Re: further revelations
Camille Scaysbrook (verona_beach@geocities.com)
Sat, 12 Sep 1998 13:29:10 +1000
> I suspect compulsiveness is a personality trait of most writers,
> not just Salinger. A real writer can hardly ever stop
You think so ?? For a lot of writers I know the hardest part is *starting*
the damn thing! (:
> And we
> already know about that room-sized safe filling up with paper.
> But one obvious explanation for his refusal to publish is never
> addressed on this list: that the stuff may be - to his mind - simply
> not good enough. And he could be right.
Well, I don't know about that. And `Good' is a moot point - besides
anything I think writing in such a vaccuum for so long will have destroyed
any ability he has to judge whether his work is Good or Bad. I suspect
they'd be irrelevant points to him by now. On the other hand I think his
work would not be of a publishable quality - that is, the sort of thing a
publisher would be willing to convince thousands of people they want to
read (although granted they'd probably - *definitely* - publish his laundry
list)
It does take a great writer to know when to stop, and there's nothing worse
than watching any artist drift into mediocrity after their initial
spontenaety and innovation. And, as you say, there's nothing worse than the
always-disappointing Lost Work. But ...
> Isn't possible that Salinger - with the same insight - wants to
> avoid the same fate ?
Possible yes, but I'm not sure it's probable. Though something like
Hapworth is difficult writing it's certainly not bad writing. It's not as
if he was going into a decline. I think that Salinger, in his infinite ...
what is the word? Something between arrogance and self interest - self
possession is probably the best choice - in his infinte self possession no
longer finds it necessary to run his work by us anymore.
He's writing for himself now, not us. This is one of the few concrete
things we know about him. And like I said, that very fact throws
assumptions of `good and bad' out the window. I've watched it happen to a
young director friend of mine - she began to turn out rubbish because there
was simply no one to tell her otherwise, and it wasn't pretty.
Camille
verona_beach@geocities.com
@ THE ARTS HOLE
www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/6442
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