Here's one of the hero's therapists, looking down on me:
By the way, this actress has the best scene in the film. In one of their therapy sessions, the hero says he wishes for death. She lashes out fiercely, with a "How dare you," calling his statement "obscene" and "selfish." Moving for the viewer and, one is convinced, moving and attitude-adjusting for the recipient of the tongue-lashing.
I also enjoyed Graham Greene's The End of the Affair, though I didn't know when I was getting into it that it was one of his four "Catholic" novels (I'd read and adored the other three). The style and timing of his narratives make them such pleasures to read. But I must say I didn't like the way the novel ended, getting almost preachy and non-realistic through the introduction of magical elements (miracles). Then, what do you know, I find this on the Internet, from none other than Graham Greene himself:
"I realized too late how I had been cheating the reader... The incident of the atheist Smythe's strawberry mark (apparently cured by Sarah after her death) should have had no place in the book; every so-called miracle, like the curing of Parkis's boy, ought to have had a completely natural explanation. The coincidences should have continued over the years, battering the mind of Bendrix, forcing on him a reluctant doubt of his own atheism."
I don't know quite what to make of the fact that I was so much of one mind with the author's self-criticism. It pets my pride a bit and really enhances the sense of fellow-feeling I often have with authors I admire. I feel I have so much literature to get through that I never go back to reread novels, but I'm feeling that maybe I should reread the other Catholic novels, which I last read (I think?) in college. On the other hand, maybe I shouldn't be reading at all, just writing.
Graham Greene apparently didn't make an interesting photo subject. The best I could do is a W.C. Fields-looking Greene pouring a drink:
3 Kommentare:
I'm guessing you've read enough—or more than enough—or even too much. One doesn’t learn to play basketball, after all, by studying footage of Michael Jordan. One learns by playing. We need to study other writers in order to write better and write well. But unless we ourselves are writing, it is a one-way, largely tractionless conversation. Once you’re writing, however, you’re conversing (and wrestling—like Jacob with the angel) with other writers and their works in the most substantial way. They talk to us (creatively) in writing; and it’s our job, as writers, to write/talk back. Our choices, preferences, intuitions, etc., are largely theoretical until we attempt to put them into practice. Our theory of literature may end up having little to do with our practice of literature once we descend to nuts and bolts. In fact, it’s all a pretty air castle till we commit (in every sense of the term) creative words to paper. Your biggest problem, IMHO (and I’ve probably said this before), is you want to run out onto the court and dunk the ball like Michael Jordan the first time you seriously try to play. Odds are, you’ll take a long-shot and the ball will fly over the backboard and end up somewhere in the stands. But that’s the process. It’s always been the process, and it will always be the process. No escape. No exit. Writing can be all the things romantics claim—inspiring and soul-building and deeply, deeply gratifying. But it’s also humiliating. As risky to the ego as subprime mortgages to the economy. But that’s life. No Resurrection without a Cross.
In conclusion, I’m sure, my brilliant friend, you’re more than ready to write. You have the fund of knowledge; the personal, linguistic, artistic background; and the life-experience to do it. You also have the time. Anyone who can read Ulysses in a few weeks (if I’m remembering this correctly) has time to write a novel or a short story or at least get going on research, development, and experimentation. Even under the best of circumstances it would take years—so heed the word of Jesus, do not “worry about tomorrow,” toss out other people’s novels, and write something today. You can do it, sir. (And thanks for putting up with all my exhortations on this subject! I KNOW it’s really hard, so I’m right in there with you.)
Thanks for the goose, Lee. I haven't worried, I think, that I'm "unprepared," but I do certainly have trouble with the anxiety of influence, or whatever you call the concern that what you do won't be comparable to [given genius or idol], that if it isn't timeless the first time, I'll have failed. I'm trying to cure that with what you might call genre fiction - the humorous pseudo-memoir I'm working on about Harvard.
