Collected Couteau. Essays and Interviews (Third, Revised Edition)

ABOUT ROB COUTEAU:

Positive reviews of Rob Couteau's books have

appeared in the Midwest Book Review, Publishers

Weekly Select, and Barney Rosset's Evergreen

Review. In 1985 he won the North American Essay

Award, a competition sponsored by the American

Humanist Association. His work as a critic,

interviewer, and social commentator has been

featured in books such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez's

'Love in the Time of Cholera' by Thomas Fahy,

Conversations with Ray Bradbury edited by Steven

Aggelis, Ghetto Images in Twentieth-Century

American Literature by Tyrone R. Simpson, and

David Cohen's Forgotten Millions, a book about the

homeless mentally ill. Over one-hundred selections

of his poetry and prose have appeared in over forty-

five periodicals. Couteau's interviews include

conversations with Ray Bradbury, Pulitzer Prize-

winning author Justin Kaplan, Last Exit to Brooklyn

novelist Hubert Selby, Simon & Schuster editor

Michael Korda, LSD discoverer Dr. Albert

Hofmann, Picasso's model and muse Sylvette

David, Nabokov biographer Robert Roper, music

producer Danny Goldberg, poet and publisher Ed

Foster, and historian Philip Willan, author of

Puppetmasters: The Political Use of Terrorism in

Italy.

Critical acclaim for Collected Couteau:

"Intellectual freshness, richness, and potency ...

Couteau is an impressively creative writer, whom

Barney Rosset urged me to review."

- Jim Feast, assistant editor of the Evergreen

Review, from his essay on Collected Couteau and

Doctor Pluss.

ROB COUTEAU

Collected

Couteau

Third, Revised Edition

DOMINANTSTAR

Dominantstar, New York.

Copyright (c) 2006, 2020 by Rob Couteau. All

Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be

reproduced or utilized in any form without written

permission from the author.

The writing in this book is a work of fiction. Names,

characters, places, and incidents either are products

of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or

persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Third, revised edition. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 01

Excerpts from this collection have previously

appeared in a slightly altered form in the following

publications: Arete; Journal of Contemporary

Psychotherapy; Lift; Nice; Paris Voice; Quantum;

Rain Taxi Review of Books; and West Hills Review:

A Walt Whitman Journal.

This edition is dedicated to Yongzhen Zhang.

Cover: Photo of Rob Couteau in Paris, circa 1989.

Dominantstar LLC: dominantstarpublications.com

Author's web site: robcouteau.com

Paperback  ISBN 978-0-9966888-3-3

E-book        ISBN 978-0-9966888-9-5

FOR YONGZHEN ZHANG

Essay:

A Sort of Visitor in Life: An Essay on Walt Whitman

Interviews:

Defining the Sacred: Hubert Selby on Spirituality, the Creative Will, and Love

The Romance of Places. An Interview with Ray Bradbury

Writing the Outsider’s Story. An Interview with Chris- topher Sawyer-Lauçanno

Book Reviews:

Carl Jung: Wounded Healer of the Soul, by Claire Dunne; Jung, My Mother and I. The Analytic Diaries of Catherine Rush Cabot, by Jane Cabot Reid

The Continual Pilgrimage: American Writers in Paris, 1944-1960, by Christopher Sawyer-Lauçanno

Tea in the Harem, by Mehdi Charef, trans. Ed Emery; From Rockaway, by Jill Eisenstadt; Toni, by Fiorella De Luca Calce

Guilty of Everything: The Autobiography of Herbert Huncke

The Demon and The Room, by Hubert Selby

Rediscoveries II, ed. David Madden and Peggy Bach

The Far Side of Madness, by John Weir Perry

Eros and Pathos, by Aldo Carotenuto

The Homeless Mentally Ill. A Task Force Report of the American Psychiatric Association, ed. H. Richard Lamb, MD

Schizophrenia: Treatment, Process and Outcome, by Thomas H. McGlashan, MD and Christopher J. Keats, MD

Alchemy in a Modern Woman: A Study in the Contrasexual Archetype, by Robert Grinnell

Full Measure: Modern Short Stories on Aging, ed. Dorothy Sennett

The Betrayal of the Self. Fear of Autonomy in Men and Women, by Arno Gruen, trans. Hunter and Hildegarde Hannum

Libra, by Don DeLillo

Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The Mustache, by Emmanuel Carrère

A Literate Passion: Letters of Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller, 1932-1953

Mental Health Care and Social Policy, ed. Phil Brown

The Ultimate Stranger: The Autistic Child, by Carl H. Delacato, MD

Reflections, by Henry Miller; ed. Twinka Thiebaud

Journalism:

Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Family’ Album Exhibited

Essay:

A Sort of Visitor in Life: An Essay on Walt Whitman

  "At all times, perhaps, the central point in any

nation ... is in its national literature, especially its

archetypal poems." - Walt Whitman, Democratic

Vistas, 1871.

  Reading Whitman always prompts the question:

How could he have been an American? For he

emerges as her most anomalous personification. Yet,

with the exception of Tom Paine, he alone embodies

all that is American in the ideal sense of the word.

