18 / CHRONICLESnTYRANNY BY SLOTH by George GarrettnWhen I say that I thank you for asking me here tonspeak to you, that I thank you I am here, I have tonconfess that I am flying in the face of the latest status ritualnpracticed by many of my colleagues in the scribblingnprofessions. The latest thing, as you may already havenlearned (I am a slow learner and also somewhat out ofntouch), is to prove your high place in the hierarchy ofncontemporary American writers by not showing up fornscheduled and promised appearances and events. Thengreater luminaries simply don’t arrive. At the next aspiringnlevel, the basic idea is to cancel out, offering no good reasonnor proposing an obviously implausible one, about 24 hoursnprior to the event. And now that the word is out, there arenmany places, particularly in the status-conscious groves ofnAcademe, where their disappointment and shame andncontempt are clearly visible, as if etched, if and when younactually arrive at the right place at more or less the rightntime. It means they have been snookered one more timeninto wasting some of their limited resources on an obviousnsecond-rater.nOf course, in the literary world other coincidental funnynthings have been happening lately — interesting mix-ups,nfor example. My Chadottesville neighbor Ann Beattienswears to me that she was recently flown out to a school innOhio for a visit and a reading (and good money) andnrealized, after she got there, and no joke, that everybodynthought she was Ann Tyler. The name on the posters andnthe programs was Ann Tyler. The name on the checknproved to be Ann Tyler. She was introduced as Ann Tyler.nAnn Beattie grinned and went through with it, although fornsome reason she chickened out and read from her own worknand not Ms. Tyler’s.nIn another recent incident — every chairman and toastmaster’snrecurring nightmare — novelist Nicholas Delbanco,nprofessor at Michigan and one of the most elegant andneloquent of introducers, was asked, on about 10 minutes’nnotice, to fill in for a colleague (who had been takennGeorge Garrett is Henry Hoyns Professor of CreativenWriting at the University of Virginia. The text of thisnessay was delivered as an address at Chronicles’ J 0thnanniversary banquet on December 2, 1987.nnnsuddenly ill) by introducing Margaret Atwood to an expectantnaudience. Or so he understood his assignment. Quicklynhe prepared a few notes. Then he ran across campus tonRackham Hall, rushed on stage and up to the podiumnwhere he offered up a fulsome, deep-voiced, and impeccablynsuave introduction of the life and works of Ms. Atwood.nTurned then, smiling, to greet her as she came to thenpodium. Only to discover, to his almost unspeakable dismay,nthat he was looking directly into the familiar andnglowering face of Margaret Drabble. . . .nAnyway, for better and for worse, here I am. I am not,nhowever, completely alone. I have brought along with menmy invisible and fictional companion, a character namednJohn Towne, out of a novel of mine called Poison Pen. Notnbecause I want to inflict him upon you. Not at all. Butnmainly because I can’t trust him, left alone and behind innthe pages of his home. Better I should keep an eye on him.nFor those of you — the overwhelming majority nondoubt—who don’t know him and never heard of him, letnme just quote a few (honest to God) journalistic descriptionsnof the fellow:nPublisher’s Weekly: “a vulgar scapegrace”nNew York Times Book Review: “a low life crank”nNational Review: “a coke-befuddled redneck”nThe Washington Times: “a man of unsavoryncharacter”nCharlottesville Daily Progress: “a character ofnexquisite vulgarity”nVillage Voice: “… an academic charlatan of thenlowest order”nBook World: “a full-time con artist, misanthropenand lecher”nChicago Tribune: “a lecherous, misanthropic, failednacademic”nVillage Voice: “an exceptionally sleazy picaro”nThey didn’t even like him much down home in mynnative Southland. Here’s the Greensboro News: “a loathsome,nracist, crude and gruesome creep.”nWell, you get the idea. An interesting consensus ofnreactions.nOne thing about Towne, he’s got a lot of advice to offer.nFor instance, true to character and form, he wanted me tonbuild this little talk around something that interested him,nnamely the truth and consequences of a headline and storynin the Charlottesville Daily Progress (Oct. 25, 1987):n”Aging Sexpot Van Doren Tells All.” Towne finds itnespecially exemplary of the inward and spiritual truth of ourntimes. He is particularly fond of the following paragraph,nwhich he takes to be a better than average example of thenfine-tuned complexity and subtlety of contemporary morality:n”Was the casting couch a Hollywood fixture in thosendays?”n” ‘Yes. I found myself on it—but I only did it because Inwanted to,’ she said. ‘I never went to bed with anyone Indidn’t want to. I had opportunities, but I didn’t do it. Had Indone so, I might have had better parts.'”n