WGBH Radio; The Callie Crossley Show

I'm Cally Crossley This is the Calla Crossley Show. We all know a writer's worst nightmare. Stumbling on the dreaded block whether it's a failure of imagination the inability to access just the right word or pursuing a train of thought that leads to a dead in to not get those words out can seem like a fate worse than death. But what about writers who can never stop those words from gushing forth. The clinical term for this is hypergraphia an overwhelming urge to write. One of the world's most prolific hypergraphia acts was a Boston based recluse Arthur crew Inman in his lifetime he produced a 17 million word diary the inspiration for a film project that takes a forensic look at his life and work from there we're off to Princeton where an English professor has cultivated a cult status on campus by painting over 3000 essays on Facebook. Up next a writer's life the compulsion and craft. First the news from NPR News in Washington I'm Lakshmi saying the home of Ivory Coast

disputed president is under attack again. NPR's Ofeibea Quist Arkin reports that forces opposed to the runback bill are trying to get him and his family to surrender. Heavy firing could be heard around your home by Bo's presidential residence in Abidjan where the U.N. says he has retreated into a bunker by the Bush camp has accused forces backing Ivory Coast's U.N. certified president elect of trying to assassinate him. What our spokesman paprika She says there's no intention of killing by such an action. Good night like last week we move which I would not have you should take everyone accountable. My boy insists he's the rightful president of Ivory Coast and says he will neither surrender no hand over power to what off a vehicle stopped an NPR news across. Now that highly radioactive water is no longer leaking into the Pacific Ocean off Japan engineers are focusing on preventing another hydrogen explosion at the nuclear plant

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other big reasons for the slowdown. One that has to do maybe with weather. We did see a cooler march towards the end of the month and in general we've seen higher gasoline prices which tends to take away a little bit of a little bit of the steam behind discretionary spending. Ross says even though spending growth slowed in March at least it's growth and not contraction. Still a lot of questions surrounding the deadly collapse of a wastewater treatment plant in Tennessee. Blake Farmer of member station in Nashville reports investigation into the incident is described as mostly guesswork. Officials still aren't sure how the plant collapsed. Crews recovered the bodies of two men from the rubble in sludge late yesterday. A wall of a 40 foot tall sewage holding tank failed earlier in the morning after a night of torrential rain. The tank was 85 percent full during the storms according to the Gatlinburg city manager. A statement from the city says there was a mudslide about a mile from the plant. Several hours before the collapse. The plant failure has created the possibility of downstream contamination. The

Tennessee Emergency Management Agency estimates more than one and a half million gallons of sewage was released into a nearby river. For NPR News I'm Blake Farmer in Nashville. The date set for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is appeal it's July 12th. The British High Court will hear a songes arguments against extradition to Sweden where he is wanted for questioning in a sex crimes investigation. I'm Lakshmi Singh NPR News in Washington. Support for NPR comes from the vital projects funded supporting the Museum of Modern Art with a new exhibition. German expressionism the graphic in Paul's demo Warg. Good afternoon I'm Calen Crossley. This is the Calla Crossley Show. We've probably all experienced writer's block but what about the opposite. The overwhelming urge to write the clinical term for this is hypergraphia and one of the world's most prolific hypergraphia acts was Boston based writer and recluse hearth or Arthur crew Inman

by the time he died in 1963 he had produced a 17 million word diary his life's work is the inspiration behind an opera play and now a forthcoming film. Joining me to talk about hypergraphia and the life of Arthur crew Inman is writer and filmmaker Lorenzo Dees to follow. He's currently working on the film based on in man's life called from a darkened room. The Strange Life and Times of Arthur crew Inman. I'm also joined by Alice Flaherty. She's a neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School. She wrote the book the mid-night disease the drive to write writer's block and the creative brain which is about her personal experience with hypergraphia. Welcome to you both. Thank you welcome. Nice to be here Hi Alice. Well I thought I'd start with you Lorenzo because you are really into the story of Arthur crew Inman as I've mentioned you've written a play and now you're doing the film. And just to give our listeners a sense of who this guy was

why don't you tell us just a brief description of Arthur crew Inman. Sure. I don't know if I'm into it or it's into me at this point. You know it's basically a massive adaptation of this 17 million word diary which was published by Harvard University Press in an abridged form which in itself was almost two million words. We're talking hefty memories here. Inman was a kind of very not really someone destined you think to become a chronicler of of the mid 20th century but he sort of appointed himself to that job and was born in 1895 in Atlanta Georgia. Son of wealthy cotton merchant family summered in Southwest Harbor Maine and spent a lot of time in Boston and his early years lived in Boston from 1919 until his death in 1963 in garrison Hall a building that still stands. Number eight Garrison street

