Skvorecky, 1986, Amherst

I was a senior that year, fall semester, and we had a visiting writer at Amherst, a very important and respectable one, Josef Skvorecky. He was offering a course in short fiction, something like that. One had to submit a sample piece of fiction for his personal review to gain entry in the class. There weren't too many extras, but enough, and we all met in a room one day in the old library, cut up into classrooms, if I remember correctly. I didn't have a piece of fiction. (I've never seen writing that way, anyway, and believe the conventional view of consumer 'fiction' as a delusion. Fiction comes from real life. In my book, anyway.) So, what did I have for him to express my enthusiasm? I offered my essay on the early Hemingway short story, "The End of Something," from In Our Time, that great beautiful episodic piece that revealed Hemingway's basic dictionary, philosophy and working encyclopedia and palate and all that. As important as Joyce.

I show up to that first class, first days of the working semester. And there were young people who seemed like, well, real fiction writers, I mean to say, with that imagination that is able to, like I can't, make stuff up, good liars, Steven Kings and that sort. There was a short impenetrable impervious pretty blond of two syllable first name who seemed assured that she had completed whatever was necessary and was even better than whatever the course might offer. (And she was accepted into the class.)

Okay, so the old man comes out, and his English isn't quite so hot, and a thick accent, and he says a little bit, really not much that would indicate who he is in real Kundera terms (MK bows to his efforts of making Czech lit stay alive). It was as if a plumber... well, I exaggerate. He had his gravitas, thick glasses, he knew how to handle himself, with pauses and wasn't going to be rushed. He was obviously something, but whatever it was, remained impenetrably distant, as if he had been sent by the real professor to perform the trade aspect of the classroom.

So, the second class--I can't remember him teaching anything in the first class-- he reads off a list, the ten applicants accepted, out of the 18 who applied, something like that. I heard him call the names. One almost sounded like mine, last name, but it wasn't.

And for a first assignment, we're going to read the short story, of Hemingway, "The End of Something." And speak of it critically.

No, you're kidding me. He said it with a completely straight face. Maybe he was telling me, in some deeply impersonal way, he liked what I wrote. Or that he liked what Hemingway wrote, the story of a date, a kind of 'after they've fucked, a day or 3 later,' told from his perspective and trot lines, the after you've came in a woman, or whatever it is. (I'm being crass, I'm sorry, just a voice I'm trying out.)

Wait, no, can't I participate? Was what I wrote about the story right or wrong?

I never found out. I wasn't invited.

And maybe that's a valuable lesson. You don't learn how to write in a class, meaningfully. Maybe I learned something being left out.

Mr. Skvorecky, who writes out of real life, I salute and honor you and all you've been through, far more interesting than what I go through simply by historical matters and World War II. Peace, my friend.


And indeed, I continue to believe it to this day, if you are going to be a writer, you have to define yourself what a writer is. You do it by doing. A lot of blind persistence. Your cutting out from granite a statue of what you yourself would want to be.

Encounters

Kundera's voice--he's a grown up--comes wonderfully out of the blue. The topics are erudite, but immediately brought down to earth.

Here's something from Encounter amidst a discussion of 19th Century French novelists being ignored by the Académie Française, page 53:

"For the figure of a novelist did not fit the notion of a person who by his ideas, attitudes, his moral example, could represent a nation. The status of 'great man,' which the Académie quite naturally required of its members, is not what a novelist aims for; by the nature of his art, he is secretive, ambiguous, ironical (yes, ironical, the Surrealist poets in their pamphlet hit it on the head); and above all: concealed as he is behind his characters, it is difficult to reduce him to some particular conviction or attitude.

So although a few novelists have entered the collective memory as 'great men,' this is only through the play of historical coincidence, and for their books it is always a calamity."

Here he is, rehashing his side of an argument about Hrabal, page 111:

"What absurdity to speak of collaboration when the spirit of Hrabal's books, their humor, their imagination, are the absolute opposite of the mentality ruling over us, trying to strangle us with their straightjacket! A world where a person can read Hrabal is utterly different from a world where his voice could not be heard! One single book by Hrabal does more for people, for their freedom of mind, than all the rest of us with our actions, our gestures, our noisy protests!"

"... it was the disagreement between people for whom the political struggle is more important than real life, than art, than thought, and people for whom the whole meaning of politics is to serve real life, art, thought."


I think of Twain. I think of Chekhov. The writer's engine is different from that of statesman. And yet, the writer is essential to a state, the pinnacle of its offer of life and liberty, etc. When things are bad, it's good to turn to the novel.

And when a writer realizes he's not to be a so-called great man, but a human being, he stands a chance to do his work.


This to me is a universal. It's what makes Rainy Night in Soho, written by Shane MacGowan, fleshed out by the Pogues, such a monumental achievement of common culture, a recognition of what common people carry around with them, from lackey waiters, to lost young people, to the skeptical of the church, to drunks, to loners, to those in love with something. And who better to come up with the song. A shorthand of literature, and indeed MacGowan is well-read, much more than I, and knew when to say 'fuck off' to menial labor. The same beauty we wouldn't expect from Huck or Hrabal, somehow distasteful to those who pay attention to all the news, but miss something.

