Wilde×Parker

full transcript

1. 00:00
   Verashare moment

   You're with Reborn Radio. Coming up: Oscar Wilde sits down with Dorothy Parker for ROAST NIGHT. The subject — On who in their own family deserved a roast and why.
2. 00:10
   Oscar Wildeshare moment

   You know, Dorothy, the advantage of having had a thoroughly respectable family is that one can speak of them with complete honesty. Respectability is the one thing even gossip cannot improve.
3. 00:19
   Dorothy Parkershare moment

   My family was so respectable they made Presbyterians look like the Borgias. Except less fun.
4. 00:24
   Oscar Wildeshare moment

   Ah, but you see, my father—Sir William Wilde, the eye surgeon—was respectable in that peculiarly Irish way that means everyone knew about his illegitimate children but pretended not to. He had three before he married my mother, and I believe there were one or two lurking about afterward. The man collected offspring the way other physicians collect case studies.
5. 00:43
   Dorothy Parkershare moment

   At least he was consistent. My father just collected grievances and a talent for selling rope that nobody wanted. He died when I was five, which was probably the kindest thing he ever did for me.
6. 00:54
   Oscar Wildeshare moment

   Oh, my dear, how frightfully convenient for him. My father had the poor taste to linger until I was ten. Though in fairness, he was too busy being sued for seducing his patients to pay much attention to his legitimate sons. There's nothing quite like having your childhood punctuated by libel trials.
7. 01:10
   Dorothy Parkershare moment

   Libel trials. That's adorable, Oscar. My stepmother told me I was too plain to ever get a husband and should probably learn typing. I was nine.
8. 01:20
   Oscar Wildeshare moment

   Typing! Good God. At least when my mother destroyed our confidence, she did it with style. Lady Wilde wanted a daughter, you see, so she dressed me and my brother Willie in girls' clothing until we were quite old enough to be humiliated by it. She called me her 'little Oscar.' The woman had literary ambitions that far exceeded her maternal instincts.
9. 01:38
   Dorothy Parkershare moment

