father, Reverend Bleekhead, Dr. Procrustes—but some of the minor male adolescent characters are no less vile, and Wendla’s friend Thea shows signs of becoming every bit as conformist and narrow-minded as her parents. The more important adult characters all reveal at least some shred of humanity, if only in the form of fear. Indeed, they not only do reveal it, they must reveal it; otherwise they couldn’t be the subject of real comedy. To laugh well at humanity, both your own humanity and that of others, you have to be as distant and unsparing as if you’re writing tragedy. Unlike tragedy, though, comedy doesn’t require a grand moral scheme. Comedy is the more rugged genre and the one better suited to godless times. Comedy requires only that you have a heart that can recognize other hearts. Although it’s true that Mrs. Bergmann’s timidity leads directly to the death of her beloved daughter, this human frailty is also what makes Mrs. Bergmann a full-blooded comic character, rather than just a stock satiric type. You’d have to be a morally absolutist teenager—or a contemporary pop-culture provider pandering to morally absolutist teenagers—not to feel compassion for Mrs. Bergmann in the world of trouble her fear has landed her in.

  And just as the adult principals could not be unredeemably bad and still be funny, so the child principals could not be purely good. Moritz’s self-pity and his obsession with suicide, Melchior’s sadism and amorality, Wendla’s masochism and almost vindictively willful ignorance, Hansy’s cynical carnality: the cruelest blow that Spring Awakening delivers to contemporary pieties, the deep embarrassment that the Broadway musical seeks to camouflage with raunchier shames, is that Wedekind treats his child characters like fascinating little animals—flawed, adorable, dangerous, silly. They fall far to either side of the safe teen middle ground of coolness and righteousness. They’re at once unbearably innocent and unbearably corrupt.

  Toward the end of his life, Wedekind compiled a list of adjectives to describe himself in contrast to his contemporary and rival dramatist Gerhardt Hauptmann. At the bottom of the list of Wedekind’s own attributes were the words authentic but horrible. The funniness and sadness and resignation of this self-description are the spirit of Spring Awakening.

  INTERVIEW WITH NEW YORK STATE

  This interview took place in December 2007, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, near the homes of Mayor Mike Bloomberg and then-governor Eliot Spitzer.

  NEW YORK STATE’S PUBLICIST: I am so, so sorry! Everything is late this morning, our former president dropped in unexpectedly, as he often does, and our dear little state can never seem to say no to Bill! But I promise you you’ll get your full half hour with her, even if it means rebooking the entire afternoon. You’re lovely to be so patient with us.

  JF: We said an hour, though.

  NEW YORK STATE’S PUBLICIST: Yes. Yes.

  JF: Nine o’clock to ten o’clock is what I wrote down here.

  NEW YORK STATE’S PUBLICIST: Yes. And this is for a, uh, travel guide?

  JF: Anthology. The fifty states. Which I really don’t think she wants to end up being the shortest chapter of.

  NEW YORK STATE’S PUBLICIST: Right, although, ha ha, she’s also the busiest of the fifty, so there may be a certain logic to keeping things brief. If what you’re telling me now is that she’s just going to be part of some fifty-state cattle call . . . I didn’t quite realize . . .

  JF: I’m pretty sure I said—

  NEW YORK STATE’S PUBLICIST: And it definitely has to be fifty. There’s no way it could be, like, five? A Top Five States of the Union kind of thing? Or even a Top Ten? I’m just thinking, you know, to clear out some of the small fry. Or maybe, if you absolutely have to have all fifty, then maybe do it as an appendix? Like: Here are the Top Ten Most Important States, and then here, at the back, in the appendix, are some other states that, you know, exist. Is that conceivably an option?

  JF: Sadly, no. But maybe we should reschedule for some other day. When she’s not so busy.

