Several new biographies, openly dealing with the homosexuality of their subject, have been published recently. I can recommend Mauriac's biography which is the only one I have read at this time. It has not been translated yet, though (if it is ever to be)... The book, very convincingly, revisits the writer's life and work in light of his homosexual longings. Mauriac's scholars have always downplayed this part of him, when they did not simply erased it. Jean Lacouture, in his biography, went as far as to make a girl of a boy loved by the writer in his youth... Coming from Mr. Lacouture, who has been wrong so many times, it is not a big surprise... Still.
John Adams writes in The New York Times (The Zen of Silence), of Begin Again - A Biography of John Cage (Kenneth Silverman, Alfred A. Knopf, 2010, 483p):
Begin Again is a much more nuanced picture of Cage’s personal life than has currently been available. Cage wrote a lot about himself, but, like his hero Thoreau, he maintained a Puritan opaqueness about his emotions even to the point of eventually saying that he hated them altogether. Silverman’s research reveals a much more colorful and at times stormy erotic life than Cage alludes to in his own writings. His first serious relationship as a college dropout was homosexual, but that ended when he met, instantly fell in love with and married Xenia Kashevaroff, 22 at the time and daughter of the Eastern Orthodox Russian-Greek archpriest of Alaska. Xenia, small, feisty and possessing what Cage described as a “barby” wit, appears to have been thoroughly comfortable with her erotic self. She was a talented artist, willing even to perform in her husband’s percussion ensembles. Edward Weston, who once photographed her in the nude, described her as “most delightfully unmoral, pagan.”
It’s disappointing to see Xenia disappear from the story, but when Cage meets the young Merce Cunningham, his future is decided. They will become partners, both as lovers and as collaborators, for the rest of Cage’s life, and Cage will devote himself tirelessly to the Cunningham company, composing and performing for its concerts and tours, endlessly raising money and over all acting as a kind of benevolent spirit. Theirs will be one of the most fertile creative partnerships in the history of the arts.
Jean-Luc Barré has published the second volume of his biography of François Mauriac (Fayard, 2010, 528p), covering the years from 1940 to his death in 1970. In Le Monde ("Mauriac a lutté contre le feu qu'il portait en lui") he is interviewed by Josyane Savigneau:
J'ai été le premier à lever ce tabou que tant d'autres se sont acharnés à maintenir. Les réactions ont été et demeurent si vives que je me dis qu'il fallait un certain courage pour le faire. Certains affirment : « Nous le savions déjà », mais sans jamais avoir osé le dire. D'autres ne voulaient surtout pas qu'on en parle. J'ai voulu rompre avec cette hypocrisie qui a fini par brouiller l'image de François Mauriac et fausser l'idée que l'on se fait de son oeuvre tout en le dépossédant de sa vérité intime. Ces présumés spécialistes ne me pardonnent pas de les obliger à revoir leur copie et à tenir compte d'une réalité qu'ils ont tout fait pour occulter. Si on ne comprend pas l'ambivalence et l'ambiguïté fondamentales de Mauriac, on a toutes les chances de passer à côté de son personnage. Il a beaucoup joué avec ses multiples facettes, soucieux de ne s'enfermer dans aucune sexualité particulière et de ne dépendre d'aucune catégorie.
(I was the first to lift the taboo that many others have worked hard to maintain. Reactions were and remain so vivid that I am led to believe that it took some courage to do it. Some say: "We already knew,” but never have dared to say. Others didn’t want it to be talked about. I wanted to break with the hypocrisy that ultimately blur the image of François Mauriac and distort the idea that we have of his work while depriving him from his intimate truth. These alleged experts do not forgive me for forcing them to review their copy and take into account a reality they did everything they could to hide. If you do not understand the fundamental ambivalence and ambiguity of Mauriac, you are likely to miss his character. He played a lot with his multiple facets, anxious not to be locked into any particular sexuality and not to rely on any category.)
Il suffit pourtant de lire sa correspondance intime, publiée par sa belle-fille, Caroline Mauriac, si révélatrice de l'extrême sensualité de cet homme, de ses tourments, de ses désirs, assouvis ou non. En raison de son éducation catholique, il a lutté toute sa vie contre ce feu qu'il portait en lui. Mais il savait aussi enfreindre les interdits. Il ne s'en est pas privé sur le plan social, politique et religieux. Pourquoi se serait-il restreint dans d'autres domaines ? Je publie un témoignage de Daniel Guérin qui révèle que le Mauriac de 40 ans, dont il a été l'ami intime, « pratiquait un petit peu ».
(It is barely necessary to read his private correspondence, published by his daughter-in-law, Caroline Mauriac, so revealing of the extreme sensuality of this man, of his torments, his desires, fulfilled or not. Because of his Catholic upbringing, he fought all his life against this fire he had in him. But he also knew how to break taboos, whether social, political or religious. Why wouldn’t he break taboos in other areas too? I publish a testimony from Daniel Guérin who discloses that 40-years old Mauriac, his intimate friend, "practiced a little bit.")
Reviewing Grant Wood's biography by R. Tripp Evans (Alfred A. Knopf, 2010, 402p) in The New York Times, Deborah Solomon (Gothic American) writes:
In interviews and profiles, Wood was inevitably described as a “shy bachelor,” and Evans states confidently in his introduction that the artist “spent most of his life masking — not always successfully — his homosexuality.” But a man who stifles his desires to the point of near extinction cannot accurately be called gay, and by the end of the book the reader has no idea whether Wood was ever intimate with a man. Affairs are hinted at, but the author is unable to document them; Wood himself claimed to be innocent of carnal satisfactions. One of his friends is quoted in the book recalling a night when Wood seems to have confessed to being chastely asexual, which is not implausible.
Hero - The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia by Michael Korda (Harper, 2010, 762p) is different. Or so it seems. In her review in the NYT, Janet Maslin (Lawrence: Fresh Look at Warrior of Desert), states that in the book "the familiar voices of biographers like John E. Mack (who took a psychiatric look at Lawrence), Richard Aldington (who took a nastily debunking one) and those seeking a covert homosexual subtext in Lawrence’s story are echoed in Mr. Korda’s prose." How deep does Mr. Korda dig in discussing Lawrence's homosexuality remains to be seen. I am looking forward to reading his book during the holidays.
