Saint Sebastian’s Abyss by Mark Haber is an interesting read that reflects the mind of a rather peculiar man, one whose visually succinct thoughts seem to take up pages more by sheer density of word and meaning alone. One can almost see how this man, our protagonist, managed to milk almost a dozen books, book length essays, and multiple lectures and public topics out of a single painting.
There are several topics I could speak about, perhaps at length, on the ideas that were explored within this book – but I’ll focus on the perspective of performative friendship, toxic masculinity, and what self-importance can do.
The first thing I want to take into account is Schmidt, because I feel as though of these two characters, he is the driving force in which a majority of these issues take root. He is portrayed to us as a particularly sickly man, infirm and riddled with a great many maladies that almost read to me as the root of some of his behavior. There is a great deal of self-importance in Schmidt, his demands that it was him who saw the painting of Saint Sebastian’s Abyss, how he thinks of the two critics it is his opinions, his thoughts, that must be treated with greater weight. He comes from Austria, a place he deems greatly cultured and greater than most, and he is tolerant of the American protagonist and his opinions, for his opinions are weighed and directed only by how well they match with Schmidt’s opinions.
When the American narrator expresses a single opinion outside of Schmidt, how art is interpretative, Schmidt destroys their bridges and begins a rather tyrannical reign of attempting to tear apart the narrators work, opposing him and isolating him like he’s done the narrators whole life – especially with his marriages.
Schmidt, rather actively and passively, ruins the narrators relationships with his opinions and dislike for anything outside of a shared passion. Both wives expressed a dislike for Schmidt simply because of his character, the first wife noting that Schmidts flood of emotions was liable to be a performance simply so he could outperform the narrators supposed closeness to this particular painting. The second wife expressed differing art opinions, a lover of that which was modern, while Schmidt took an interesting stance that ‘true’ art died in 1906.
To me this read as both a jealousy of what the narrator had, an emotional love for this painting and the capacity to exist outside of it, to live happily without Schmidt, that Schmidt refused to accept. Schmidt thinks that his opinion is of the only worth, and it is here where I think that the performative friendship and toxic masculinity expresses itself.
In the narrator, Schmidt likely see’s him like he see’s America itself, young and uncultured. He likely also see’s, from his seat of self importance, a sycophant of some interpretation. Schmidt’s identity and whole life is wrapped up in this single painting, and he wants the narrator there with him, to sit fully as enraptured as Schmidt perceives himself to be because to be a art critic is to make a stance and opinion at the cost of ostracizing everyone else. He refuses to accept a world outside of his own view, which I think is a rather common masculine trait in those who feel the need to project power when they themselves lack it.
Schmidt’s ‘friendship’ with the narrator, through this lens of self importance and flattering the ego, then takes a different turn. It is less about friendship, and more about enabling, of flattering Schmidt’s ego. An ego that is rather fragile, for he must condemn and rant and rave that no other art truly exists compared to Saint Sebastian’s Abyss, as we see with how he treats other artists or other appreciators of art like the narrators two ex-wives. Their opinions jeopardized Schmidt’s place and value of opinion in the narrators life.
It’s a very interesting dynamic because it feels like Schmidt has introduced the narrator to the concept of a contemporary at it’s most extreme, and without Schmidt, he doesn’t quite have the same passion — having a man you were once deep ‘friends’ with and sharing obsessions with tearing your work apart could also contribute — and does not wish to continue as he once did. This whole novel the narrator reminisces, and then ends with a abrupt cut thread, a blow to his passion again because Schmidt in his pursuit to be the greatest mind to interpret the beauty of Saint Sebastian’s Abyss could not leave their relationship well enough alone. He demanded to have the last word, to rehash an old hurt they had gone over again and again, and then died because his zealousness over learning the truth of the signature on the painting. Once again trying to prove his superiority, to reinforce that the narrator was nothing in comparison.