Confessions of an Author that Never was (TSS)

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I have always wanted to write. However, I have always failed to achieve much beyond self-pleasing tid-bits. Like most of us who want to be ‘authors’ without having the discipline to churn out a single short story of any decent standard, I have always blamed it on the genius of people I have already read.

After a lot of thought, it was settled that I will be the one to show that despite the madness that is the modern life, a solution to this ‘human condition’ lies in seeking a reconciliation between the creative urge and the materialistic compulsions. Ideas after ideas were mooted and rejected. Characters were created, played with, and killed. Plots ended before they began. Ultimately, I have been left with nothing but utter desperation and a huge dint on my self confidence.

Probably, I think nowadays, I was never meant to be an author. Or rather, to be consistent with my existential claims, never ‘good enough’ to be an author. By disposition, and by training, I am a lawyer and probably a good one at that. But author I definitely am not.

People say that all illusions are best when in the past. I myself have been and remain a big proponent of that school of thought. Living in absolute reality is not only a tenet I preach but also purportedly practice. While in theory, there is hardly any evidence to the contrary, it is difficult to accept that the one thing you like, the one area were you are passionate is that where you have no talent.

For now, it is settled that I shall focus on the profession of my choice and relegate my passion to write to a hobby. Whether this is ‘giving up’ or living up to reality is something time shall tell. Or maybe, time shall not. In either case, I am bound to bear the consequences of my choice.

Sunday Salon

Not So Curious in a Long Time

Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time

I know I came to this late, but I had my reasons. I have generally been weary of books that become too famous too soon, even with the people who have never read a book. This was one of those books. It was everywhere – streets, newspapers, magazines, and small talk between friends. Therefore, I dismissed without ever bothering to even find out what the book was all about.

However, I kept stumbling upon this curious one every now and then in the blogosphere. Sometimes the revies were quite good. Some even called it a sensitive book. Then I came to know it about a 15 year old guy suffering with Aspergers Syndrome. So, I said, let’s give it a try.

I first heard about the Aspergers Syndrome through the famous Boston Legal series. However, it was beyond my comprehension what it actually means to be suffering from it. As far as that is concerned, Mark Haddon, I believe has captured the essence in two ways – the pain of both the patient and his family. Imagine if one of your family members lived life by pure logic. It sounds OK, but you need to read this book to understand the what it actually means.

Having said that, I must state that the book reads too easy, sometimes frustatingly so. After about 1/4th of the book, I was about to drop it for it seemed there was too much pointles gibberish. The book is replete with nonesensical passages. If that was meant for the reader to understand exactly how frustrating and difficult it can be to live with a person suffering with this disease, I guess Haddon achieves it successfully. However, if it was meant to sound cute, he fails miserably.

The one interesting thing that this story makes you wonder about is the question that Dostoevsky puts forth in his Idiot. Was Prince Myshkin the idiot or the rest of the world? A person suffering from Aspergers Syndrome has no problems with logic. He is more logical than any of us can ever be. He has problems absorbing or appreciating emotions, people, and social relations. Why? Because, somewhere down the evolutionay cycle, logic was left behind. Being human no longer is synomous to being logical – far from it. We are the most ‘conditioned’ of all species. Probably, those suffering from AS have somehow escaped that conditioning. So, who is the patient?

This is not a book you need-to-read-before-you-die, however, next time you take a long flight, it could be a easy and relaxing read.

P.S: Neither do I, nor has Mark Haddon in the book made any claims to having known much or understood at all, people suffering with Aspergers. Mark Haddon actually doesn not name the disease at all. I have never met anyone with the syndrome and can not even begin to understand what a person having it would be like. This is in response to a reply to this post.

Killing With Indifference

 

I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

 Elie Wiesel in Night

When I read these lines in Elie Wiesel’s masterpiece, I got goose bumps. I read it a number of times again and again and somewhere deep inside vowed to find out about all injustice happening around, and speak out at least against the ones of the higher magnitude. Then, with a great feeling of satisfaction, I closed the book and felt good about having read such a good book.

