There are two types of people in this world: Those that think there are two types of people in this world and those who don’t. I count myself among the latter, and offer Robert Crumb as proof. Crumb is among the most paradoxical figures of our time. A gifted artist who claims venomous disdain for popular culture and yet chose comic books as his medium. A fanatic connoisseur of anachronistic ragtime music who became inextricably associated with the psychedelic sounds of the ’60s. A leading chronicler of one of the progressive political periods in American history whose work reeks of virulent sexism and racism. This new collection of his correspondence, Your Vigor for Life Appalls Me: Robert Crumb Letters 19581977, offers revealing insight into one of the most intriguing artists of our time.
Your Vigor for Life Appalls Me
edited by Ilse Thompson (Fantagraphics Books, $14.95)
The bulk of the book consists of Crumb’s adolescent correspondence with fellow comics enthusiasts Mike Britt and Marty Pahls. Tucked among tedious critiques of comics and laborious lists of recent acquisitions are fascinating confessions of a tortured teenager cloistered in a cramped Delaware home with a psychotically dysfunctional family. Crumb sought relief from his self-imposed social exile through withdrawal into a solitary world of comics, music, and books. His halting attempts at acceptance among his peers were met with rejection, even by his fellow comic-book nerds. In one letter to Pahls, Crumb recalls with gut-wrenching clarity his adolescent suffering: “Boy, you REALLY thought I was STOOPID. You snubbed me all that summer, and I tried to be friendly. It hurt my feelings because you ignored me and I was miserable because I was being rejected by everyone. YOU especially. I went around in misery because I couldn’t be a part of everything. I tried to get in the big social swim and I guess I just didn’t do things right, and to put on a big act, it just doesn’t come out right, that’s what happened in the eighth grade. And now, when I look back on it . . . I wonder . . . I wonder so MUCH . . . why did I even try? I finally realize it’s useless for me to try to get popular in school . . . I’d rather sit and read a good book.”
Crumb’s attitude toward women, a recurring subject of his later comics, was shaped at this early stage of his arrested development. His awkward advances were repeatedly rejected, and Crumb clearly viewed females as both intellectual inferiors and distant objects of desire. “As for girls,” he writes at the age of 18, ” . . . better, simpler, purer to love at a distance. I am appalled by the feminine essence, you see, and this can be appreciated more by observing than by knowing intimately the girl and all her corruptions.” A year later Crumb confesses, “I look forward to the time when my sense of well-being will no longer depend on having a closet stuffed with records and a big trunk full of comics. I have come to realize that one of the main reasons why I’ve always been collecting things like mad is because I feel lost and I need something to cling to, something to live for and devote myself to, to take the place of a social life. I think I would give up all my material possessions without hesitation for the love of a woman.”
Crumb’s sense of isolation continued despite attempts to connect with the outside world, leading to deepening depression. “I wish with all my heart I could get along, because I need attention and companionship as much as the next guy. God knows I’ve tried to get along with people, tried to get girlfriends, tried to be a nice likable guy. No matter how hard I try, I just can’t do it. I’ve heard all that ‘be yourself’ stuff. When I’m myself, people think I’m nuts.” As his home life deteriorates, Crumb becomes increasingly desperate. “The family situation has gotten pretty bad around here,” he writes. “I have often been tempted to end my life, but I can’t find any means which are quick and painless enough. I’d get out of this miserable, sterile place, but the rest of the world is just as bad.”
Crumb’s letters reveal a sophisticated intellect hidden amid the obsessive self-pity that permeates Your Vigor for Life Appalls Me. He launches into discussions of art, politics, and religion with remarkable clarity for a young man filled with such confusion. Much like Terry Zwigoff’s compelling documentary, Crumb, this correspondence offers a voyeuristic glimpse into the life and motivation of one of the most complex and contradictory characters in American art. “I feel my work is but a feeble expression of something that in itself is vague and doubtful,” writes Crumb. “Subconsciously I want to make myself immortal among men, leave my mark on the earth to compensate for social inadequacy . . . so I draw.”
Larry Reid is a freelance writer and visual art curator in Seattle.
