Considering the fact that I am, by vocation, a writer, my feelings about what is private in my life and what is public, are somewhat uneasy. This is perhaps even more strange when one considers that, philosophically, at least, I often consider my work to be confessional. As an example of how little I like exposing my private life to scrutiny, I even hesitated to start writing a blog. As an example of how I do expose myself, selectively, I did start writing a blog, despite my hesitation. It is particularly in writing this blog that I found the boundaries, for me, with regard to what I would reveal were not at all clear cut.
Perhaps this is why I have never really liked writing realistic fiction. It is certainly one of the reasons. I don't want things to sound particularly autobiographical. I don't want people spotting themselves in the stories I write. It is this particular hazard of writing, I believe, that gave rise to the phrase "Publish and be damned!"
The other night, in the writing circle I attend, I read out a piece that I had started writing in Arkansas, and the other writers commented on how the main character seemed to be studiously ignoring all the other characters and concentrating on the scenery. This, too, I believe, is part of my desire for privacy. I do not want the literal events of my life to get caught up messily with the essential thing I wish to express, and I was all too aware in the writing of that story that it was a rare 'realistic' piece, based on actual events.
Well, if I am not keen on giving a whole portrait of myself, perhaps I can rely on someone else to provide me with a portrait. Indeed, I have one. There is also a story to go with it, but, since that story takes place in real life, please forgive me if I am selective in the details that I give out.
The story goes something like this. Things did not go as I had expected in Arkansas. In the end I had to make the difficult decision to leave early. It was a terrible disappointment, and I was prepared for a depressing end to my stay. I was to fly on Saturday, the 6th. However, a number of things happened on Friday, coincidences, if you like, that helped to relieve my loneliness at the prospect of an early return.
One of these occurrences was my meeting with a talented and interesting photographer by the name of Joe Correia. It was gallery walk in Hot Springs, which meant that all the galleries in town were open that evening so that people could walk from one to another sipping wine and generally enjoying the atmosphere. At Chuck Dodson's Gallery, Joe was taking photographs, and managed to get one of me in conversation with another photographer.
I left the gallery, but then bumped into Joe in the street outside. I was flattered to learn that he had noticed me and wished to make a photographic portrait of me. The photographs he had taken in the gallery, he described as "snapshots". We talked for some time, standing there on the pavement, next to a dustbin, as I recall, and exchanged our contact details. Unfortunately, I was flying home tomorrow, but I certainly hoped (and hope) for the opportunity some time to make a real portrait together.
A few days later, I received from Joe a piece he had worked on using the 'snapshot' he had taken. I must say, I found it very impressive, and it certainly did not look like a snapshot to me, even taking into account the changes that had been made to it.
This is the piece in question:
Perhaps it tells its own story. I think so.
I gave Joe some feedback by e-mail.
I will paste the feedback below, to give my version of the story the portrait tells. Or rather, I will paste a highly edited version of my feedback below:
"When I started to analyse my feelings and associations about the picture I came up with the following:
"I noticed, first of all, two things: the preponderance of red, and the overtones of sexuality. There are what appear to be female buttocks in one corner, and an inverted female figure in the background elsewhere. There is a connection between gore and sexuality in horror, I think, and, although I don't personally use much in the way of gore, I think that connection exists in my work. Especially, I remember a nightmare I once had in which the covers of my books all depicted distorted human figures merging into each other in nameless acts that could have been some form of violence or some strange, incestuous sexual congress. This, in turn, reminds me of a sequence from the Pink Floyd film, The Wall, in which two flowers entwine, appear to have sex, and then transform into red, bloody dogs, biting at each other. The only two images I can find from that sequence online are here:
http://www.rogerwatersonline.com/graphics/ser_2_flower2.jpg
http://pub.tv2.no/img/0029/064129.jpg
"Biological transformation is also an aspect of the horror in which I have been interested. Flesh becomes a kind of psychedelic phantasmagoria.
"In terms of the two main figures, I had the following thoughts:
"In the image, I stand out quite vividly, and the other appears to be more ghostly. Moreover, I seem to be surrounded by some kind of bubble. At the time the photograph was taken, I was actually very preoccupied. It could almost be said that I was preoccupied by the red imagery surrounding us, which perhaps was only real to the occupant of the bubble.
"While in Arkansas, I have had an experience that has been very difficult and painful for me, and for at least one other person, but which I now hope will help me to move beyond a great deal of the pain and fear that has preoccupied me. Maybe I will be able to move out of the red room of horror into another room in the mansion, both in terms of writing and life generally. In fact, what you say on this matter is similar to what someone has sometimes said to me before. He has even used the metaphor of mansion or house. He has said that he perceives me as a very 'large' person, who has been fascinated by one room in a large house with many rooms, but that he feels there is a lot more to me."