It has been a couple of months, and like many other, that resolve remains postponed to the uncertain future. Like many other profound ideas that never get converted to action. Then, today, while browsing from link to link, from one blog to another, I received another jolt. First this post by Ramya and from there to this one at Mow Books, I was shaken up from the deep silence of indifference.

I remember having watched an episode in Boston Legal where one of the cases concerned Darfur or the genocide in Sudan. I loved the episode and in the last one year must have watched it, with admiration, over thrice. And yet, thanks to my deep rooted rut of indifference I never felt the urge to to know more. And that is when we can google anything. I have read at least 30 books, watched at least 40 movies since I first saw that episode and blogged quite a bit. Interestingly, I have read at least 5 books and 5 movies set around the theme of the genocide by Hitler. And have written posts earlier, seemingly sounding disturbed. It is so easy to be disturbed about history, and so difficult to even give a damn about anything in the present. We are so happily living in the past and the future that the present drifts, as if non-existent.

Before the question as to what we can do to remedy such situations arise, the question arises why do we not know. And from there stems the answer to our next question. And there is a lot more we can do. Maw Books talks about it in great detail, acheiving from her side the minimal action that is required.

This is not about Darfur but about us. About me. About my indifference and reasons behind. But trying to figure out those reasons is another criminal waste of time. Specially, when very close to where I live, in Kashmir people are dying and are denied basic necessities because some land was transferred to some trust which wants to provide facilities to some people who want to visit soem temple to pray. I am a Hindu and I would never like to visit the God if that requires killing people around me. And that is being justified because the other side is not of my religion? And no one in India, NO ONE is concerned. One blast in Bombay makes national news for months and a month of blast in Kashmir hardly finds a minutes mention in national news here. And we Indians say Kashmir is an integral part of India? And when Arundhati Roy talks of freedom for Kashmir, her nationality is threatened? What the hell is happening?

I am too angry right now to write anything coherently anymore. But you might be able to. So please do.  

Dealing with Reality

Human race is addicted to illusions. I guess, at a very early stage of the evolution of human society, it became clear to man that what they termed as reality was too painful to accept as it was. Therefore, man created a pseudo ‘reality’ in the name of god, eternity, afterlife, heaven, hell and what not – this was man’s survival instincts at its creative best. When society needed order, man created god as an eternal punisher; when time became his existential limit, eternity of the soul was discovered. And probably boredom combined the two and created mythologies.

Despite all the attempts, none of this could prevent glimpses of reality in human society. Even the blind-by-choice could catch these glimpses, whether acknowledged or not. Eventually it became clear that belief in Krishna or Jesus could be desirable but disbelief in Hitler and the two world wars, however desirable, was difficult to attain. Illusions are impermanent shield and there remains no choice but to deal with reality.

The search for ‘truth’, a poetic synonym of reality, has apparently been on since the Greek ages. However, the most relevant of such inquiries have only taken place in the last couple of centuries[1]. It started when man finally decided to question his abilities and acknowledge his limitations. The first undeniable truth that came to be known by this process was that even if there is an absolute truth (or reality), man can never know it. Man is only capable of knowing what is within the limits of his five senses. Beyond that, all knowledge at best are calculated guesses. It took over three centuries and an Einstein to figure out that Newton was wrong. It was only after his theory of relativity that the idea that time need not always be a constant was brought from the realm of science fiction to a scientific theory. As absurd as it may sound, there is a very thin line of distinction between fact and fiction – the line of human capacity to see.

Therefore, in order to ensure that we live our lives true to our reality, it is necessary first to acknowledge that our reality itself is limited. Man must accept man as man – with all his failings, with all his limitations. Any attempt to surpass the limitations of the reality knowable to us is an attempt to deny the limitations of human existence. A warning for the romantics – do not misread deny as defy. Living in denial is shameful, living in defiance of reality is quixotically impossible.

It is this limited and undeniable reality of human life that Sartre[2] calls ‘human condition’. Like all existentialists, Sartre paints a dismal picture of human condition[3]. But then, is not most reality dismal? Which is more real – the happy picture of Jesus turning water to wine or Hitler turning Jews to ashes, methodically?

