Allen, Apropos of Nothing, Kindle ed., 2020.

To seize the bull by its horns, I suppose many people bought the book because they hoped for salacious details about the sexual abuse case in which the author was involved. Doing so, of course, is their good right. I myself, though, in spite of having gone through a divorce that, though not quite as terrible, was similar in many ways, found the chapters that deal with this affair the least interesting of all. Who cares about the accusations, which almost thirty years ago were proven utterly baseless, of a woman driven out of her mind by the green eyed monster? Whatever others may say, my own answer is, not I. Much less about all the various lawyers, judges, police officers, psychologists, etc. the case involved. Suffice it to say that Mr. Allen does not retaliate against the woman in question—she does not even deserve to have her name mentioned here—by criticizing her work as an actress. On the contrary, on page after page he has nothing but praise for it. For not allowing a private vendetta to cloud his judgment, hats off.

For me guilt by accusation, as it has been called, is not guilt at all. That said, I want to tell you, my readers, what I am sure you have deducted long ago: namely, that my own preferred way of keeping myself informed/and or amused is neither the movies nor TV. Having been a bookworm all my life, I cannot offer a well-informed critique of what Mr. Allen has to say about his numerous movies and, especially, the more technical problems they involve. Instead, what Apropos of Nothing did do was to teach me a lot about how movies are made. Things like writing the script, looking for a producer, casting, hiring actors, musicians, and experts of every sort, designing and erecting the set, directing, filming, editing, etc. It is enough to make anyone’s head spin. At any rate my head.

By comparison, I thought, writing a book is simple. All the greater my respect for Mr. Allen’s extraordinary productivity during a career that got under way when he was in his late teens and has continued with hardly any interruption for almost seven decades. His book has not only enabled me to gain a better insight into the nature of creativity but confirmed what I had long suspected. Namely, that it is roughly the same across many artistic–and, presumably, scientific—fields; including, besides history, literature, music, the plastic arts, movies, and what not.
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Like Mr. Allen, my one goal in my working life has always been to produce the best book I could about the topic in which I was interested. Like Mr. Allen, I picked those topics either because others mentioned them to me or more or less out of thin air following a sudden inspiration from God knows where. Like Mr. Allen, I have never allowed anyone to interfere with any aspect of my work I considered important. Like Mr. Allen, I know what it is like to get stuck—in my case, for months and even more—only to be set free by a sudden idea, or event, or, on some occasions, a meeting with a friend or with a woman I found fascinating. Like Mr. Allen, looking backward I feel I never succeeded in writing the real masterpiece I had aimed at. Like Mr. Allen, I hardly ever look at my old books. I must confess I do take an occasional look at the reviews and have even put together a list of the most positive passages in case anyone asks for references. To repeat, all this is part and parcel of being, well, I’ll say it, creative. And, as such, very much worth thinking about.

On the negative side, Mr. Allen is an extremely prolific writer, actor, and director who has worked with a great many people and met with even more. That is why several of his chapters comprise little but endless lists of actors, directors, producers, and other people in- and outside the movie industry of whom I had never heard and whose names I could not remember for five seconds after he mentioned them. Their number must be in the hundreds. As a result, in many cases I could not really appreciate either the persons in question or Mr. Allen’s efforts, such as they were, to describe them. As he himself says, no once but twice, he is blabbering.

Finally, not being a great movie fan I did not intend to buy the book. What made me do so nevertheless was the news that Hachette had broken its contract with the author and refused to publish it.  I myself, owing to my views on women and feminism, have been the target of similar treatment. Some publishers have rejected my work simply for that reason; others refused even to consider it in the first place. Such being the case, let me take this opportunity to thank Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, Reaktion, and Castalia House for not allowing themselves to be intimidated. Also, Amazon.com for enabling me to publish two extremely politically incorrect books (The Privileged Sex and Pussycats) no English-language publisher wanted. Incidentally, both of these books were taken up by respectable German-language publishers. The first even appeared on the front cover of leading magazines in Germany and Brazil. As Mr. Allen says, you never know what is going to be successful, where, and why. Cast your bread upon the waters, hoping you will indeed find it after many days.

Thank you, Mr. Allen, for teaching me a lot about the world of movie-making, and any number of other things. Including, not least, the nature of creativity and the fact that I am not the only one to find grappling with it difficult. And for doing so in a way that, on the whole and in spite of my ignorance, kept me not merely interested but amused as well.