Links Between Lives
Let me begin by sharing this private letter from 1955, from one writer to another. The book of short stories above and this letter connect for me: taken together, they define something of interest between a writer's courage to do the work and what validation is worth.
[December 1955]
Bellapaix, Cyprus
Dear Henry -
A brief line to thank you for the two great parcels of books which arrived, followed rapidly by two more. It was wonderfully generous of you, and its good to have something to read in this fragmented life. I'm pushing my book about Alexandria along literally sentence by sentence. I'm dog-tired by the time I get home in the evening, but every waking moment is possessed by it so that by the weekend when I type out my scribbles I usually have about 1500 words. I feel like one of those machines for distilled water - it is coming drop by drop, running contrary to physical fatigue etc. This is really writing one's way upstream with a vengeance! Never mind - i remember your struggles and blush to think of my own.
I'm writing this at 4:50a.m. A faint lilac dawn breaking accompanied by bright moonlight - weird. Nightingales singing intoxicated by the first rains. Everything damp. In a little while I take the car and sneak down the dark road towards a dawn coming up from Asia Minor like Paradise Lost.
Love,
Larry
- from "A Private Correspondence: Lawrence Durrell & Henry Miller," edited by George Wickes
In 1935 a young Brit, Lawrence Durrell, wrote a letter to the then 43 year old American writer Henry Miller, living in Paris, in praise of his new novel, Tropic of Cancer: "I have never read anything like it. I did not imagine anything like it could be written; and yet, curiously, reading it I seemed to recognize it as something which i knew we were all ready for." What followed was an animated friendship devoted to an exchange of ideas, reactions to art and writing and the damnation of censorship. In 1937 the two met in Paris, and a life-long personal friendship was forged. Miller was often the encouraging mentor Durrell needed; "Now don't my dear good Durrell, ask me to weep with you because you are alone. That's in your favor. You can't be alone and be with the herd too. You can't write good and bad books...The toll is disintegration."
We all need our own. Those people who have our backs, support our work, encourage. Good folk that open doors and pick up pieces. Scientists to farmers, astronauts to teachers, we push and define our work from within. Artists, perhaps more than others, depend on a tight, small community of like-minded others for more than just company: beyond pounding back a beer at the end of the successful mounting of a new play or coffee at the corner after a bank account, a book, and a relationship have gone up in flames. The peaks and valleys of the creative struggle are real. Life in the unpredictable, rarely financially stable "arts" takes guts. But generous people hold us together.
It is ordinary kindnesses - the generous word, a positive outlook, sometimes even that unasked-for-validation from a competitor in our field - that floats the solitary human boat. Henry Miller was right: it is challenging to "be alone and be with the herd too." In today's digitally-connected world in which we can form community across the globe, at the end of the day many work alone. I am most familiar with books and writing, so I think of the writer at her desk. The manuscript written word by word, in solitude. Self-employed and self-motivated, the artist, without market or capital, struggles "one's way upstream." The painter at the easel, a dancer at the barre, a sculptor welding in the barn, a violist running scales - whoever we may be and whatever our artistic or life pursuit, we work in a piercing dissonance of determination mixed with doubt.
On Monday in New York City, a local Spokane journalist at our regional newspaper, The Spokesman Review, won a prestigious national literary award for his debut short story collection: Shawn Vestal's Godforsaken Idaho is the 2014 winner of the PEN Bingham Award. I know Shawn and am a huge fan of his short story collection. I couldn't be more happy and proud for him. He's a humble guy, a hardworking journalist, a devoted father. (We last said hello at Aunties Bookstore, where he attended a Harry Potter Birthday Book Party with his son.) Recognition from peers and leaders in the publishing industry is priceless, but at the end of the day, a box-full of solitary hours went into producing that genius work - as in any difficult creative challenge for that matter, building design to lab science.
All of us depend on one another for validation at some point - whether the fan letter Durrell sent Miller amidst the critical uproar following the publication of Tropic of Cancer, or the box of books Miller mailed to Durrell to sustain him in his isolation on Cyprus. Why not send some validation out today. Just my nudge, but why not go to a bookstore or click on the book image above and order Vestal's Godforsaken Idaho. Any book you feel strongly connected to deserves your voice of support. Claim what is worthy in the world.
