Thoughts on Notebooks, by Camus
A dilemma, Gide says, between morality and sincerity. And again: "The only beautiful things are those that madness prompts and reason writes."
-Oh, dear, I thought when I read this. I've got it all backwards. Reason prompts me- I want to be a writer, it is only suiting that I should, therefore, write. Madness does the writing, however. Hence, the pirate stories, the Hanson fiction, my slight obsession with internal dialogue.
Another interesting thought: Hateful, the writer who talks about and exploits what he has never experienced. But be careful, a murderer is not the best man to talk of crime. (But isn't he the best man to talk of his crime? Even that is not certain.) Essential to imagine a certain distance between creation and the deed. The true artist stands midway between what he imagines and what he does. He is the one who is "capable of." He could be what he describes, experience what he writes. The mere act would limit him; he would be the one who has acted.
-Dear God. Finally, an objective idea on the old cliche of "Write what you know" that I can agree with. In regards to the first sentence, would it then be permissable to accept the experience of mental fantasy and imagination in place of the real thing? For one cannot not do the deed and yet have the experience, unless the experience has been had outside the contour of action. Thus, the writer must either be eyewitness or lunatic.
I fall into the second category, most times.
And he quotes Flaubert: "Folly consists in trying to draw conclusions."
-Again, I find myself living a life of mistakes. Perhaps the key to resolving everything that worries me is to not resolve it, and to not decide What To Do all of the time. What To Do is ultimately a fool's errand, I believe.
Also of Flaubert: "Masterpieces are stupid; they have the calm exterior of big animals."
-I somehow do not feel better for my lack of one.
The difficulties of solitude are to be treated fully.
-Oh, my. I feel I have found a similar soul in Camus. Where once Mr. Zeamer was my more-advanced version of myself-as-writer, I have now found a compatriot in Mr. Camus. It is good to see that someone is capable of taking over where Mr. Zeamer failed so miserably, in instructing me with the lessons that they learned a few years ahead of my own learning of them, in the same paths. We writers, we poor damned souls, must learn from each other, for not one other type can truly teach us how we must be in order to save ourselves from ourselves.
Concerning Criticism. Three years to make a book, five lines to ridicule it, and the quotations wrong.
-I can laugh now because I haven't been published, but this terrifies me. Maybe I should never show my work to anyone. I am in retreat-to-safety mode in my life right now, and do not want my writing ridiculed, my checks to bounce, or my hypothetical marriage to dissolve.
-At least... I thought I liked Camus. Now I'm a little scared by him:
Sexual relations with animals suppress the conscience of the other. They are "freedom." This is why they have attracted so many minds, even Balzac.
-And I was looking forward to reading Balzac, too.
A writer must never speak of his doubts regarding his creation. It would be too easy to answer him: "Who is forcing you to create? If it is such constant anguish, why do you endure it?" Doubts are the most intimate thing about us. Never speak of one's doubts, whatever they may be.
-I stand corrected.
And a decent, non-religious explaination of my current state of sexuality:
Sexual life was given to man to distract him perhaps from his true path. It's his opium. With it everything falls asleep. Outside it, things resume life. At the same time chastity kills the species, which is perhaps the truth.
-The thing that keeps going through my head as I examine this statement is, So That's why I don't want to get married. Sex kills productivity, and creation. One is forced into new roles, roles that exclude this life I am building of typist's arthritis and red ink marks. Sex rules out the possibility of external greatness, and forces one into a quiet, nature-bound but separate from higher possibilities in fate.
The first thing for a writer to learn is the art of transposing what he feels into what he wants to make others feel. The first few tiomes he succeeds by chance. But then talent must take the place of chance. Hence there is an element of chance at the root of genius.
-What I am thinking on this I cannot say, as Camus earlier chatised me for expressing my intimate doubts. However, I will add, it has been a long time since I have actually bothered to attempt to express an emotion through my pitiful writing. This is absurd, but it is true. I have been so concerned with such basic, primal, visceral elements such as setting and narrative voice and sensational description that I have entirely forgotten that people read to feel.
Perhaps, of course, the problem lies within the fact that I have first forgotten how to feel deeply.
Chastity... gives the world a meaning.
-I am wondering if, in some ways however, my chastity (or maybe I won't take it that far- my separation from intimate and/or romantic relationships)- if my chastity is not largely responsible for my lack of emotion. All great emotion stems from feelings first of love.
And a closing question that I have iterated and reiterated from him, because I must go to bed:
The great problem to be solved "practically": can one be happy and solitary?