  NEW YORK STATE’S PUBLICIST: Frankly, Jon, every day is like this. It just gets worse and worse. And since I am promising you your full half hour with her today, I think you’d be well advised to take it. However, I do see your point about length—assuming you really are determined to include the small fry. And what I would therefore love to do is show you some amazing new pictures that she’s been having taken of herself. It’s a program she set up with one of her foundations. Twenty of the world’s top art photographers are creating some of the most intimate glimpses that anybody has ever had of an American state. Really different, really special. I don’t want to tell you how to do your job. But if I were you? I’d be thinking about twenty-four pages of unique, world-class photography, followed by an intensely personal little interview in which our nation’s greatest state reveals her greatest secret passion. Which is . . . the arts! I mean, that is New York State. Because, yes, obviously, she’s beautiful, she’s rich, she’s powerful, she’s glamorous, she knows everybody, she’s had the most amazing life journey. But in her secret innermost soul? It’s all about the arts.

  JF: Wow. Thank you. That would be—thank you! The only problem is I’m not sure the format and the paper of this book are going to be right for photographs.

  NEW YORK STATE’S PUBLICIST: Jon, like I said, I’m not trying to tell you how to do your job. But unless you can think of a way to fit the proverbial thousand words on a single page, there’s a lot to be said for pictures.

  JF: You’re absolutely right. And I will check with Ecco Press and—

  NEW YORK STATE’S PUBLICIST: Who, what? Echo what?

  JF: Ecco Press. They’re publishing the book?

  NEW YORK STATE’S PUBLICIST: Oh dear. Your book is being published by a small press?

  JF: No, no, they’re an imprint of HarperCollins. Which is a big press.

  NEW YORK STATE’S PUBLICIST: Oh, so HarperCollins, then.

  JF: Yes. Big, big press.

  NEW YORK STATE’s PUBLICIST: Because, God, you had me worried for a minute.

  JF: No, no, huge press. One of the biggest in the world.

  NEW YORK STATE’S PUBLICIST: Then let me just go check and see how things are going. In fact, you might as well have your sitdown with Mr. Van Gander now, if you want to follow me back this way. Just, yes, good, bring your bag. This way . . . Rick? Do you have a minute to talk to our, uh. Our “literary writer”?

  NEW YORK STATE’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: Sure! Super! Come in, come in, come in! Hello! Rick Van Gander! Hello! Great to meet you! Big fan of your work! How’s life in Brooklyn treating you? You live out in Brooklyn, don’t you?

  JF: No, Manhattan. I did live in Queens once, a long time ago.

  NEW YORK STATE’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: Huh! How about that? I thought all you literary types were out in Brooklyn these days. All the really hip ones at any rate. Are you trying to tell me you’re not hip? Actually, now that you mention it, you don’t look very hip. I beg your pardon! I read something in the Times about all the great writers living out in Brooklyn. I just naturally assumed . . .

  JF: It’s a very beautiful old borough.

  NEW YORK STATE’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: Yes, and wonderful for the arts. My wife and I try to get out to the Brooklyn Academy of Music as often as we can. We saw a play performed entirely in Swedish there not long ago. Bit of a surprise for me, I admit, not being a Swedish speaker. But we enjoyed ourselves very much. Not your typical Manhattan evening, that’s for sure! But, now, tell me, what can I do for you today?

  JF: I don’t actually know. I didn’t realize I was going to talk to you. I thought I was supposed to have an interview with the State—

  NEW YORK STATE�
��S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: That’s it! There you go! That’s why you’re talking to me! What I can do for you today is vet your interview questions.

  JF: Vet them? Are you kidding?

  NEW YORK STATE’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: Do I look like I’m kidding?

  JF: No, it’s just, I’m a little stunned. It used to be so easy to see her. And just, you know, hang out, and talk.

  NEW YORK STATE’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: Sure, sure, I hear you. Everything used to be easy. Used to be easy to buy crack on the corner of Ninety-eighth and Columbus, too! Used to be easy to pave the bottom of the Hudson River with PCBs and heavy metals. Easy to clear-cut the Adirondacks and watch the rivers choke on topsoil. Rip the heart out of the Bronx and ram an expressway through there. Run sweatshops on lower Broadway with slave Asian labor. Get a rent-controlled apartment so cheap you didn’t have to do anything all day except write abusive letters to your landlord. Everything used to be so easy! But eventually a state grows up, starts taking better care of herself, if you know what I mean. Which is what I am here to help her do.