Without these two figures, everything proclaimed in

the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution,

and the Bill of Rights remains an abstraction, a mere

potentiality.

  I invoke Paine at the inception of an essay on

Whitman not because of any direct influence of

Paine on the poet but because of the link in spirit

they share. That Whitman was more than

superficially aware of Paine's significance is

revealed in his speech, "In Memory of Thomas

Paine," delivered in Philadelphia 140 years after

Paine's birthday: "I dare not say how much of what

our Union is owning and enjoying today ... is owing

to Thomas Paine." The confessionalist Frank Harris

attended the event in the role of a reporter. In My

Life and Loves, he writes: "Nothing could be more

depressing than the aspect of the hall that night: ill-

lit and half-heated, with perhaps thirty people

scattered about in a space that would have

accommodated a thousand. Such was the reception

America afforded to one of its

greatest spirits." Like Paine, Whitman called

American society to task. He demanded it awake

and assume a posture that could truly be hailed as

heroic.

  While Paine was instrumental in the formation of

the Republic, Whitman came of age after the last of

the Founding Fathers had passed away. What

remained of an idyllic, pastoral America was now

rapidly fading into the shadow of a dreary machine

age. (How fittingly modern that a revolution of

machines-the Industrial Revolution-had usurped

the infinitely more human Revolution that Paine had

been instrumental in catalyzing!) Paine was the first

to coin the term The United States of America,

was one of the first to write against slavery, and had

a central role in formulating the ideas behind the

Declaration. ("That he inspired the Declaration of

Independence and is the godfather of the free

American nation is either unknown or disregarded,"

writes Paine's sympathetic biographer, W. E.

Woodward.) That he was an ordinary commoner

rather than an aristocrat or a man of wealth had

much to do with why the document doesn't bear his

signature, as it had much to do with why he was

ostracized by upper-class democrats throughout

his life. Nevertheless, in his Age of Reason and

Rights of Man, he continued to explore his vision of

the elementary rights of man, which he first

articulated in his influential Common Sense

publications.

  In a strikingly similar fashion, Whitman took it

upon himself to redefine and amplify what he felt to

be at the core of the American soul. To do so, he

grabs the torch directly from the hands of Paine. He

stretches towards him unencumbered-without an

obstacle-as the cultural void greatest spirits." Like

Paine, Whitman called American society to task. He

demanded it awake and assume a posture that could

truly be hailed as heroic.

  While Paine was instrumental in the formation of

the Republic, Whitman came of age after the last of

the Founding Fathers had passed away. What

remained of an idyllic, pastoral America was now

rapidly fading into the shadow of a dreary machine

age. (How fittingly modern that a revolution of

machines-the Industrial Revolution-had usurped

the infinitely more human Revolution that Paine had

been instrumental in catalyzing!) Paine was the first

to coin the term The United States of America,

was one of the first to write against slavery, and had

a central role in formulating the ideas behind the

Declaration. ("That he inspired the Declaration of

Independence and is the godfather of the free

American nation is either unknown or disregarded,"

writes Paine's sympathetic biographer, W. E.

Woodward.) That he was an ordinary commoner

rather than an aristocrat or a man of wealth had

much to do with why the document doesn't bear his

signature, as it had much to do with why he was

ostracized by upper-class democrats throughout

his life. Nevertheless, in his Age of Reason and

Rights of Man, he continued to explore his vision of

the elementary rights of man, which he first

articulated in his influential Common Sense

publications.

  In a strikingly similar fashion, Whitman took it

upon himself to redefine and amplify what he felt to

be at the core of the American soul. To do so, he

grabs the torch directly from the hands of Paine. He

stretches towards him unencumbered-without an

obstacle-as the cultural void within which these two

are left to wander is of staggering immensity.

  Indeed, the genesis of a Whitman or a Paine is

nearly inexplicable: enshrouded in mystery. With

Paine we can at least point to a European birth and

upbringing. But in the case of Whitman, there

remains not a single clue-neither in his biography

nor in the history of his country-that serves to

anticipate the birth of Leaves of Grass or the man

who engendered it. (One biographer considers it

reminiscent of the biographical gap in the New

Testament chronicle of Christ.) Yet the search for

such causes is always futile. In Whitman's own

words, "To elaborate is to no avail, learned and

unlearned feel that it is so." If anything, such gaps

reflect something symbolic. They point to all that

recedes before such an analytical beacon. In the

words of his devout disciple, Dr. Bucke, we must

content ourselves with an intuitive term-

enlightenment-and leave it at that.

  "I shall use the words America and democracy as

convertible terms," writes Whitman. He envisions

democracy as the mundane counterpart of its

metaphysical equivalent: the spiritually equalizing

factor of the soul that, with its manifold potential,

renders each a divine equal. "For after the rest is

said, he writes, it remains to bring forward and

modify everything else with the idea of that

Something a man is (last precious consolation of the

drudging poor), standing apart from all else, divine

in his own right, and a woman in hers, sole and

untouchable by any canons of authority." Of the

same notion, he chants, in poetic form:

  "Is it you that thought the President greater than

you?

