WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.320 align:middle line:90%


00:00:01.320 --> 00:00:05.490 align:middle line:84%
Every book has a genealogy,
even as it strives

00:00:05.490 --> 00:00:07.770 align:middle line:90%
to be new in its own way.

00:00:07.770 --> 00:00:10.890 align:middle line:84%
How better to examine this
simple fact than the method

00:00:10.890 --> 00:00:13.920 align:middle line:84%
Frederic Tuten uses in
The Adventures of Mao

00:00:13.920 --> 00:00:17.220 align:middle line:84%
on the Long March, his
groundbreaking first novel

00:00:17.220 --> 00:00:19.920 align:middle line:90%
published in 1971.

00:00:19.920 --> 00:00:23.490 align:middle line:84%
In this fictional account of
Mao Zedong's rise to power,

00:00:23.490 --> 00:00:27.780 align:middle line:84%
Tuten employs a
kaleidoscopic lens, offering,

00:00:27.780 --> 00:00:31.860 align:middle line:84%
among other narratives,
expansive literary quotations,

00:00:31.860 --> 00:00:35.070 align:middle line:90%
homages, and parodies.

00:00:35.070 --> 00:00:37.350 align:middle line:84%
Tuten has noted that
the voice of the book

00:00:37.350 --> 00:00:40.570 align:middle line:84%
is not what can be found
on any single page,

00:00:40.570 --> 00:00:43.260 align:middle line:90%
but in the overall effect.

00:00:43.260 --> 00:00:46.230 align:middle line:84%
In this, and in his
next four novels,

00:00:46.230 --> 00:00:50.370 align:middle line:84%
Tuten intertwines distinct
elements in human nature,

00:00:50.370 --> 00:00:54.540 align:middle line:84%
or in our cultural history,
often manipulating the time

00:00:54.540 --> 00:00:57.900 align:middle line:90%
and place of a story's telling.

00:00:57.900 --> 00:01:00.210 align:middle line:84%
And he consciously
and eloquently

00:01:00.210 --> 00:01:05.200 align:middle line:84%
invites consideration of and
conversation with literature,

00:01:05.200 --> 00:01:08.540 align:middle line:90%
art, and history.

00:01:08.540 --> 00:01:12.080 align:middle line:84%
His next novel, Tallien,
is the life story

00:01:12.080 --> 00:01:14.930 align:middle line:84%
of a French revolutionary
who gives it all up

00:01:14.930 --> 00:01:17.030 align:middle line:90%
for the love of a countess.

00:01:17.030 --> 00:01:20.240 align:middle line:84%
And this story is made
new and heartbreaking

00:01:20.240 --> 00:01:23.870 align:middle line:84%
as the tale of present-day
man, long orphaned,

00:01:23.870 --> 00:01:27.840 align:middle line:84%
wishes he could tell the
revolutionary in his own life,

00:01:27.840 --> 00:01:30.860 align:middle line:90%
his estranged father.

00:01:30.860 --> 00:01:35.330 align:middle line:84%
In Van Gogh's Bad Café, a
beautiful morphine addict who

00:01:35.330 --> 00:01:39.380 align:middle line:84%
is Vincent van Gogh's lover
steps through a brick wall

00:01:39.380 --> 00:01:44.750 align:middle line:84%
into the 21st century to ravish
and beguile a new contemporary

00:01:44.750 --> 00:01:49.220 align:middle line:84%
artist, and to tell
Vincent's story.

00:01:49.220 --> 00:01:51.830 align:middle line:84%
Characters don't just
leap through time,

00:01:51.830 --> 00:01:55.250 align:middle line:84%
pushing the concept of
perspective to new levels,

00:01:55.250 --> 00:01:59.810 align:middle line:84%
but they skip across the
aisle of the library as well.

00:01:59.810 --> 00:02:03.800 align:middle line:84%
In Tintin in the New World, the
famous French comic book hero,

00:02:03.800 --> 00:02:07.610 align:middle line:84%
Tintin, as well as his
companion, Captain Haddock--

00:02:07.610 --> 00:02:11.510 align:middle line:84%
and of course, his
little dog, Snowy--

00:02:11.510 --> 00:02:15.410 align:middle line:84%
is reanimated in his
crystallized child state

00:02:15.410 --> 00:02:18.860 align:middle line:84%
on Machu Picchu,
conversing at table

00:02:18.860 --> 00:02:23.210 align:middle line:84%
with the gang from Thomas
Mann's The Magic Mountain-- most

00:02:23.210 --> 00:02:26.510 align:middle line:90%
especially, Claudia.

00:02:26.510 --> 00:02:28.370 align:middle line:84%
Marrying these
narratives brings out

00:02:28.370 --> 00:02:31.280 align:middle line:84%
something vibrant
in both of them,

00:02:31.280 --> 00:02:34.850 align:middle line:84%
and it made my first reading
of The Magic Mountain much more

00:02:34.850 --> 00:02:40.260 align:middle line:84%
tolerable, and indeed,
quite enjoyable.

