writers:5 readers:0

Scottie Bowman (bowman@mail.indigo.ie)
Fri, 27 Mar 1998 09:07:30 +0000 

	In the light of some of the postings in the past week or two, 
	it's hard not to sympathise with Peggy.  I certainly tend to rattle 
	 on endlessly about how things look from the viewpoint of the writer 
	rather than the reader.  And I'm not alone.  

	(At the same time, perhaps I may point out - defensively - 
	that there are still quite a lot of people in these parts who treat 
	Salinger's characters as if they were living acquaintances poised 
	afresh each day on the edge of their individual dramas.  From 
	*my* point of view, the heat & anxiety aroused on their behalf 
	looks as involving as any `professional reader' could possibly 
	wish.) 

	But Peggy does raise what I find an extremely interesting issue.  

	For the first 15 years of my life I was an absolutely compulsive 
	reader - standing, sitting or lying down: junk, classics, 
	pornography, comics, bottle labels, the lot....  And I don't 
	remember, when engrossed in Nicholas Nickleby or Dover Harbour 
	or whatever, that I had the slightest ambition to emulate Charles 
	Dickens or Tom Armstrong.  I was far too caught up in what was 
	happening in the various stories.

	Then, one night in 1943 - the first wholly sleepless night of 
	my life - I began reading Pilar's memories of her days as a young 
	woman in Valencia.  From that moment on, I realised that I'd never 
	again be truly happy in this life until I'd turned into Ernest 
	Hemingway & be able to do what he could do.  (As you can see, 
	I never did. This indefatigable cheerfulness is all a terrible 
	sham.)

	From then on, reading became a far less simple pleasure.  Half the 
	time, I went on happily losing myself in the narrative.  But the 
	other half, I became obsessed with `how it was done.'   
	Authors began to fall into two categories: the ones who had nothing 
	to `say' to me, other than give me an enjoyment for which I was 
	grateful; & that certain few who had to be watched, hunted, 
	imitated, stolen from, derided, envied.  After a while, I gave up 
	reading fiction altogether for fear or being infected with another 
	man's style or thoughts.  And in fact this condition has persisted 
	over the years so that even now I'm more or less stuck with 
	`factual' stuff like history or biography. The only fiction I can 
	read are by people like Proust or Waugh whose technique I couldn't 
	possibly emulate.

	Salinger is one of those I *can* take up (or resume) for the simple 
	pleasure of falling in love or growing impatient with his creations 
	-without a second thought about how he does it.  Yet it looks as 
	if among the `writers' on this list I'm in a minority.  I wonder 
	what it is that makes a book one writer's obsession & another's 
	diversion ?
	
	Scottie B.