In Open Your Eyes, the 1997 Spanish film that perhaps most famously introduced many Americans to Penelope Cruz, Cesar plays an extraordinarily good-looking playboy who always says the right things to always charmed females. Then he has an accident that results in facial disfigurement. Lines from Cesar that used to bring delight were all of a sudden falling much less than flat.
Cesar’s troubles in the bars post-accident came to mind while reading Joseph Epstein’s rather unputdownable 2018 book, Charm: The Elusive Enchantment. Epstein, a professor at Northwestern, is a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page. Better yet, he’s a must-read at the page. Daily readers will admit that there are some regulars whom they skip, or speed read. Not Epstein. He’s far too interesting, funny, and full of insight. Epstein’s op-eds are of the cut out variety, and the kind that your reviewer reads and re-reads.
With Charm, Epstein is channeling author E.M. Forster, whom he mentions throughout. In the introduction, Epstein features Forster’s quote about writing as an essential path to knowledge: “How do I know what I think until I see what I say?” In Epstein’s case, he’s plainly thought about charm a great deal throughout his life. He wrote Charm as a way of understanding better what he’s long thought about. He acknowledges that the latter is hard to define, and that it reveals itself in countless ways. He adds that most who talk about charm really don’t know what they’re talking about. This likely includes me.
Going back to Open Your Eyes (later re-made in the U.S. unappealingly as Vanilla Sky, starring the not-so-charming Tom Cruise), Epstein makes plain that charm isn’t necessarily rooted in good looks. As he puts it, “Certainly, good looks can be charming, in and of themselves,” but so too “can interesting, even odd looks” be charming. Epstein notes that Fred Astaire was enchanting despite being “a smallish man with a large head, big ears, a too-wide forehead…” Astaire also wore a toupee, yet “taken altogether” was somehow “immensely charming.”
Epstein adds that Mel Brooks, hardly someone who comes to mind when contemplating good looks, was charming in a “vulgar” way. Brooks somehow made charming vulgar humor that “no conventionally charming person would ever” utilize with an eye on delighting. Conversely, Epstein clarifies that amusing and funny isn’t necessarily charming. Along these lines, Larry David “is a funny man but not one anyone would ever think to call charming.”
Arguably the most compelling answer to the mystery that is charm comes care of a charming individual whom most reading this review have never heard of: Max Beerbohm. The 19th and 20th century essayist believed that “tell me” were “the two most beautiful words in the English language.” People are often charmed by those who are interested in them.
At which point some would conclude that charm is a function of asking questions, and talking in terms of the interests of others. Flattering them. Wrong. As Epstein stresses, flattery “may make one seem charming to the person being flattered but to everyone else it is less charming than sycophantic, and hence ignoble.”
Epstein ultimately concludes that “the main point of charm” is to “bring delight,” which some are expert at doing. But the latter still makes this elusive enchantment a challenge to define. Why are some charming?
The speculation that will be offered here will come in the form of a story from the 1990s. It was back when model Cindy Crawford was at the top of her profession. Memory fails when it comes to remembering in which publication the interview was conducted, but Crawford was asked what she found appealing in men. She brought up a return visit to DeKalb, IL, where she grew up. She attended a party consisting of some of her sister’s high-school friends, only to meet a rather ordinary pharmaceutical salesman. Nothing romantic happened, but she soon found the salesman charming. He was passionate about what he did and what he was selling. Crawford found it attractive.
Without presuming to understand charm in the way that Epstein does, it obviously can’t just be looks. There are too many unappealing people who are very attractive. What seems to give people that which some would define as charming is confidence born of doing what animates them, what makes them uniquely intelligent. Crucial about this is that confident people are not only interesting if their self-belief is justified, they’re often also inquisitive in the Beerbohm way because they can be.
Epstein writes that some “charm is natural, some artificial,” only for him to mention a musician by the name of Maurice Raval who composed “some of the world’s most charming music.” Raval observed about himself “naturally artificial” qualities, but would his “elegance made to seem casual” have revealed itself had he not found a profession that animated him? The view here is no.
Interesting about charm is that Epstein largely focuses on those who are no longer with us. He believes charm is less apparent in modern times, particularly among the well-known, and his argument for why is that “public figures in our day are overexposed, when notably charming figures of other times weren’t exposed at all.” This makes sense. Brilliant as the Beatles were, a reasonable explanation for why attendees fainted at their concerts had to do with how much less exposed even the biggest names were back in the 1960s. Whereas today every celebrity has an Instagram account, and is on all the talk shows, per Epstein “before the advent of the talk show and the celebrity interview article, the private lives of public figures were allowed to remain just that, private.” People fainted in the presence of the Beatles because sightings of them in any medium were exceedingly rare.
Still, it brought up a question. How could Epstein write a book on charm without writing about Warren Beatty, arguably Hollywood’s most legendary charmer? Epstein might answer with what he stresses throughout Charm, that people who talk politics void themselves of what’s scarce (think George Clooney…Epstein does), but Beatty’s charm in the Beerbohm sense of “tell me” is well documented. Did Epstein not write about Beatty because he doesn’t find him charming, or did he not because the extraordinarily well-read Epstein remarkably hadn’t read much about Beatty? If this excellent book had a weakness, it was related to the previous question: did Epstein research charm on the way to Charm, or is his book limited by Epstein’s rather expansive reading list that despite being expansive, logically wouldn’t encompass lots of charmers? The Beatty question comes up again.
While his romantic successes have long been documented, they’ve only added to the legend. And they have because it’s also well known that Beatty himself is notoriously tight-lipped. Epstein rightly frowns on the desire of publicity-hungry celebrities to reveal all the horrid things that happened in their childhoods, and that limit their ability to charm, but Beatty has once again always been stingy when it comes to revealing himself. So why not Beatty? Why not Hugh Grant? To be clear, these questions are ultimately asked as compliments. Epstein’s book is as mentioned “unputdownable,” which means this reviewer wanted his opinion on many, many more people. Why no discussion of, for instance, Joe Namath? But that’s nitpicking.
And it ignores Epstein’s commentary on all manner of people, charming and not so. He rightly puts Bill Maher in the not charming category. So true. It will be added here that some people curse artfully. In Maher’s case his use of the f word seems forced, and you’re embarrassed for him.
Though her private life surely didn’t live up to her enchanting looks that gave the impression of eternal bliss, the generally unhappy Audrey Hepburn rates as charming in Epstein’s book. On the other hand, he rejects the notion that Jackie Onassis had it. As he saw it, her marriage to Aristotle Onassis made plain that the “refinement” and “high culture” that she cultivated weren’t at all indicative of the person. “What she was about, and had been all along, despite the heavy screen of public relations and image-making, was money.”
Dean Martin rates as charming to Epstein. The author found it appealing that Martin “was the enemy of phony showbiz sincerity, the malarkey of politicians, the falsity of romantic love.” Where it gets interesting is that the urban legend about Martin has seemingly always been that the alcohol consumption was an act; that the scotch glass on stage was apple juice. Epstein writes otherwise; that Martin “ended his life golfing, watching Westerns on television, getting slowly plastered daily, and awaiting death.”
So are you charming? Epstein’s view is that “If you think you are charming, there is an excellent chance that you probably aren’t.” What about Epstein? He must be charming. Exceedingly so. What a joy it must be to be in this most interesting person’s company. Of course, someone as charming as Epstein would never say he is.
Still, he’s wise enough to admit that he’s “mildly charming.” How very charming for this most enchanting of thinkers to be humble about himself. Rest assured that readers of this excellent book will soon see that Epstein is far too modest about his possession of what’s surely rare.
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