He's had what many would call success. He's written regularly for high-profile publications, seems to have made a reasonably comfortable living. But taking a hard look at his life in literature, going back decades, he informs us that somewhere along the way he realized he'd never achieve lasting greatness. The first sign of trouble is when his debut novel is trashed in a review. It's then he begins to think that, despite his best efforts, despite his steady professional advancement, he's been kidding himself. He'll never reach the summit, not even a secure spot near the summit, occupied by the writers who originally drew him to literature, figures everyone knows if don't themselves worship. It's a terrible blow, haunting him for the rest of his life. At the end of the piece he mentions his new novel, this time written under no illusions, aiming inoffensively low. It's as if he's spellbound by his own admissions. There isn't a flicker of humor or a more substantial insight in the entire essay than what might be expressed with an impotent shrug, the shrug of a pale fainthearted man.
I emphasize that he refers to greatness, or its absence, only as it relates to him personally. Not to apprehending and defining literary greatness. Not to what, if anything, he's retained from his reading through all those years. He's consumed by status, by the fact that he is not great and had once been foolish enough to think it would be possible for him to be great. The literature part of the discussion, which one would think should matter most of all in a life ostensibly devoted to it, hardly matters by comparison. He seems to be asking: What's all this writing for? In his case, I'm not sure.
Nevertheless, it's a good question.
Don DeLillo once said he doesn't know what he thinks until he writes it. His verbal shrug is a shrug of modesty and rationality. It appeals to me. Nothing to suggest a greater reward than a bit of clarity and a boost to memory. Sometimes I prefer to leave it there, perhaps adding, with a cough, shifty-eyed, that it c a n be a laugh. Other times I take it further, considering the shape writing takes depending on the writer. Deep down, if literature to you is just another 9-to-5 job, like data entry or something, there's a good chance it'll read that way and offer a commensurate return on investment. The same as if literature were just another means of self-promotion. The same as if literature were a fell endeavor best left to the tyrant or the cult leader, the assassin or the serial killer. The same as if literature were a waste of time. Such attitudes permeate (or poison) the work itself. When I look past surface qualities others seem content to limit themselves to I seek the message, the stance, and can be amused, disheartened, or chilled to find it. What's the writing for? You decide. You, the person reflected on the page. You decide whether you know it or not.
A couple of more relevant lines I repeat. Lichtenberg: "To read is to borrow. To create from one's reading is to pay one's debts." And from the man who introduced me to Lichtenberg: "Remember, too, that in literature you always lose, but the difference, the enormous difference, lies in losing while standing tall, with eyes open, not kneeling in a corner praying to Jude the Apostle with chattering teeth."
The real misfortune of the writer I began with, the reason I think of his story now, is how he chose to lose. As if it weren't a choice at all.
