Subject: sic transit the lovely Gloria Monday
From: Scottie Bowman (rbowman@indigo.ie)
Date: Fri Nov 16 2001 - 18:32:41 GMT
'... guess who just won the National Book Award? ...'
I'm quite sure if I ever did my innate arrogance would
inflate to still more nauseating dimensions. And even
the praeternaturally demure Cecilia might have difficulty
containing herself.
But who won it in 1991? Or 1977? Or 1953?
Or whatever its equivalent, whenever? Who, as a matter
of interest, won the Nobel Prize for Lit in 1990?
(No cheating now.) Tout passe, tout lasse, tout casse.
The great Cyril Connolly once remarked that there was
absolutely no point in even starting to write a book unless
you had a fair prospect - & a murderous determination -
to make it a masterpiece. Anything less was just so much
shit & squandered conifers.
I'm beginning to think ole Sal may have a point after all.
Make every word a bullet. Show it to no one. Take no advice.
Ignore the encouragers. Leave it to mature for twenty years.
Then, if it still looks good, drop the manuscript in the local
bus for the next passenger that happens along.
Time & the river will do the rest.
Scottie B.
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