The fairy tale of Rapunzel, the literary scholar and mythographer Marina Warner says, contains a buried lesson, about both the need for abortion and the dangers of seeking or getting one.
That’s Odysseus—the wiliness, that idea of the cunning trickster. It’s very deep and goes across, also, to Eastern literature and Indian literature. And sometimes it’s a female trickster. The weak position means resorting to tricks that are not to do with being physically strong but to do with clever tongues, cunning, and high spirits. Odysseus is unusual because he’s also a soldier.
I do cluster things. It’s largely associative. But I was influenced, early on, by the organization of the Warburg Library. Aby Warburg [the German art historian] had a particular idea of how the library should mirror the life of a concept. So it begins with the foundational text at the bottom, the original material from which many things spring. Then there’s the imagery associated with it on the next floor. The end is action: what effects in the world this concept might have had.
There’s a danger, of course, because we don’t want people to believe in witchcraft. But I do believe in the power of language—not only in this negative respect but also, in many respects, in its enchantment. Enchantment doesn’t have to be sweet and nice, you know; it can be tragic. And yet it can make us feel much better. That’s one of its great mysteries. Going to a weepy or experiencing a tragedy in a book has a strengthening effect.
It made me think of the way you described Lot’s wife in a piece of art criticism, as “an incinerated figure of memory.” It’s a striking phrase because she wasn’t burned up, but she was looking back at the cities that were, and then somehow that fate transferred to her., which inspired the piece. I do think memory can be dangerous. I think memory has become much more real to us because of our media, our ability to store and archive, and above all, photography.
They seem larger than life in the way that our parents often are. Was it ever useful for you to think of your parents in mythic terms? When you said you discovered new depths of sympathy for your mother, what hadn’t you appreciated before? In fact, this is a difference that I have with some very good critical thinkers. I’m worried about a gaze that is supposedly empathetic and compassionate, but actually has an undertow of pleasure. That’s not a pleasure that I wanted to invite.
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