Exploring the "psychology of creativity"

"Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints: Essays"

by Joan Acocella

Pantheon, 524 pp., $30

While culling essays for her new collection, "Twenty-Eight Artists and Two Saints," Joan Acocella discovered a loose theme: the hardships that come with creation and how various artists dealt with these obstacles — or did not. The humbler virtues of perseverance, she came to see, are as important, and as laudable, as talent.

As she writes in her introduction, "We should love these people not just for artistic reasons, but for moral reasons."

Over the next 500 pages, the New Yorker critic chronicles those whose struggles consumed them, and those who triumphed; though, of course, as with the works these artists made, the biographical picture is rarely so black and white. Facing such diverse foes as alcoholism, war, writer's block and domestic disarray, some managed only to hold their ground for a time. Some, like writer M.F.K. Fisher, weathered ups and downs. Others, like fabled ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, plummeted into the abyss with sickening speed.

Acocella is correct in identifying her theme, and she spins out its variations with verve, wit and lucidity; her eye for detail, and pacing, is superb. Along the way, as the quote above hints, she taps into a deeper, more personal current running through her criticism: her ardent and affectionate defense of artists' rights to their mundane human foibles.

In doing so, Acocella aims not just to applaud these artists but to protect them from the misinterpretations (and misappropriations) of others. Part of this involves honoring the clumsiness of their failures as much as the grace of their achievements. Writing about author Joseph Roth's awkward use of fate in his great novel, she muses, "I am almost glad the book has a fault. Roth extracted 'The Radetzky March' from his very innards. This rather desperate, corny fate business reminds us of that fact, and counterbalances the crushing beauty of the rest of the book."

No failure. No context for grace.

Often, these essays were written on the occasion of a new biography, in which, to Acocella's mind, the portrait seems oddly skewed to suit the biographer's pet theory or psychological bent; again and again, when faced with such intrusive, often insulting handling of history, Acocella insists on returning to the subjects their dignity, however tattered. What really matters, perhaps all that matters, is that their artistic lives be allowed to guide the story.

As she puts it, "What we need to know about Nijinsky is not what was on his mind but how he transformed this material into art. ... In other words, we need a psychology of creativity. And that is exactly what most psychobiographers do not concern themselves with." Everyone should be so lucky to have such an eloquent explainer in their corner. Instead of that, we're fortunate to have this collection.