Back Bay. Very interesting individual hypochondriac along with many other real and imagined maladies I progress being one of them. Arthur lived in darkened rooms had photophobia fear of light and basically he and his wife Evelyn spent 40 something years interviewing people from the outside world which whose stories that he that incorporated into his massive memoir. We should emphasize that he was wealthy never had a job that's why he could afford to sit around and write and be in darkened rooms and write about all of this stuff so he could take care of himself in that way and his family and that you mention that he was a hypochondriac and I read that he wasn't particularly sick sickly but just I guess thought he was going to be so he had all of these medicines around him at all times. Yes I mean we basically find that he he becomes an

almost the poster boy for hypochondria also a victim in his own right to quackery. You know early 20th century medicines he was given were curious chloride which is mercury bromides a lot of cross medications which aggravated some conditions that he real conditions that he already had. So a complex person not an easy person. But in the end a sympathetic figure we feel whose main I guess attribute is that he was a great listener. He was way ahead of the curve in terms of trying to stitch together all the disparate lives that came into his orbit which were over a thousand by the way thousand lives rendered in this diary. The reason that he became interesting to you is not just because of the volume of work but of course that is how he was writing this just constantly. And so we want to talk about the condition that he had because Professor Flaherty some are now saying that it's

not really a disease it's more of a condition can you explain what hypergraphia is. Well by conditioned I mean that if it's not causing any problems it's just fine. I think often it's the spouse that suffers and that most people who are hyper graphic who write all the time they they want to they want to do what they feel is part of their personality. So that's why I don't think it's really a disease in the strict form. So when we you know just to give people a sense it's not like you know I said down and you know wrote several letters over the weekend we're talking about something else. Yeah it's a matter of degree of course and it depends on you know how much you write yourself whether you're going to call someone else hyper graphic. But they you know one study that compared a group of five prep typographic people with regular people they were getting like 17 word answers to a question from the quote normals and then like 5000 word answers from hyper graphics. And what is what's motivating them. I mean is there is I know there

are all kinds of people can be motivated to write and to be to have this condition. But for an Arthur crew Inman What would you say motivated him. I think the kind of broad jump would be self-expression and in a way that's a little different from the artistic or edge which is something to communicate with other people to change other people were a lot of the hyper graphics don't necessarily care if anyone reads it or not but they have something in their personality or soul that they just want to get out. Sometimes it feels better to get it out sometimes they don't really have a choice. Now this is something you know very well because you have this condition. How does it work with you. Well I guess I would say have had some fairly medicated at this point. And but you know there are still blips of it where you know at at my kind of worst I would you know I would be in a bathroom and I'd have to write on toilet paper because I couldn't wait to get the idea down I felt like there were constantly things slipping out of my brain that if I didn't record them they'd be gone forever. And I once tried writing while I was riding my bike riding on my

arm that was not something I repeated but I guess it's not that much different. We all know people who talk all the time. It's probably just you know like how introverted you are if you're introverted you become a hyper hyper graphic and if you're an extrovert you talked all the time. Now I read that there are some who think that this is kind of. Byproduct or part and parcel of bipolar. And so would you agree with that. And if so did Arthur crew Inman. Would you suggest that he had bipolar disease. I think bipolar disease is a very good many people are likely to have bipolar disease who write all the time but it's certainly not the only way some temporal lobe epileptics do it. And as for Inman my sense from reading his diaries was just that I had to use an old fashioned term he was just neurotic he didn't seem to have. I mean he clearly had mood swings but they weren't to the degree or period a city that I would be tempted to call him bipolar.

All right so Lorenzo got in touch with you when he decided to focus on the life and times of Arthur crew Inman because he knew about your work and you knew about the work because of the work of Daniel Aron who is a professor at Harvard who painstakingly reduced these hundred fifty five volumes of diaries down to which seems like a lot still more than sixteen hundred pages. So when you met with Daniel Aaron to talk to him about Arthur crew Inman What is it that you wanted to know first off Lorenzo. Well I should say that then Aaron has a healthy Ninety eight years old right now to be ninety nine. Amazing. A professor emeritus of American literature and history at Harvard befriended me many years ago when I first read this. I first read a book review of the admin diary and purchased it read it. I was fascinated and wrote him a fan letter and we started communicating and it's been basically a 25 year friendship which was startling to both of us I

