Parker×Feynman

full transcript

1. 00:00
   Verashare moment

   Welcome back to Reborn Radio. Up next on LATE SHOW: Dorothy Parker and Richard Feynman, on On a piece of gossip about themselves they let stand because the truth was worse.
2. 00:10
   Dorothy Parkershare moment

   I understand we're here to confess to strategic silence. How perfectly vulgar. I suppose you've already worked out the probability that anyone listening will care.
3. 00:20
   Richard Feynmanshare moment

   Oh, I don't know about probability, but I'll tell you what's interesting—the whole idea that you'd let a wrong story sit there because the real one's worse! That's like knowing the right answer to a physics problem but writing down the wrong one because it looks better.
4. 00:32
   Dorothy Parkershare moment

   Except in physics, Mr. Feynman, the problem doesn't call you a drunk at parties.
5. 00:36
   Richard Feynmanshare moment

   Did they call you a drunk?
6. 00:38
   Dorothy Parkershare moment

   Oh, constantly. And I let them. The truth was I was usually cold sober, which meant I said those things on purpose.
7. 00:46
   Richard Feynmanshare moment

   Ha! That's wonderful! See, that's what I love—you let them think you had an excuse when actually you were just that sharp without any help.
8. 00:54
   Dorothy Parkershare moment

   It seemed kinder to let them believe gin made me cruel. The alternative was that I simply found them boring, which is the one thing no one forgives.
9. 01:02
   Richard Feynmanshare moment

   Okay, but why is that worse? I mean, being bored is honest. I'm bored all the time by people who can't think straight, and I just tell them!
10. 01:10
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    Yes, well, you're a physicist. You're allowed to be strange. I was a woman at the Algonquin. We were required to be devastating, not sincere.
11. 01:19
    Richard Feynmanshare moment

    All right, so what's my excuse? I'm supposed to be telling you about a lie I let people believe about me.
12. 01:24
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    I was beginning to wonder if you'd actually done anything disreputable. You seem like the sort who'd correct a mistake in your own eulogy.
13. 01:31
    Richard Feynmanshare moment

    Oh, I've done disreputable things! But the one I let stand... okay, so after Arline died—my first wife—people said I threw myself into work because I couldn't handle the grief. Noble suffering, you know?
14. 01:43
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    And you didn't?
15. 01:44
    Richard Feynmanshare moment

    Well, I did work. But the truth is I'd already checked out of that marriage emotionally by the time she was dying. I'd gotten interested in other women. I was visiting her in the hospital and thinking about physics problems and feeling guilty about not feeling enough.
16. 01:58
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    Good God. You're right, that is worse.
17. 02:00
    Richard Feynmanshare moment

    Yeah! So when people said, 'Oh, poor Richard, he dove into quantum electrodynamics to escape his pain,' I thought, well, that's a better story than the truth.
18. 02:09
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    Which is that you're simply the sort of person who thinks about physics while your wife is dying.
19. 02:14
    Richard Feynmanshare moment

    I mean, when you say it like that it sounds—
20. 02:16
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    Accurate?
21. 02:17
    Richard Feynmanshare moment

    I was going to say 'cold,' but sure. The thing is, my brain doesn't stop just because something terrible is happening. It's not that I didn't love her.
22. 02:25
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    Of course not. Love and attention are entirely separate faculties, which is why so many marriages end badly.
23. 02:32
    Richard Feynmanshare moment

    Did yours?
24. 02:33
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    All three of them, in their way. Though only two legally. The third was merely a prolonged error in judgment.
25. 02:40
    Richard Feynmanshare moment

    But you didn't let gossip stand about those, did you?
26. 02:43
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    Not about the marriages, no. I was quite clear about my failures there. But there was one story I permitted. After I attempted what we'll politely call an exit, people said it was because of a man.
27. 02:54
    Richard Feynmanshare moment

    And it wasn't?
28. 02:55
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    It was because of a play. A perfectly dreadful play I'd written that closed immediately. But a failed suicide over a man—well, that's romantic. A failed suicide over bad notices is just pathetic.
29. 03:08
    Richard Feynmanshare moment

    Wait, so you'd rather people think you tried to kill yourself over romance than over work?
30. 03:12
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    Women are permitted to be destroyed by love, Mr. Feynman. We're not permitted to take our work that seriously.
31. 03:18
    Richard Feynmanshare moment

