completely devastated frame of mind and took this as (a) a pathetic if not wicked denial of the happy-families inferno that had baked Caroline’s soul to a crisp, and (b) a strong implication that I and my scurvy like were that very virus. So I told them a few things about schizophrenogenic mothers and double-binding bullshit of the kind involved in asserting simultaneously that Caro had always been an exemplary child until she met me and that she had always been a difficult loon.
Tears were shed, and Mr. Muir took his wife away to their Volvo and I got a tram home to Brunswick, where I ate a chop and several sausages which my mother placed before me without a word, and I seethed and bit my tongue and rushed back and forth to my shelf of books, pulling down Penguins by phenomenological existentialists and viciously underlined telling fragments, and finally I went to my room while my parents settled in to view Homicide , and there wrote one of the most astonishingly patronizing letters the world has ever seen.
Well, the world (until today) has not actually been privileged to witness this object.
When it was done I jammed the pages into an envelope and addressed it to the Muirs and collapsed into bed in a state combining savage catharsis and aggravated guilt, which according to all the best theories should be impossible. In the morning I re-read this denunciatory document over my Weeties and realized that if I ever wanted to see Caroline again I could not conceivably post it. So I didn’t.
Why publish it now as an “open letter”?
Obviously it can’t do any harm. The Muirs will never see it. Caroline will never see it. And there’s some small chance, I suppose, that one or two of you who have found yourselves on the edge of this kind of ghastly catastrophe might get a hint of truth or sympathy or comfort in what I tried to tell Caroline’s parents exactly five years ago but finally lacked either the courage or the ruthlessness (I still can’t evaluate it) to do so.
15 Marks St.
Brunswick 3056
Thurs 19 September, 1968
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Muir,
This is not an easy letter to write, and probably will not be easy to read. Eleven o’clock at night. I have been staring at my typewriter for hours now, wondering how I can possibly express to you what I need to express. I hope you will sense that it is being written in a spirit of sincerity, concern, and, in the deepest sense (to the best of my understanding of this difficult word), love.
If what I have to say contains pain, anguish and even bitterness, I hope you will find them directed not at you but at the world’s cruelty.
I must start by facing up to one ugly fact. I know you find certain distasteful characteristics in me (as a visitor in your home, as a companion for Caroline, as a human being, for that matter). Because you are civilized people, your disapproval only becomes evident in moments of utmost crisis—like the awful disagreement we had outside the hospital this afternoon.
I want to tell you both how sorry I am that my comments and attitude upset you so badly. But finally I think it was unavoidable.
I do not disagree with your assessment of my deficiencies. I know I am often cold, arrogant, and hostile, an unfinished and perhaps unfinishable person. Yes, and I can see the risks when Caroline is, as she has become, in large degree dependant upon such a person. What is worse, it is undeniable that there exist impulses in my flawed character which attempt to consolidate that dependency.
Regrettably, now that we are here, there is no simple way out of this impasse. I can only state my hope that (to the degree in which I am inextricably involved) certain other impulses might help compensate. I mean, for example, my demand for uncompromising honesty (which is brought to bear just as hard on me as on you and other people; despite appearances, I certainly don’t consider myself a unique moral superman). I mean, too, a hypertrophied sense of
Tears were shed, and Mr. Muir took his wife away to their Volvo and I got a tram home to Brunswick, where I ate a chop and several sausages which my mother placed before me without a word, and I seethed and bit my tongue and rushed back and forth to my shelf of books, pulling down Penguins by phenomenological existentialists and viciously underlined telling fragments, and finally I went to my room while my parents settled in to view Homicide , and there wrote one of the most astonishingly patronizing letters the world has ever seen.
Well, the world (until today) has not actually been privileged to witness this object.
When it was done I jammed the pages into an envelope and addressed it to the Muirs and collapsed into bed in a state combining savage catharsis and aggravated guilt, which according to all the best theories should be impossible. In the morning I re-read this denunciatory document over my Weeties and realized that if I ever wanted to see Caroline again I could not conceivably post it. So I didn’t.
Why publish it now as an “open letter”?
Obviously it can’t do any harm. The Muirs will never see it. Caroline will never see it. And there’s some small chance, I suppose, that one or two of you who have found yourselves on the edge of this kind of ghastly catastrophe might get a hint of truth or sympathy or comfort in what I tried to tell Caroline’s parents exactly five years ago but finally lacked either the courage or the ruthlessness (I still can’t evaluate it) to do so.
15 Marks St.
Brunswick 3056
Thurs 19 September, 1968
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Muir,
This is not an easy letter to write, and probably will not be easy to read. Eleven o’clock at night. I have been staring at my typewriter for hours now, wondering how I can possibly express to you what I need to express. I hope you will sense that it is being written in a spirit of sincerity, concern, and, in the deepest sense (to the best of my understanding of this difficult word), love.
If what I have to say contains pain, anguish and even bitterness, I hope you will find them directed not at you but at the world’s cruelty.
I must start by facing up to one ugly fact. I know you find certain distasteful characteristics in me (as a visitor in your home, as a companion for Caroline, as a human being, for that matter). Because you are civilized people, your disapproval only becomes evident in moments of utmost crisis—like the awful disagreement we had outside the hospital this afternoon.
I want to tell you both how sorry I am that my comments and attitude upset you so badly. But finally I think it was unavoidable.
I do not disagree with your assessment of my deficiencies. I know I am often cold, arrogant, and hostile, an unfinished and perhaps unfinishable person. Yes, and I can see the risks when Caroline is, as she has become, in large degree dependant upon such a person. What is worse, it is undeniable that there exist impulses in my flawed character which attempt to consolidate that dependency.
Regrettably, now that we are here, there is no simple way out of this impasse. I can only state my hope that (to the degree in which I am inextricably involved) certain other impulses might help compensate. I mean, for example, my demand for uncompromising honesty (which is brought to bear just as hard on me as on you and other people; despite appearances, I certainly don’t consider myself a unique moral superman). I mean, too, a hypertrophied sense of
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