just saw him quite a bit in February when I was in Boston. And then as the link between the last age of him and our own times he knew Evelyn Arthur's wife Evelyn Yates Inman spent outlived Arthur by about 14 years and spent that time dedicated to realizing his goal of publication. Saying that some people didn't care whether anyone read it I think he very much cared. As opposed to possibly others with that condition. He felt it was his legacy. He failed at pretty much everything else. As a poet he was a Victorian creative type who of minimal talents really except in this area of chronicling he found his niche you know and it was it was for that reason that I contacted Dan because Dan interviewed Evelyn knew her and had this basically vicarious relationship with Arthur which then he transferred to me.

So I've had my own ghostly involvement with the man and his times. But to Dan Aron is a treasure of American literature and a great person. I want to give our listeners just a little bit of your interview with him as you were starting to piece all of his story together. Scuse me this was recorded after he had condensed the diaries and you were speaking to him about you know Arthur crew Inman and what he was all about. For all of his strangeness. Unpleasantness he was in certain ways a sick man. At the same time he was witty. It could be comical. He could be measured and original. Not a good critic. But at the same time so shrewd in his insights. That makes him also a bit of a historian about Boston too at the time that he was writing there was a lot of changes going on in town.

Lorenzo very much so yes I think if you you know he started this when he was about eight years old so that would have been 19 0 3 and continued it you know as a young person's journal into something of more sophistication more breadth. But yes I mean he chronicles in this in the script for hypergraphia the feature film where we're going to be making basically chronicles everything from the influenza epidemic of 1918 the great molasses spill you know the flapper age the depression all the way through the World Wars self-appointed historian not I wouldn't call him this certainly no one would call him a. Studied historian someone who you know has that mantle of a historian quote unquote but an amateur with as Dan said they're very shrewd in his assessments of what's going on very critical in a populist way of politicians and bureaucrats.

So he did say in a way that the common man that he thought he was but in the end he became somewhat reflective of the common man's frustrations. And he had a lot to say about it because of hypergraphia we're talking about hypergraphia the clinical term for the overwhelming urge to write. And I'm joined by Lorenzo's DeStefano he's currently making a film about the disorder. Also with me is Dr. Alice Flaherty. She's a neurologist and author of the midnight disease the drive to write writer's block and the creative brain which is about her personal experience with hypergraphia. Could Arthur Inman have done this if he didn't have hypergraphia what might he have been like. Are there other people that we know who had suffered from this condition and left us with a great legacy. And what does it look like today for a number of people who might be struggling with this talking a lot of writing a lot we're talking about hypergraphia and we'll be back after this break. Stay with us.

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Coming up at 3 o'clock on eighty nine point seven. WGBH. Good afternoon I'm Cally Crossley This is the Calla Crossley Show. If you're just tuning in we're talking about the disorder hypergraphia and unstoppable compulsion to write Boston based recluse and writer Arthur crew Inman had hypergraphia and the end result was his diary which yielded one hundred fifty five volumes. Imagine that's like 10 full sets of encyclopedias. His life and work has inspired a play an opera and now a film we were listening to the music from the opera camera obscura which is based on in man's life. I'm joined by Lorenzo Dees to find out he's a filmmaker. He did not write the opera but he wrote the play upon which the opera was based. And he's making a film on in man's life called hypergraphia Also with me is Alice Flaherty she's a neurologist at Matt Massachusetts General Hospital a professor at Harvard Medical

School. She's written the mid-night disease the drive to write writer's block and the creative brain which is about her personal experience with hypergraphia. So I want to give our listeners a chance to hear actually Arthur crew in man's voice in addition to all of these volumes he made some recordings of himself talking about you know his his various observations. So here's one of the first tape recordings that he made of himself. This is Arthur crew Inman. It's ok like cricket. OK. And when the white band could get into very slick rap and he put it and he wanted to keep it that night. But because he's a bad thing. But people don't always believe in hate getting out but caught in this much so he cried for a moment and then he was Lorenzo he's quite the character.