Franz Kafka wrote that man lives like man but dies like a dog. Sartre said that man is a useless passion. Camus said that man is condemned to a Sisyphean pointless labour. Are you shouting, “Stop it! Do you have a point?” Well, this precisely is my point. Time and again the reality of man’s futility hits him in the face. All the illusions that he has comfortably wrapped himself in, can not protect but only suffocate him in the face of reality. His situation is like someone who has sewn himself in a permanent warm overcoat in winter completely negating the fact that summer inevitably shall follow. And once summer arrives – then what? Two choices – suffocate in the coat until death or tear it open.

One may ask why paint such a dismal picture of human limitations and tragedies? Isn’t it life negating? If calling apple an apple is negating apple, then it is. Otherwise, it is a simple acknowledgement of the reality that is. And why is it necessary? Because a man living in denial of his disease always fails to take medication. A gory picture of human condition is precisely what the doctor prescribed for the human race – a race wrapped in illusions. How does this prescription help? By eliminating unfounded fears, liberating man to uninhibited and innumerable choices that had been kept away from him in the fake promise of the possibility of attaining heroic ends.

If we acknowledge human condition as it is, with all the disturbing details, what then? It is only on the acknowledgement and consciousness of the true human condition that we can truly venture into attainment of any value. When Camus talks of being aware of the absurd[4], in simple terms, he asks man to accept all the givens and not struggle into despair trying to change it. It is only when we identify the given can we concentrate our efforts on constructing the rest of our ‘conditions’ by choice. Unfortunately, most of our efforts are wasted in defying the given. A very crude example could be the time, energy, and money spent in the name of religion and prediction of the future (astrology, numerology, etc.) when every man knows within, the futility of it.

It has been said repeatedly and with an irritating conviction that desire is the root of all human miseries. I beg to differ. Desire is a given human condition and any theory that labels it as evil labels our very being as evil. And because it is not possible to change this given, it leads to false frustrations and miseries. Result – in the attempt of killing all desires, we now have added frustrations and miseries of failure alongwith the desires which, obviously, cannot be eliminated.

To see one’s life beyond the futility of daily chores – beyond aspirations, beyond achievements, beyond ‘success’ – that should be the purpose of any human inquiry. For, what are success, achievement, and aspiration beyond life? We trouble ourselves to no end in an attempt to define us, to find a purpose. We fail to see the obvious – that our existence comes predefined; the definition being ‘life’. However, our purpose on the other hand is not pre-destined. We need to realize that our purpose exists not in a pre-defined fate but only retrospectively authored by us by our choices, our actions. For, as Camus says, “There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.” Consciousness and rejection of the comfort of illusions are the only tools one needs to acquire the ability to scorn fate. The choice is simple and clear – either we deal with our reality or die within the life of illusions. As Albert Camus says:

“If it (human mind) must encounter a night, let it be rather that of despair, which remains lucid – polar light, vigil of the mind, whence will arise perhaps that white and virginal brightness which outlines every object in the light of the intelligence. At that degree, equivalence encounters passionate understanding.”

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[1] This article is based on my personal understanding of what is commonly known as existentialism. I owe the development of these thoughts to the ideas I have read amongst the works of Albert Camus, Sartre, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Kafka, and others. Without justification to the theory, I can best explain existentialism as a philosophy which asserts that man exists first, without any meaning. He dies without any purpose. The realm of man is only that small part between his being and nothingness. Man is free to fill that void entirely at his discretion with complete freedom; whether he recognizes that freedom or not. Existentialism rejects all moral foundations and philosophies built on presumptions of tradition or after-life.

[2] Jean Paul Sartre was a 20^th century philosopher, most notably known as the chief exponent of the philosophy of existentialism. His epic work, where he expounds his philosophy in great detail is Being and Nothingness. One of his most popular work of fiction is Nausea

[3] However, it may be noted that Sartre’s philosophy itself is not gloomy. Like Camus and many other ‘existentialists’, Sartre believes that man is the author of himself. In his work Nausea he shoes that glimpse of possible human victory at the conclusion, despite the entire book being set in a tone of despair and anguish.