  JF: I guess I don’t see how having been open and available and exciting and romantic to a kid from the Midwest is equivalent to having let the Hudson River be polluted.

  NEW YORK STATE’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: You’re saying you fell in love with her.

  JF: Yes! And I had the feeling she loved me, too. Like she was waiting for people like me to come to her. Like she needed us.

  NEW YORK STATE’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: Hmm. When was this?

  JF: Late seventies, early eighties.

  NEW YORK STATE’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: Good Lord. Just as I feared. Those were some wild and crazy years, all right. She was not altogether of sound mind. And you would do her a great kindness—do yourself a big favor, too, incidentally—if you would avoid mentioning that entire period to her.

  JF: But those are precisely the years I wanted to talk to her about.

  NEW YORK STATE’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: And that is why I’m here to vet your questions! Believe me, you will not find her friendly on the subject. Even now, every once in a while, somebody gets it in his head to print some more pictures of her from those decades. Usually it’s malicious—you’re always going to find a couple of disgusting paparazzi outside the rehab clinic, waiting for their shot of somebody infinitely classier than they are, at a single regrettable moment in her otherwise brilliant life. But that’s not the worst of it. What’s unbelievable are the guys who honestly believe she looked better back then, because she was so easy. Think they’re doing her some kind of favor by showing her dirty as hell, spilling out every which way, spaced out of her mind, mega hygiene issues, not a dime in her purse. Crime, garbage, crap architecture, shuttered mill towns, bankrupt railroads, Love Canal, Son of Sam, riots at Attica, hippies in a muddy farm field: I can’t tell you how many deadbeats and failed artists walk in here all smitten and nostalgic and thinking they know the “real” New York State. And then complaining about how she’s not the same anymore. Which—damn right she’s not! And a good thing it is! Just imagine, if you will, how mortified she feels about her behavior in those unfortunate years, now she’s got her life back together.

  JF: So, what, I guess this puts me in the company of the deadbeats and failed artists?

  NEW YORK STATE’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: Hey, you were young. Let’s leave it at that. Tell me what else you got for questions. Did Janelle mention this great new photography project we’ve started up?

  JF: She did, yes.

  NEW YORK STATE’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: You’ll want to leave plenty of time for that. And what else?

  JF: Well, honestly, I was hoping she and I could have a more personal conversation. Do some reminiscing. She’s meant a lot to me over the years. Symbolized a lot. Catalyzed a lot.

  NEW YORK STATE’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: Sure! Of course! For all of us! And “personal” is great—don’t get me wrong about that. Up-close and “personal” is great. She’s not just about power and wealth, she’s about home and family and romance, too. Definitely go there, with my blessing. Just be sure to avoid certain decades. Let’s say roughly from ’65 to ’85. What sort of stuff do you have from before then?

  JF: From before then, hardly anything. A couple of charm-bracelet images, basically. You know—the big New Year’s Eve ball at Times Square that came down on TV in the Midwest at eleven o’clock. And Niagara Falls, which I was surprised to learn was turned off every night. And the Statue of Liberty, which we were taught was made out of pennies donated by French schoolkids. And the Empire State Building. Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal. That’s about it.

  NEW YORK STATE’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: “About it”? “About it”? You’ve just named five top-notch, bona-fide American mega-icons. Five of ’em! Not so shabby, I’d say! Is there another state that comes even close?

  JF: California?

  NEW YORK STATE’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: Another state besides California?

  JF: But it was just kitsch. It didn’t mean anything to me. For me, the real introduction to New York was Harriet the Spy . . . a kids’ book. The first time I ever fell in love with a character in literature, it was a girl from Manhattan. And I didn’t just love her—I wanted to be her. Trade in my whole pleasant suburban life and move to the Upper East Side and be Harriet M. Welsch, with her notebook and her flashlight and her hands-off parents. And then, even more intense, a couple of years later, her friend Beth Ellen in the sequel novel. Also from the Upper East Side. Spent her summers in Montauk. Rich, thin, blond. And so deliciously unhappy. I thought I could make Beth Ellen happy. I thought I was the one person in the world who understood her and could make her happy, if I could ever get out of St. Louis.