Isn't that sort of a mix of German Capote there. Exactly you know he started taping in 1950 that we found in my early research I found his papers by the way are at home in library at Harvard Harvard's rare book library and so in a way this strange man finds himself in the basement with Emerson and Thoreau you know and Longfellow very odd destiny for a guy who who is basically a nobody you know. But this this voice this is this Southern gentility. An altogether quirky character with something to say we'd like to kind of think of them as the original blogger in the sense that if you were around now he'd be making HUGE advantage of social media social networking as it was he used personal ads and referrals to rack up quite a quite a number of contacts in the outside world. Since he didn't often leave his room. Professor Flaherty you've said that you know

people do this because they have to do it. But but Arthur crew Inman actually wanted to be famous too he was conscious of that wanting to be famous. And there are actually some famous people that you've identified who have this condition. Tell us about them. I think the poster child for hypergraphia is probably just asking who not only wrote a lot but actually had talent. And there's a number of other people Isaac Asimov I mean you can look at the people that wrote a lot and think Why did they do this. Sometimes it was for money some of them were paid by the word. But most of them could have found better better ways to make money safer ways. So we should also make clear that just because you have this condition doesn't necessarily mean you're also talented. Exactly. There's a practice affect some people by writing a lot and by caring about what they produce they get better but there are so many people that just write OK. And I agree with Lorenzo that blog for Arthur crew Inman today I mean this guy could have just gone on and on he probably would have been you know very well read by a number of

people because he's doing what everybody does on those blogs in terms of just everyday observation. Now Professor Flaherty I want you to explain to our listeners about what actually is going on in the brain when this happens because you study the the actual science of this it's not just one day I wake up and I'm right now all over the place something's going on there. Well people spend a lot of time looking for the writing center in the brain and there doesn't seem to be a specific one it's basically using the regions that we use just for speaking and for. For you know recognizing letters and the the main thing that interests me in this drive to write is that there seems to be an interaction between the frontal lobe in the brain that's producing ideas and producing speech and words and then the temporal lobe that seems to be important for understanding meaning. And it's in certain ways acting as a moderator to the frontal lobe they tend to inhibit each other so that if you're making a

lot of judgments about meaning you don't talk as much because you're you're kind of editing a little bit and if you're if that area gets in him the temporal lobe gets inhibited you actually talk more so people with temporal lobe lesions sometimes they have what we call politicians speech and then they talk and talk and talk and it doesn't really make any sense but they don't care because they don't understand what they're saying. One of the classic exercises for writers is you I'm sure you know because you've also written about a writer's block which you will get into later is that you just put your your pen down and you just write anything you don't get. Lift your pen off the paper for a while to really jumpstart you. So you know in that case you're not editing which as you just said would be make you more thoughtful and meaningful. You're just trying to get something down at so it's to provoke something meaningful. Yeah that that idea of writing or his writing whatever comes into your head actually fascinated Freud there was a little book on learning how to become a great writer which sort of sponsor got him to think about what free

associations would be for his patients and they're basically just speaking the way free writer would write. There have been some studies showing that that just reading whatever you think it doesn't actually increase the quality of your writing. So by chance you might come up with some good ideas and like you know the more words you produce the better your chances of getting a good idea. And in fact I think Auden said that the great poets who write many more bad poems than the bad poets because they're just writing more. But the net result of this just letting it all spill out is is not always an increase in quality. OK well the dreams of many creative writers have just died now with Alice Flaherty she said they were all just at Massachusetts General Hospital and the author of the midnight disease the drive to write writer's block and the creative brain. I'm going to go back to my guest Lorenzo's DeStefano who is making a film called hypergraphia about a hypergraphia yak. Arthur crew Inman. Now we've talked a little bit about who he was

but he wasn't really kind of a nice guy. Lorenzo that should be said right. Well you know there's sort of several Arthur's floating out there. Alice and I talked about this the Alice that I think would be reflected in a serious biography for instance would be warts exposed you know completely chronological look at his whole life. 1895 in 1963 the film that we're making which John Hurt will be splaying Arthur Inman. You have that advantage of a fine actor taking it to another level of characterization. The persona that we've created is also not always a nice guy. In order to be honest and true to his traits if the realize that one of Arthur's core beliefs was that this was the most honest form of literature the diary kept day to day he invoked Casanova's confessions. He thought himself as a Casanova in a way because

he was sort of a thorough in a way sanctioned by his wife by the way. And he said what Casanova said I rather be convicted based on the truth than acquitted based on lies. So Arthur believed that whoever edited this massive material he would come back and haunt them if they tried to make him too nice if they took out some of the ugliness is he was always trying to escape the legacy of racism. Having grown up in the South had his share of confusions about that. Politics would say he was more right leaning isolationist. A kind person but demanding a great friend and listener particularly to young women even those who refused his advances. These friendships went on for decades sometimes. He fulfilled and provided something in these people's lives that they did not have from their wives or husbands or boyfriends or girlfriends. So a very mixed bag of a character. Hence our fascination with it and John Hurt's

