On Writers
“If I had not existed, someone else would have written me…What is important is Hamlet and A Midsummer Nights Dream, not who wrote them, but that somebody did.” ~ William Faulkner
I have a problem with people calling writing anything other than exactly what it is: a person sitting down (or standing, whatever works) and writing to get an idea out of their head for others to have it. It is not a prayer, it is not a scream, or howl. Whatever torture it puts you through comes of your own self in a way that even the idea did not. The idea came from your life. The need to bleed for it is all you. Whatever asceticism you subject yourself to is of your own doing, and if that is necessary for you to write, so be it. But because you hang yourself on a cross every evening doesn’t mean you and I are saviors. I pay $2.50 for coffee for every thousand words or so. What, then, would you call me? Whether you claw at your hair or pace grooves into your floor or you travel to a mountaintop or you sit quietly in your room, it is your work that makes you what you are. It is not the action that produced the work. The word is all. I have as much respect for Marilynne Robinson as I do for Ernest Hemingway, and I do because they both wrote incredible pieces of literature. To my knowledge, Robinson never served in any army, never drove an ambulance, never hunted or played at hunting U-boats in the Atlantic. These are things that increase my esteem for Hemingway’s life separate from his body of work. I would love The Sun Also Rises whether written by a hero or a coward.
And let’s not inflate what a writer is. They are simply that. Storytellers. A good storyteller is obviously different from a bad storyteller but it’s the story that’s important. You can blow smoke about writers being priests or prophets but everyone has something they can do well and only artists are given to the notion that they are particularly special. When you get your car back from the mechanic and it runs you don’t spend time thinking about the mechanic and what brought him to where he is. You just drive. You ought to think about the writer the same way you do the mechanic. Each performs a service or creates a product and it is the quality of that thing which is important. The only thing the writer ought to have of you is loyalty if he produces a quality product. It’s delusional to ask for more and to think that a writer deserves it. Embrace the work, love the work. When I say I love McCarthy, I mean that I love McCarthy’s work. He’s an interesting guy separate from that, but my interest in him arises primarily from my desire for him to write more books. That’s how it ought to be. It’s bad for the ego for you to think anything else. And despite all of our metaphysical trappings, despite that our occupation itself is a unique one, we aren’t special. We are certainly no more special than nurses or doctors, and certainly less deserving of praise than police officers, firefighters, and soldiers.
What a reader needs to take away from a book does not involve the writer. I won’t delve any deeper in the Barthesian pool than to say that an ideal reading of any book begins with the first page of the text and ends with the last. Any thoughts in between occur in the mind of the reader and nowhere else. Don’t bring a dictionary, a biography, or Wikipedia to the party. Ultimately no writer is going to quit fellating or cunniling-ing themself because I said they aren’t special. It’s the truth, but it’s the reader I’m trying to reach, not the writer. We’re a crazed lot to begin with. But we’re not mystical, we’re not any more in tune with the universe because we put words on a page than anyone else. It’s a unique occupation that’s not a little bit mysterious and more than a little attractive. People like people who live on the edge, and whether it’s the edge of starvation, sanity, or megalomania, the edge is where writers tend to be. But don’t love the writer. Love the book. If it’s good it is the best of the writer; blood, sweat, tears and all other precious bodily fluids distilled whether shed or not, into a story, a message. Don’t ruin all our good work by wondering how dirty we got in the process.
Tune in next time for part 3, the anticlimax that I will call “In Defense of the Writer”. Or some such stickuptheass nonsense. Until then, here’s J. Tillman, telling it like it is.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.
I am so with you! And it drives me a little nuts when I hear people (readers or writers) trying to mysticize it. I think that creates unrealistic expectations for everyone.
That’s not to say writers can’t *feel* something special while they are working. A sort of “magic” one might say. I dunno, maybe really good mechanics do too. But at the end of the day, like you said, that magic feeling is not transferred to the work; it does not make the writing better. It’s simply a part of the individual writer’s own internal process.
I also don’t think this should *reduce* anyone’s esteem for a work. Just because so-and-so didn’t get “divine inspiration” for their book doesn’t make it any less good, if you liked it.
But I think people do often want to believe there is more behind a work of art. Dare I say, it’s just like many people wanting to believe there is more to life than what we have on Earth: because it’s comforting and inspiring.
(Whether or not it’s true, I don’t know.)
This is almost seamlessly translatable to my world of musicianship. Pedestals are for the aimless.
By the way, this post was way solid and less dense than usual. Drives the point home in a totally different way — interesting to see you write expository pieces!
Nico already said it, but I’ll say it another way:
Just rename the whole post “On Artists.” It applies to all creative fields, I think. Anyway you look at it, well said.
Post reminds me of a D.H. Lawrence quote, “Trust the tale, not the teller.” So true when it comes to writing. You have to disassociate anything that the writer does with what he or she writes. Otherwise it will drive you crazy because writers can be such awful people.
Or they are not awful, they just never are the mythic-poets that they should be.
Kristan: Yeah, I think anyone of any occupation–or none–can get the same sort of magic that a writer does. Be in the zone, to put it colloquially. I think any action that requires a modicum of mental activity can yield that sort of feeling. Dancing, fighting, driving.
If someone holds a book in higher esteem simply because of its source, then I think that reader is a lost cause. If you don’t judge a book on its content…you’re not looking at someone rational. I’d have to wash my hands. Or wring them around the reader’s neck.
Sort’ve an odd place to get your comfort, don’t you think? Another person’s book?
Nico and Courtney: Thanks. I knew it applied broadly but it’s best to speak to your expertise.
Jon: I have so much to say on that point. I think what’s worse than tainting the work with a writer’s poor reality is becoming so involved in that writer’s life that you lose sight of their work. You dig so deep into a biography you forget why you went looking in the first place.
So did I tell you I wanted to get the word “storyteller” tattooed around my left wrist? Thought against it. But the sentiment stands. I think this humble look at writing as work is what grounds writers. I can’t think of a single doctor who goes about thinking that he/she is a god for what they do. They do a job.
I have an issue with books that are sold based on the story of the author. This is why I don’t read as many memoirs as I used to. There was an entire case of plagiarism based on a woman who stole an entire novel about a girl who comes from a conservative Indian family and finds the willingness to break free and fall in love. Not the best story/plot, yes, but what sold the book was the sensationalism behind the woman who ‘wrote’ it where she too had a similar background. The book was sold on that. And to find that it was all a theft seemed to put into the idea that maybe even her entire life was a lie.
I digress. I can’t help but feel that yes, there is a reason for storytelling, but it is a job. It’s not glamorous. No one looks at the bank teller and thinks it’s a glamorous position. It’s what people do to get by.
And I think I might have rambled a bit because I finished that second case of beer I bought on Monday because work was really shitty.
[...] was hoping to generate some discourse with my last post, but it would seem the world according to five people other than myself agrees with me. No one [...]
So really you’re saying we should love Tiger Woods because he’s a great golfer, regardless if he cheats on his wife. lol, sorry. I had to.