00:02:40.260 --> 00:02:43.860 align:middle line:84%
In all these works, our
artistic and cultural history

00:02:43.860 --> 00:02:47.350 align:middle line:84%
is addressed through
dichotomies and conversations,

00:02:47.350 --> 00:02:50.520 align:middle line:90%
both in subject and style.

00:02:50.520 --> 00:02:54.750 align:middle line:84%
And turning to The Green Hour,
Tuten's most recent novel,

00:02:54.750 --> 00:02:58.170 align:middle line:84%
we see the principle of an
artistic life once again

00:02:58.170 --> 00:03:02.400 align:middle line:84%
addressed, this time as the
passion of the protagonist,

00:03:02.400 --> 00:03:07.260 align:middle line:84%
a professor and art critic
for whom art is everything--

00:03:07.260 --> 00:03:11.760 align:middle line:84%
except the other everything,
which is the incendiary love

00:03:11.760 --> 00:03:15.540 align:middle line:84%
she shares with a man who
disappears as regularly

00:03:15.540 --> 00:03:19.710 align:middle line:84%
as he returns, and
which is also, finally,

00:03:19.710 --> 00:03:24.160 align:middle line:84%
the love of an
extraordinary child.

00:03:24.160 --> 00:03:27.340 align:middle line:84%
And while there is a sense
of the quickness, the urgency

00:03:27.340 --> 00:03:32.110 align:middle line:84%
of life in all Tuten's work, it
is in The Green Hour, as well

00:03:32.110 --> 00:03:35.110 align:middle line:84%
as his most recent
short stories,

00:03:35.110 --> 00:03:40.300 align:middle line:84%
that a recognition of mortality
draws our attention in,

00:03:40.300 --> 00:03:44.980 align:middle line:84%
bringing the work
into sharp focus.

00:03:44.980 --> 00:03:47.410 align:middle line:84%
Applauding the Mao book
when it first came out,

00:03:47.410 --> 00:03:50.560 align:middle line:84%
John Updike commented that
the novel cuts the reader

00:03:50.560 --> 00:03:55.810 align:middle line:84%
into awareness, and Susan Sontag
has written of Tuten's work,

00:03:55.810 --> 00:03:58.240 align:middle line:84%
"There's nothing like
the ride, the rush

00:03:58.240 --> 00:04:01.250 align:middle line:90%
that Frederic Tuten can give."

00:04:01.250 --> 00:04:03.740 align:middle line:84%
The former Director of the
Creative Writing Program

00:04:03.740 --> 00:04:06.920 align:middle line:84%
at the City College in New
York, and frequent writer

00:04:06.920 --> 00:04:11.360 align:middle line:84%
on the arts, Tuten is the
recipient of a Guggenheim,

00:04:11.360 --> 00:04:14.030 align:middle line:84%
and the very prestigious
Award for Distinguished

00:04:14.030 --> 00:04:16.475 align:middle line:84%
Writing from the Academy
of Arts and Letters.

00:04:16.475 --> 00:04:19.260 align:middle line:90%


00:04:19.260 --> 00:04:24.630 align:middle line:84%
Tallien is subtitled A Brief
Romance, Tintin A Romance,

00:04:24.630 --> 00:04:27.750 align:middle line:90%
van Gogh A Love Story.

00:04:27.750 --> 00:04:32.550 align:middle line:84%
And indeed, this man before us
tonight writes love stories.

00:04:32.550 --> 00:04:36.720 align:middle line:84%
What else is the force between
us that shapes and changes

00:04:36.720 --> 00:04:38.850 align:middle line:90%
our lives?

00:04:38.850 --> 00:04:41.750 align:middle line:90%
But love does not stop there.

00:04:41.750 --> 00:04:44.720 align:middle line:84%
Each book is evidence
of the essentialness

00:04:44.720 --> 00:04:47.550 align:middle line:90%
of art and literature.

00:04:47.550 --> 00:04:49.490 align:middle line:90%
Art-- pure art--

00:04:49.490 --> 00:04:53.270 align:middle line:84%
without regard for the
market, for faddish movements,

00:04:53.270 --> 00:04:55.910 align:middle line:84%
for any pressures but
that of beauty itself.

00:04:55.910 --> 00:04:58.440 align:middle line:90%


00:04:58.440 --> 00:05:01.200 align:middle line:84%
To quote Walter Pater,
whom Tuten quotes

00:05:01.200 --> 00:05:07.170 align:middle line:84%
in Mao, "To burn always with
this hard, gem-like flame,

00:05:07.170 --> 00:05:13.580 align:middle line:84%
to maintain this ecstasy,
is success in life."

00:05:13.580 --> 00:05:15.830 align:middle line:84%
Frederic Tuten
introduced this concept

00:05:15.830 --> 00:05:18.965 align:middle line:84%
to me, and to my conception
of the art of fiction.

00:05:18.965 --> 00:05:22.120 align:middle line:90%


00:05:22.120 --> 00:05:26.650 align:middle line:84%
May I now introduce to you
the man who burns this way,

00:05:26.650 --> 00:05:28.540 align:middle line:90%
and maintains this principle--

00:05:28.540 --> 00:05:30.500 align:middle line:90%
Frederic Tuten.

00:05:30.500 --> 00:05:31.000 align:middle line:90%