Read Online The Journal of Joyce Carol Oates by Joyce Carol Oates - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Joyce Carol Oates
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the air churning with flakes and, from where I sit, the poplars by the river hardly visible. Yesterday a fairly busy day—shopping, other errands—Friday and Thursday very difficult days on account of departmental and committee meetings at the University—emotions running high, then dipping, plunging low, with exhaustion—and so today is marvelously welcome, restorative.
Man: the creature who deludes himself in regard to nature. He imagines he likes it, even loves it. But he loves only a relationship with nature—a benign one—a relationship with nature in which he has control. Otherwise, the storm would be a catastrophe; we would share the fate of the stray, evidently abandoned cat; we would do far worse than the cat, in fact. Rejecting certain illusions, penetrating certain delusions, one is free then to enjoy the true circumstances of his existence: relationships, only relationships, no entities, no absolutes. We are what we experience.
Working with Part II of the novel. A huge manila folder, of notes—tentative scenes—character sketches, descriptions—interiors—stray thoughts written in great intensity, months ago—some of them on the stationery at the motel in Aspen—the intensity mysterious now, and how to recover it?—that self?—how, really, to remember that past certainty? But if one cannot remember one can invent. The work that goes into a novel, the consciouswork, is beyond estimation; the novelist should assume that, should not be immodest enough to claim he has actually worked hard. That has always struck me as self-pitying, childish, a coy plea for sympathy and praise…. Or am I wrong, have I always been wrong, should I perhaps have said nothing at all rather than give the impression that writing is “easy”? For in a sense it is easy, it is utterly natural. When it isn’t easy, it probably isn’t much good. At the same time it is not easy at all, because it requires constant thinking, worrying, puzzling, arranging and rearranging. The organization of mountains of material. I must have 500 pages for Part II alone; which must be drastically condensed; and who is going to do this, except “I,” in the most conscious, calculating sense of that word? One part of the personality has had its freedom, its flowing sprinting exhilarating freedom, and now another, more somber consciousness must take over…. But I’ve circumnavigated this task for days, while thinking miserably and guiltily of the fact that it must be done: and who will do it?
Writing Do With Me What You Will , in England, on that dining room table in our Mayfair flat: the first draft going rather well until I hit a snag, in Part II. The momentum of a novel’s first section is always a joy, and then the second section must, in a sense, begin again—return to a kind of emotional zero—if one is to be true to the characters involved. How easy, to write a novel about one person only—one pinpoint of consciousness enough to deal with the complexities of any event, however simple. Never snow in London, that year, but constant rain, constant rain-clouds, the sun either hidden all day or shining for a few minutes and then setting rather abruptly at about four o’clock. Not a climate for me. A place to write, perhaps, to get a great deal of writing accomplished, but not a place to live—for me. The savage contrasts of North American weather—the Midwest—extraordinary heat and extraordinary cold—lots of snow—lots of sun—far more congenial to me. Anatomy may not be destiny, after all, but one’s birthplace probably is: destiny of a minor sort. Were I transported to the tropics, or exiled to Alberta or the Yukon, I would either lose this personality and evolve into another one altogether, a stranger to myself (and no doubt to writing), or die.
The immodesty of “confessing” one has worked hard, at anything.
The bullying—arrogance—shamelessness.
The desire for approval; the demand (implicit)
Man: the creature who deludes himself in regard to nature. He imagines he likes it, even loves it. But he loves only a relationship with nature—a benign one—a relationship with nature in which he has control. Otherwise, the storm would be a catastrophe; we would share the fate of the stray, evidently abandoned cat; we would do far worse than the cat, in fact. Rejecting certain illusions, penetrating certain delusions, one is free then to enjoy the true circumstances of his existence: relationships, only relationships, no entities, no absolutes. We are what we experience.
Working with Part II of the novel. A huge manila folder, of notes—tentative scenes—character sketches, descriptions—interiors—stray thoughts written in great intensity, months ago—some of them on the stationery at the motel in Aspen—the intensity mysterious now, and how to recover it?—that self?—how, really, to remember that past certainty? But if one cannot remember one can invent. The work that goes into a novel, the consciouswork, is beyond estimation; the novelist should assume that, should not be immodest enough to claim he has actually worked hard. That has always struck me as self-pitying, childish, a coy plea for sympathy and praise…. Or am I wrong, have I always been wrong, should I perhaps have said nothing at all rather than give the impression that writing is “easy”? For in a sense it is easy, it is utterly natural. When it isn’t easy, it probably isn’t much good. At the same time it is not easy at all, because it requires constant thinking, worrying, puzzling, arranging and rearranging. The organization of mountains of material. I must have 500 pages for Part II alone; which must be drastically condensed; and who is going to do this, except “I,” in the most conscious, calculating sense of that word? One part of the personality has had its freedom, its flowing sprinting exhilarating freedom, and now another, more somber consciousness must take over…. But I’ve circumnavigated this task for days, while thinking miserably and guiltily of the fact that it must be done: and who will do it?
Writing Do With Me What You Will , in England, on that dining room table in our Mayfair flat: the first draft going rather well until I hit a snag, in Part II. The momentum of a novel’s first section is always a joy, and then the second section must, in a sense, begin again—return to a kind of emotional zero—if one is to be true to the characters involved. How easy, to write a novel about one person only—one pinpoint of consciousness enough to deal with the complexities of any event, however simple. Never snow in London, that year, but constant rain, constant rain-clouds, the sun either hidden all day or shining for a few minutes and then setting rather abruptly at about four o’clock. Not a climate for me. A place to write, perhaps, to get a great deal of writing accomplished, but not a place to live—for me. The savage contrasts of North American weather—the Midwest—extraordinary heat and extraordinary cold—lots of snow—lots of sun—far more congenial to me. Anatomy may not be destiny, after all, but one’s birthplace probably is: destiny of a minor sort. Were I transported to the tropics, or exiled to Alberta or the Yukon, I would either lose this personality and evolve into another one altogether, a stranger to myself (and no doubt to writing), or die.
The immodesty of “confessing” one has worked hard, at anything.
The bullying—arrogance—shamelessness.
The desire for approval; the demand (implicit)
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