   She sounds like a peach. Did she also write poetry under a man's name and throw tantrums when people didn't recognize her genius? Because that was my mother's bit. Except she mostly just threw tantrums.
10. 01:50
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    No, no—she wrote inflammatory political poetry under the name 'Speranza' and expected to be recognized everywhere. She held a salon in Dublin where she'd recite it while wearing gowns that could have housed a small family. The woman entered a room like Napoleon entering Moscow—certain of victory and completely unprepared for the winter of public indifference that inevitably followed.
11. 02:10
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    At least she had ambitions. My mother's greatest achievement was making me feel guilty for being alive. She had a way of sighing that could strip paint off walls.
12. 02:20
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    The maternal sigh! Yes, I know it well. Though my mother's was more of a grand theatrical exhalation, usually accompanied by some remark about how I was wasting my gifts. When I came down from Oxford with only a double first and the Newdigate Prize, she managed to make it sound like a personal failure on her part.
13. 02:36
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    A double first. My heart bleeds. I went to finishing school where they taught us to pour tea and marry money. I was excellent at one of those things.
14. 02:46
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    I assume the tea was adequate? But tell me about your brother. You had one, didn't you? Brothers are God's way of providing us with our first experience of betrayal.
15. 02:54
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    I had three. One died before I knew him. The other two survived, unfortunately. Harry was dull and Bert was duller. Between them they had the personality of a filing cabinet.
16. 03:06
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    How economical of them to share. My brother Willie was a catastrophe in a waistcoat. He drank, he borrowed money, he married wretchedly—twice—and he spent his entire life trying to be me but without the inconvenience of talent. When I was in prison, he gave interviews about what a disappointment I'd been to the family.
17. 03:24
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    That's some nerve, coming from a man whose greatest achievement was being your brother.
18. 03:28
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Precisely! Though I suppose I should be grateful. He did manage to die before me, which meant I didn't have to endure his eulogy at my funeral. Small mercies and all that. Did your brothers at least have the decency to ignore your success?
19. 03:40
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    They pretended I didn't exist, which suited me fine. Though my sister Helen tried to be nice, which was somehow worse. She had that terrifying kindness of people who've given up on being happy themselves.
20. 03:52
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Oh, the cheerfully resigned! Yes, I knew dozens of them in Dublin. They're more depressing than actual tragedies. At least tragedy has style.
21. 04:00
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    Helen killed herself when I was in my twenties. So there's your style.
22. 04:03
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    I—ah. I'm sorry. That's rather too much style, actually.
23. 04:06
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    It's all right. It was a long time ago. She was too sensitive for this world, people said. As if being sensitive was a character flaw instead of the only sane response to everything.
24. 04:17
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    I've always thought sensitivity was merely intelligence having a nervous breakdown. But yes—when my mother died, I was in prison and they wouldn't let me attend the funeral. Willie went, of course. Probably took notes for another interview about my moral failings.
25. 04:30
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    At least you cared enough to want to go. When my father died, I was too young to know better. When my mother died, I was too drunk to remember. But I showed up, which is more than I can say for most of my decisions.
26. 04:43
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    There's something almost noble about consistency, even in awfulness. My wife, Constance—though she's family by choice rather than blood—changed her name and our sons' names after my trial. Changed them to Holland, her grandfather's name. Erased me as thoroughly as one can erase someone while they're still breathing.
27. 04:59
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    Did she have a choice?
28. 05:01
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    That's the infuriating thing—she probably didn't. But I was rotting in Reading Gaol, so forgive me if I wasn't entirely sympathetic to her social difficulties at the time. The worst part is she was kind about it. She kept trying to help me, to forgive me, and I found that almost impossible to bear.
29. 05:16
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    Forgiveness is just another way of making you feel worse about what you've done. I prefer a clean grudge. At least you know where you stand.
30. 05:24
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    My sons—Cyril and Vyvyan—I never saw them again after prison. Vyvyan was nine when I was arrested. He didn't even know I'd died until months afterward. That's the real punishment, you see. Not the prison, not the labor, but the careful amputation of you from everyone's life.
31. 05:39
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    I never had children. Took care of that problem early on, if you know what I mean. Got the whole thing scraped out and went back to work the next day.
32. 05:47
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Dorothy.
33. 05:48
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    What? You think I should've kept it? Had a baby with Alan Campbell while he was sleeping with half of New York's male population and I was sleeping with the other half? That would've been swell for everybody.
34. 05:59
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    I make no judgments. I'm hardly in a position to. I merely note that we've traveled rather far from roasting our families to—what's the modern term—trauma sharing?
35. 06:08
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    It's the same thing. You can't roast your family without explaining why they deserved it. And they all deserved it, Oscar. Every last one of them.
36. 06:16
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Even the dead ones?
37. 06:17
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    Especially the dead ones. They're the ones who got away with it.
38. 06:20
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    You know, when I was young, my mother used to tell me I was destined for greatness. She said it so often I believed her. The problem with being told you're destined for greatness is that no one mentions greatness and disaster often arrive holding hands.
39. 06:33
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    My mother told me I'd amount to nothing. Turned out we were both right.
40. 06:37
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Oh, I doubt that very much. You've made quite a career out of being disappointed. That takes genuine talent.
41. 06:43
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    And you made a career out of being clever until it killed you. At least disappointment keeps you breathing.
42. 06:49
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Fair point. Though I should note that disappointment killed me too, in the end. Just more slowly, and in a rather shabby hotel room in Paris. The wallpaper was truly dreadful. I believe I said something about one of us having to go.
43. 07:02
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    You couldn't even die without a quip. That's either admirable or pathological. I'm going with pathological.
44. 07:08
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    I'll take it. So, have we thoroughly roasted our families, or should we continue? I feel we've barely scratched the surface of my brother's inadequacies.
45. 07:16
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    I think we've established that our families were disasters and we turned out exactly how you'd expect. Damaged, brilliant, and mean. It's practically a recipe.
46. 07:26
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Add alcohol and stir vigorously. Yes, I see it. Though I do think 'mean' is a bit reductive. We're not mean. We're merely honest in situations where dishonesty would be kinder.
47. 07:36
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    That's just mean with better publicity, Oscar.
48. 07:38
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    Well, when you put it that way, I suppose you're right. Though I've always preferred to think of it as a public service. Someone has to tell the truth, even if the truth is unbearable.
49. 07:47
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    Especially when it's unbearable. That's when it matters most.
50. 07:50
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    To unbearable truths and the families who taught us to tell them, then.
51. 07:54
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    I'll drink to that. If we're drinking. Are we drinking?
52. 07:57
    Oscar Wildeshare moment

    My dear Dorothy, we're always drinking. It's just a question of whether anyone's noticed yet.