Hampstead Authors' Society No. 29 Issue 4. June 2001
HAS
Summer Party
&
HAStalk
Biography and Crossover with the Self
by Nouritza Matossian
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Time:
6:30 for 7:00pm - 9:00pm Armenian
morsels will be served. Please bring liquid refreshments. |
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Approaching the Living and the Dead
by Nouritza Matossian
'Who do
you think you are, Sherlock Holmes?' From the composer and subject of
my first biography, Iannis Xenaxis [1] who watched me go through every
old diary and dusty piece of scrap paper. That book took ten years to
complete, he refused to let me change a word of it, and I'm about to
update it.
'Will you ever finish or are you writing the complete history of the world?' Friends appalled by the towers of books tottering on my desk after ten years research on a painter this time.
'It's high time you finished. You are beginning to look like Arshile Gorky [2], and it's scary.' She does not like the look in my eyes while I am writing the final suicide episode.
Those
were my three main strategies: Zoom, Pan and Interior.
1. Scrutinise every shred of evidence including the brand of his shoes,
his sleeping habits, the contents of his dustbin. Not difficult since
I was living in his studio and had free run of the place day and night.
2. Set the framework, geography, history, culture. Interview friends
and enemies.
3. Identify with the subject in any way possible to understand the inner
processes.
This includes falling in love with dead persons if need be.
Owning
the book after the event
As time elapses after the actual writing and publication of my second
biography Black Angel, A Life of Arshile Gorky, now that the paperback
has just come out with Pimlico, I am pushed by critics to accepting
the notion that this was a covert autobiography. That is putting it
crudely of course but this has become a leitmotif, the congruencies
between Gorky's life and mine, overlaps of culture, language and trauma.
Yes that may sound over-dramatic but let me explain since I'm always
asked why it took me twenty years to write this book.
The
favourite question
I first became aware of the Arshile Gorky phenomenon when I was wondering
about in an exhibition at the old Tate Gallery. This is how I began
my book. Dark eyes stared at me from portraits, just like my family's.
Brilliant colours and forms so familiar they sent me diving for the
catalogue. The artist's real name was Manoug Adoian. An Armenian like
me, he had survived genocide like my family, escaped to America after
his mother died of starvation, become a leading artist and died tragically.
An epic about my own people. Clearly I would have to delve into my own
Armenian history which was a painful one so I resisted. Instead I tried
to put it behind me as I studied philosophy, music, drama and learned
nine languages pell-mell in the brief time I had in England before being
married off in Cyprus.
You
write your first book to change the world
During the next few years I turned my hand to writing the first biography
of a living composer with a hunch that he would be one of the most important
figures of the century, Iannis Xenakis. That work process was relatively
simple. He adopted me like a second daughter, and I spent the next ten
years applying myself to his scores, music, writings and extracting
his life story from him like a bad tooth. I was convinced that the violence
and originality of his music sprang from a painful childhood and a traumatic
adolescence. He was injured, lost an eye and was sentenced to death
by a Nazi tribunal in Greece during the war. That book sent me delving
in the archives of Le Corbusier, the war history of Greece, the music
of the 20th century, interviewing its luminaries, Boulez, Stockhausen,
Berio, and many others. A crash course in modern composition from the
masters. When I confessed to Xenakis that I was no musicologist he replied.
'Thank goodness. I've already counted the notes myself. You love the
music, you are a philosopher.' I also spoke Greek, and he was able to
tell me in his mother tongue all the painful memories for which he had
never been able to find words in English or French. He never interfered
with what I wrote, but read and discussed it with me.
I realise now that I had identified with him intellectually because he moved from a position in philosophy, and emotionally, because he was an exile. My grandparents and parents too had fled to Cyprus to escape the killings of the Armenians in the 1915 Genocide by the Ottoman Turks. I myself had been to English boarding school poring over the geography of the British Isles, the Wars of the Roses, as though my language and culture did not exist. 'Armenian? What's that?' No one mentioned that the last king of Cyprus was an Armenian, Leo XIII. We were simply non-existent.
The
second book is to change yourself
Now I was writing the story of a second artist whose history had been
wiped out and who reinvented himself to avoid being called 'a starving
Armenian'.
Strangely the second book was harder to research. Instead of dealing directly with the artist himself, who either permits or refuses to co-operate, I was confronted with the prejudices, vanities and half-truths of third parties. Each had their axe to grind. So many lies had been published about him and become accepted without anyone bothering to examine the primary sources. 20th century Armenian history had been wiped out by Turkey who removed all evidence of Armenians by deporting them from their indigenous lands, torturing and killing them. All their records, buildings, churches had been dismantled or defaced in order to cover up this first organised genocide of the 20th century. The village where he was born had been renamed and repopulated. The young artist had changed his name upon arrival in America. A hidden genocide, a hidden Armenian.
