For those of you who agree with Socrates…
…who said that the unexamined life is not worth living…there is hope if you are a writer and choose to examine your life later rather than sooner. Because the fruits of your labor might just be a memoir like that of Janet Groth, whose book The Receptionist: An Education at the New Yorker chronicles the 21 years she spent as a receptionist at the fabled literary magazine…schmoozing, dating, flirting and getting to know all sorts of people like Calvin Trillin and James Thurber. But she didn’t become a writer until now. Why not?
Women had had no assertiveness training — Oprah had yet to appear. I didn’t have a good grip on where I was going or who I was. I was less able to envision myself storming the citadel than people who were more confident, she said.
I haven’t read her book but I can certainly relate to her sentiment about what took her so long:
I was carving my own path but it was a very slow trip. I was doing it one course at a time, and of course there was a lot of head work that needed shrinking.
A good souffle takes time to fluff up into a lovely tasty thing. A garden takes awhile to become neatly and beautiful overgrown. And a good head shrinking? Well, that can take a few decades, can’t it?
Here’s to Janet Groth. Better late than never I say!
Have a lovely evening.
GM
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/28/fashion/janet-groth-describes-her-life-at-the-new-yorker.html
June 29, 2012 at 12:39 am
Better late than never indeed Giselle Minoli. In deed and in action.
June 29, 2012 at 12:42 am
Hi, Colin Lucas-Mudd Janet Groth seems like my definition of a dame or a broad. Not confident like Elaine Stritch, but she woulda been if she coulda been. Know what I mean?
June 29, 2012 at 12:43 am
Do you think that a life unexamined and a life unwritten are the same? Cannot one examine without writing it down?
June 29, 2012 at 12:47 am
Indeed Giselle Minoli. But then Elaine Stritch is of Celtic stock. Coping with the climate and the Brits next door develops a certain strength and purpose.
June 29, 2012 at 12:51 am
That’s a really good question Lena Levin. I suppose, as a writer, I do believe that a written examination is a more powerful one. I also suppose that it doesn’t need to be written per se, but that it always comes out in some sort of creative way or cathartic way…could be taking up painting or pot throwing. I think we examine ourselves in some way all the time. It’s just a very good question you’ve asked…the silent, to oneself perhaps, interiorly examined life.
But it surely wasn’t an accident that Groth chose to spend 21 years at the New Yorker. She wanted to be a writer…but wasn’t there yet…in her head.
June 29, 2012 at 12:51 am
Thus examining the unknown unknowns in writing Linda Plue?
June 29, 2012 at 12:53 am
I think I also want to write, at some level and in some sense, to tell you the truth. And I know that with writing comes another way of self-examination (even if you don’t write about yourself). So I am not sure of the answer to my question at all.
June 29, 2012 at 1:10 am
Lena Levin if you asked me what would be the worst thing that could happen to me it would never be poverty or even being hungry…it would be not being able to write (easily), or to listen to nature or to see. I look back on the years when I didn’t write and it always felt like there was a whole lot left unexpressed. That’s the thing, isn’t it…the self expression.
June 29, 2012 at 1:12 am
I know that feeling; just being kind of strangled between two languages makes it difficult. But I can, of course, look to the example of Vladimir Nabokov and Joseph Brodsky… 🙂
June 29, 2012 at 1:41 am
Lena Levin Painter/Linguist = a writer who speaks with oil/watercolor/gouache/acrylic/pen and ink? Writer/artist = a painter/artists who speaks with words? When I write I think of pictures. Not words. What if you are not really strangled between two languages. I remember the first time I heard “words” and “songs” used in dance (Pina Bausch)…I thought, “Of course, this is the way it is supposed to be.”
Last month I saw a fantastic exhibition of Stephen Hannock at Marlborough in New York. Tell me what you think? Here is the link:
http://www.marlboroughgallery.com/exhibitions/recent-paintings-vistas-with-text
June 29, 2012 at 1:48 am
Such huge paintings aren’t easy to “see” in such small reproductions, but I imagine they must be really impressive!
I didn’t mean being strangled between words and colors (with this tension, I am quite in my element). I meant being strangled between English and Russian…
And as for “linguist” — it is intended to mean the academic/research linguist, one who is good at describing grammars of unknown languages, not one who is good with words. 🙂 That’s what I used to be.
June 29, 2012 at 1:53 am
Aaaaahhhhhh yes the dreaded English/Russian strangulation. I understand. Russian art is quiet the rage these days isn’t it? What you cannot see in the Hannock thumbnails is that his paintings are covered with “words.”
June 29, 2012 at 1:55 am
Russian art is quiet the rage these days isn’t it?
Is it? I have no idea. I am afraid I am not really in touch with the art world of today; I find myself somewhere between 1564 and 1906.
June 29, 2012 at 1:57 am
Re Hannock: would be interesting to see; maybe I should get myself to New York this summer…
I have a slightly different paint/words project, here, if you are interested: http://www.lenalevin.com/sonnets
June 29, 2012 at 2:06 am
A polymath you are Lena Levin. I’m looking for the “strangled” you and all I see is talent, expressed in many different art forms. I share this feeling with you: _Not because of fame or limelight, but because their minds and memories, I imagined, must be filled with Shakespeare’s verse to the brim, so that it cannot help but influence the very wiring of their brains._ I know nothing of the Russian language and very little of Russian art, but a young woman worked for/with me for a few years and she showed me wonderful things. I would love to go to Russian some day. At the moment, it seems like an impossibility.
June 29, 2012 at 2:19 am
Well, it may disappoint you, but if you decide to go one day, you can always ask me for travel tips… 🙂 They might be outdated by a dozen of years, but still.
June 29, 2012 at 2:38 am
St. Petersburg. I want to go to St. Petersburg…to the opera!
June 29, 2012 at 2:43 am
Lovely and inspiring post, Giselle Minoli ~ And Lena Levin Your work is beautiful–I love the paintings and the Shakespeare together. Marvelous.
June 29, 2012 at 3:28 am
St. Petersburg is my native city… but if you go there, it better be around June (or January, if you really, really like snow).
June 29, 2012 at 3:28 am
Mara Rose — thanks!
June 29, 2012 at 1:26 pm
Watching my daughters and wife, and women like you, escape the gravity of society and challenging their natural wiring, has been more rewarding than my son’s successful career.
The unexamined life is purgatory wrapped in doom.
June 29, 2012 at 2:14 pm
Thanks Stacie Florer, I’m going to explore my psyche this weekend with some of those exercises.
June 29, 2012 at 4:33 pm
jane mizrahi — thank you, I am glad you like it.
July 8, 2012 at 10:47 am
Walter H Groth I cannot believe I didn’t ask you whether you are related to Janet Groth! I had never heard the name before (can’t believe that either!). Do tell when you have a moment…
July 8, 2012 at 6:57 pm
There are no coincidences or acciddents Walter H Groth. Wondering if it’s a hint for you either to a) research your family tree, or b) start writing…
July 8, 2012 at 7:40 pm
Janet Groth made you think Walter H Groth!