Originals: The Writer in America; 3; John Gardner

I. Don't know where I stand in relation to the peculiar power that's why I keep writing books. Sometimes I think I am it I am. You know those the you said everybody in the world is saved but me. I'm very proud of our moods and sometimes that's what I think sometimes. I think it's its period and the universe and planets tipping too much or something like that. It is true that everybody these days however happy his life you know ever isolated he is from a big city troubles or whatever he has to be aware of the kind of terrible moments or are just up there and huge. In my own mind. I when I read a novel I'm working on particular

problems not really philosophical problems all the sort of philosophical implications but mainly problems of my own attitudes to things as a sort of basic thing in me which is. I'm one of those people of faith. You know I believe that tomorrow is going to come and that the world is not going to destroy itself. But with the atomic bomb or. Anything else. And on the other hand. Well I know I've been worrying things ever everybody does and every writer makes his plots out of my get one and I a real law and order type and I think everybody should be good. And on the other hand I want to blow up the universe. And what you do is to split these two parts of the two nice cartoon characters and let them fight it up. And the law and order part always works because people who want to blow up the universe always end up blowing up themselves. But that isn't really a good argument against it it's just a. Statement. So everything I've done deals with that of a general kind of way. But each novel takes a different kind of aspect of the basic thing I think at least in

my mind it does. I was very much interested in some of the dialogues in sort of social things and the alleged breakdown of American civilization and so on. And Grendal I was interested in a completely different thing which is. The implications of which people such as philosophy and the people who followed them down to mark Cousy and so on. People who went behind them. Plus me which is a song which is I think essentially paranoid. And. Loveless and faithless and. And egoistic and other nasty things all of which are very attractive to me. Although I'm also on the other side. And so when I was doing Grendal I wanted to apply in a modern setting. So basic things about that poem and one of the basic things that will be the essence of it all it's about the tripartite soul and about the breakdown of reason and the man's desperate attempt to hang on to

reason against the middle ages would be treated as very simple. Irascibility and concupiscence in the Platonic scheme. But that system comes up in the skies after disguise and it can always be modernized like you know it can go Vishnu Brahma Shiva or you can go God the Father God the Son God the Holy Ghost so intellect irascibility and 2 percent super ego ego id and so on it just keeps shapeshifting but always always that same thing. In fact nobody's come along with any kind of faculty psychology to supplant it or or adequately criticize him. So when you start applying it in a modern setting with modern ideas taking Schopenhauer's are basis of wilne and so on and so forth you get a different kind of thing. And so what I want I wanted to do in Grendal was. Specifically psychological that is so. I don't want to go through the details of how a guy you know gets his breakfast and gets his lunch and goes to work in a realistic kind of business

the kind of thing that makes him an nihilistic in real life takes you 200 pages to write you know. But in a fable you can say one day Grendal met a dragon and the dragon said Stupid stupid stupid just so damn caboodle. Why did you come here why do you bother me don't answer. He added quickly stopping me. I know what's in your mind I know everything that's what makes me so sick and old and tired. I'm sorry I said. The screen flames shot clear of the cave. I know you're sorry for right now that is. Well there's one frail foolish flicker flash in a long dark hole for eternity. I am unimpressed. No no no. The guard burst open and got hold of me. I closed my mouth. I was terrible. Lowering toward me I felt as if I were tumbling down into it dropping endlessly down. Here are some more. He let me fall down and down toward the Black Sun and spiders. He knew I was beginning to die. Nothing would have been more disinterested to the core

and I used to be a teacher of ceramics too and one of the students was very good so was Potter. So I asked him to make one dragon. Me that carried away. It's a sad thing you know you can't see the face. That's the best thing about it. And it's typical of him too. You know Chinese Checkers is the best thing for the. Characters in my books frequently spoke philosophy but it's always maake philosophy really the best example of that is in the resurrection where I wanted to if I had wanted this guy to be calling Woody and philosopher who on a basis of calling would end philosophy could see the error. A really fundamental error and Khant aesthetics. I was very proud that I saw it and I'm absolutely sure I was right and I can be