MacGowan writes music and reads literature as a way of dealing with a basic nervousness that could not be assuaged in any other way. The tangible beauty of his music shows that there's nothing else for him to do to feel satisfied.

Working as a barman has trained me to stay up late, and it doesn't really bother me. I've had many conspirators over the years, fellow restaurant people living on an edge of some sort, indulgent, but soulful and full of stories.

Validation

I know. I do it myself. All those questions... The artist doesn't like being called into question. That he is an artist is a basic bedrock assumption. An overly complex complicated modern world raises a lot of questions, a lot of strife, a lot of doubt and anxiety. Even when you write a book there will be lots of questions. Good. As Chekhov said, a piece should raise questions, not answer them.

Write a human moment. That's all. It might not be anything you would proud of, as far as a behavior, but it's something to portray.

The writer might admit a need of being nurtured. He needs to relax, to be taken care of. He need not waste time pondering whether his book has any value. Critical, i.e., negative, attention wasn't good for Kerouac, who, like we all do, had the need of feeling justified for what he was doing. (Which is largely what his work is about.)

Once upon a time, the church passed on its own great sense of validation down to the artists it employed to do its frescoes. It seems more complicated these days.

When confidence comes that you are a writer, then you can stop the self-defeating behaviors. That seems what allowed Carver to quit drinking. Generous to others, he is providing an example of what he himself needs. He has a laugh, maybe, upon people who are not so kind as he, upon those who discriminate a book by its cover with little humility, perspective or curiosity.

If writing could ever be construed as a 'holy' business, a dissertation on the nature of day to day reality, a study of "That Which Is," Chekhov, surely, would be up there, as a kind of Noah in earthy human form. His study of Sakhalin Island, along with accompanying letters to friends and family, has been brought together in form of travelog, a complete picture of going somewhere far away and alien, even bizarre, and coming back. The piece stands as a picture of a writer's reality. (Can't put my hands on it at the moment.)

It was a rugged journey for a man not well, a harsh land and sea voyage that he found strangely invigorating to the remote penal colony to document. It seems he interviewed, or at least counted, the entire population. A candor rings through the letters, perhaps heightened by confidentially and of being personal in nature, that is distinctly his in tone. Great stories like "The Steppe," and "Ward No. 6" reverberate in its open spaces and the small details of dealings with local officials.

The piece seems to suggest a kind of form, a template that fits over the life of one is a writer. Personally it reminds me of my life as a writer, which I must admit is spent largely as a barman, a life of odd hours and odd people coming and going, while offering expanses of the necessary time alone to come to terms with things. The whole of Chekhov's way of handling life makes me suspicious that a writer is a particular sort, a reincarnation of a previous life spent in similar fashion, simply all the details changed. I am reminded of the same helpless way we travel, caught in between this and that, as in, indeed on a rugged steamer somewhere far away from home. All one can do is keep a sense of humor about himself, a tolerance for the oddities and individual personalities, eccentric neighbors, strange conditions that befall all of us and to those maintaining the illusions of the writer.

Being a writer is a matter of finding the proper attitude to face life, and then to be open and honest and clear enough about getting things said. Chekhov observes without whining. He must have had a lot of energy and endurance, and for an American in the 21st Century, he is a very interesting read.

Reading the story, "The Steppe," one is struck by the autobiographical, the personal element, the direct experience, of a man becoming a writer, brought to fruition in so many places, including, Sakhalin Island.

But any writer--what a pretentious term--must admit that he is like the physicist who can never prove anything. He may have intuitive sense, but any claim of his of some holy understanding of the world and people is ridiculous. (Fault holy men and women for establishing such a mistaken pattern.) If he, or she, comes up with anything it will be by dumb luck and coincidence, a matter of looking in the right place at the right time. He can only shrug at the worthlessness of his chosen profession, and wish he had some other sort of job by which to serve mankind more honestly.

This is akin to what Fellini is telling us in "8 1/2," that he, Guido, played so wonderfully by Mastroianni (himself a true hero of art), has been an obsessive fool in his creative mode, various women, Claudia Cardinalle's character, etc., putting up with him, and come up with nothing as far as a film, and that here, only realizing that does he 'get it.' He realizes that people are people, not roles to play. Indeed, Fellini, and Mastroianni, nail it. The modern equivalent of Adam's finger reaching out to touch God's by Michelangelo.

Thus, the squirrelly nervousness and awkwardness, lack of confidence, a pained shyness that mark the life and character of the creative type, even as he is a friendly and generous person (if a bit overly self-protective.) Treated best with yoga and aerobic exercise and some form of job to occupy himself with.

Being down with himself for being who he is isn't much of a solution. What can he do but move forward, hoping that he has helped a few other people understand their own form of the condition, helpless as they are to completely prevent it. That's probably too tolerant a view to take for a lot of people, but... Know thyself--maybe there's enough shame in that already, when you try to become an adult--and you shall understand the Universe.