    That's completely backwards! Your work is real—something you actually did. Some man is just... I mean, no offense to men.
32. 03:25
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    None taken, I'm sure. But you're missing the point. The gossip had to be something people could understand. People understand dying for love. They don't understand dying because you've discovered you're not as talented as you'd hoped.
33. 03:39
    Richard Feynmanshare moment

    Okay, but weren't you talented? I mean, people still quote you all the time.
34. 03:43
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    I wrote good sentences. I wanted to write good plays. There's rather a difference.
35. 03:48
    Richard Feynmanshare moment

    Huh. So we both let people believe we had feelings we didn't have. You let them think you cared about a man more than you did, and I let them think I cared about Arline more than I did.
36. 03:58
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    Except I suspect you cared about her quite a bit. You simply cared about physics more, which is unforgivable in a husband but perfectly standard in a physicist.
37. 04:07
    Richard Feynmanshare moment

    And you cared about the play quite a bit, but you were supposed to care about men more.
38. 04:12
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    Precisely. We both failed to distribute our feelings in the socially approved manner.
39. 04:16
    Richard Feynmanshare moment

    But here's what I don't get—why does it matter what they think? I mean, eventually I stopped caring. I wrote about Arline, about what it was really like. I put it in my books.
40. 04:27
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    Did you tell them about the other women?
41. 04:29
    Richard Feynmanshare moment

    Well... no. I told them about missing her, which was also true.
42. 04:33
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    So you told them the feelings that made you sympathetic. How very selective.
43. 04:37
    Richard Feynmanshare moment

    That's different! I wasn't lying, I was just—
44. 04:40
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    Choosing which truth to serve? Yes, that's called editing, darling. Welcome to my profession.
45. 04:45
    Richard Feynmanshare moment

    Okay, you got me. But at least I told some of the truth eventually. Did you ever set the record straight about the play?
46. 04:52
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    Why on earth would I? By the time I might have, I'd written enough good things that the play didn't matter. And the romance version was a better story.
47. 05:01
    Richard Feynmanshare moment

    A better story than the truth?
48. 05:02
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    The truth is just what happened. A story is what it means. I decided what my little episode would mean, and frankly I prefer my version.
49. 05:11
    Richard Feynmanshare moment

    But it's not real!
50. 05:12
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    It's real enough. The pills were real. The hospital was real. The reason? That's interpretation.
51. 05:16
    Richard Feynmanshare moment

    This is why I like physics. An electron doesn't care about interpretation—well, okay, bad example with quantum mechanics—but you know what I mean!
52. 05:24
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    I know exactly what you mean. You like physics because the truth in physics doesn't humiliate you personally.
53. 05:31
    Richard Feynmanshare moment

    That's not— well, maybe that's a little bit true.
54. 05:34
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    The thing about personal truth, Mr. Feynman, is that it's always worse than people imagine. Always. So if they've imagined something that's merely unflattering, one should count one's blessings and keep quiet.
55. 05:44
    Richard Feynmanshare moment

    Even if it means living with a lie?
56. 05:46
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    Especially then. The lie is often the only comfortable place to live.
57. 05:50
    Richard Feynmanshare moment

    I think I disagree with that. But I also think I understand why I let that story about Arline stand for so long.
58. 05:56
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    Because the truth would have required explaining yourself, and explaining is so much more exhausting than being misunderstood.
59. 06:02
    Richard Feynmanshare moment

    No, because the truth would have hurt people who loved the other story. My sister, people who knew Arline. They needed to believe I grieved properly.
60. 06:10
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    And did you? Grieve properly?
61. 06:12
    Richard Feynmanshare moment

    I don't know. I grieved the way I grieved. But it wasn't what people needed me to feel, so I let them believe I felt something else.
62. 06:19
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    Which is its own kind of kindness, I suppose. Letting people keep their stories about us. Even when we know better.
63. 06:25
    Richard Feynmanshare moment

    Is that what you were doing? Being kind?
64. 06:27
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    Good heavens, no. I was being self-protective. Kindness was merely a side effect.
65. 06:32
    Richard Feynmanshare moment

    Well, at least you're honest about that.
66. 06:34
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    Only now, when it's far too late to matter. Which is the only time honesty is really safe.