Book: Can we still read, listen to or see the work of “Montres”?

The Romans had “damnatio memoriae”. It was a condemnation to oblivion, already pronounced before them by the pharaohs. Americans are today developing “cancel culture” without admitting it. Let us not forget that for the left-wing press “wokism” is a myth. However, there is not a week without an artist, a “showbiz” star (who is very rarely an artist), a politician or an athlete being condemned to vilification. They are almost always men, and the motive always turns out to be sexual. Anti-Semitism or politics are much less disturbing. The pantheon of consecrated glories is shaking today on its foundations. Who will be the next to be torn down like the statues are again today? I will remind you here… for the record of the affairs of the bust of Carl Vogt in Geneva and the sculpture representing David de Pury (which is nevertheless by David d'Angers!) in Neuchâtel.

A new book on this subject has just been published in translation by Grasset. “The Monsters” comes from Claire Dederer, who is American. I had never heard of the author, whom the back cover presents as “an essential figure in public debate in the United States”. Launched in 2023, “Monsters” would thus constitute a bookstore phenomenon, which remains to be controlled. Always empathetic. Never dogmatic. It must be said that Claire conducts her affair as a conversation developed with the reader, or more probably the reader. The tone of confidence allows him not to take everything tragic. His work, however, remains based on a triple guilt which is discovered throughout the pages. Claire admires the work of men (and sometimes women) whom she nevertheless sees as monsters. Film critic for the “New York Times”, she believes that her job prevented her from taking sufficient care of her children (we join Mona Chollet here). She finally has a past as an alcoholic for which she seems to want to apologize to her audience.

“Perhaps I too come to you marked with my own stain: being a white, middle-class feminist. Perhaps you think that my solutions are typical of a person in my category.”

Claire Dederer

It all starts with Roman Polanski, a textbook case in the United States. Reviewing his films which she must consider as those of a rapist of a barely pubescent girl, Claire Dederer finds them formidable. One thing proving in passing that she must have forgotten to watch the latest one, “Palace” from 2023. What to do, when the author finds himself marked with a “stain”, to use the prophetic title of a novel by Philip Roth published in 2000? A Lady Macbeth thing of which Claire also bears the stigma, as she explains on page 69 (“erotic year” for Serge Gainsbourg, who has so far passed between the drops). “Perhaps I too come to you marked with my own stain: being a white, middle-class feminist. Perhaps you think that my solutions are typical of a person in my category.” Ah, these intellectuals, so happy to bathe in a guilt giving them the impression (I almost wrote “the illusion”) of being intelligent… We would beat them, if it didn't give them so much pleasure.

Polanski is of course not the only problem. Note in this regard that Claire Dederer's list remains very Anglo-Saxon. There is never any question here of Gérard Depardieu, even if “Gégé” also shot a few films across the Atlantic. Nor Céline's books, America having no Occupation problems to sweep under the rug. Note that there is still the Richard Wagner question there. Among the people that the author puts in the spotlight are Pablo Picasso, monstrous partner even if two of his wives actually committed suicide after his death, JK Rowling, the anti-trans, Michael Jackson, the pedophile, Paul Gauguin, in love with Polynesian nymphets, Woody Allen of course, Ernest Hemingway, the violent “macho”, or Doris Lessing, who abandoned her children. A woman who neglects her offspring is in fact the female counterpart of the stalker. There is no longer an attack on sex here, but on gender. Can we still speak of “monstresses”? According to Claire, “monster” remains a masculine word.

In her very (in fact too) long book, Claire also has pages for Valerie Solanas, the one who tried to kill Andy Warhol, for Sylvia Plath, who ended up committing suicide, or for Ana Mendieta, a Cuban visual artist that her husband Carl Andre probably defenestrated (1). Victims. After all, isn't it about judging and therefore deciding after having weighed things up? Is the work distinct from its author or not? Let us note in this regard that the biographical influence only concerns recent creation. It hardly concerns ancient authors, about whom we often do not know much intimate information. There are no puzzles unless there is knowledge. And then time still ends up doing its work… Praised and almost too often exhibited, Caravaggio was thus an individual who could not be visited. Now symptomatically, Claire Dededer never speaks of the Italian, who died in 1610.

But what are the author's conclusions? They seemed to me all convolutions. While Laure Adler, who could be considered a European equivalent of Claire, has just declared in a press interview (2) that she disapproves of the possible disappearance of the films of Roman Polanski or Woody Allen, Claire is beating around the bush. On the one hand, there does not necessarily have to be a “virtuous relationship” in the relationship with others. On the other hand, the consumer of culture can introduce a legitimate morality of which the capitalist system remains devoid. A few paragraphs follow where the woman flounders a little in her reading of Guy Debord. She is, after all, an academic. Unfortunately, everything leads to a dead end. “There is no right answer.” “There is no higher authority, and there should not be.” The big risk is “hypocrisy.” I would personally add sometimes (but not here) satisfied stupidity. But the writer here is Claire Dederer.

(1) I spoke to you this summer about the Ana Mendieta retrospective at the Museum of Fine Arts in La Chaux-de-Fonds. A success.

(2) I read this at the end of November in “T”, the semi-advertising supplement of “Temps”.

Practical

“The monsters” by Claire Dederer, translated by Carine Chichereau, Editions Grasset, 346 pages.

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Born in 1948, Etienne Dumont studied in Geneva which were of little use to him. Latin, Greek, law. A failed lawyer, he turned to journalism. Most often in the cultural sections, he worked from March 1974 to May 2013 at the “Tribune de Genève”, starting by talking about cinema. Then came fine arts and books. Other than that, as you can see, nothing to report.More info

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