tempted to write a philosophical essay to show hey John Gardner is a philosopher right. But if you're writing a novel you can't read philosophy at least not if the novel doesn't let you. If my stuff is bleak. The one thing that resists bleakness kind of is that people do love each other like men don't love anybody very much. But comly does. And just because he's stupid doesn't really matter I actually love those and his empathy with people his ability to look at the other side is desperate wish to be just in a world in which justice is impossible. Or as I see in some story just ice that love thing is central to everything like in wreckage of Agathon. What we're really supposed to come to is the picture at the end of the you know the disciple at the end of the novel does know about love and and does pull all the other things together in another mood and things like Jason Madia where love is conspicuous by its absence and finally the world is so bad that you can only you know fight back with love.

Ultimately that's of course the deal with Tarion and me and that's all that's left of it. You know Christian with the grace doctrine that is to say you don't win by your own efforts. And and in the world that I understand that is to say this world we're in this terminal will finally what happen to you and. It even happens to. Brenda resisted desperately getting to and but when he says for Grendel's I had an accident so may you all seems to me that that's a blessing for the. Down in southern Illinois or whatever you make it through the ravages of spring time when the heavy wet

evenings crowding every meadow and Marsh with green the time when the rattlesnakes come out on the rocks and dry brown Creek the sun themselves boil on the coil or hatchet heads live to do what you'd pass the deadly hot summer when farmers get up before dawn. The whole bottom lands were there only to live off the ground then quit which happens when the sun is still too high in summer. I was saying the wind and the sea we stood there in the road watching it seems I fell into a momentary trance. The storm came plunging northward toward us. And it never even crossed my mind that I ought to seek shelter. Grass birds underbrush creatures around us were hushed and motionless. Hugging the ground waiting as they do when an eagle has been sighted and then one at a time but simultaneously like angels arriving out of nowhere in a vision three enormous black Cyclons appeared maybe 20 miles away. We came along crazily sweating like why are black savages dancing with a sign of the past.

The world came awake with spring alarm at the first little puff of wind. The old Shakespeare both you crash above us rain slammed down bringing sticks and we then ahead of us there was a widening patch of sea green sky like the slide. Rule was howling everything was turn right on the screen. To the big things were. Being. Fired. From. The center of the page in one natural light. All we and some that didn't see. Smaller number than I would have expected. No work. An evil man who doesn't seem to find that even if there is a good with a fine bow and arrows Heaven knows how many rules and a silver one coward's way like something alive in a. When. There were no lights. No sign. Of. This. It's you have any experiences in the use of. The enemy.

The only thing we can never lose. In love because because you still love. To love when you can. I. Do such things. That's it. I cancelled this last 40 years. And then my wife. Holds me and she knows no. You poor dumb stupid. You miserable again. But it's all right and then it is all right. I do it if I was that last year obviously. Yeah but that's that's the neat thing about it. I know from the beginning that the monsters are wrong and I know precisely why the monsters are wrong and I also am very tempted to look at the world in the way it does that is to say with no faith. That's a lovely I don't because he's really just like all of us every one of us knows that the sun is going to come up tomorrow and that even though the world may be meaningless we can make a meaning Little by little.

If you like in the resurrection. I was trying to do this thing where there's a man who really does know the answers and make him a lovable man and set up a model for people and myself included. But it works a lot better when you take characters who don't know the answers and then of course the more complicated their errors are and the more neatly their errors sort of mesh the better so that you know when you get something like chasing the idea. It really is fun because Jason is absolutely wrong. He thinks he can do everything with wheeler dealer stuff and intellect and all that. The idea is absolutely wrong. He thinks passion is enough. All promises are kept and I was going to say. And without each other of course they're terrible with each other they kill each other which is probably true of a lot of marriage and relationships. But it's fun. I really like it.

