March 7, 2011
Writers
I am not sure I would call myself a writer, but Hanif Kureishi and I are clearly kin:
Writers often think of themselves, and are often characterised as, idlers, loafers or bums, since much of what we do takes place when we’re not working, in the unconscious, and in cafés. I can’t begin to tell you what hard work it is looking out of the window and wondering about your favourite pen, and which colour ink you prefer that day, but few will be convinced.
Nevertheless, loafing is always more generative than obsessive concentration. It wouldn’t be as if I knew in advance what I thought, particularly about the important subjects – writing, teaching, liberalism, and so-called religious fundamentalism. But I know I’m interested in the area where philosophy, literature and psychoanalysis cross over – the mind in the world. And I want to take the essential strangeness of the human being – both to himself and to others – as my subject.
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The essential strangeness of the human being.
The only difference between Software Development and Fucking Around On The Internet is that in the former, when you’re done, you’re sitting next to a pile of great code.
I’m not a writer, but I’d imagine it’s pretty much the same thing.
“Well, Mr. Flood, we have not met like this
In a long time; and many a change has come
To both of us, I fear, since last it was
We had a drop together. Welcome home!”
Convivially returning with himself,
Again he raised the jug up to the light;
And with an acquiescent quaver said:
“Well, Mr. Flood, if you insist, I might.”
Sorry–my E.A.Robinson bit is just obscure. When writers or artists are so dedicated that they go in fear of “the pram in the hallway,” as Kureishi reminds us, they sometimes succeed–but then have nobody around who can register the significance of the life spent getting there. I don’t think love is something any writer can afford to pragmatically avoid, no matter how lofty the hopes for artistic creation. Hence the image of poor Mr. Flood, celebrating his birthday alone on a hill above the town that is now alien to him, though it once was a kind of home.
Ah, Daryl. This is rather beside the point, but I once knew someone who could recite/perform that poem in a beautifully quiet way. Subtle and brilliant it was.
Wish I had heard the performance. Recited the right way (as your friend must have done) the poem is a voice that has lost everything but its own few words, under stars that will never hear them.
Andrew, Tom Hodgkinson (sp?) has a book that ponders some of this: How to Be idle.
Maybe I’ll coax him into performing it again, Daryl. I’ve not seen him in ages, but he lives in Kansas City.