Commonplace 210 George & Writing.
'Loneliness is a cloak you wear...' sang the Walker Brothers in 1966 click
Writing is generally a solitary occupation. Though many a good book must have been written with others in the room, the archetype of the writer as a single soul battling to communicate a story or an idea in solitude is what we run to when we think of the role - though it is difficult to think of Shakespeare or Boswell shacked up in their garrets eschewing company. Nowadays, writing using digital media means anyone can write anywhere - though I am sat here in isolation so as to be able to concentrate, access my resources, and make some coffee whenever I choose.
George seems to have been a self-indulgent, temperamental, over-sensitive soul not really cut out for any job of work, inasmuch as work generally requires rubbing shoulders with fellow humans. Its not them as physical bodies that is so challenging, its the adapting to their funny little ways. George did not do 'adapting' and was intolerant of others' 'funny little ways'. People, as a concept, generally left him wanting - he felt superior in intellect to most people he met (he moved in quite a narrow circle haha), was not good at small talk, and had no conscious fondness for gossip - though he enjoyed it surreptitiously by dressing it up in his letters as 'information' - news passed on, is still gossip when it involves others' doings. He refused social invites but that was an attention-seeking pose more than a reflection of his 'genius', as, by declining, he made a bid for that dratted 'sympathy' he so craved, plus pointed the finger of blame at either Marianne aka Nell or Edith so that others would not hold his foibles against him.
It was as if he chose the trade of writing as a solution to his misanthropic tendencies - few jobs offer greater opportunities for being alone and provide less chance of coming up against people you don't like. The downside, of course, was the crucifying loneliness he claimed to feel, though this is somewhat over-stated, and will be forever linked to his sexual longings for sexual company. Did he really feel lonely in other ways? He liked socialising when he chose the time and the place - his Letters are peppered with requests to meet up, suggestions his wider family relocate to be closer, and the futile attempts he makes to lure Algernon into his geographical circle (all rebuffed, as Algernon had more sense than to move in with George unless he had to very briefly for practical reasons). But always on his own terms - which is the way he did everything, especially the unheroic stuff.
Wives were not really welcome in his domestic set-up because they got under his feet too much, and children, well, they had better not be too demanding. Guests such as Eduard Bertz and Morley Roberts were welcome in strictly controlled chunks of time, and Herr Plitt was allowed entry to the inner sanctum on occasion, but all three were men George felt intellectually superior to, so they would have not been too threatening for his fragile ego defences. It was also what helped keep him lonely - no wife can compensate a writer when the writer is so miserable whilst they are writing about misery.
George seems forever trapped in the late adolescent pose of suffering solitude; others have to come and find him - like he is a buried treasure they must excavate. Actual writing as work generally lays him low, he develops his man flu and 'seediness' - his term for feeling below par - and every word is wrenched out of him as an act of exorcism, more than a product of creative flow. The mental exhaustion he feels both during and at the end of the process that makes you wonder if it was all worthwhile - and maybe he should have found some other form of employment, if only for the sake of his health. A 'square peg in a round hole' might be the phrase used for one so woefully misplaced in their choice of profession. This is said out of meanness - much of George's personal unhappiness and dissatisfaction with his life can be laid at the door of his chosen profession. But he was not well-equipped for any other job; he hated teaching, and would have always hated it. He was not a physical type, he lacked people skills, and detested the sort of pen-pushing desk jockey he mocked in his novels and short stories. Shopwork? - imagine that! He lacked the patience or generosity of spirit for that.
Work was for him, a form of masochistic therapy. Whatever would he have done without the lash of money-making to keep him focused away from his natural tendency to gloom? His greatest strength was in his ability to read for extended periods (not everyone can do this!), which requires a skills set not easily transferable to other callings. If you add up all the hours he spent reading and then compare them to the hours he spent writing, you will see he did more of the former than the latter. But he got more enjoyment out of the former. It's not just the writing that requires a place of solitude - probably, reading even more so demands we be left in peace. All those days in the British Library 'under the dome' would have required silence and a lot of private head space. It is much harder to feel entitled to interrupt reading - it''s like you break some sort of spell. Whereas, unless you are a writer yourself, you think anyone having to write something lengthy would welcome the diversion of chat. And as the interruptor, you feel you are saving the interuptee from themselves just be selflessly diverting them from their task.
Of course, George was producing 'Art' and this was bound up, in his mind, with suffering. So, not only was writing the ideal occupation for his self-pitying solitary ways, it was an excellent fit with his daft notion that 'there is no gain without pain' where Art is concerned.
Do Artists 'agonize'? Apart from the reaction to the grief of his best friend's suicide, Picasso never claimed to do more than work very hard. Did the divine Oscar sweat blood over that 'Ernest' play? Is it not true that if a work is such a strain to produce, it can only show in its execution? Not that there isn't hard graft and applied skill involved; it's just the grace of the thing has to be apparent, and the words have to slide off the page and into the brain and soul, without the awareness that you are actually reading something made up. If it was hard to write, it will be hard to read!
