The World According To PCModem -- An Essay With apologies to John Irving, and everyone else for that matter.
Tom, you managed to mention two of my favorite authors, Bradbury and Irving (I have a lot of favorite authors...sigh).
I began writing as a writer after reading The World According To Garp. Until then I had considered it impossible that I would ever be able to write anything of the quality of real authors like Bradbury. I read that book about 6 or 7 times. [Sadly, IMHO, Irving has really written only two books: Garp and A Prayer for Owen Meany -- the others are variations on a theme, enjoyable, but essentially the same story told in a different key, IMHO. Read his Setting Free The Bears, then read Garp to see a very clear example of what I mean.]
I'm not sure it is a good idea for writers to study (formally) literature. Reading for enjoyment is one thing -- and I encourage all writers and writers-in-training to do it, but reading as work (which is what getting a degree in lit is and what being a reviewer is all about) is quite another thing. The whole motivation is different, the context in which the art is consumed is different also -- obligation vs pleasure. Exceptions abound, I'm sure. (I'm not sure at all, but am trying to be polite.)
I think Irving assumes too much regarding writers when he says, "a writer writes because he is disappointed with the world and is compelled to create his own alternative." Can you imagine Steven King giving that statement as an answer to "Why do you write Mr. King?"?
I agree that that probably is a component of what makes some writers write. But his statement leaves out all the other reasons. I write for FUN and because I like to smile! I love playing with words ("Numb and Number" and "navel - novel" are two examples of that from my recent work.) I also like the idea of adding some fun to the experience of others. I like to think I can add some beauty sometimes too. I like to think I can make others think (I recently stirred up quite a few people with a story I now regret posting...BUT I don't regret the result of that story -- many really nice PM's from a great group of people who let me know clearly how they felt about what I wrote and did so nicely, so that I LEARNED something and feel better about being a writer and being HERE).
It seems to me that Irving is telling us why he writes. And why others may also write, but certainly not why I write -- except perhaps when I write essays and opinion pieces. The fact that what he says resonates with you, is GREAT! -- I'm not criticizing that at all.
Writing is an art. We are artists. Taste (there's that word again) is in the mouth of the one doing the chewing.
You write what you write for all the reasons that make you you and not me. You made a very interesting statement: "Maybe I should have taken more Lit. classes as and undergrad. If I had, maybe I wouldn't be fashioning cosmologies where those pronounced clinically dead by the authorities don't merely go back to work on the assembly line, but buy framed ceritificates of their "achievement" and revel in it <g>"
I don't think any of us write because of what we don't know. I think we write because of what we do know and who we are as individuals.
Thanks for listening.
PCM |