In a distant time. I saw these things and in all our times when angry Madia was still on earth and the mind of Jason struggled to undo disaster defiance of destiny crushed. I saw these things in a world of graves where wine cups awaited and King die and Isiah's Christ refused to die the forgotten drinking and dancing toward birth. And Artemas with him as saying life's final despair proud scorn of hope in a room gone strange decaying sleeping planet drif and drugged while deep in the night all snakes were coupling with murderous intent. Have no discipline at all I write the way here and Attucks because you know whenever possible I write if somebody really forces me to do something.

Like prepare a class or wash dishes or whatever then I start writing. And then there are things that I like to do like mow the lawn for the horses and things like that. But except for other completely undisciplined activities. All I do is ride my head out in the woods. I spend about three years walking and I tell myself a story over and over until I know I know every dark corner of this store. I know those people I know it's as if it were real. I just do it over and over and over and over. And when one suddenly comes a moment of joy looks like when the sun comes up you know suddenly you know I've got and I do I said and then you find out that on paper it's like the difference between. But with all the work is that walking on or riding horses whatever but just going off by itself and moving moving

hard and fast and sometimes slow. Depends on the part of the story you know. Yes I'll tell you I like live here. I think what writers are supposed to do is like everybody says tell the truth but it's with a very special sense like their politicians to tell you what's good and what's bad in slogans and they're religious people and their teachers and all those people. The only people who tell you how complicated it is and how you can never make up your mind and how no decisions are possible because all sides have some truth and so writers because they know anything so it's just entertainers who read a book because you've got to do it so does that writers can tell the truth that everybody knows all the time but nobody can afford the notes. We live in New York City you live in San Francisco it becomes very important to always be seeing things that are important at the moment things that society needs to

hear. Not it is now the right now when you live here live around people who don't know the complications they got their simple prejudices and their simple loves and hates and you're in touch with creatures and animals and hills and stuff. And so you lose the ability to be. Complicated and sophisticated when you lose the ability to want. To take shortcuts. The thing is though. You have all the time in the world because in a place like this. Like I grew up in. Western New York. Which was like this then. But now it's complicated and all that. And what I do is so complicated I have no room for a complicated life. I have to have. All my time to work at books and tapes. It's pretty easy to run a house around here so that Joan can compose. The kids can be kids and I can be great.

If. You read and read or watch your body. You can take your. Time. You know everybody anybody has what I did it drew me from. The airplane. She worries me this. Morning. According to the judge. You've been telling people for years. I you know I. Mean it's an old tree and it dies. Every four

years when. She. Tells me. She should be seven six. Five. Right. You know taking your bones. That's what it looks like. Right. Now. I think everybody you know my plastic My last one. By one that looks just like this I take a Polaroid picture of this before it's completely dead I can.

Tell you the truth on her way. They. Were right. And if you don't get why. Does this platonic ideal of a short story you know a short story could be Tartous All right. You know extra words right. You say that I can read James story and immediately start rewriting the story. Are you going to change our story or you take this story. Are you going to turn it into genes that aren't serious and everything is going to come down to find the guy right. You're going to revise it for brevity for the very quick punchy stuff that's always going to be like. Stafford was nice but she is not the type of guy. There is no Platonic ideal. Ultimately

the guy's got to go his own way. And so the kind of teaching that I I really respect his teaching that tries to see what it is and tries to help him do it better his way even if you hate him. You know you on to. Iowa because I was where all the writers go. I was writing something that was different from what other people the workshop were writing. And at that time of course a lot worse than what people were writing. But I didn't like what they wrote and when I got good I didn't want to be like them when I got to. And so I sort of wrote privately and took many more courses. And then the last minute some very kind professors let me do the creative quotes Ph.D. That is to say a novel and I had been taking workshops all along. I had a very nice deal of the workshop there. Were very good teachers all the time. In fact some of the best writers in America.

