GENUINE CELEBRITY [RRL]

Mobile’s resident scribe a writer worth celebrating.

Seven years ago, in Buenos Aires, Franklin Daugherty, a bright novelist from Mobile, gave me the first book by Flannery O’ Connor I had ever read in my life, “A Good Man Is Hard To Find.” Before the overwhelming mystery represented by O’Connor’s writings, it would be superfluous to explain why I became one of her unconditional admirers. Moreover, my introduction to the Southern culture of the United States did not stop there. I also had to be introduced to two other essential aspects of it – Mardi Gras on the Gulf Coast and Eugene Walter, whose personality made me experience the sort of joy which is the foundation of O’ Connor’s essays in Mystery and Manners.

Along with Daugherty as an American Virgil, I visited the dragon in his cave. A man in his 70s, Eugene Walter keeps creating. Up to the present, he has written two novels, many books of poems, short stories and cookbooks. Disregarding the snob appeal of meeting an author, one might ask what made the encounter with this writer such a special occasion. Walter is not only one of the celebrities of Mobile; he is also a type of human being hard to find these days. It is usually assumed that what makes anyone a celebrity is intelligence, beauty, money or connections. On the contrary, a genuine celebrity (a person to be celebrated), is a person committed to the idea of never being a sham character. There are more things between heaven and earth when it comes to life decisions. Whatever the reasons might be, Walter seems to have made a crucial decision in his long life: Surprisingly, his personality features the cheerful and piercing manners that have always made the Italian way so unique.

Walter is a Southerner and something more. He belongs to that group of people who once, as for instance Thomas Jefferson did, supported the idea of having two homelands in order to be a human being. Birth in the United States, love for Italy nurtured by 25 years spent in that peninsula, an extensive readings have made Walter a citizen of the world. He was not just touring Italy from place to place; he was getting immersed in it. In fact, Walter is still one of the smartest eyewitnesses of the Italian movie industry. For many years, he translated Italian screenplays into English. Thus, he met the most famous Italian filmmakers. Indeed, anyone can see Walter playing an American reporter in Fellini’s “81/2” or a mother superior in “Giulietta degli Spiriti.”

Eugene Walter is a purebred character. It is interesting to witness how he combines spontaneity and good manners. Brought up with turn-of-the.century standards, educated among the vanguard, jazz tunes and the last vestiges of the romantic age, he is still a man standing for that sort of chivalry rooted in the almost antiquated esprit de finesse. It is always an undeserved pleasure to deal with a person who is not just a kind of trained animal. Shamefully, these days education never means killing the bitterness of life with cordiality springing from wisdom. The freedom with which Walter expresses himself and the way his thoughts sparkle are a gift. Not everybody understands that free speech cannot be just an excuse to express anger and frustration. Perhaps for the standard American mentality, Walter is a Little outspoken. I would rather call him spontaneous.

An observation made by Socrates helps elucidate what made this encounter so rare. The heart of a particular soul lies in a certain form behind its own conversation. Indeed, the inner form of Eugene Walter’s talk would seem to present a difficult task for a mind whose imagery is limited merely to the stolid reverberation of adjectives like “great” and “nice.” Sharp, cynical and at the same time trusting, warmhearted, rich in colorful memories, Walter’s conversation follows a rhythmical pattern. A little shy and formal at the beginning, he turns into a marvelous entertainer. Ideas sparkle with his enthusiasm, and a lively facial expression, defined by the too – small eyes behind thick glasses, accompanies the action of his thinking.

Moreover, setting and conversation matched perfectly; the right stage for the right spiral of nuances. Surrounded by his cats and books, his drawings and crafts, Eugene Walter instantly demonstrated his cordiality a la Italiana. I tried to express myself in English. Impossible. My presence, the things he had heard on my Italian background, provided him an opportunity to remember the old days in Italy. He made me feel comfortable immediately. He brought us something to drink. In the meantime, I took a look around his living room, which was not a foreing ambience for me. I had already been in rooms like that before, rooms which belonged to people educated before the mass culture. It is amazing how similar such rooms are despite differences in culture: plenty of books, fool of memories in the form of crafts, pictures, paintings; silent, intimate rooms in which writers and scholars fight with ideas and their shadows. All of them share a common elan belonging to an age already gone.

We toasted and converse about the whole universe. Walter is an amusing conversationalist , with strong skills for icebreaking. Here there is a hint. After having talked about the Italian cuisine, he suddenly shot at me: “Do you know why I learned how to cook?” I said I had no idea. “Because I was tired of having terrible food. So I decided to cook myself.” He made me laugh. It was a perfect Italian answer: wit, humor and criticism in one shot. However, that was not all.For a few moments his conversation became spicy; it approached that limit where the meanings straddle the boundaries of conventionalism. He enjoys the effect of offending the bourgeoisie. It is possible that stubborn and fearful folk are unable to appreciate the friendly attitude at the bottom of his words. After Pirandello and Unamuno, it should be remembered that the true feature of intelligence is the capability of playing with masks.

In these post-moderm times, Walter knows there are more things behind a life devoted to the humanities. His memories about Mobile’s past carnivals and Italian actors, his description of Fellini’s psychology, his story about being a puppeteer for country folk in a small town in Southern Italy, his remembrances of the most prestigious families of Mobile…all of them are base don a strong and silent certitude. Yet that certitude, I fancy, is still a secret for Walter himself.

Perhaps the truth is that beyond the social game he likes to play, there is a serious Eugene Walter. Probably, he is one of those human beings whose soul is still looking for a secret promised to him in the past. Like anyone brought up under the shadow of anarchism and the late stages of an epoch furnished with truly rooted conventionalism, as the romantic age was. Walter has the air of a survivor. Needless to say, every survivor has many things to communicate since each of them seems to respond to a sort of latent oath. Perhaps this is the secret that shines at the heart of his delicious conversation.

("Mobile Register" (Alabama), November 31st, 1997. Special to The Register Editor’s note: The following essay is part of a larger, yet unpublished work.)