  Or the rich better off than you? or the educated

wiser than you?

  Because you are greasy or pimpled or were once

drunk, or a thief,

  Or that you are diseas'd, or rheumatic, or a

prostitute,

  Or from frivolity or impotence, or that you are no

scholar and never saw your name in print,

  Do you give in that you are any less immortal?"

  Opposed to this special notion of democracy,

Whitman posited individuality. He defines this as an

American ideal that opposes the psychology of the

aggregate: "The two are contradictory, but our task

is to reconcile them." And he imagines a means of

unifying such seeming opposites: "I say the mission

of government, henceforth, in civilized lands, is ...

to train communities through all their grades,

beginning with individuals and ending there again,

to rule themselves."

  Reflecting his idea of democracy and

individuality as opposites out of which a third

element might emerge, he himself exemplifies such a

synthesis. Thus, a century before Max Imboden

envisioned "the State [as] a reflection of psychic

reality, and Democracy [as] ... the State form of

citizens when all or the majority among them have

reached a sufficient degree of individuation, so that

they are clearly aware of their mutual relationship,

and become able to create an authentic community,"

we have Whitman: an amalgam born of such

seemingly antagonistic elements.

  It's in this context that I view Whitman as an

atypical American yet our most American American:

atypical because so highly individuated; ideally

American because this individuation, which cast

Whitman in stark contrast to the society of his time,

was the sine qua non of the democratic

consciousness as defined by Whitman and, years

later, by Imboden. Therefore, from Whitman's "I

shall use the words America and democracy as

convertible terms," we may conclude that, for him,

the ideal American consciousness is synonymous

with democratic consciousness, which is

synonymous with individuated consciousness.

  Thus, in Whitman's incarnation an essential aspect

of the American ideal is realized. Contemplating

this, we are jolted by unfamiliar, nearly

incomprehensible imagery. We observe him

lingering with a hulking yet tranquil poise; with a

piercing, sagelike gaze; with an aura detached yet

erotic. In him is embodied a vast array of opposites.

Most glaring is the polarity that energizes the Leaves

from its core: the incarnation of the godhead in

man. It finds expression in a Whitman photo that

Dr. Bucke refers to as the Christ-likeness. To be

human and divine! It's not a typical American

aspiration, nor is it an integral aspect of the so-called

American Dream:

  "Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy

whatever I touch or am touch'd from,

  The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than

prayer, This head more than churches, bibles, and all

the creeds."

  Whitman points to what lies in veiled, cryptic

form at the root of all Americanisms (or any ism, for

that matter): the divine urge towards individuation;

the kernel that lies at the source of the thought

Become what thou art, as proclaimed by the

Greek poet Pindar.

  Yet, when the divine instinct remains

unrecognized, it is forced to resurface in cruder,

collective, less conscious guises. Then the spiritual

urge is turned upside down, the State becomes God,

and the soul is lured by fanaticism, greed, lust, and

power. Whether in its stultified, destructive

manifestation or in its humanistic creative aspect,

however, we discover-hidden beneath and beyond

everything-the divine passion play of the spirit:

draped in the language of symbol and revealing the

patterns of the eternal.

  It is at this precipice of consciousness that

Whitman arrives. He gazes down at the unraveling

carpet of the nineteenth century. His vision recedes

to the primal eons and then refocuses at the

threshold of the future. He's become so American

that he passes beyond the meridian of the American

ideal and begins traveling in retrograde. In his

molting, he disregards not only everything

American but anything even vaguely cultural. From

this point onward, he uses the American idiom

simply as a means of remaining intelligible.

Sometimes he uses it symbolically; sometimes

metaphorically. He uses it interchangeably, to mean

far more or far less than his countrymen will ever

suppose. All the while, his hand remains gripped to

the mystic-poetic root. His being sprouts from it,

like a massive appendage through which emerge the

most arcane, esoteric revelations.

  Out of this silent molting is dropped the Leaves.

Reading it, many are struck by what might be

termed a sanctified immorality. Whitman was a

dignified sinner. Yet, to read his biography is to

witness an extermination of the sin-concept by a

fireball of self-confidence. Actually, it's Self

confidence: an experience of a transpersonal Self

that propels him to his destiny. In the ordinary man

sin begets guilt, which, if properly integrated, will

elevate the seeker to a new level of awareness. In

Whitman, however, the sin concept is annihilated-

he's several centuries beyond it. Guilt, too, is

antiquated. In their stead is a gnostic intuition born

of this Self awareness.

  We have only to contemplate a song such as "A

Woman Waits for Me"-that erotic testament of

man's relationship to cosmos-to observe exactly

where he has arrived. What other nineteenth-century

American poet would compose a song to his Puritan

brethren wherein the sexual encounter is revealed to

be the highest act of patriotism? And a sacred

patriotism, through which the soul of a people is

distilled and revealed!

  This,