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PENTIMENTO

posted 11 years ago by scottsteaux63-735-780576
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The controversy surrounding the "Julia" chapter of PENTIMENTO (which incidentally was adapted into one of my very favorite films) will likely never be resolved for good and all; the persons involved are all dead and frankly I have never been able to come up with a halfway decent motive for a writer as brilliant as Hellman to invent a story when her own life was so turbulent in and of itself. Surely she had more than enough material available to her from her own true-life story to have no need to make something up. Also I am convinced that had the "Julia" chapter been an invention, Hellman's own role in the story would have not only been more prominent but she would not have admitted to being such a rotten choice for anyone to smuggle anything anywhere; most of the time she does not know what she's doing and it is only through a network of allies and sheer luck that the smuggling operation was successful at all.
Be that as it may, PENTIMENTO is one of the best memoirs I have ever read. Unlike so many autobiographical works, often written with the assistance of a ghostwriter to smooth out the rough edges, PENTIMENTO is fragmented, the construction is loose, and Hellman frequently admits to both gaps in her memory or the possibility that her memory is clouded with the passage of time.
Wikipedia refers to this book as a "fictional memoir." To dub the entire book fiction simply because one chapter has been the subject of (unresolved) dispute seems not only an overreaction but unfair; reading this "book of portraits" (Hellman's own description), the writer's voice is clear even when her memory is not, and there is more than enough easily corroborated information here (the antics of Tallulah Bankhead during the production of THE LITTLE FOXES in particular were widely known and part of the reason that Bankhead was never quite trusted in Hollywood despite her great talent) to repeatedly raise the question "why?" Why make things up when she did not need to? And why is it that the only chapter that has been dragged through the mud amid cries of "Fraud!" the one chapter that actually ended up being made into a movie?
PENTIMENTO is a great read written by a tremendously gifted writer. I see no reason to doubt what she wrote, but even if you approach it as fiction, it's still great. It's haunting, it draws the reader into Hellman's world, and it is quite unforgettable both as a portrait of Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett and the author's view of the world in which she lived and worked.
I also should mention that Hellman does not spare herself here; when she made a fool of herself, she says so, and even in the Julia episode she does not even attempt to portray herself as anything like a hero.

Never mess with a middle-aged, Bipolar queen with AIDS and an attitude problem!
roflol ><

[–] mmcvey1 11 years ago

Thanks for that, and I'm going to search out "Pentimento" now.

[–] Simplythebest11962 9 years ago

Why did she call her book, Pentimento?

In all honesty, it reminds me of pimiento as in pimiento beans! LOL

"It's a good thing!"--Martha Stewart



[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]

[–] xdayton 9 years ago

Well, obviously her instincts were right in stealing the story -- despite all her other real-life adventures, the Julia story is the only one that the general audience took an interest in. It was, far and away, the best story she ever told (even if she told it with an ineptness that is heard to understand, in retrospect. Aside from the big lies -- like stealing Gardner's life -- she trips up in extraordinarily trivial ways, like when she had Julia joke that she had inspired the poem "Upon Julia's Clothes," this after Hellman had already said she had changed the character's name).

[–] scottsteaux63-735-780576 9 years ago

like when she had Julia joke that she had inspired the poem "Upon Julia's Clothes," this after Hellman had already said she had changed the character's name).

You just called attention to a major error in the film that I never caught before. In the film Julia recites from Robert Herrick's "Upon Julia's Clothes;" in Hellman's book the poem in question was "Elegy Xiv: Julia" by John Donne.

As for the possible name change, the beginning of the chapter reads "I have here since changed most of the names," leaving the question vague.

Never mess with a middle-aged, Bipolar queen with AIDS and an attitude problem!
roflol (><)

[–] Beaubelle 7 years ago

A pentimento happens when you try too strenuously to clean a painting, only to find your picture was painted over another picture which now almost comes through. The merging of the pictures is compared to the way time alters our perceptions of what happened, coming through as memory. This is so clumsy--you need to read Hellman's intro to the book to appreciate the poetic beauty of this thought.

[–] Simplythebest11962 9 years ago

scott,

I think you've raised important & valid questions.

People's reasons for lying are infinite.

Maybe she thought it would make for a great story & that no one would question the veracity of her account?

I mean look @ Shia L. look what he did?! He plagiarized some author's work. Had he NOT been caught, then he probably would've gone on and NEVER confessed to plagiarizing that guy's work.

The ONLY valid thought that comes to my mind as to why she stole Muriel Gardiner's real life events is because it made for an interesting story & she apparently wanted credit for it!

Also maybe she was afraid she couldn't think up her OWN story to write due to severe writer's block as echoed in the movie, and so rather than just keep thinking and pounding those keys on her typewriter into submission, then she just figured she'd borrow someone else's inspirational life for her book & claim it as her own.

Those are the ONLY 2 possibilities I can think of for her doing what she was accused of doing.

Brilliant people often are troubled people.

It's honestly impossible to know w/100% certainty Hellman's motives for doing what she's accused of doing since she's NOT here on Earth with us to explain herself.

But, I think my 2 explanations are certainly plausible scenarios. 

I could be wrong, though! 

"It's a good thing!"--Martha Stewart



[–] Harold_Robbins 9 years ago

I still enjoy re-reading Hellman, but of course do so with a grain of salt. It's interesting how many times in her memoirs she prefaces something with "I don't remember" or "I no longer remember," as though such disclaimers would absolve her lack of accuracy were it to be questioned.

In my case, self-absorption is completely justified.

[–] cookiela2001 9 years ago

The controversy surrounding the "Julia" chapter of PENTIMENTO...will likely never be resolved for good and all;

It is resolved. Only uniformed people who haven't studied Hellman's life and that or Muriel Gardiner still believe the story is true.

...had the "Julia" chapter been an invention, Hellman's own role in the story would have not only been more prominent but she would not have admitted to being such a rotten choice for anyone to smuggle anything anywhere;

What do you mean "more prominant"? The character of Lily is in every scene. And if the character were not drawn as a novice, with nothing going wrong, the piece would lack dramatic tension.

.

[–] fanaticita 7 years ago

Pentimento in the case of this film means (I believe) that there was something beneath the layers of the main characters especially Julia. . . an aspect of her personality that was somewhat hidden.