Political Correctness, Cultural Illiteracy, & Other Annoyances

Some years back I was working in an engineering firm and had a number of fine art posters hanging on the wall. One, from the Medici Chapel, showed Michelangelo’s Evening (left) from the tomb of Lorenzo de Medici. One day a young, well-educated, and ostensibly intelligent engineer was in my office and he looked at the poster and said, “Why would you have a picture of a naked man hanging in your office?”

I nearly fainted. A naked man? What naked man??? That’s a Micheangelo! I don’t know why I was surprised. They don’t teach art, let alone art appreciation, in school anymore. Why would this kid know about the classical nude? Poor Kenneth Clark, he must have rolled over in his grave.

I thought about that because I have been working on the cover of the short story collection I am about to publish through Parlez-Moi Press. As tough as it is to get a novel published these days (don’t get me started) it is twice as hard to sell a short story collection. So, since I’ve learned so much with Lila’s book and Mark’s book (which is now available but more on that next week), I decided to give this a whirl. Even if I never sell a book, it’s better than having them languish in my desk.

The title of the book will be My Last Romance and other passions and, for the cover (right), I chose a detail from Peter Paul Ruben’s magnificent painting The Union of Earth and Water that hangs in The Hermitage. It is one of my favorite paintings because it shows enduring love, love that lasts throughout time. The looks on the faces of Poseidon and Demeter are so tender and so beautiful, it seemed like a perfect choice. So, when I got the cover designed, I sent it to a few friends to get opinions. What a shock!

“It will be interesting to see how people react to a picture of an old man and a younger woman,” one friend said. Excuse me? They are a god and a goddess, they don’t have ages. “Why would you want to put old people on the cover?” another said. Old people? Well, first of all, the title of the book is My LAST Romance. Besides, who should I put? Brangelina??? “I don’t know,” another said, “old, naked people might not be a good choice. I mean, he’s got to be sixty anyway. Put some clothes on.”

This is very discouraging. I don’t know what annoys me more, the obvious lack of awareness that this is a piece of classical art or the politically correct contempt for nudity and age differences. Even if you don’t know the painting, isn’t it obvious that this is classical art? Didn’t the laurel leaves in his hair give you hint? Fortunately, I’ve received a lot more positive comments than negative ones but it does make me despair for the survival of the classical arts. Imagine if I told the woman worried about that their age difference that they are also brother and sister. The horrors!

We are living in a very superficial age. I haven’t a doubt that if I did put Brangelina on the cover it would sell a lot more copies (not to mention how it would go through the roof once the lawsuits started!) But I don’t want to give in to that. I have been told by two literary agents that my novel is beautiful but “a little too literary”. People want gut-wrenching, abuse-laden memoirs and slutty, addicted, dysfunctional knuckleheads in their reading — I guess. In my heart I know that there are people who know the difference between a god and a goddess and a pop star couple. In my heart I know that love is rarely politically correct. But those concepts don’t get a lot of attention these days.

I had an exasperating discussion not long ago with a young woman who said she refused to read Gone With the Wind because she disapproved of the way it portrayed African-Americans. She also is boycotting Hemingway and Fitzgerald because they were “immoral” and Eugene O’Neill because of his “glorification of substance abuse”. Sigh.

Thanks for reading.