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wsearch2 Towers f Towers xsearch2 Keezmovies%3Bsom c Wont m Make gnsearchMa Moving e Keezmovies%3Bsom 1t Less u Keezmovies%3Bsom tsearchr Talk was the ultimate accolade, the equivalent of being a bestseller” — so much so that he wrote a letter asking the court to go easy on Lanzmann.)The book’s depictions of leading European intellectuals of the postwar period are striking and incisive. Lanzmann describes how Sartre’s “Cornelian determination to be dependent on no one led him to extremes: I would watch him suffer for days with a vicious toothache, resulting in abscesses and gumboils, and still he carried on writing, claiming he could master the pain, since it was unthinkable that he should ask anyone — even a dentist — for help.” But Lanzmann also admired Sartre greatly and to some degree was in awe of him. One memorable incident finds him watching Sartre deploy his logical abilities and “metallic, authoritative voice” in order to seduce Lanzmann’s sister, the actress Évelyne Rey:
Sartre had everything it took to seduce Évelyne, complimenting her, his reasons articulate, cogent and neatly strung together. Watching this formidable thinking machine at work, the well-oiled gears and pistons revving until it was at full throttle, left you stunned with admiration, all the more so if the goal of his implacable, passionate logic was to flatter you. Sartre’s enemies mocked him for his ugliness, his squint, caricatured him as a toad, a gnome, some sordid, baleful creature. I found him handsome in a way, powerfully charming, I liked the extraordinary energy of his approach, his physical courage and, above all, that voice of tempered steel, the quintessence of irrefutable intelligence.
As for Lanzmann’s own romantic life, love at first sight seems to be its guiding principle. On meeting Judith Magre, who would later become his first wife, he was “immediately taken with this nervous, sylphlike girl of twenty, by her firm, slender body, her deep voice rich with every possible inflection … In the lift on the way down from my mother’s apartment to the ground floor, we fell into each other’s arms, never for a moment breaking our wordless, passionate embrace.” In North Korea, as part of the first Western delegation to that country, Lanzmann fell in love with the nurse who was assigned to give him daily injections, a love that would remain unconsummated and, perhaps in part for that very reason, would haunt him for many decades. In Israel in the early 1970s he met Angelika Schrobsdorff, a novelist and actress who would become his second wife: “in my rough and ready way, I swept her off her feet by the intensity and sincerity of the passion I felt for her from the moment I first set eyes on her. It was mutual love at first sight….”
And then, of course, there is Simone de Beauvoir. “Castor,” as her friends referred to her, was Lanzmann’s lover for five years and remained his close friend afterward. Along with Sartre she is one of the central figures in his life, but in this book, at least, she is more of an enigma than Sartre, more distant, more elusive. This may be due in part to the fact that Lanzmann says almost nothing about her intellectual work. We learn about their travels together, about her love for skiing, hiking, and outdoor activities, and a bit about her political activism and unconventional love life, but such singular works as “The Second Sex,” “The Ethics of Ambiguity” and “The Mandarins” go mostly unmentioned. What comes across most vividly is the combination of deep seriousness and powerful passions that formed the basis of her personality, allowing her to serve as a beacon of integrity and a source of emotional support for Lanzmann until her death in 1986:
During the twelve difficult years when I was making “Shoah,” I went to see her whenever I could, I needed to talk to her, to tell her of my uncertainties, my fears, my disappointments. I always came away from these evenings together if not serene, at least strengthened in my resolve. It was not so much what she knew and what she shared — how could she have known about the horrors I was discovering? It was I who told her about them — but the unique and intensely moving way she had of listening, serious, solemn, open, utterly trusting. She was transfigured by this act of listening, her face became pure humanity, as though her ability to focus on other people’s problems relieved her of her own fears, of the weariness of living that never truly left her after the death of Sartre.
“The Patagonian Hare” concludes with an account of the making of “Shoah,” about which film de Beauvoir would write, “I have never read nor seen anything that has so movingly and so grippingly conveyed the horror of the ‘final solution’; nor anything that has brought to light so much evidence of the hellish mechanics of it.” This nine-and-a-half-hour documentary about the grimmest of possible subjects was, unsurprisingly, difficult to find funding for, and difficult in other ways as well. Some subjects were reluctant to speak with him, some refused entirely, and some — particularly former Nazis who had worked in the extermination camps — had to be approached under false pretenses and filmed using the Paluche, a small camera that could be hidden in a handbag. Such equipment is routine these days, but at the time the Paluche was a real innovation, and an imperfect one. Lanzmann describes how, in an early attempt at using it, they made the mistake of hiding it under a pile of books and newspapers, causing it to overheat and begin to emit smoke during the interview, from which he and his assistant were forced to flee.
Readers who approach this book out of an interest in “Shoah” may be tempted to skip the first three-quarters and begin with the chapters that concern its filming, but “The Patagonian Hare” should be read in its entirety: it is the account of an entirely fascinating life, related with great skill. Lanzmann’s decision not to adhere to a strictly chronological presentation but to follow his memory where it leads him, lends the book a refreshing informality, and his sense of humor and memory for anecdote prove consistently engaging. What comes through most clearly is the tremendous passion for life that underlies and informs everything: Lanzmann’s risk taking, his activism, his love affairs, his remarkable gifts as a storyteller. But then again, how could one fail to be passionately, even madly attached to life, when the life to which one is attached is as colorful, as vibrant, as rich as this?
Continue Reading Close Saturday, Apr 7, 2012 10:00 PM UTCTwo years ago, Bill Clegg’s first memoir dropped like a bombshell on the New York media world. “Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man” chronicled the handsome and hugely successful book agent’s descent into a harrowing crack addiction that cost him his career, his boyfriend and his savings — and left him broke and in rehab. In one harrowing part of the book (excerpted in New York magazine) Clegg decides to blow off a first-class flight to Berlin after a week without sleep for a crack binge and sex with the cabbie driving him to his airport hotel. Staring at his pile of drugs, he wrote, “I wonder if somewhere in that pile is the crumb that will bring on a heart attack or stroke or seizure. The cardiac event that will deliver all this to an abrupt and welcome halt.”
In the years since the events of the first book, Clegg has rebuilt his career as an agent and become one of the best-known faces of addiction recovery. (He is also the rumored muse for “Left-handed,” a recent book of poetry by Jonathan Galassi, and the supposed inspiration for one of the lead characters in “Keep the Lights On,” Ira Sachs’ well-reviewed new film about a troubled gay relationship).
Now Clegg has written a follow-up, “Ninety Days,” a tumultuous chronicle of his early sobriety. The book begins with Clegg’s release from rehab and follows him as he struggles to keep clean for 90 days, a milestone for those in recovery. Over the following weeks, he tries to rebuild his shattered life — befriending other recovering addicts, searching for a new apartment and shuttling from meeting to meeting — but before long, he is once again drinking, smoking crack and having anonymous drug-fueled sex. Thus begins a dramatic series of relapses.
The book, which is written in straightforward, readable prose, is an often-vivid testament to the difficulties of overcoming addiction and the value of companionship. Despite occasional moments of cattiness (Clegg can be ungenerous in his description of other meeting attendees), Clegg comes across as a deeply troubled but a perceptive and sympathetic man, learning lessons about addiction in some very difficult ways.
Salon spoke to Clegg over the phone from Manhattan about the fallout from his first book, the unique appeal of recovery memoirs and why he won’t be writing another book.
It’s been a long time since the events of this book happened, and now you’re doing interviews and publicity about them. Does it feel strange to be rehashing all this stuff?