fascination because he's really not interested in playing. You know you need dimensional characters you know. I did want to put a little footnote for our listeners in case you're trying to picture who is John Hurt the actor. He's known for one of my favorite movies A Man For All Seasons but also from the pop culture world the Harry Potter movies and the Hellboy movies and Indiana Jones so he's quite the breadth of experience and talent and he will be playing the main character Arthur crew Inman in your film hypergraphia and I'm talking to Lorenzo DS to find out who is the filmmaker. I want to give our listeners a chance to hear Inman's voice again before I just examined more about him and actually the condition that got him to the point of writing one hundred fifty five volumes. So here is another recording that he made. It's an exchange between him and his wife Evelyn and she's just come home with some groceries. She had a walk in the bank. OK. They cannot make enough that I don't

think like Olivier could be got there he'd be so close to nobody could do anything with. That bread meat would be to cope with oh god who could think up. She looks very nice. This morning she got on a bike and B. Now one of the things I'm struggling with this is trying to understand about this condition because on the one hand it's very internal as Professor Flaherty has said and you know you the compulsion to write perhaps not speak as much. And this guy was inside in the dark. But at the same time he was really interested in what was going on outside he was bringing people in he was questioning his wife about this. I mean how do you explain what seems to be contradictions in what the conditions opposed to do for you. Professor Flaherty Oh he was not typical of most hyper graphics in that he basically put himself in a sensory deprivation chamber and I I think it's great that he brought people in he mean managed to make a life for himself that I think made him as happy as would have been possible given who he was but

he was just desperate for anything to happen and if it wasn't going to be happening to him he would like to hear about it from somebody else. Think that's interesting he's not really a true recluse really right. No he was it was unusual he found his own niche and Lorenzo How do you see that because you know he's bringing the world into him. Right well that's good because we used to use the word reclosed I think it's a it's an Certainly understandable label to put on him but when you look into this man's life further you realize that I mean I haven't brought a thousand people into my house. You know I don't know who has for the purposes of slowly understanding who they are. This is not a recluse this is a guy who basically throws the net pretty widely in order to bring the fish in. And of course he toured in his old 1900 Cadillac through the modern streets of Boston a true anachronism. But

we re-evaluated that term recluse and found it to be inadequate because in a way he was all about people. And so for all of his irascible. Qualities he was a populist you know along the lines of of Studs Terkel perhaps or what Whitman tried to get at what is an American what is a person and what is a citizen. And we find that's his true value to me. I mean one could overlook or evaluate some of the more abrasive aspects of him. But again that's part of what he wanted he wanted to be seen truly for all those aspects. Professor Flaherty one of the things that always comes up when we learn about a new condition and for those of us many of us hypergraphia is new to us. Is it that there is more of it out there or is that is now more diagnosed. I think there's a lot you know there's no hypergraphia in cultures where there's no writing. So obviously

it's increased I'm thinking about Milan Kundera wrote about a very similar condition he called graph of mania and he argued actually the graph of mania which he was defining as wanting to be published is much more common in the settled countries where not too much is happening and he said that's why they were more graphic maniacs in France than in Israel. So I think in a way that if there's more if there is more graphic hypergraphia and blogging it's because people are pretty comfortable they don't have to be scrabbling to make ends meet. They're just sitting on their computer typing away. And what do you think. What should we take away from knowing about this now how should we observe this. You know in our life and in our culture. What is it. It does have any meaning that we we those of us who do not have this condition should should observe. I think it's people who have writer's block are always very interested in hypergraphia. And I also think that it it makes understandable the idea that there are fundamental drives and really kind of

biological drives that produce behaviors that don't seem normal to a lot of people. And I guess I would also want to say that it's good to know that you know not necessarily a disease that they can you can tolerate it in your spouse it's probably for the best and if you can't well then you know you have more negotiating to do. And for you who are you now you say you're controlling yours with medication what is it meant in your life. Well you know I was I think both hyper graphic and a graphic maniac as somebody at Harvard. You know it's publish or perish so I thought well I've got if I've got a disease let me make my illness work for me. And so I've written a couple books and I get a huge amount of pleasure from doing that I just love like finding the right adjective you know or or the sort of you're wading through all the junk that you've written and then finding one bit that's worth preserving is just very it's fun for me. So. And do you think that most people who have a condition it's funny. I mean they're driven but is it fun or is it I mean is it enjoyable.

