J M Coetzee, one of my favourite authors, has done a great review essay on the life of American writer William Faulkner in the new online issue of NRB. It is a brilliant essay that gives a glimpse into the life of Faulker and looks at factors that shaped him as a writer. Sample this:
Now I realise for the first time," wrote William Faulkner to a woman friend, looking back from the vantage point of his mid-fifties, "what an amazing gift I had: uneducated in every formal sense, without even very literate, let alone literary, companions, yet to have made the things I made. I don't know where it came from. I don't know why God or gods or whoever it was, selected me to be the vessel."
It is a must read. Highly recommended.
Another interesting piece that has appeared in LRB is Blood for Oil? The essay is by Retort , a group of writers and activists, that examines whether oil was the reason for the invasion of Iraq. Didn't we know it already?
Anyway, go read it!
"The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it." ― V.S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River
5 comments:
I love Coetzee. Thanks for pointing out this article - I enjoyed it very much. Faulkner was another manic-depressive writer ... a lot of 'em around.
Faulkner, yes... manic-depressive. A notch lower than Kafka, but happy writers are hard to find, like rich poets.
If it doesn't poison you, if it doesn't eat you from within, if it does not take away bits of you it is not writing.
Ask Hemingway, he put a gun under his chin, incidentally four years to the day before I was born.
Hi bib, I agree with you and Shakeel. Happy writers are hard to find. The world is full of them. I guess we will see more of them. Writing is anyway madness.
Shakeel Bhai, thanks for dropping by. I loved when you said this: "If it doesn't poison you, if it doesn't eat you from within, if it does not take away bits of you it is not writing." So passionately true!
Last year when I spoke to Paul Bailey at the Litfest he said depression goes with the territory of being a writer ... . 50% of all poets are reckoned to ber manic depressive too.
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