Lary Bloom
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Monday, November 07, 2005
Terror At The Dinner Table?
The other night at a dinner party I set off an intense discussion when I mentioned a recent book by Francine du Plessix Gray. In the volume simply and elegantly titled Them, she writes of the lives of her mother, Tatiana, who was a prominent fashion designer, and her step-father, Alexander Liberman, who became the most powerful editorial director in magazine publishing at Conde Nast.At the point in the book where Francine addresses her mother's early relationship with the great Russian poet Mayakovsky, she writes that she didn't discuss the relationship with her mother while she was alive "in part because of my own dread of confronting the past, in part because like most mothers and daughters we lived in terror of each other."
When I quoted this, most of the women at the dinner table expressed doubt about the author's conclusion. But one of the women said, "Yes, I can see that -- fearing a mother." She went on to talk about her own relationship with her late mother, who terrified her. I asked her if she thought her mother was also afraid of her. "Yes, in a way," she said.
The men at the table -- at least most of them -- simply nodded or shook their heads, and had little to say on the subject, hoping perhaps that it would conclude quickly with the point that nothing has been right since the Dodgers moved from Brooklyn. But it raises, of course, deep issues. It is telling that some women in middle age reserve much of their fear for family matters. I can understand it, because as quickly as men may dismiss this, they are not immune to terror. I do wonder about the sweep of Francine's statement, and how you, reading this, feel about it. Let me know, if you like.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 7:27 AM
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