It's I think in general people say they're what they call ego sin tonic they want to do it and it's fun in that respect. It's interesting for them. It's a nightmare when you're writing badly and you just keep turning out stuff you hate. And you know it's often found with writer's block people often alternate between the two. So these are not necessarily the happiest people in the world but it's often other things in their lives that are making them unhappy and not the writing. So Lorenzo as we come to know are probably going to be our most popular hypergraphia. After this film comes out. What do you want people to take away from the story of this interesting man who had much to say and much to write about. Well I tell you what I've gotten from it. The end result after delving more deeply than Then a film viewer would I mean you know we're giving them a two hour window. Is that one thing is I think did not judge people based on surfaces. He investigated he took some time which is of course which we have less and less of. We think we do too to assess this is the area of snap judgments

and and acute criticism based on appearances or perceptions. Arthur and this story of hypergraphia as rendered by John Hurt. Hopefully you know be a complex experience I think to see the film it's sort of twisted biography. But to go away with this idea of. If you don't want to be taken for your own surface appearances or attitudes might see them. Let's flip that around. Basically it's a sort of mantra of tolerance and inquisitiveness intense curiosity about the people that we share the planet with. Well I think it's you have so many fascinating elements the man himself is as you've just described him this actual interesting condition as both you and Professor Flaherty have described which you know it's fascinating just to observe in any one individual. And then you've got this fascinating history of Boston as written by him. You know I'm taken with the fact that the Prudential Center was being built as he was

writing all of this and how much he hated that. So there are so many interesting things to look forward to in your film and we'll be looking forward to it. Thank you very much thanks for letting us talk about it. We're going out on more music from the opera camera obscura which is based on the life of Arthur crew Inman. We've been talking about hypergraphia the overwhelming urge to write. I've been joined by Lorenzo di Stefano. He's a writer and filmmaker. He's currently working on the film hypergraphia. I've also been speaking with Alice Flaherty. She's a neurologist at Mass General Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School. She's the author of the midnight disease the drive to write writer's block and the creative brain which is about her personal experience with hypergraphia up next we continue the writing conversation with a Princeton professor who's been turned on to Facebook. Stay with us. With. With.

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Good afternoon I'm Kelly Crossley. This is the Calla Crossley Show. We're talking about writing this hour. The art and obsession. Jeff knew an ACOA is more about craft than compulsion. In 2005 he started writing notes on Facebook as a lark. Now his entries amount to over 3000 essays. It's the stuff of social media but his daily observances are also high minded and thought provoking. This endeavor is now known as Jeff's book. He's a professor of English at Princeton University and is winning and he's winning his students over with his daily digital dispatches. Jeff Miller HOWELL Welcome. Thank you so much. All right so you've been 21 years at Princeton and just a few years ago you decided to embark on this Facebook journey tell us how it all began. Decided this site is a funny word. I buy phrases like most good things I suppose. It just sort of happened. I was in with a group of students one evening it was a

roundtable discussion and I was discussing that sort of history in the form of the essay and my interest in experimental experimenting with it. I was particularly interested in trying to get them to recognize that the essay form in its in its version that we wrecked that we know we sought to put it to serve as an imp sort of ambassador between the spheres of the conversation in the spheres of learning. So some kid very sharp kid said Professor you should you should go on Facebook which I think I had barely heard of them and five years later seven years later I'm not good at math I'm an English professor. You know you can say this but this sort of went on and I now do what I do in it really have to use a nice word in daily observance. It's a daily practice. All right. So let's describe to our listeners you know what you do every day and how it comes to be. You were first calling people and

talking to them in the middle of the night and then you decided to write a research. Yes. We try to do that I think you know I got it actually right. That's exactly right. I mean it was the case that I used to be that I would you know I would call them time zone friends I'd wake up I have a sleeping disorder I guess you could call it disorder sleeping schedule or wake up at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning just call people but then I realized I was both importuning them and not really doing what I wanted to be doing and what I really wanted to be doing was to kind of like communicate as carefully as I could not my immediate sense of well you know anguish or or happiness but rather something more mediated and something more useful both to myself and others to be perfectly frank. It became a form of self therapy which I found eventually I could make interesting to other people.