[4] ‘Absurd’ is central to Camus’s philosophy. What Camus calls absurd is the existence of two irreconcilable eternal truths – the randomness and unreasonable world on one hand and the insatiable desire for order, logic, and happiness in man on the other hand. Camus discusses this in his work The Myth of Sisyphus and shows how it is essential for man to maintain the absurd and not defy it.

Contemplating Blake

For quite sometime now, William Blake’s Poems and Prophecies had been staring at me from my bookshelf. Therefore, I finally have started reading it. I have finished the Songs of Experience and The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Each word of Blake seems to be worth contemplating for ages.

My first introduction to Blake’s words was through Colin Wilson’s The Outsider. Colin Wilson in this masterpiece not only described the social problem of ‘the outsider’, but also studied the various solutions lived by certain outsiders. One of the solutions was Blake. Blake happens to be one of those first artists who lived what has today become famous as the ‘spiritual religion’. His poems deal quite often with life’s ultimate questions, but with majestic simplicity. Like all artists, ‘truth’ holds a special position for him and after some arguments, he declares as a primary truth – Energy is eternal delight. Complete dismissal of all dogmatic religious practices, Blake lives in his own world where “Man has no body distinct from his soul“. “If the doors of perception are cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.” Blake probably was the first of the Prophets amongst the artists.

Every single poem in the collection titled Songs of Experience is a human portrait painted in beautiful words with Blake’s extraordinary insight into human condition. Some lines from the collection as evidence:

(Nurse’s Song): Your spring & your day are wasted in play, / And your winter and night in disguise.

(The Garden of Love): And Priests in black gown were walking their rounds, / And binding with briars my joys & desires.

(A Little Girl Lost): Know that in a former time / Love! Sweet Love! Was thought a crime.

I was amazed while reading The Marriage of Heaven and Hell for its surprising parallels with Nietzsche’s thought. Energy is eternal delight. Pure Will, without the confusions of intellect – how happy, how free. Blake’s Energy is Nietzsche’s Pure Will. As Blake says, Energy is the only life and is from the Body, and reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy.

Finally I leave you with a few lines from my favourite poem by Blake called The Fly. Interpretation of these are mysteriously wide and vague – insights into which are welcome:

If thought is life
And strength & breath,
And the want
Of thought is death,

Then am I
A happy fly
If I live
Or if I die.

Art Versus Life Debate – Is Marriage An Interference?

Recently read Henry James’s short story The Lesson of The Master. Underlying theme being whether an artist can pursue perfection alongside a ‘normal’ family life. Let’s dwell on that after introducing the story.

The story revolves around three simple and fictional literary characters – Mr. St. George (an old and celebrated author, being the master here), Paul Overt (a young novelist, admires St. George but can see through his failings, despite the glamour around him), and Ms. Fancourt (an ardent reader of both, both are in awe of her beauty and, she is very young). I would not dwell into the plot as it is irrelevant, both for the purpose of this post and probably, the story itself. There are just three events that defines the author’s purpose – one, when St. George gives Mr. Overt a short speech regarding his own failure as an artist and the spark of that possibility he could see in Overt. Relying on this, Overt travels to Switzerland, stays there for two years to finish his next book. Second, when Mrs. St. George dies, Mr. George writes Overt a letter expressing great remorse and loss, very inconsistent with his last speech. Third, when, on his return, Overt finds out that St. George and Ms. Fancourt are getting married, he starts doubting the validity of master’s lesson as well as the possibility of the whole thing being a plot to dupe him. However, the story ends with St. George sticking to his speech and Overt sticking to his resolve to achieve perfection, at least for the time being.

