A Girl and a Gun: RUTH'S EULOGY FOR GEORGE

September 29, 2005

RUTH'S EULOGY FOR GEORGE

ON HIS OWN TERMS

George and I met in the cathedral in Siena, Italy twenty years ago this month. His entirely obvious line: “So, do you come here often?” became a part of family lore. We were each on a tour out of Florence with a sweet guide who reminded us all as we left the bus not to forget any of our private parts. At dinner that evening in Florence, George and I talked of many things that would become themes of the conversation fundamental to our relationship – the beauty of Europe, art and architecture, history, literature, politics, travel, the desire to see and experience more. His blue eyes lit up when he spoke of his three children just starting their journey to adultness. Here was a good man. And tall. And attractive. Then he was off by train to Paris. I had mentioned a cherished book, Henry Adams Mont- Saint- Michel and Chartres (“The Archangel loved heights.”) that had gone missing from my collection. A new copy appeared in my mail when I returned home. Reader, I married him.

George read Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being early in our marriage and passed it along to me. We both cried. We saw the movie. As much as he respected Daniel Day-Lewis and to say nothing of his thoughts towards Lena Olin, he was not satisfied with a mere love story. In George’s view, no movie could convey the richness of the book itself – the use of a story to explore and write about deeper truths. As I think about George these last few weeks, the title has come to mind. It seems to me that this was a fundamental drive of George’s life – to look at everything - art, film, history, literature – and write to express the nature of the reality beneath.

Yet, especially now, I find Kundera’s initial premise that a person begins a passage to oblivion upon death much too harsh. I believe that each of us has a soul on earth and a spirit which continues beyond that which we can know. In a way, George’s love of history and all that was beaautiful may have been a long search to answer that question if not a means to live lifely fully in the interim. George accepted Kundera’s later notion that a person can find a measure of earthly immortality in the ways he or she has touched the lives of others.

George anchored his life in his family. He was proud of the achievements of all three of his children. He also valued deep and lasting friendships. Friends have written of that capacity and described his massive intellect and talent, his sometimes formidable presence, his love of beauty in all its forms, his humor. He was a “cynical idealist”, a “critical-thinking romantic” capable of a “savage but gleaming” irony. He remained passionate about evil in history, particulalry the Holocaust, and would rage against social injustice in current times. Most of all, George will be remembered for his courage and vitality and his tremendous will to live life fully. If the recognition of his nature, of his spirit, by his family and many friends can give George a specific immortality then he has surely achieved it.

George built a life of prodigous achievement, ever turning to new sectors: academia, New York’s financial world, and most lately, the Internet. He earned a double PhD at Stanford and was a Woodrow Wilson fellow. He authored academic texts, two of which are still listed on Amazon.com, Europe in Upheaval: The Revolution of 1848 and Modern Europe in the Making: From the French Revolution to the Common Market. His slim but dense political biography, Edmund Burke, was an attempt to reach an intellegent but non academic audience. As a financial PR executive, and finally as a consultant, he successfully turned his talents to the commercial – speeches, advertising, public relations for Fortune 100 companies. His films were several cuts above the high standards of his elite clients. He still wrote for himself on the side: His 1985 New York Times op ed piece, “If You Understand Pizza, You Understand Subway Fares” gave rise to an economic theory now known as the Fasel Corollary. A later piece on the About Men page of the New York Ttimes Magazine, “A Son on His Own”, explored one of his favorite themes in cinema, coming of age, in a very personal way. He wrote two yet-unpublished novels each set in the French resistence movement of World War II. As you see from the post below, he was at work on his memoirs, structured as look at his beloved Paris. This blog gave him the great satisfaction of reaching out regularly to a new community around the world – created purely by shared interest and the power of his words.

George lived to write and in the end, wrote to live. If, as Kundera said, a kind of immortality consists of touching the lives of people whom one never meets, then surely his writings lift him to take his own place among the immortals.

And what else might this essentially private man wish for you to know? I think of three things: First, in contrast to his occassionaly formidable demeanor, George could convey an uncanny sense of safety in his physical touch. Small children felt it especially; animals too. Our pets lined up by his chair. He was sad that the newest generation of Fasels would not experience that touch. Second, as much as he himself mastered the skill of good comic timing and appreciated the greats like Charlie Chaplin, the antics of Danny Kaye made him laugh irrepressably . Finally, a man who loved Mozart, Brubeck, and Bach felt the soul in Motown. He might dance. Moments of lightness. He enjoyed life. We had fun.

Few walked away from an encounter with George unchanged. He shared what he thought and he thought a great deal. He coaxed a laugh. He charmed. He advised. He instructed us all. Anne, a great friend and poet, gave voice to George’s lessons:

Ascend. Put your foot on the first step-

Continue up the stone staircase

Look at what is in front of you

Here in the library of human natura

* * *

Put yourself in the way of whatever is brilliant

Big, inspirational, vital, urban –

Take it in, accept the gift. Remember it.

* * *

Invite John Wayne and Louis Malle into your evening-

Read everthing by Phillip Roth-

Go once more to Paris – and think – for god’s sake

Beyond the circumference of your own mind-

His was a life fully lived but too soon left. May his spirit and his memory remain with unbearable lightness upon us all.

Ruth, his wife

September 29, 2005 at 09:13 AM | Permalink

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A Girl and a Gun

September 29, 2005

RUTH'S EULOGY FOR GEORGE

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