Monkeys On Their Backs

I just caught the tail end of a "Simpsons" episode that featured animated versions of Gore Vidal, Tom Wolfe, Jonathan Franzen, and Michael Chabon.  First, I applaud the show for being the kind of program that would seek out authors as guest voices, and I give kudos to the writers for having such a good sense of humor about themselves, as they all took swipes at their various reputations  (ex:  Marge:  There's Tom Wolfe.  He uses more exclamation points than any other writer in the English language."  Tom Wolfe:  It's true!!!)


Ahhh, but these boys don't always play so nice.  Anyone remember Wolfe's feud with not one, but three literary lions about ten years ago?  He referred to John Updike, Norman Mailer, and John Irving as his "Three Stooges".  Their crime?  Saying that Wolfe can't write.  This got me curious and I did a little Googling to learn a bit more about authors and their various 'tudes.

First, let's get the obvious out of the way - yes, most drink, many to excess.  Hemingway, Faulkner, Joyce, Kerouac, Bukowski, Chandler, London, Fitzgerald, Poe, Parker, Thompson.  Shall I go on?

Others battled depression.  Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and Poe (again).  Plus,  Twain, Dickens, Tennessee Williams, Tolstoy, William Styron, Spalding Gray, and Kurt Vonnegut, to name a few.

Still others just loved a good fight:  Hemingway vs. Gertrude Stein, Melville vs Hawthorne, Lillian Hellman vs Mary McCarthy, Kerouac vs. Ginsberg, Mailer vs. Vidal.  Truman Capote vs. well, just about anybody.

And then some earn the reputation of a recluse.  From 2005-2009, if Salinger, Pynchon, and Cormac McCarthy hadn't dropped by my place once a month for a truly mind blowing game of Scrabble, I wouldn't have been able to vouch for any of their whereabouts.

All in all, a moody, cantankerous bunch, huh?  I'd make a list of the ones who offed themselves, but reading "The Bell Jar" would be more uplifting, so I'll spare you the funereal procession of legendary names.

I am fascinated by what fuels - and derails - artists.  It is, in fact, an emerging theme in my own novel (first draft in progress...don't hold your breath).  However, so much of the fuel seems to be - as we've come to learn from everyone from Van Gogh to Cobain - suffering, pain, angst; the melancholy archangel, disguised as a muse.  Given the impetus for some writers' finest work, you gotta wonder what would've happened if God had given Job a moleskin notebook somewhere around the time those sores covered his body.  Dante might've been known as an also-ran.

Is there a necessary mix of arrogance and self-crippling punishment required of those who leave their mark?  Is masochism a prerequisite for publication?

Well, the answer to that last question is a resounding 'yes', but it isn't the kind of masochism one finds at the bottom of a bottle or in the barrel of Dr. Thompson's fateful pistol.   It's the fact that those who create do so because they must - there's something inside of them that begs to be released, be it to win the affections of another, to right an injustice, or to merely stop the voices pinging around their skull.

Art is purging, demons and angels at war inside, raging to be set free.  Some folks are ill-equipped to host the battle, but when they uncork their ink bottle and spill it, mingled lovingly with their own blood, on the page, canvas, stage, or staff, we all benefit from their unburdened spirits.

Just stay out of their way while they create, apparently, or you'll get covered in 30 year old Scotch, a cavalcade of Zoloft tablets, or worst of all, your or their blood.

Bono once sang, "Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief, all kill their inspiration, then sing about the grief."  That covers it for a lot of the creators mentioned above.  What they left us is irreplaceable, but the lives they carved for themselves in the process left some pretty pronounced and irreplaceable holes as well.

I leave you with my favorite story about the writing process, involving James Joyce.  Heard it from Stephen King, and it sorta says it all.  As James reached the end of his work day - he sat and wrote every day, not allowing any disturbances for the brunt of the daylight hours - a friend came to his door.

The friend asked, "James, what's wrong?  You look so glum.  Did you write today?"

"Yes."

"How many words?"

"Eleven."

"But that's good!  For you, that's very good.  Eleven words."

"Yes...but they were the wrong eleven words!"


To quote another favorite writer, "And so it goes..."