wrapping up: one dead writer's commentary on two others
i haven't written anything about David Foster Wallace or Roberto Bolano in a while (also: i haven't read anything by either of them in a while) (both of these things may be explained by the fact that i have been reading and writing about too many other things) (ironically/thankfully this post is happening because of one of those other things i read about and am now writing about), but both of their lives/deaths/writing still wiggle around in me (since having devoted time to each of their respective "epics," i suppose you might call them based on sheer length, regardless of lack of tragic hero in the vein of Odysseus etc). what i have been reading is a lot of commentary by poets/artists/writers about their crafts (courtesy my Vision, Voice and Practice interdisciplinary class), and that has been beyond enriching.
all i really mean to say is that i ran into this Flannery O'Connor quote (while reading her passage "The Church and the Fiction Writer") that almost epitomizes what might be the case with both Wallace and Bolano's final works:
"What leads the writer to his salvation may lead the reader into sin."
that's a good think-maker right there. i don't really have much to say on it. it kills me to realize that i want to be a writer and that i would much rather just live off the words of others... in light of this O'Connor quote, however, the act or writing, or producing, or creation within oneself seems to actually be necessary. to extrapolate this might mean: we can live without reading, but we can't live without writing. i don't think we should live without reading - all i mean to say is that there is something essential about producing that makes up who we are. you can think of this in any terms: creative arts, literal produce (food), money, etc. to maintain integrity, i think, it would be best that what we produce helps save those who receive it as well. (huge extrapolation: producing and giving crystal meth to an addict who dies because of that versus producing and giving tomatoes to your neighbor who can then eat those and live).
is O'Connor's idea a warning or a maxim? an exhortation or an observation?
she later says: "He may feel that it is as sinful to scandalize the learned as the ignorant. In the end, he will have to stop writing or limit himself to the concerns proper to what he is creating. It is the person who can follow neither of these courses who becomes the victim..."
maybe Wallace and Bolano were just victims. and that breaks my heart, because with their words, they are my heroes. maybe it takes a victim to be a hero.
it does.
all i really mean to say is that i ran into this Flannery O'Connor quote (while reading her passage "The Church and the Fiction Writer") that almost epitomizes what might be the case with both Wallace and Bolano's final works:
"What leads the writer to his salvation may lead the reader into sin."
that's a good think-maker right there. i don't really have much to say on it. it kills me to realize that i want to be a writer and that i would much rather just live off the words of others... in light of this O'Connor quote, however, the act or writing, or producing, or creation within oneself seems to actually be necessary. to extrapolate this might mean: we can live without reading, but we can't live without writing. i don't think we should live without reading - all i mean to say is that there is something essential about producing that makes up who we are. you can think of this in any terms: creative arts, literal produce (food), money, etc. to maintain integrity, i think, it would be best that what we produce helps save those who receive it as well. (huge extrapolation: producing and giving crystal meth to an addict who dies because of that versus producing and giving tomatoes to your neighbor who can then eat those and live).
is O'Connor's idea a warning or a maxim? an exhortation or an observation?
she later says: "He may feel that it is as sinful to scandalize the learned as the ignorant. In the end, he will have to stop writing or limit himself to the concerns proper to what he is creating. It is the person who can follow neither of these courses who becomes the victim..."
maybe Wallace and Bolano were just victims. and that breaks my heart, because with their words, they are my heroes. maybe it takes a victim to be a hero.
it does.
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