In that great speech, St. George declares that an artist’s purpose is to draw “from his intellectual instrument the finest music the nature has hidden in it, of having played it as it should be played. He either does that or he doesn’t – and if he doesn’t he isn’t worth speaking of“. Elsewhere he says “The artist has to do only with that (gold) – he knows nothing of any baser metal“. When Overt questions him further, specially as to why he had said that children were a curse, St. George rambles, “On the supposition that a certain perfection’s possible and even desirable – isn’t it so? Well, all I say is that one’s children interfere with perfection. One’s wife interferes. Marriage interferes“.

Overt wanting to leave no doubt as to his perception asks him directly, if he thought artists should not marry; and St. George says they would do so at their own peril. Overt : Not even when his wife is in sympathy with his work? St. George : She never is, she can’t be! Women haven’t a conception of such things. Later during the conversation, Overt: Are there no women who really understand – who can take part in a sacrifice? St. George : How can they take part? They themselves are the sacrifice.

Mostly, one would tend to agree. It’s no new theme in literature. Man’s business is art, creativity and women’s primary business is men. This is no male chauvinist pig speaking. Shaw in his play Man and Supermanhas dealt with this (and many other themes) in good humour and style. Someone as free and individualistic a women as Ayn Rand believed that women’s primary business was a man. A women’s conception of heroism is always through a man. But then, are not these two contradictory – that man is hindered in his artistic pursuit by marriage and that women need men for fulfilment of their own artistic hunger. I do not have an answer, I can only say that the problem lies in looking for the right pair, and that remains the most difficult pursuit amongst daily chores.

However, I personally believe that a man’s primary business of being an artist can only be fulfilled if a corresponding need for a man-hero exists among women. For, to insist artists to stay away from propagation of race is to want to lower our genetic pool to non-existence.

But even to the possibility of a perfectly understanding, compatible, and artistic lady being a non-interfering wife for the artist is given a jolt by this very valid argument by Henry James :

Overt asks what if she has ‘a passion for the real thing, for good work – for everything you and I care for most‘. St. George laughs and replies, “‘You and I’ is charming, my dear fellow! She has it indeed, but she would have a still greater passion for her children – and very proper too. She would insist on everything’s being made comfortable, advantageous, propitious for them. That isn’t the artist’s business“. To this, I don’t think there is an answer. Moderation, probably seeps in the best of women after marriage and moderation is no virtue for an artist. At one place, James’s fictional master says, “He (artist) must be able to be poor“. I guess, he should be able to moderate selectively too. I don’t know if that is possible, but that seems to be the only possibility. Doesn’t it?

Thinking Too Much And Too Deep

Colin Wilson in his book The Outsider talks through a critique of literature about a clan of individuals, referred by him as ‘the outsiders’. He states that one of their primary problems is that they “think too much and too deep“. That premise and a beautiful exposition of’aesthetics’ by Joyce in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which I am reading now, led me to this train of thought :

Human being, the species (for convenience referred to as ‘man’ hereafter), consists of two parts – commonly referred to as ‘body’ and ‘spirit’. Since thousands of meanings have been attributed to these two words, for the sake of clarity, I propose to use a different terminology (which I believe is more exact in definition). Thus, let me say that man consists of the ‘touchable’ and the ‘untouchable’ parts (‘touch’ here referring to the physical sensory perception).

The touchable part, by its very nature, is more susceptible to violence and subjection. The untouchable part, though potentially susceptible to both, is not only less so but also protected by its very nature – intangibility.

However, for an outsider, the untouchable part becomes, unconciously, more vulnerable than the touchable. The culprit being the fact that they “think too much and too deep”. Another reason probably is that they tend to employ too often, in their scheme of logical analysis, a useful but dangerously double-edged tool – induction.

Therefore, most of their formative years (which, by the way, has nothing to do with their age) is spent in a psychological incomprehension of the effect of such violence on their untouchable part – more often than not, they being unaware of its cause. Consequently, their untouchable part becomes subjected to either of these notions – that life is worthless or that he is.

It is only when the outsider becomes aware of his strange situation, i.e abnormal vulnerability of his untouchable part, that he becomes free.Then he finally figures out that life is not only ‘not wothless’ but also constantly enjoyable. By one act of consciousness, the very disease of thinking “too much and too deep” becomes an immunity.