There is a generally held feeling in psychotherapy that individuals always act in their own interests - even when short-term gains are meagre and long-term consequences negative - then disguise it in order not to appear 'self-centred'. Accordingly, even those who choose altruism (see Commonplace 51 for an overview of Ayn Rand and Objectivism) are acting from self interest, though they cloak it in terms of 'compassion' and 'charity'. George tended to be what might be termed 'selfish' and, in order to justify it, developed a persona of put-upon down-trodden hapless stooge of a husband to two wives, and a misunderstood, under-appreciated novelist who was out of time with what was really wanted by the reading public. It's interesting that, after all the moaning on about loneliness and the awful life he lived without a companion, the moment he moved in with Gabrielle Fleury, he did all he could to give her the slip so he could head off and be on his own. Makes you wonder if it was all part of his cunning plan to be a lonesome his whole life.
'Loneliness is a cloak you wear...' sang the Walker Brothers in 1966 click
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| Loneliness by Hans Toma c 1900 |
George seems to have been a self-indulgent, temperamental, over-sensitive soul not really cut out for any job of work, inasmuch as work generally requires rubbing shoulders with fellow humans. Its not them as physical bodies that is so challenging, its the adapting to their funny little ways. George did not do 'adapting' and was intolerant of others' 'funny little ways'. People, as a concept, generally left him wanting - he felt superior in intellect to most people he met (he moved in quite a narrow circle haha), was not good at small talk, and had no conscious fondness for gossip - though he enjoyed it surreptitiously by dressing it up in his letters as 'information' - news passed on, is still gossip when it involves others' doings. He refused social invites but that was an attention-seeking pose more than a reflection of his 'genius', as, by declining, he made a bid for that dratted 'sympathy' he so craved, plus pointed the finger of blame at either Marianne aka Nell or Edith so that others would not hold his foibles against him.
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| Solitude Idyll by Sir Frederick Leighton 1881-3 |
It was as if he chose the trade of writing as a solution to his misanthropic tendencies - few jobs offer greater opportunities for being alone and provide less chance of coming up against people you don't like. The downside, of course, was the crucifying loneliness he claimed to feel, though this is somewhat over-stated, and will be forever linked to his sexual longings for sexual company. Did he really feel lonely in other ways? He liked socialising when he chose the time and the place - his Letters are peppered with requests to meet up, suggestions his wider family relocate to be closer, and the futile attempts he makes to lure Algernon into his geographical circle (all rebuffed, as Algernon had more sense than to move in with George unless he had to very briefly for practical reasons). But always on his own terms - which is the way he did everything, especially the unheroic stuff.
Wives were not really welcome in his domestic set-up because they got under his feet too much, and children, well, they had better not be too demanding. Guests such as Eduard Bertz and Morley Roberts were welcome in strictly controlled chunks of time, and Herr Plitt was allowed entry to the inner sanctum on occasion, but all three were men George felt intellectually superior to, so they would have not been too threatening for his fragile ego defences. It was also what helped keep him lonely - no wife can compensate a writer when the writer is so miserable whilst they are writing about misery.
George seems forever trapped in the late adolescent pose of suffering solitude; others have to come and find him - like he is a buried treasure they must excavate. Actual writing as work generally lays him low, he develops his man flu and 'seediness' - his term for feeling below par - and every word is wrenched out of him as an act of exorcism, more than a product of creative flow. The mental exhaustion he feels both during and at the end of the process that makes you wonder if it was all worthwhile - and maybe he should have found some other form of employment, if only for the sake of his health. A 'square peg in a round hole' might be the phrase used for one so woefully misplaced in their choice of profession. This is said out of meanness - much of George's personal unhappiness and dissatisfaction with his life can be laid at the door of his chosen profession. But he was not well-equipped for any other job; he hated teaching, and would have always hated it. He was not a physical type, he lacked people skills, and detested the sort of pen-pushing desk jockey he mocked in his novels and short stories. Shopwork? - imagine that! He lacked the patience or generosity of spirit for that.
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| Automat by Edward Hopper 1927 |
Of course, George was producing 'Art' and this was bound up, in his mind, with suffering. So, not only was writing the ideal occupation for his self-pitying solitary ways, it was an excellent fit with his daft notion that 'there is no gain without pain' where Art is concerned.
Do Artists 'agonize'? Apart from the reaction to the grief of his best friend's suicide, Picasso never claimed to do more than work very hard. Did the divine Oscar sweat blood over that 'Ernest' play? Is it not true that if a work is such a strain to produce, it can only show in its execution? Not that there isn't hard graft and applied skill involved; it's just the grace of the thing has to be apparent, and the words have to slide off the page and into the brain and soul, without the awareness that you are actually reading something made up. If it was hard to write, it will be hard to read!
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| Solitude by Guillaume Seignac (not for very long haha) |
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| Lonesome George the Galapagos Tortoise (1912-2012), the last of his sub-species seen here in livelier days. |
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