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BILL SCHAMBRA: Let's go back to the beginning: The Namesake. What's the importance of The
Namesake?
LEON KASS: What does it mean to name somebody for somebody? It means that ....you think
that the life of the person for whom you are naming your child has some significance or
ought to have some significance for the new life coming forward. And for the person who
is the younger version of the namesake--I mean, both of them, are in a way, you could
call them both namesakes--but the younger person would somehow think that his life should
be informed for the sake of the name that he has given. And then the question is how
do you do honor to your name, because your name is not just yours alone, but is an inheritance.
And here Hartwell makes an effort to come to terms with who it was for whom he was named,
and when he feels the blood and the kinship and the race within him at this time, it's
as if his uncle's blood now lives in him in a way win which it has never has before. For
the first time, he's sort of earned the name, and to some extent the cause for which his
uncle spent his brief vitality. And, it in a way raises the question for all of us: what
would it mean to do honor to those who've come before us, even if we don't carry, literally,
their exact name? Can one feel the ties of race and blood and kindred and the causes
to which our ancestors gave what was theirs? Whose namesake are we? And what would it take
to live up to that inheritance?
AMY KASS: So the namesake is not the person for whom you're named, but you.
LEON KASS: Well, I think, technically speaking, the namesake is the younger person who is
named for someone else, but you would say 'he's my namesake'--that could go either way.
But the idea of for the sake of the name, and that even has certain religious overtones,
on things done for the sake of the name, that's a summons to some kind of higher purpose,
and to recognize. And, in fact, that's sort of what's wrong with Hartwell to begin with.
Hartwell has no memory. Thanks to his father. [AMY KASS: He has no real purpose to succeed.]
Thanks to his father's having left everything for art, he's robbed his son of any memory
'til misfortune brings him home and offers him a great gift. Thanks to his memory of
the past, he has a glorious future. And that seems to me to be our circumstance. And this
connection through the name is the beginning of the recognition of where we've come from
and what we owe.
AMY KASS: One other point about naming. I know it has kind of a religious overtone,
but literally, when you name a child...to name something is to call it into being. And
that gives it its life. And that's what he comes to realize. He comes to realize that
his life, his energy, is the same as that namesake. And he's going to continue it.