On Life After Death

Recently answered the question, “If you were to die tomorrow, where would you be?” at The Thought Revolution.

I answered thus :

“Little explanation needed – If I was to die tommorrow, where would I be – after death or today?Presuming, it is the the former.After death, I would be nowhere. No life after death for me, if I were to believe my convictions. However, if one believes in the romanticism of staying alive in the ideas, creations, and words that one leaves behind for generations – well, without mooting that romanticism, I have no problems accepting that. But in that sense, where would I be is not a question that I could answer – for, no matter what I think my contribution has been, my legacy will stay in the form and perception of others. Ergo, where I will be after I die, if at all I stay in whatever form, will be for the rest of human population to figure out (that does not please me, but I accept it as the only logical conclusion). “

The Dreamist replied thus :

“Can you really entrust your soul to the memory of others? Sounds very uncomfortable and risky to me.Then again, its interesting how you came to a conclusion that you do not buy yourself, but yet have no choice to accept due to your logic. Does it not prompt you to re-examine other’s answer to this question carefully, or perhaps even rethink your own reasoning? Perhaps you can join me in constantly verifying whether I would end up in heaven or not.“

My reply to that was:

“I agree it’s not a comfortable feeling to live with – that your memory, or to use a very preposterous word, legacy – depends on others’ perception. And I am all for reviewing my logic. But as of all the reasoning I have today, without a leap of faith, I cannot bank on a life after death. And I do not have enough basis to make that leap. That’s where I stand – as of now”

And therefore to get more insights and more views, I pose to you the same question:

“If you were to die tommorrow, where would you be?“

Jude the Obscure – Hardy’s absurd hero

“You are Joseph the dreamer of dreams, dear Jude, and a tragic Don Quixote. And sometimes you are St Stephen, who while they were stoning him, could see Heaven opened. O my poor friend and comrade, you’ll suffer yet!”

– Sue, in a letter to Jude in Jude the Obscure

This timeless classic happens to be Thomas Hardy’s last prose. It was first published, in an abridged form, as a series in Harper’s Magazine, in 1894, drawing a lot of attention for all the wrong reasons. Leaving aside the complex characterisation and strange thread of relationships that Hardy had sewn together, the critics were hung up on the fact that the protagonist falls in love with his distant cousin.

Jude, as most of Hardy’s hero, remains a failure; but a dreamer nevertheless. You may never find another author with more respect for potential than accomplishment. As most of the classics of this era, it is a masterpiece, to be read and re-read. However, in my view there are two things most distinct about this one – the characterisation of the female protagonist, i.e Sue (ably played by Kate Winslet in the movie format) and the dream that used to be Christminster.

Sue remains, in my view, one of the most complex female characters in literature. Readers may find it difficult to reconcile her contradictory moral positions. Perhaps, the reason being that she is a character portrayed way beyond her times, and therefore keeps succumbing to the failings of her era.

Hardy travelled way beyond any author of his time in writing the last part of the book, “At Christminster Again”. He is aesthetically and painlessly interwoven so many themes into this part, that in the first reading, one misses it completely. Without ever being preachy, keeping intact all the essentials of popular fiction, he ventures into ideas as deep as existentialism.

One of the underlying themes of the novel, and probably the one that caused all the scandal and misgivings, is Hardy’s take on the institution of marriage and the Christian dogma. With all the pretensions of secularism, liberty, and free speech of our age, this book is as relevant to us today as it was to the English society at the beginning of last century. However, thanks to these pretensions, there is no scandal anymore.

Disappointed that both Tess of the D’Urbervilles and then Jude drew more the attention of moral critics than literary, Hardy never wrote anything but poetry after this book. Jude remains dear today, to all its readers, for the sheer passion of dream that Hardy so beautifully shares with them.

“But I feel I could do one thing if I had the opportunity. I could accumulate ideas, and impart them to others. I wonder if the Founders had such as I in their minds – a fellow good for nothing else but that particular thing?“

– Jude in Jude the Obscure