And what kind of response have you gotten. Well as a consequence I mean it's been a slow but steady kind of I was a growth of interest. I mean I began with I mean I should say it's not like you know I mean I began with a built in audience that is to say my students I've been here for a long time and you know I've gotten to know a lot of people my students immediately friended me I mean I have a policy of never friending anyone. Any student that is yeah but friending me and so I knew it. I knew they were there and I knew that they sometimes read what I wrote and that itself is very important a very important part of piece of this that is to say knowing that people may be reading what you're writing not that they're definitely reading it. Not that they're definitely not reading it that it comes to constitute something like the structure of prayer. Somebody may be there and that's it. I have found that to be a kind of a magnetic

or a very suasive a very a very intense thought motive as well as Motif since I talk about it a lot in the writing itself for the writing. Someone may be reading it. Well what we know about prayer now from scientists is that if people pray for you or with you you in essence build a community. So has this work which you have likened to a prayer have built your community. I think I think so that is to say you know I don't want to sound like sort of assume your mantle myself in some sort of religiosity which I would never claim for myself but I do think it's true that people recognize that my. I hope they recognize that I'm I'm. That I'm that I mean that I'm addressing someone I do not know. With all the hope I have that they will that they will find something there which is useful to them. Now I should add

that if various people are marked by these essays they are brief but they are thick in my thick. I don't necessarily mean to say something complimentary to myself I mean they're dense with illusions so I don't expect you know people to necessarily love everything I write. No but I but I do my best and I've noticed this the last couple of years especially to make myself more and more available to make what I write more and more available it was initially as you heard. Initially it was a sort of send up of a send up that is to say it was a kind of imitation of Pale Fire in the blockhouse novel. But as the years have gone on I have found myself less and less interested in just being cute and more and more interested in actually reaching something something within myself and something in someone people or someones beyond myself.

Well I would I would describe it looking at some of some of the posts that you have a sort of like those conversations you have with friends that you evolve into about you know the business of life and what does it mean. I want to give our listeners a chance to hear a bit of it. This is a 31 63 That's three thousand one hundred sixty third post that you've made. A small and almost secret C Chesterton is in parenthesis It was February 9th at 9:50 a.m. in italics. Such keys were given to him to bind and loose when he was a poor fisher in a far province beside a small and almost secret sea homes. And then you respond to that quote by saying when my spirits are low my mind confused and my heart is full of fear. I like to remember that all my keys were given to me somewhere near and almost secret see the depths that draw me down and scare me so dark. But not for ever so the tides that pull me in mysterious but not always so. The terror there takes me far away from where I want to

be awful but not in list so such keys as we are given to bind and loose. We must first be applied to ourselves and then who knows. Once we are bound and loosened enough maybe then we can get all helpful to others with the binding and an loosening Maybe once we get our own line straight. We can become our own avert our own verion version of what someone somewhere called fishers of men. I should know listeners that there are also footnotes to this so that you can follow him in case you got lost. Beautiful though that's that's that doesn't have some meat on it as you said. It's not just I had a bagel it you know this morning and I put on the veggie cream cheese. I will say you were very very kind and very acute of you to select that that note what it samples so to speak is the deepest heart of what I'm trying to do here. And that's frankly

I don't know what life is like for you when you wake up at 3 in the morning I always wake up at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning and I am and I am it's a it's it's the violet hour is only as it's a moment of anguish it's a painful moment. And a lot of what I'm doing is all I will do research immediately. I have you know when I say researchers stumble down to my library and pull out books all kinds of books that will help me as it were talk myself down or sooth myself out of sleep to find a way I mean that that's me at my most sort of you know whatever it is and I'm too portentous but pretentious but. That's what I mean about therapy which I think is also I hope both self and other therapy therapeutic not only for myself but for others as well. The first segment of this show we were talking about a condition called hypergraphia and a particular gentleman's life who was driven to write all of these volumes do you feel you have a touch of that. Are you could leave I was did I was actually interested and very interested in that's

what I heard that segment and thinking about this. To tell you the truth it's only been since this project and only been since I reached a certain age that I've always loved to write. But it's been the next it was always an extraordinary excruciating experience for me. Not not I mean that is to say I found it very difficult to write I was I write as it were for a living I certainly you know the tenure process is what it is. But I didn't and I have a very very acute friend of mine once said to me Jeff you write to be loved. And I would only add I also write to love. But but the problem is that I didn't I wouldn't let anything go. I could not even the end of a sentence if I if I didn't think the argument perfected even by the end of the sentence. Now at this point. I don't feel that I have to write but I feel that I can write in the problems