Surely it can't be, however my life is arranged with the kids and the job and the wife in law school, that the thing I like to do and want to do most need be the thing I do least - less than, say, watching television or Web surfing or other activities of choice. Though I do face some practical challenges in my effort to write every day, I must recognize that it is above all the emotional challenges that keep me from working - a gentle little fear that makes me feel I can confront the process only in some unusual state of mind. Though, when it comes to putting words on paper for publication, I do in fact write for a living, WRITING appears to me as a different activity, an ALL CAPS activity, something out of the norm for me. I must make it normal, and leave anything else elective in my life an unusual break from my normal activity of writing.
I think you make a very good point regarding the need to make WRITING normal. On this front, I've had to make a big distinction between writing poetry and writing a novel. Poetry is something I only do when I feel inspired—or, as you put it, in an "unusual state of mind." With fiction, however, there is just way too much work for those states to cover more than 5-10% of the job. The other 90% is grunt work, which is not inspired or inspiring, but it generates the gross material (or "dark materials") for inspiration to send its lightning through whenever it happens to decide to strike. Which is why it's VITAL to write regularly, even if you're not in the mood; even if what you write is crap: because that crap is the raw material from which much better crap can be forged. And so you keep refining and refining, and eventually you can end up with gold. No one (except those isolated Mozarts of writing—if they even exist at all) just lays down gold on their first pass. Gold is formed by layering—layer of crap, layer of better crap, etc., etc., etc. (Like a painting, really, which looks like a child’s sketch at first, but whose various elements converge in the end to form a harmonious, radiant whole.) The final image may be flawless, but behind the facade are whole strata of missteps, false starts, and evolutionary dead-ends. Which means, it’s best to save the perfectionism for the TAIL END of the process, NOT the opening and middle events. (Another analogy would be a complex musical performance: nobody expects to nail it on the first rehearsal, the first time. You start out rough, then polish, polish, polish your way ever closer to the goal.)
I've also found that sometimes I'm not in a very productive/inspired state of mind, but then, during the process of actually working, something suddenly lights up and I feel like Luke Skywalker using the Force to hit the exhaust vent on the Death Star. You may not feel "in the mood," but you can sometimes FIND the mood if you just get going and start wrestling with your material. But you have to show up first for that happen.
I do understand the anxiety of influence issue, though I myself don't suffer from it—I suppose because I've always been so much in my own head in terms of my creativity. I don't have any models or heroes in the sense of wishing I'd written a particular book. There are good sides and bad sides to this. Good side: I can strike off and do my own thing and not particularly worry about what anyone else has done; bad side: maybe I'm ambling off the proven paths and must inevitably tumble off a cliff. But in this (I console myself), I'm following Milton: he obeyed the dictates of his own imagination and vision and dared to create something that really was unique—at least since Homer and Virgil. If he'd worried too much about his influences and what others were doing, he would never have written Paradise Lost.
Having said that, there definitely are virtues to working in a genre. My own project has become so sprawling and complex and seemingly incommensurable (I'm not aware of anything else remotely like it—except maybe Paradise Lost itself) that sometimes I feel lost at sea without a compass—or maybe even a ship! But I press on, have faith, and do the work. The worst that can happen is, it won’t be as good as I’d hoped it would be. Which, probably, is inevitable in any case, so why over-worry?
Finally, I hope these sorts of exchanges help—or at least don't hurt. Self-consciousness can be a bitch, and WRITING is especially tricky because you need to be both an egomaniac and selfless at the same time. You need to have enough ego to dare to think you have something valuable to say; but you have to be selfless enough to be tough on your own work, admit when it falls short, then shrug away the sting, gird up your loins, and get back into the fight. And ultimately, I suspect, it’s the fight that counts, regardless of the outcome. Let’s be warriors first, then worry about outcomes second. Speaking of epics, Hector, in the end, was defeated—but HE WAS STILL FUCKING HECTOR, BREAKER OF HORSES AND PRIDE OF TROY!!! And there are worse ways to go than being slain by Achilles! If we’re slain by Milton or the other fancy-pants syllabus-dwellers of writing-past, that’s no dishonor. At least we took a real run at them first. At least we were alive and kicking and striving and in the fight. I'm convinced that failure isn’t losing—it’s just running away.
Kommentar veröffentlichen