[December 1955]
Bellapaix, Cyprus
Dear Henry -
A brief line to thank you for the two great parcels of books which arrived, followed rapidly by two more. It was wonderfully generous of you, and its good to have something to read in this fragmented life. I'm pushing my book about Alexandria along literally sentence by sentence. I'm dog-tired by the time I get home in the evening, but every waking moment is possessed by it so that by the weekend when I type out my scribbles I usually have about 1500 words. I feel like one of those machines for distilled water - it is coming drop by drop, running contrary to physical fatigue etc. This is really writing one's way upstream with a vengeance! Never mind - i remember your struggles and blush to think of my own.
I'm writing this at 4:50a.m. A faint lilac dawn breaking accompanied by bright moonlight - weird. Nightingales singing intoxicated by the first rains. Everything damp. In a little while I take the car and sneak down the dark road towards a dawn coming up from Asia Minor like Paradise Lost.
Love,
Larry
- from "A Private Correspondence: Lawrence Durrell & Henry Miller," edited by George Wickes
In 1935 a young Brit, Lawrence Durrell, wrote a letter to the then 43 year old American writer Henry Miller, living in Paris, in praise of his new novel, Tropic of Cancer: "I have never read anything like it. I did not imagine anything like it could be written; and yet, curiously, reading it I seemed to recognize it as something which i knew we were all ready for." What followed was an animated friendship devoted to an exchange of ideas, reactions to art and writing and the damnation of censorship. In 1937 the two met in Paris, and a life-long personal friendship was forged. Miller was often the encouraging mentor Durrell needed; "Now don't my dear good Durrell, ask me to weep with you because you are alone. That's in your favor. You can't be alone and be with the herd too. You can't write good and bad books...The toll is disintegration."
We all need our own. Those people who have our backs, support our work, encourage. Good folk that open doors and pick up pieces. Scientists to farmers, astronauts to teachers, we push and define our work from within. Artists, perhaps more than others, depend on a tight, small community of like-minded others for more than just company: beyond pounding back a beer at the end of the successful mounting of a new play or coffee at the corner after a bank account, a book, and a relationship have gone up in flames. The peaks and valleys of the creative struggle are real. Life in the unpredictable, rarely financially stable "arts" takes guts. But generous people hold us together.
It is ordinary kindnesses - the generous word, a positive outlook, sometimes even that unasked-for-validation from a competitor in our field - that floats the solitary human boat. Henry Miller was right: it is challenging to "be alone and be with the herd too." In today's digitally-connected world in which we can form community across the globe, at the end of the day many work alone. I am most familiar with books and writing, so I think of the writer at her desk. The manuscript written word by word, in solitude. Self-employed and self-motivated, the artist, without market or capital, struggles "one's way upstream." The painter at the easel, a dancer at the barre, a sculptor welding in the barn, a violist running scales - whoever we may be and whatever our artistic or life pursuit, we work in a piercing dissonance of determination mixed with doubt.
On Monday in New York City, a local Spokane journalist at our regional newspaper, The Spokesman Review, won a prestigious national literary award for his debut short story collection: Shawn Vestal's Godforsaken Idaho is the 2014 winner of the PEN Bingham Award. I know Shawn and am a huge fan of his short story collection. I couldn't be more happy and proud for him. He's a humble guy, a hardworking journalist, a devoted father. (We last said hello at Aunties Bookstore, where he attended a Harry Potter Birthday Book Party with his son.) Recognition from peers and leaders in the publishing industry is priceless, but at the end of the day, a box-full of solitary hours went into producing that genius work - as in any difficult creative challenge for that matter, building design to lab science.
All of us depend on one another for validation at some point - whether the fan letter Durrell sent Miller amidst the critical uproar following the publication of Tropic of Cancer, or the box of books Miller mailed to Durrell to sustain him in his isolation on Cyprus. Why not send some validation out today. Just my nudge, but why not go to a bookstore or click on the book image above and order Vestal's Godforsaken Idaho. Any book you feel strongly connected to deserves your voice of support. Claim what is worthy in the world.
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