How Can There Be Any Sin in "Sincere"?

When Elizabeth Strout visited last week to read excerpts from Olive Kitteridge, someone asked if she considered her writing ironic. "I'm not really sure what that means," she admitted, and qualified the term irony by saying she couldn't be if it goes against sincerity. She considers herself a "deeply sincere" writer.

Relating this anecdote, I agreed instantly that Strout's fiction seems sincere, but when pressed couldn't define what exactly I meant. My best stab at a synonym was "heartfelt," which is too reductive. Sincerity in literature--which I would say is the opposite of irony--is a word familiar to book reviewers, but what does it actually signify? How do we know we're reading "sincere" literature?

Let's start with Lionel Trilling, who wrote Sincerity and Authenticity in 1972. He regards older works as sincere, starting with Shakespeare, and newer works as authentic. The modern goal is to stay true to oneself, despite the pressures of the external world. Authenticity adds a philosophical approach to writing: does this capture the "me," untainted and self-aware? Sincerity, on the other hand, doesn't come this close to existentialism, which is not to say it's shallow. Sincerity is distinctly moral, as Trilling sees it. Both authenticity and sincerity aim for truth, but as a sincere individual, you express your hopes and desires openly, without obscuring them. 

Of course sincerity, then, is an older ideal: morality has waned as what governs us socially. Back in the day, from the 1500s to the 1800s, sincerity was in vogue: an artistic and social ideal. Art reflected society, perhaps more so than the self. To be outwardly honest is a difficult line to walk; Aristole regards one extreme as irony (deficient in expressing truth) and the other as undue pride (which hews close to narcissism). Being boastful indicates a lack of self-awareness, not fitting in what's appropriate. This will seem obvious to everyone around you. 

If I contrast authenticity and sincerity, I wonder if sincerity carries a greater sense of social responsibility. We are truthful to the greater good, the law of man. To be authentic, we look inward at ourselves. If opposed by boastfulness, sincerity seems a quiet art. I would agree that Olive Kitteridge, to bring us back, is a quieter, more character-driven piece. In general, characters propel this moral openness more than story or style. Genre writing does not aim for character first and foremost. Is it less sincere?

Trilling covers irony too: "If we speak it [sincerity], we are likely to do so with either discomfort or irony." Calling literature sincere these days, he says, means, "Although it need be given no aesthetic or intellectual admiration, it was at least conceived in the innocence of heart." Sincerity sounds like a backhanded compliment. In this light, "heartfelt" wasn't such a bad synonym after all.

But Trilling chooses to reclaim sincerity. We should not shy away: "It implies, or should imply, a profound personal self-commitment of the writer... The relevant kind of sincerity is something that has to be achieved by an inner discipline." So despite their opposition, sincerity and authenticity both uphold the authority of the author. So can we use the term in good faith? When a writer transforms into author? When said author somehow opens up, and reveals the greater world? I sincerely hope so.

Stay tuned for Part II, on the New Sincerity movement!

The Great American Songbook: "I Say a Little Prayer"

Written by: Burt Bacharach and Hal David

First performed by: Dionne Warwick, 1967

I have this theory that music of the sixties spans all generations. Young and old, weddings or school dances--everyone grooves to Motown and soul... and those Bacharach rhythms. The year 1967 set off revolutions across America in the cinema we watched (Bonnie and Clyde and the censorship floodgates that reopened) and the protests we launched (the Central Park Be-In, race riots). Don't forget the sounds we heard: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band forever changed how we listened to recorded music.

For a country in flux, the Burt Bacharach-Dionne Warwick collaboration, begun in the early sixties, stayed its course with assurance. Here was black music that finally went mainstream and sold LPs. The girl groups and choral arrangements owe a small debt to the fluttering choruses enjoyed by Bing Crosby and bandleaders for decades. Yet this new sound was unmistakably its own beast.

Listen to Warwick's original rendition of "I Say a Little Prayer." The key lowers in the introduction just before the vocal enters; contemporary Top 40 hits can thank Bacharach for propelling the please-applaud-me key change. The rhythm section pushes urgently, helped by irregular meters: the chorus ("Forever and ever, you'll stay in my heart, and I will love you") is actually in 11/4. In units of three, not the standard four, and then with the last beat missing, the singer jumps right back into the vocal without a breath.

Warwick's hit #4 on the Billboard charts in 1967. The song's exuberance (remember, the singer can't breathe!) must have matched "The Summer of Love" well. Ubiquitous now, this music was not shocking then, but revitalizing.

Which Actor Has the Worst Resume?

You had to know this was coming soon after my "Best Resume" post. While researching that one, I stumbled across numerous actors with less-than-stellar IMDB profiles. Oh, right, I thought, I'd forgotten how many icebergs they hit along the way. But sometimes, the movie-going public also forgets that an actor they love is notorious for poor choices.

The purpose of this assessment was not to rail against wickedly easy targets. Rob Schneider may be the least redeemable "actor" in California, but I don't want to expend more than a sentence on his deliberate mass-appeal mediocrity. Ditto nottie-so-hottie Paris Hilton and I-know-who-doped-me-up Lindsay Lohan.

I have long marveled at the stunning career path of Brendan Fraser. Here is a sturdy, regular actor; a respectable, not indulgent amount of humor; good frame and mildly rugged face. If all my compliments sound half-handed, think long and hard: When have we seen Brendan Fraser at the peak of his powers?

