Sights for sore eyes

Henry Grunwald has gone blind, but is seeing more clearly than ever.

By David Bowman

Dec 9, 1999 | Henry Grunwald has lived his life as a news hound. Today, he is a dignified 76-year-old Manhattanite. But just after World War II, he was a copy boy at Time magazine and, decades later, editor in chief of all Time Inc. publications. In 1988, Grunwald left publishing to become ambassador to Austria, where he was born.

In 1997 Grunwald wrote an autobiography, "One Man's America." Now, two years later, he's added a slim addendum to that first memoir. It's a poetic testament to the state Charles de Gaulle once slammed as the "shipwreck of age." The book is about Henry Grunwald going blind.

Grunwald has macular degeneration, a disease of the retina that affects 15 million Americans. Grunwald's book describes how, back in 1992, he experienced the onset of macular degeneration -- he poured water into a nonexistent glass he believed he "saw" on the table. As the years passed, his vision degenerated into a soft blur. Now, he often sees only indistinguishable shapes of light and color. Eye surgery has postponed the loss of his sight, but there is no cure for the disease.

As for the computer chip that Stevie Wonder is reportedly considering having implanted in his eyes, the "intraocular retinal prosthesis" is not advanced enough to give anything but partial sight. If Wonder has the operation, he probably will not be able to see any more clearly than Grunwald.

Blindness is grim stuff, but "Twilight" is much more than a sickbed memoir. Grunwald reports on the tensions between groups representing the totally blind and the partially blind. He also goes into the history of blindness -- from the eyes painted inside Greek coffins to the various ancient practices of cutting off the noses of bungling eye surgeons. Grunwald also writes of his vision's exile to memory and his struggles to view art and motion pictures. There are many lovely meditations on the concept of sight itself.

There is a great comic scene in a Paris boutique during the time Grunwald is losing his sight. He wanders, Mr. Magoo-like, into an occupied dressing room where a woman is undressing. He apologizes. Hurries out. Later, Grunwald learns that the blurry female shape was Catherine Deneuve.

The following interview was scheduled to take place in Grunwald's New York office, but instead was rescheduled to take place over the phone.

After I read your book, I didn't want to interview you in person because I didn't want the advantage of being able to see you clearer than you could see me. Does that make sense?

[Grunwald speaks in a slight Viennese accent.] That's sensitive, but I wouldn't worry about it.

Do you still make associates uncomfortable with your partial sight? [He writes about this experience in his book.]

I hope not. A hell of a lot of people I meet socially don't even know that I have any problem. We have a reasonably normal conversation. When it gets to the point where one would normally make eye contact, then they realize and I tell them about it. Does that make them uncomfortable? I don't think so.

Because I appreciate irony so much, the best part of your book for me was when you walked in on Catherine Deneuve.

Yes. That certainly was ironic.

The one time God grants you this vision --

Damn right. Yes.

There's very little anger about your situation in your writing. Did you decide to take anger out as a literary device?

This is not a literary device, I assure you. I am not in general an angry person. I dislike getting angry. I think getting angry hurts the person getting angry. Sure I get angry and frustrated, but basically I do not have an angry nature. As a mater of fact if I wanted to write a literary book more anger might have been more effective as a piece of writing, but I was trying to be truthful to how I actually feel.

Next Page: Has blindness made you a better writer?

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