which vexed me in the things which excite me are no longer caught up in the writing per se that is to say I love the writing but there is there are there are larger things now to confront you know whether it be mortality or were the needs of my students or or other things. So is the writing itself is not really an issue. It ceased to be an issue. It ceased to be. I suppose this is the one. One of the few genuine accomplish really good relations or successful relations I've had in my life. It went from being a source of pain and anxiety to a source of pleasure and consolation and I never expected the best relations I should have good relations but I mean it's the most successful long term relationship of my life. What was the turning point that led you from you know writing is so torturous and even wanted to be perfectionist in this form too. It's such a pleasure now and I just release it and let you go with it. Yeah I think I can actually answer that question. I mean the first answer

is pretty straightforward and that is tenure. The second answer though is a little bit less straightforward and I think it was it was. I wrote an essay and I really put my heart into the essay and a colleague said to me Jeff you know the thing about your writing is your so you get so caught up in the figure in the metaphors that the the sort of arc of the argument as a whole it's say a 30 or 40 or 50 or 100 page argument interests you less than things along the way. That was one thing to add to that the fact that I finished this essay and I was on Jane Austin titled speechless in Austin. And people liked it but they didn't they sort of like well I thought to myself you know what. I'm done with this academic writing but I'm done trying to please a particular vetting board. I will now need to try an experiment which which I think is if an experiment friendly to the world of literary criticism. But

it's it's an experiment I'm trying to see and I sort of stop looking over my back and it was at that moment it was a two part process tenure promotion and then the sense of like well you know let's see if I can change the game for myself a little bit and maybe change the game for others a little bit. And Facebook I mean I have lots of colleagues incredibly you know. Smart and inventive and adventurous people much more dangerous than I that they would no more think of going on Facebook than they would think of like accompanying their children to you know night clubs. It's just so interdicted. But that's precisely what interested me about it. Well one of the things about Facebook that you chose Facebook is that I mean it's open but it's also closed. I read a comment responding to one of your pieces saying it's a shame that Professor Nuna Koua uses a walled off platform for his writing unlike a blog which can be accessed by anyone.

I tried to read his work but was met with Facebook's logon screen so you're not really about trying to you want to engagement but you're not trying to argue with anybody or you know you know carry on some long discussion about what you have written really well. That's a really good point and that's a fair question I think. I think let me start with the end of your question and go to the first part. It is quite true I'm not interested in getting into arguments with people. But by which I mean I'm conflict that I think of myself as conflict versus just that this is not what that writing is about. Now the question about the blog at all that I sort of thinking about all this I mean and I haven't really thought this to be perfectly frank why why Facebook and why that wall. It's not a wall. In fact in some ways I guess what I would say is that it's actually more inviting to certain to a certain people then then a plane blog. Let me put it this way. One of my Khania students

said to me Professor lots of people have blogs. What what people don't do is use Facebook itself which is like you know I mean it's there's a power of yes yes yes there's a wall but it's a very easy wall to surmount It's not like there's a secret code to get in. I have lots of you know people who I don't think it's like it's like an exclusive club or anything. And I went to some part of me feels this perverse loyalty to it because I feel like precisely it is so you know. You know so many people are on it. So yeah. Oh yeah absolutely I would. You know I just wanted to put that out there and I appreciate that. You're absolutely right and the first point is crucial it seems to me that that the reader who said your point about not wanting to get into long argues is quite I don't I'm not

interested. These posts are they're not they're not posts in the sense of so much valuable work that's out there which is in deep precisely posting. You know daily events sort of opinion of that so I think that I am being would be disingenuous of me to to describe what I'm doing is anything like that they're much more like efforts at sort of prose poems. You know one would imagine getting into an argument the prose poem. That's true. I will say this. I when I first read your story I thought to myself Yeah those poor students the one thing they say is this I don't have time to finish your paper professor because you say. Oh well on that note I want to thank you for talking to me about your writing. YOU THANK YOU SO MUCH. You're quite welcome. We've been talking about writing the craft and compulsion with my guest Jeff Nuna Kowa. He's a professor of English at Princeton University where he specializes in 19th century British literature. Since 2005 he's been writing daily essays on

Facebook and the notes are meditations on literature life and philosophy. Thanks a lot. You can keep on top of the Calla Crossley Show at WGBH dot org slash Kelly Crossley follow us on Twitter or become a fan of the Calla Crossley Show on Facebook today show was engineered by Antonio only art produced by Chelsea Mertz will Rose live and Abbey Ruzicka where production of WGBH radio Boston's NPR station for news and culture.