Last fall, my roommate and other friends kept bringing up Encino Man. Fraser's first major role in a film, and as a caveman no less: How could it not be funny? As if by fate, the movie played on TBS that night, and I found Reason #37 why I no longer subscribe to digital cable. (Though I will be fair; what else did the early '90s produce besides Hannibal Lecter and poor hair choices?)

Take any parts you can early on, proverbial wisdom suggests. So when did Fraser outgrow this trend? After a slew of misses like Twenty Bucks, Younger and Younger, Airheads, The Scout, The Passion of Darkly Noon, Mrs. Winterbourne, and a tacky Disney redo of George of the Jungle? When he followed up the overblown The Mummy with The Mummy Returns and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor?

The Mummy franchise still has not died, nor apparently its eponymous spectre of the Sphinx. So Fraser hasn't, either; no need to worry about tomorrow's mortgage payment. But the aughts did little for his integrity. After Journey to the Center of the Earth and its abhorrent CGI, The Mummy seems close to Casablanca. You'd think he would have stayed home when Journey to the End of the Night didn't work out. Over the years, he has continually received the short end of the lollipop: Dudley Do-Right (the IMDB nadir, at 3.6), Monkeybone, the Lifetime-leaning Extraordinary Measures, and the animal caper Furry Vengeance, so awful-looking even Eddie Murphy and The Rock would turn it down.

He has a few redemptive films amid the dreck: Gods and Monsters and The Quiet American. But despite his middle-class racist turn in Crash, that 2004 Best Picture winner will be remembered for Jack Nicholson's scowl of surprise when he opened the envelope. On the plus side, Fraser owns the leftmost toe of a SAG Award for Best Ensemble for the six-degrees-of-racism story.

For an actor who has stayed on the radar, confidently B-list all these years, I find it surprising how few acknowledge his un-illustrious career. Maybe his next big Hollywood venture will help. What's that, IMDB? "Untitled Journey to the Center of the Earth Sequel"?

Zero to Anti-Hero

Review: Adding Machine
SpeakEasy Stage Company, Boston
April 3, 2010

Blanche DuBois once transferred to a streetcar named Elysian Fields. But who suspected to someday see that mythical limbo on stage, let alone in a musical, and have it be both deflating and buoyant?

That's the double-edged sword of Adding Machine, now wrapping its Boston run after an Off-Broadway debut in 2008. Based on a 1923 play by Elmer Rice, the show should be continually depressing. A laid-off civil employee murders his boss, confesses his hatred toward the world, and is executed only to find himself adrift in the afterlife. But this SpeakEasy Stage Company production finds its peculiar charms.

"I'd rather watch you," the secretary Daisy sings as the subway shuffles along. She's likely headed uptown, passing 42nd Street, 50th Street, 59th Street. But for the first time, the audience feels a reprieve from numbers. Our ears have been assaulted with a contemporary score: shrill quasi-arias; numbingly rhythmic chants of accounting figures; recitative sprinkled with electronica that sounds both futuristic and salvaged from 1981. The music produces the feeling of dislocation, of numerical simplicity uprooted.



Yet everything subsides when, for three brief minutes, Daisy croons an old-fashioned 1920s radio ballad. Her pressures at work and her feelings for her boss, Mr. Zero, fade away. So do our perceptions of Adding Machine as an inaccessible work, no matter how initially aggressive. Authors Joshua Schmidt and Jason Loewith dip into period pastiche just a few times--you can count them on one hand, no machine needed--but are equally playful in the dense, more atonal musical scenes.

SpeakEasy's cast is impressive, braying the music without (I hope) vocal damage while exposing their sad-sack characters' humanity. Brendan McNab doesn't turn Mr. Zero (a murderer, racist, and misanthrope, remember?) into anything redemptive. He's put-upon but still virile. He bellows with gravel in his throat, whether angry or elated, as when he receives ham and eggs in prison from his wife. Mrs. Zero nags at her pathetic husband in a brutally high soprano; Amelia Broome plays her with vigor and even warmth as she sees off Mr. Zero on death row. John Bambery plays Shrdlu, a passionate prisoner who offed his ma with a leg of lamb. His rich-voiced rendering of a gospel parody fits with the oddness around him, maybe because he seems so sincere.



Despite the industrial surroundings, pounding into us that men are cogs in the machine, the inventiveness of Adding Machine takes it beyond the bleak. I wished for more songs that evoked the gay twenties, or even the rotten sin-filled twenties, but the score doesn't compromise so easily. Only Daisy (a winsome, working-class Liz Hayes) offers the bloom of hope. When she enters Elysian Fields, though, she despairs, "I might as well have stayed alive." Thankfully, this production has enough life to make up the difference.

Out of Your Census

Welcome to your 2010 United States census. It's so much easier than your taxes. No penalties, no spreadsheets, no schedules. In the census, there are clearcut, completely incontestable instructions.

Quick quiz: If you have three people living in your house, how many do you count? All of them. What if one's a baby? Count him too. Now it's time for the big, important question:

Remember, we are counting all people who live and sleep here Most Of The Time. Let's move on:

Who wasn't included in Question 1? Children? Newborn babies? (Didn't the instructions say to include babies in Question 1? Where else would children sleep--their treehouse?) I can understand visiting in-laws, but I'm flummoxed by roommates and live-in baby sitters. If they pay rent or "live in," doesn't that mean they are living here?