{INTERLUDE, a good long bike ride in Rock Creek Park on a beautiful day, into evening, as I don't have to tend bar tonight.}

The writer reveals himself not through holiness, but through his own faults.

And in revealing himself, his faults, his foibles, he is bastion and butress of democracy and constitutional liberty, much moreso than the clever moralizing simpleton who would claim perfect strength over his weaknesses. The writer is the first line of defense for freedom and commerce, is both guide and teacher. His is the Western disagreement with moralizing religious law and totalitarianism.

And maybe you can't be a writer until you admit to yourself the uneasy truth of your being a male, a lazy turd, a little brother more irresponsible than he should be, a libertine, etc., etc., etc.

The writer is a democrat, not for following rules so much, even though he would so much like to.

It takes a long time for him to be at peace with his state. Which doesn't get any easier with age, but by some wisdom.

How to fix things? Less Glen Beck, more Shane MacGowan. Is Joyce so far away from Jefferson and Franklin?

If I may say so, trust me, you wouldn't want to be a writer, at least as far as I can tell. However, if called, you don't have much choice, to continue revealing yourself as the awkward and confused person you are where others just know what to do and go do it. Keith Gessen, he's done a fine job with capturing that.

Maybe that's some of the meaning behind the opening of In Our Time, the Nick Adams stories, when Nick trails his hand in the water, quite certain that he would never die. There has to be some basic fallacy of assumptions, otherwise you wouldn't be a writer.

Tolstoy describes his brother, who was not a novelist: "All of the talents. None of the necessary faults."

Once you can understand that, life begins.

A bird's feather resembles a cat's claw, the same form, but in reverse.
The bird has many, a single point fanning out.
The cat has few, strength narrowed to a point.
Out the feather goes, protecting;
Inward the claw goes, holding, in its function,
both a grip on life.
One, the air, the rain, the wind.
The other, prey, a fight, a tree.
An old couch pillow,
a carpet, examining table of all.

It's an interesting and unintended facet of being a writer that the process may well make you an outsider. Odd job to pay rent, odd hours, etc. What's interesting is the way that this unintended life style, call it what you will, offers the writer an interesting perspective. It's as if there is a law of nature that says that no great commentary on life and society can be born from the middle of it.

Let's take Updike. Great writer, no doubt about it, a fine draftsman. He is cleverly positioned within the norm. Sure, he goes through some stuff worth writing about, very much so. He goes through angst and deep stuff. But while certainly not Victorian, he strikes one sometimes as a mannerist. He's not an earth-shaker, a great challenge to the way people may generally see things. He writes from within society, and his stories don't venture from basic forms of social norm. Know what I mean? Am I crazy for saying so? Well, he can create a wild safari out of that seemingly benign trip to the grocery store, so well that whatever I am thinking here at the moment doesn't stick so perfectly. I merely offer a thought to entertain, and I needed, like all arguments do, an example.

Let's take Melville, or Kerouac, or Hemingway. Here you have more of an outsider, a traveller, someone gone somewhere different. The road took them there. And they end up writing something that offers a perspective you don't get elsewhere. They say very interesting things. They create the world a little bit differently. They offer a critique about some basic daily assumptions, and they end up making art.

Where does that art lead them? It seems it can lead such a writer further out, further outside, in a very different place, in a place that's hard to judge or figure because it is so unique, so different. Are they still human? Do they still belong? Can they fit in ever again with the kinds of relationships that people normally have? Are they tainted by their portrayal of things people consider to be avoided? Are they to be like Icarus, flying too high away and toward the sun to places where they don't belong?

As often the case, Kundera to the rescue with a new book of essays, reviewed last Sunday in the New York Times Book Review, a defense of art.

And also a timely New Yorker article from the August 30 issue by Ian Frazier, "On the Prison Highway, the Gulag's silent remains." Here we have the issue a little more clear cut, starkly so. The photo caption: ''The labor camps took citizens the Soviet Union did not need and converted their lives into gold and timber, for trade abroad." The writer, like Solzhenitsyn, outsider to 'society,' is the useless person. And unless he's making elevator music to keep the working masses shuffling forward through their productive days, well, his opinion, his take on matters, is not needed, and in fact counterproductive.

Maybe the unwillingness to conform neatly comes out of a writer's habit of keeping writing, an unintended consequence given that he wished indeed to belong very much from the start and all along, to be a pillar of society, just that things went a little differently than he might have expected. And maybe it becomes a bit of a hard thing to face, the fact that he will not find it easy to change his ways, that a die has been cast. Like the submarine captain in Das Boot, he knows the score. He would want to change a few things, he would like to belong, like the normal person seems to be able to do, but ever finds it increasingly difficult to do so.

A Hemingway, a Kerouac, a Melville can be dead-wrong both in the way they live, and in what they write. Yet, by some weird natural possibility, somehow they, through a back door, have an odd way of finding something right to say, like Ishmael observing Queequeg.