writing/publishing
Colin (colin@cpink.demon.co.uk)
Sun, 19 Sep 1999 12:12:23 +0100
I've been thinking about the question of writing and publishing in the
light of Alexander's reference to Salinger as an ex-writer; as if to
write and not publish is not to write. I think it raises some
interesting questions. There is a very real sense in which something
which has not been published does not exist. Isn't this why most
writers - with the notable exception of JDS - crave publication?
Writing is essentially an act of communication, and with no audience
there is no communication, just words in the void. At some point JDS
must have decided the pain of publication outweighed the necessity to
communicate. Also, I think one can see a narrowing of communication in
JDS later work. I get a very real sense that towards the end, and I
should think in his unpublished work, Salinger is only really concerned
to communicate with himself. I would expect the work he has been doing
since 1965 to be increasingly solipsistic. As a writer I think I can
empathise with his point of view. As mis-readings of one's work
accumulate it must be tempting to feel that the hoped for communication
is not taking place and that the only audience which will understand it
is oneself. Any kind of subtlety seems to risk complete
misinterpretation. How disappointing it must have been for JDS to find
readers thinking Franny was pregnant, placing such a mundane
interpretation on a mystical/spiritual story whose beauty, subltety and
lightness of touch corresponds to the spiritual realm to which it
refers.
There is, of course, the question of external validation. I suspect
many writers are the kind of people who crave external validation (I
know I do). Publication is again (a largely self-defeating) way of
attempting to get that hoped for response. JDS probably has a strong
enough ego not to require external validation any longer. Last week on
BBC radio Jonathan Coe said (rather pompously, I thought) that he
couldn't understand it when people came up to him and said, Iwant to be
a writer. You either are a writer or you're not (he then boasted about
how he'd been writing since the age of 6 or something equally
preposterous). I think Coe was being a bit obtuse here and what those
people meant to say was, I want to be published; but it sounds better,
more noble, to say, I want to be a writer.
As a brief digression it's also interesting how circumstances alter
cases. I don't know how well known she is in the States or Australia
but one of the most exciting and promising new playwrights in Europe,
Sarah Kane (wrote 'Blasted', 'Phaedra's Love', 'Cleansed', 'Crave')
killed herself a few months ago. She was pilloried by the conservative
press in the UK because her work was regarded as too violent. 'Crave'
was her latest play and I read the script as soon as it came out and I
thought, yes, she's getting even better, a new departure, shows a very
strong influence from Beckett but not too badly digested; these were the
thoughts that went through my mind. Then she killed herself. In fact
she killed herself twice. She took an overdose of pills (that most
warmly beckoning of methods) but someone discovered her and she was
rushed to hospital. But the hospital, even though she was known to be a
suicide, left her unsupervised on an ordinary ward, she got up and
hanged herself in the women's toilet. (I think the fact that she
actually killed herself in hospital has been hushed up, I only know
because a friend knows a nurse who works there.) The other week I read
'Crave' for the second time. And this time, with the knowledge of her
suicide, vast tracts of the script read as one long suicide note. It
was quite a shattering experience, the pain just came off the page and
bit you. What had formerly been buried in the text was now blindingly
obvious with the benefit of hindsight.
--
Colin