  NEW YORK STATE’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: Hmm. This is all sounding a tiny bit, ah . . . aberrant. By which I mean the underage aspect. New York, of course, is very proud of her long tradition of diversity and tolerance—come to think of it, give me two seconds here, I’ve got an idea. (Dialing) Jeremy? Yeah, it’s Rick. Listen, do you have a minute for a visitor? Yeah, it’s our “literary writer,” yeah, yeah, doing some kind of travel guide. We’re trying to set him up with some angles, and—Oh. Oh, great, I didn’t realize. Tolerance and diversity? Fantastic! I’ll bring him right over. (Hanging up) The State Historian’s got some stuff for you. Made up a whole packet for you. Things have gotten so crazy, the right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing.

  JF: That’s very kind. But I’m not sure I need a packet.

  NEW YORK STATE’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: Trust me, you’ll want this one. Jeremy, heh heh, gives excellent packet. And not to burst your bubble, but you might find it comes in handy when you go to write your book. Just in case the interview isn’t everything you’d hoped for. Are we clear on the ground rules, by the way? Can you repeat them back to me?

  JF: Steer clear of interesting decades?

  NEW YORK STATE’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: Yes. Good. And also your thing for the little girlies.

  JF: But I was just a kid myself!

  NEW YORK STATE’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: I am simply warning you she’s not going to be receptive to it. Your passion for her and her exciting new projects? Yes! Absolutely! Your passion for some fictional prepubescent Upper East Side chicklet in the brutish 1960s? Not so much. Please follow me back this way.

  JF: Do we have some sort of estimate of when I’m finally going to be able to see her?

  NEW YORK STATE’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: Jeremy? I’d like you to meet our “literary writer.” A Manhattanite, interestingly.

  THE NEW YORK STATE HISTORIAN: Tolerance . . . Diversity . . . And centrality. Are the three watchwords of New York State’s preeminence.

  NEW YORK STATE’S PERSONAL ATTORNEY: I’ll leave the two of you to chat a bit.

  THE NEW YORK STATE HISTORIAN: Tolerance . . . Diversity . . . Centrality.

  JF: Hi, nice to meet you.

  THE NEW YORK STATE HISTORIAN: To the north: Puritan New England. To the south: the great chattel-slavery plantation colonies. In between:
a splendid deepwater port and system of highly navigable interior waterways, endowed with a wealth of natural resources and settled by the mercantilist and famously tolerant Dutch. They were among the first nations to make explicit the connection between good business and personal freedom—between enrichment and enlightenment; and New Netherland was their brainchild. The Dutch West India Company expressly forbade religious persecution—a stricture against which the autocratic governor Peter Stuyvesant frequently chafed and inveighed. The first Jews reached New York in 1654, joining Quaker immigrants from England and Puritan renegades from Massachusetts, including Anne Hutchinson and her family. Stuyvesant was reprimanded by his Company for harassing the Jews and Quakers. In his defense, he complained that New Netherland was, quote, “peopled by the scrapings of all sorts of nationalities.” Fortunately for all of us, New Netherland’s prodigious granddaughter, our dearest Empire State, remains so peopled to this very day. She is the gracious and only conceivable hostess of the United Nations, the ardent champion of equal rights for gays, lesbians, and the transgendered, the ladle of the Melting Pot, the cradle of American feminism. Nearly a hundred and fifty languages are spoken at home by the parents of students in a single school district in Elmhurst, Queens. And yet they all speak the same single universal language of—

  JF: Money?

  THE NEW YORK STATE HISTORIAN: Of tolerance. But, yes, of money, too, of course. The two go hand in hand. New York’s epic wealth is a testament to that proposition.

  JF: Right. And this is even somewhat interesting to me, but unfortunately also totally beyond the scope of—

  THE NEW YORK STATE HISTORIAN: The Revolutionary War: one long slog of attrition and attenuation. Slippery General Washington forever dodging definitive engagement. In the course of this lengthy never-quite-war, this awkward game of hide-and-seek, of cut-and-run, of bob-and-weave, of peek-and-boo, two battles in particular stand out as crucial turning points. Both of them early in the war. Both of them relatively minor in terms of casualties. And both of them fought where?