Good night, angels.
-Oh, dear, I thought when I read this. I've got it all backwards. Reason prompts me- I want to be a writer, it is only suiting that I should, therefore, write. Madness does the writing, however. Hence, the pirate stories, the Hanson fiction, my slight obsession with internal dialogue.
Another interesting thought: Hateful, the writer who talks about and exploits what he has never experienced. But be careful, a murderer is not the best man to talk of crime. (But isn't he the best man to talk of his crime? Even that is not certain.) Essential to imagine a certain distance between creation and the deed. The true artist stands midway between what he imagines and what he does. He is the one who is "capable of." He could be what he describes, experience what he writes. The mere act would limit him; he would be the one who has acted.
-Dear God. Finally, an objective idea on the old cliche of "Write what you know" that I can agree with. In regards to the first sentence, would it then be permissable to accept the experience of mental fantasy and imagination in place of the real thing? For one cannot not do the deed and yet have the experience, unless the experience has been had outside the contour of action. Thus, the writer must either be eyewitness or lunatic.
I fall into the second category, most times.
And he quotes Flaubert: "Folly consists in trying to draw conclusions."
-Again, I find myself living a life of mistakes. Perhaps the key to resolving everything that worries me is to not resolve it, and to not decide What To Do all of the time. What To Do is ultimately a fool's errand, I believe.
Also of Flaubert: "Masterpieces are stupid; they have the calm exterior of big animals."
-I somehow do not feel better for my lack of one.
The difficulties of solitude are to be treated fully.
-Oh, my. I feel I have found a similar soul in Camus. Where once Mr. Zeamer was my more-advanced version of myself-as-writer, I have now found a compatriot in Mr. Camus. It is good to see that someone is capable of taking over where Mr. Zeamer failed so miserably, in instructing me with the lessons that they learned a few years ahead of my own learning of them, in the same paths. We writers, we poor damned souls, must learn from each other, for not one other type can truly teach us how we must be in order to save ourselves from ourselves.
Concerning Criticism. Three years to make a book, five lines to ridicule it, and the quotations wrong.
-I can laugh now because I haven't been published, but this terrifies me. Maybe I should never show my work to anyone. I am in retreat-to-safety mode in my life right now, and do not want my writing ridiculed, my checks to bounce, or my hypothetical marriage to dissolve.
-At least... I thought I liked Camus. Now I'm a little scared by him:
Sexual relations with animals suppress the conscience of the other. They are "freedom." This is why they have attracted so many minds, even Balzac.
-And I was looking forward to reading Balzac, too.
A writer must never speak of his doubts regarding his creation. It would be too easy to answer him: "Who is forcing you to create? If it is such constant anguish, why do you endure it?" Doubts are the most intimate thing about us. Never speak of one's doubts, whatever they may be.
-I stand corrected.
And a decent, non-religious explaination of my current state of sexuality:
Sexual life was given to man to distract him perhaps from his true path. It's his opium. With it everything falls asleep. Outside it, things resume life. At the same time chastity kills the species, which is perhaps the truth.
-The thing that keeps going through my head as I examine this statement is, So That's why I don't want to get married. Sex kills productivity, and creation. One is forced into new roles, roles that exclude this life I am building of typist's arthritis and red ink marks. Sex rules out the possibility of external greatness, and forces one into a quiet, nature-bound but separate from higher possibilities in fate.
The first thing for a writer to learn is the art of transposing what he feels into what he wants to make others feel. The first few tiomes he succeeds by chance. But then talent must take the place of chance. Hence there is an element of chance at the root of genius.
-What I am thinking on this I cannot say, as Camus earlier chatised me for expressing my intimate doubts. However, I will add, it has been a long time since I have actually bothered to attempt to express an emotion through my pitiful writing. This is absurd, but it is true. I have been so concerned with such basic, primal, visceral elements such as setting and narrative voice and sensational description that I have entirely forgotten that people read to feel.
Perhaps, of course, the problem lies within the fact that I have first forgotten how to feel deeply.
Chastity... gives the world a meaning.
-I am wondering if, in some ways however, my chastity (or maybe I won't take it that far- my separation from intimate and/or romantic relationships)- if my chastity is not largely responsible for my lack of emotion. All great emotion stems from feelings first of love.
And a closing question that I have iterated and reiterated from him, because I must go to bed:
The great problem to be solved "practically": can one be happy and solitary?
Good night, angels.