What a startling composition! Very Lovecraftian, very ominous. The scarlet eyes are disquieting, to say nothing of the vaguely cephalopodic tentacle on the left side.And ominous, too, your oblique mention of personal turmoil. I hope you find a room in that house that is peaceful, well-lighted and with a view of blue horizons–if that sort of thing gets you writing, of course.Are you back in the UK, then?best, Melissa
Hello Melissa.Yes, I was rather pleased with the photo/image, too. I am indeed back in the UK, and wondering what my next step is. I really do think it’s about time I changed my approach to life. We’re so afraid of looking like fools (or I am anyway), but really, it’s preferable to going through life without trying anything different. Ever since childhood, I have felt that people are fixated on a materialistic and mundane soap opera version of reality, but as the years passed, I suppose I gave in to it, because I seemed to be in a minority (afraid of looking a fool, you see). Anyway, I’m gathering myself for something else. I don’t want to say too much at the moment. Just that, after all, I don’t think we should ignore our dreams. Also, I’m feeling a bit more comfortable with the contradictions (apparent contradictions) of writing horror and wishing to lead a life that is actually peaceful and beautiful. Horror is just something that I am interested in as a form of artistic expression. Perhaps it’s similar to enjoying thunderstorms. Or, more importantly, I am beginning to remember what exposure to society has made me forget – that when I started writing, as a child, it had nothing to do with such sordid shallow things as ‘social comment’, or with philosophy, or trying to reproduce reality. A story is just a story. It’s just entertainment. Which is to say, it is – in the way that I strive to write it – an expression of the soul itself, there to be felt and not to be analysed.I’m glad that I have evidence that I always felt the value of the soul, before I bowed under the yoke of materialism. There’s a song at the following link called Missing that is testament to this. I wrote the lyrics a long time ago now. Maybe fourteen years ago:http://www.p3te.com/deadbell/index.htmI do think that materialism is really on its way out now. It’s just becoming less and less tenable as the ‘common sense’ point of view. So I don’t feel so isolated any more in my views (which for years I never spoke to anyone). However, there’s still a great deal of work to be done.
I started writing as a child as a way of escape (and still do)–social commentary has always eluded me, at least if I attempt to write it without sounding didatic or preachy. Writing was the door in the hedge for me, the way out of the wardrobe I couldn’t find in waking life. Not that I’m still not looking…And I agree–dreams are not to be ignored. To that end I’ve recently started seriously drawing and writing again when for a long time I kept that part of me secret–struggling with my own inner critics, I suppose. Definitely afraid of looking the fool. I live in a country where ‘looking a fool’ is not the first worry on people’s minds–they do it very well here, though I’ve a horror of it myself. I’m starting to realize life’s too short to postpone doing what gives you bliss (whenever possible).Of course, it’s easy to be blithe at this point–I’m just beginning the slog of trying to get published and not really sure it’s worth the bother, except there’s really nothing else that interests me. Well, the writing, that is–the publishing part of it seems pure hell. Especially writing the synopsis, *grumble*…Whatever you do, I hope it works well for you.In the meantime, who’s voice is it on “Missing”? I liked the Indian-sounding rhythms. “I believe everything is true”–reminds me somewhat of Tom Waits’ song, “Everything you can think of is true”.Do you still write songs?
The voice on Missing is that of Pete Black. There’s a post about our music-writing history here:http://my.opera.com/quentinscrisp/blog/show.dml/3740I still do write lyrics, but haven’t really been involved in the music side for some time now. Thanks for listening.Publishing does seem to be a tremendous drag, as if designed specifically to break your spirit. Still, I think you have to remember what’s important. Which is… er… I’ve forgotten. No, the work itself. As long as you can get something out of actually doing the writing itself, then you will continue even if the shop-soiled public world of publishing does not seem to wish to validate it for you. Of course, it’s easy to say that. To live by that principle can be harder. I remember a quote from an article on Robert Walser that I read recently. The article is here.The quote from it is thus:Walser’s so-called madness, his lonely death, and the posthumously discovered cache of his secret writings were the pillars on which a legend of Walser as a scandalously neglected genius was erected. Even the sudden interest in Walser became part of the scandal. “I ask myself,” wrote the novelist Elias Canetti in 1973, “whether, among those who build their leisurely, secure, dead regular academic life on that of a writer who had lived in misery and despair, there is one who is ashamed of himself.”I often have exactly the same feeling. Sometimes I think of those smug, talentless publishers and academics, with there middle-of-the-road lives and values, and I wish to throttle them with my bare hands. And it is not infrequently that I have wondered if my fate would be similar to that of Walser. Anyway, if I get too caught up in that anger, it uses up energy I could be using on actually writing, looking for publishers and so on. Anyway, I do hope that you are managing to nurture your dreams. I think I gave you some links a while back, to do with writing. I’ll let you know if I come up with anything else.
Indeed. Fear of Walser’s demise–or something similar–is what haunts every artist. The man sounds like a character out of Kafka, a metaphor for the modern malaise. Thanks for the kind words–you did indeed send me some links, for which I am grateful. Once I get more finished (read: endless revisions), I plan on vaulting lonely into that cold void. As someone probably once said, at least rejection is a form of reaction…And hey, it beats watching TV.
Anna Luetic writes:is this blog still alive? i just finished reading Remember You’re A Oneball. it took me the first half of the book to realise that it wasnt the old Quentin Crisp. I kept thinking, ” if he refers to a cellphone, or an ipad, i’ll flip”. thank god for google;-).my question is: the narrators description of his relationship with Jacqueline, and his morbid fear of emotions, is that autobiographical? we women want to know:-D.
Hello Anna.Thank you for writing. This blog, I am afraid, is still more or less alive.I notice that you have chosen an especially appropriate entry in the blog under which to ask the question that you do.I wouldn’t like my stories to be taken as literal autobiography, and very few of them are, even ones that might appear to be written in a very autobiographical, as it were, confessional form.However, there’s no doubt that what I write is very personal to me. There are many reasons for writing, among them:1. Statement of beliefs2. Social comment (which generally goes hand-in-hand with the above3. The creation of beauty4. Therapy5. Etc.For me, 3 and 4 are more important than 1 and 2. Since you’ve been using Google, you may have already seen the following. If you are curious about the author of the works, sometimes seeing the author physically can, well, help settle questions. You must excuse my untidy hair. I had only just got out of bed, and didn’t have time to make myself presentable:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWMOJp6lZJ0Anyway, I hope you didn’t find the novel too dreadful.