Re: just the two of us on the Fourth
Camille Scaysbrook (verona_beach@geocities.com)
Tue, 07 Jul 1998 11:02:14 +1000
> Being acquainted with neither Mr Stipe nor his work I don't
> really know what to make of the story about his taking on board
> some groupie's mishearing of his words. It sounds like the kind
> of jape these chaps sometimes use to indulge their more gullible
> fans.
If you're not going to take on board my analogies, I may as well not bother
offering them. Would you have reacted differently if I had replaced Stipe
with say, Joyce? Because the personalities are the least important aspect
of that story - it was the idea of artistic exchange I was illustrating.
Please don't let your own trivial prejudices enter into this.
> However that may be, can you, Camille, in all sincerity envisage
> Salinger in some similar situation saying to his editor in
> the New Yorker: `The Pitcher full of Cry, eh ? By golly that's much
> better, old buddy. That's the one we'll use....' ? Or Hemingway
> agreeing that A Farewell to Arms would be more touching with
> a bouncing baby & a lump-in-the-throat ending ?
???? I don't understand this analogy at all. Are you suggesting that I
believe writers should pander to their audiences? Because this isn't what I
was implying at all.
> I can't think of any literary anecdote where any writer worth a damn
> accepted the feedback of his readers or editors - except perhaps
> where there was some problem about getting past censors or making
> it more marketable in Poughkeepsie. The only texts these chaps
> regard as sacred are the ones they wrote.
So you don't believe that Buddy Glass' admission that his audiences believe
he is either in a mental institution or a buddhist monastery a reaction to
some sort of feedback? Or Salinger's early short story writing classes with
Whit Burnett? You must be a very difficult writer to work with if
you don't let editors in on your work - of course, this is the most heart
numbing aspect of writing, but it's pretty much necessary to know your
writing works for people besides yourself. You'd certainly have trouble
getting something published today, where the industry has become
increasingly collaborative (for, it may be added, the quality of the work's
sake, not necessarily issues of marketability)
> I realise things are more chummy down where the coolabahs grow
> but the democratic principle has no place in art.
<CUT>
OK. End of tale. I'm not going to address you as long as you seem to
persist in the delusional belief that my nationality in any way affects the
way I approach my writing. It should have no relevance whatsoever in our
discussion. Goodbye.
Camille
verona_beach@geocities.com
@ THE ARTS HOLE
www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/6442