A book is an act, the staking of a claim of the right to be a writer. Because writers are,at least in their writing modes, 'different sorts of people,' different from the norm, as they are creative in a particular way the book one writes tacitly reveals his different qualities. Thus the importance of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, a kind of plotting out one's turf, as a Larkin poem is often doing so, saying, 'here is my turf.'

And one has a right to that, if he's gone through the trouble and put the time and effort in. And it's not a matter of determining whether or not he is 'of the right school' or style to warrant attention. The more he faces his condition, the more he reveals it honestly, the more he addresses his peculiarities, the more universal his work is.

And so when we read, we're not to be immediately judgmental, as if to say, this book is about a strange and bizarre person, a creep really, obsessed with some vision that sits strictly in his head, we take rather a lesson about human sensitivity.

Ostensibly I wrote a book about a college kid who may be regarded as a bit of a stalker. I portrayed him as being maybe a bit overly critical of certain professorial academic styles, while celebrating others. We find the kid staying true to his vision, true to his form of art, and if that art is critical of an institution, let's say, it is out of his love for that institution and its greater purposes.

Class struggle will devalue the opinions of those perceived to be less than we ourselves are. It will attach judgments about who through habit and professional status deserve our respect. Yet, we must look beyond our preconceived notions, as we are taught to in liberal arts institutions.

We are commanded to respect those who don't vaunteth themselves up, those who mourn and suffer and are poor. And so we respect those who endeavor to write books, supportive as to how they come up with them and of what they tell us as we go on in our own lives.

Perhaps then, a book represents a form of politics, of having a right to say what's on your mind and be respected for it. And after all, you can say whatever you want in a book. You can use it to any purpose you want. You can simply entertain, or you can call people to be better, more thoughtful, considerate of others. All of that, tacitly within.

I have, of course, the greatest of respect for writers, for all they go through, for the pains they are entirely familiar with and accustomed to, for their loneliness, silent unassuming politicians of the human spirit that they are. And one of their main problems, or rather, the cause of trouble, is when they must interface with people who are not writers. As it is, those people, who are not writers, tend to carry an argument against writing. Perhaps they don't like think as deeply. And so, like President Kennedy going to Dallas, it is not always so good when a writer goes out amongst non-writers and people who generally don't see the point of the sensitivity. Or, you have a Booth, a great disagree-er, who sneaks up on Lincoln, man of words, in a house of Shakespeare, Booth not getting the higher point, all people created equal, thinking himself a hero for that, for stopping giving the right to vote to former slaves. Best to stay away from Tea Party/Zealous Idiot Land. And the President, the honorable Mr. Obama, also a writer, should simply never compromise with the Boehners and the Cantors and McConnells; they just won't get it. Yes, it was reasonable to think that he could absorb them into his greater beliefs, his overall plan of keeping the country together, but alas, he must make a stand against them, an Emancipation Proclamation, if you will.

(Yes, obviously, Kennedy was an author, part of his adult identity and early recognition, gifted with words, sensitive to the point of tears behind his cool. And Lincoln, of course. They came along at times when we really needed a sensitive guy up there, and we should remember now that it behooves us to have a sensitive guy there now, not just the guys who already have it all figured out, simplistically termed, in league with the Palins of the world, people who don't have to think before they open their mouths, and who appeal to the woefully under-educated in this land.)

Yes, a lot could be written about those pains a writer must go through out in the desert. The things people say, little negatives, put-downs, the like, about your 'choices,' your 'idiot life in a bubble,' etc., the struggle of maintaining morale in addition to the physical struggle. Honestly, how painful it is to be taken away from your work, to then go make nice and wait on people who don't get it, don't get who you are even in the slightest, the non-writers, the non-creatives, those who, in your estimation, must have squelched off that desire and natural talent to create in the present once past childhood, seeking--you can't blame them in the slightest--personal financial security in a certain kind of market economy, having no use for juvenile rants such as this, things to do, places to go, people to meet, money to be had and spent.

I know, it would be easy to through a list of writers and knock them off one by one for their faults, Kerouac a drunkard, and so forth. Maybe they do have a tendency to bi-polar states, manic depression, melancholia, some deficiency in the brain that after all makes Chuck Close Chuck Close, missing the equipment of facial recognition, then oddly making that his art. It may be naive of me, but I don't immediately, first off, see Kerouac as a drunk, though I know he became one. I guess you just have to be very careful; it is scary finding yourself wanting to be a writer, and not many of us ever thought it a great career choice, but moreso an agonizing one, but one that leads to some form of redemption, secret or otherwise, at least for being courageous.