Ode to Curmudgeons
Portrait of Walt Whitman
On the cover of The Illustrated American, April 19, 1890
Why do we love curmudgeons so?
Cantankerous characters are sprinkled liberally throughout literature. Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, Ove in A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman (Atria Books 2015), Ernest in Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, by Helen Simonson (Random House 2011).
. . . the two old Muppets who sit in the balcony and heckle everyone . . .
. . . the grieving old man in the movie Up . . .
. . . Winston Churchill. Who can forget this famous exchange?
Bessie Braddock MP: “Winston, you are drunk, and what’s more
you are disgustingly drunk.”
Churchill: “Bessie, my dear, you are ugly, and what’s more, you are disgustingly ugly. But tomorrow I shall be sober and you will still be disgustingly ugly.”
As an aside, there is much to dislike about this, including, of course, the fact that the ultimate diss on a woman is (assumed to be) insulting her looks. That certainly didn’t start with Churchill and, alas, continues still.
The thing is, curmudgeonly quips and sarcasm can be wickedly amusing to hear or see or read about.
Living with them? Not so much.
I have a theory about curmudgeons. I think we admire them, in literature and in real life, because they say what we polite and sensitive folks are too . . . polite and sensitive to say.
When a neighbor invites herself in for coffee and all you want is to be left alone in your smelly sweatpants so you can finish off the package of Lorna Doone’s, the curmudgeon will shut the door, irritably, on the neighbor, with or without a growled, “I’m busy.”
But you will say Oh of course, come in, let me make another pot of coffee, I’m not doing anything right now.
Because you are a kind person who really doesn’t want to hurt your neighbor’s feelings.
An extremely unscientific poll reveals that the surly cook is most readers’ favorite Two Over Easy All Day Long character. Walt, who grows shallots in his garden and sneaks them into the diner, and writes poetry on the side. Walt, who is almost uniformly rude and irritable and announces to all and sundry: “I’m Walt and I don’t like chitchat.”
So why do readers like him? Is it because he dispenses with social niceties when talking to Tony, the wealthy company president who’s had enough social niceties to last several lifetimes but a dearth of opportunities to practice actually being nice?
Possibly.
I think another reason may be the idea, possibly mythical, that every curmudgeonly exterior hides a soft heart, the fuzzy underbelly of the porcupine.
Like many writers, I don’t so much create characters as transcribe them onto the page. They saunter or creep or march into my consciousness and instruct me, imperiously, “Take this down, scribe,” or whisper plaintively, hopefully, “Would you, perhaps, be willing to tell my tale?”
Walt’s spirit was complex from the outset, and I have tried to be faithful to that. He is kind to Nareen, probably recognizing her as a kindred spirit, and to Nancy, who is already carrying the weight of the world in her “VW Bug of hearts.” So it’s not so much that he reveals a hidden softness as that he is a complicated man, sometimes practically heroic in his generosity of spirit, other times only and exactly what Nancy calls him: a cranky old fart.
Maybe we love curmudgeons because they give us grace for the moments we cannot muster the strength to be kind. And because, like you and me and everyone else I know, they are occasionally inspired by their better angels, but mostly they’re just muddling through.