So Bill was there her goal to be profitable and Margaret Carlson spent her time with especially cetera. And. I would write them turning my stories into their mailboxes and not go to any classes and then the quarter to get back the stories with the Aizenman no comments. And that was very nice I didn't want to comment because. Some writers really want to learn how to write correctly. You know what that really means is that they write exactly like everybody else. And there's another kind of writer who maybe worse sometimes is who. Who's absolutely stubborn about what he's going to do. I don't begrudge Lulu. She always does after those drunken parties. We need the wheel with both

small Blueboy hands or jaw thrown forward. Her beauty in the darkness makes me think white cheekbones high as an Indians red copper gray eyes an apparition an apprehension of weirdly lighted crypts in a mist Grove. I stare through the windshield through my clownish reflection and I've forgotten my behavior already. I am full of wrath remorse. How it made that poor girl suffer. Whoa whoa my reflected mouth twists. Then I smile. So does it gloomier than ever pulled down the brim of my old black hat. Would meet with the color of my overcoat. She'll forgive me. Joan understands my plight and hers. The plight of the universe. Lightless Muir's shell of its former self. We've survived a good many trials together my own and I poor suffering artists a composer a poet. The years have made us like a couple of sly old outlaws shrivelled and all up in a cave. We dressed in black. The

car lights my optically groped on the road past all drunken telephone poles dead barns then we're home. The House and chicken house starkers tombstones and the zombie glowed with security like she parks the car hangs it up by one vendor on the seguing fence comes around to my side and helps me out and we lean on each other across the lawn to the steps and up into the White House. Empty too big for us to tonight. The children sleeping with friends and I suffer up like premonition of sad old age to us in the doorway. Pictures of children grandchildren. I play with the idea of walking stoupe now tasting my lips in search of teeth. I believe that my chair. That old chair. I say to my lovable joy of my life and ring my fingers on the bed. She says give her a look. There is a time I have not drawn or ear we grow old. I obey. She pauses at the top of the stairs to get your breath. One hand on the new post the other on her heart. Tick tick

wall. She was beautiful once I watched you looking at the painting of our daughter. She glances back at me. A thought in her mind. She too or Lucy will grow womanly beautiful. But time will bless her flesh will sag looking elderly dogs. They too have their flicker there. Our eyes are like Snow White step mother Cleopatra. Eve she looks down. Silent. A kind of snag in time. At last we continue on our arduous way. Come puffing and blowing to our room crack Blaster and fumbling hoping each other as we must get ready for bed dig our teeth out. I am 92. The planet is dying pestilence famine everlasting war the nations in the hands of child molesters. She says in the darkness. I miss John. I Grundt swimming back unwinding time and I smile. Foxey I pet her hand.

I have half a mind to get up and write letters. Give all my enemies heart attacks. I am sober and stew is midnight full of joy. It's true that my books monsters are always important. People are monsters. People are called Monsters by the characters but really there are three kinds of things that are important in my things I think. One is monsters. Another is. Another is human beings and of course they keep shapeshifting one turns into the other. Clowns are always trying to be human beings. What I mean by clowns is this. Human beings do things and clowns desperately try to imitate human beings so the acrobat gets up on the wire and then the clown wants to be an acrobat and he tries but he's a straw man and he can't be. He's always acting. He's always pretending he's always faking mimicking. Many of us feel that about ourselves all the time. That is to say we put on masks and never find out who we really are. And one of the things that happens in the novel is characters who start out as clowns try to earn the grade as human beings and

sometimes they turn into monsters and said monsters are those things that I used to go to the Saturday afternoon movies and see I mean by monsters walking dead. I mean nihilists people who really have given up on all faith and so on and act as if the world were evil and that if all people were either stupid or malicious there are creatures who have given in to the emotional war that's in everybody. Sometimes I use for instance in Henry Solms and NICAM on a monstrous kind of body which contains monstrous emotions but he's holding it in and the thing thing is finally is that he really is a monster and he's holding it in and that makes him human that constantly he does what he knows is right. Whatever the power of his emotions. So you monsters are everywhere.