In 1948 Gorky had committed suicide so a sense of guilt was unevenly shared by those close to him. Those families will promise you the world before you start and then twist every word, once it's on paper. I travelled extensively in America, Europe, Armenia and historic Armenia at my own expense and talked too freely about my research. I handed over my entire manuscript to the one person who had lent me her letters and given me information. Don't! You run the risk of misunderstanding and plagiarism. Whole chunks of my book, even research I had done in Armenian, were lifted.
My editor at Chatto & Windus, Alison Samuel constantly beefed me up: 'Don't worry Nouritza. Artists' families are hornets' nests. You acted honourably. Everything will be alright.' I tried to believe her. Trust your editor but cover your back.
Acquire
the difficult art of discretion
Don't hand anything over, especially what you have found out yourself
unless you need the legal consent of the parties. They need only see
what concerns them and that is all. Be selective and print out only
sections where they are mentioned otherwise your manuscript will be
passed around family, friends and the postman. One woman threatened
me, 'I've read your book you know. We will stop it from being published.'
I had never sent it to her. Beware of third parties.
Clear all copyright matters for images, reproduction of letters and quotes ahead of time, before you commit to the book. 'Well, I will need to see what you do with my letters', opens up a minefield of objections and problems just before publication date. Consult a lawyer or better still join the Society of Authors. I spent all my advance money on a solicitor on copyright matters.
Beware of the artist's family. Once he is dead, art merely becomes an 'estate' with the nearest and not always the dearest picking over the spoils. It's now their turn to enjoy the limelight which has been denied them by their famous father, husband, whoever. They have lived in his shadow may be failed artists who cling to their famous name for recognition, all the while resenting it. They may finance their lives by his work. Their main interest is in getting the most out of it. Unable to break away from the demiurge they try cut him down, to control him posthumously by imposing their own view of his life which arises from their own needs. Complicated psyches that are best to avoid. Yes, they will benefit from your book. The sales of the art will go up but they will never thank you.
Tell the truth at your peril. But uncovering the complex and rich truth is your main goal, whether it's biopsy or autopsy. You have to bring it to life. Then you have to let it fly.
Live
it with your audience
The first response was from the Canadian film-maker, Atom Egoyan, who
told me that Black Angel had inspired him to write a script. No, not
a bio-pic, that was not his genre, but a story about an Armenian woman
who writes a book on Arshile Gorky... He is currently filming Ararat
in Toronto.
I loathe pointing at slides so I made a theatre piece out of my book. I wanted to celebrate the four women who gave me his story: Mother, Sister, Sweetheart, Wife, with their own words, and with music and images. 'You look just like his mother', I am told. A psychiatrist friend volunteered that I am reliving my own grandmother's life in this piece. It is an ancient process. I am beginning to accept that biography has deep layers better left undisturbed. You can only reconstruct a life if you are prepared to use your own to cement it. I am about to give my fortieth performance. It has had different responses in New York, Los Angeles, Nicosia, Edinburgh, Yerevan, Beirut. In war-torn cities they understand and weep through his scarred childhood. I wonder how the sophisticated audience will react at the Tate Modern on 6 July.
[1] Iannis Xenaxis (1922- ) Greek composer, born in Romania. Worked as an architect for Le Corbusier before becoming a composer of 'stohastic music' - a highly complex musical style which incorporates mathematical concepts of chance and probability.
[2] ArshileGorky (1904-1948) American Abstract Expressionist, born in Armenia. Andre Breton described him as the most important painter in American history.
Nouritza Matossian's Black Angel, A Life of Arshile Gorky now in paperback, will be launched at 6.30pm on Friday, 6 July in the Starr Auditorium, Tate Modern. She will perform her one-woman show - Gorky's life through the voices of his Mother, Sister, Sweetheart, and Wife, with slides and music.
About
Nouritza Matossian
Nouritza Matossian was born in Cyprus, educated in England, graduated
in philosophy, studied music and theatre. She speaks nine language and
has been Hon. Cultural Attache of the Armenian Embassy. In 1981 she
published the biography of composer Iannis Xenakis. Her Black Angel,
A Life of Arshile Gorky, now in paperback by Pimlico press, was acclaimed
by the Times as 'a major biography with a compulsive narrative'. It
has become the inspiration for Atom Egoyan's new movie, Ararat, the
story of an Armenian woman who writes a book on Gorky.
Contact details: Nouritza's email
and www.arshile-gorky.com
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