The act of opening a book is, for me, an offering to the eternal. It is an odd, unique, tensile link in a liturgy that has been occurring for hundreds of years. It is neither religious nor mystical. It knows of not one God but of millions.To read is to connect with what has come before and what is yet to be:you are connected, however tenuously, with every person who has pored over the same words. It is a subject that I have touched on a time or two already, in a different venue:its relevance endures, not only for me as a reader but as a writer. This very connectedness is, indeed, the main reason, aside from an insatiable love of words, I am a writer at all.
Attempting to justify, to explain, to elucidate the very marrow of your lifestyle, your character, your mind-set in one article is daunting. Like Everest, it is impossible for most of us to ascend, yet many make the effort.
I identify myself fully, and with pride, not as a writer who is female but as a female writer. Whether or not my perception or subject matter is decidedly 'female', if such a thing is even possible, is entirely not the question at hand. As a fiction writer, my voice is liquid, changeable and mobile even if my style is not.
I was inspired by the Nobelist George Bernard Shaw, a male, to be a writer. Yet it took an army of women writers, from every era and genre, to convince me that it was possible.To succeed as an artist is to conquer a vast, unknowable, hostile territory. Historically, while never a fully respectable career path for anyone, up to and including today's artists, it has always been an easier one for men to traverse. At some point,women have been banned from and discouraged in doing just about everything we have ever desired. Being ignored in the arts is just one example. Still, thousands of talented, determined, resilient women have succeeded brilliantly,often irreverently, as writers.
It is to those women, from Behn to the Brontes to Bogan, that my mind turns, however fleetingly, every time I sit down to write. They are my network, as much as any living person, to whom I can look to for words of wisdom, guidance and support. Their lives, though far from wholly knowable, are guide-books to the difficult, joyous, invigorating moments that we all encounter and surpass.
It was my little hope, from the age of seven, to be able to write, always. Unaware then that you could be allowed to do such a thing as a serious grown-up, I applied myself to my scrawled, childish compositions while I could.I earned a happy dollar or two by selling hand-written copies of my stories to my family. I curbed that show-and-sell dimension to my writing when slightly older but my mania for reading has never been hidden. Since I have been doing both things--reading and writing--for the vast majority of my life, they have always been glued together in my perception. They are mirrors of each other.One without the other is not to be fathomed by my intellect. Yet, of course, that is exactly what I am now doing.
During the early stages of my transformation from reader to the ever-flowing reader-writer-writer-reader-writer that I am today, I discovered the canon of literary works by incredible women. It was a few years later that I stumbled upon the archetype of my other self: the salonierre.Active in locales as geographically separate as Paris and Moscow, salons were regular literary, philosophical and musical gatherings organized by women. They were much more than hostesses. They were the magnets that drew together artists and patrons, intellectuals and dissidents in a spirit of camaraderie, debate and discourse. The salonierres determined the style and tenor of these gatherings, their wit, verve and creativity acting as sustenance for all whom they entertained.
The salonierres were not content to be solitary readers. They were an artistic force, independent enough to choose favourites and influential enough to assure their success. Salonniers,no mere bluestockings, were participants in the sowing of literary criticism and reputation. Often, they carved a career of words for themselves.
I, living in what is perhaps an ill time for certain of my talents, am a writer and a bluestocking. If I could figure out a practical method of sharing this passion with others,to form a sort of modern salon,which is not the same as a book club(for which I have no natural bent),I certainly would. Either way, the reading is not separate from the writing. I have, in many ways, minutely calculated this life and, giving up even a crumb of what I have so intricately fashioned, feels, at this juncture,like an act of personal desecration.
Yet, for the duration of this barmy wager, separate they must be. For the first time in nearly 3 decades, I must be one without the other: writer, yes, reader, no. I maintain a slight hunch that, at some point, I shall go through a kind of low-key version of the DT's: shaking, night sweats, mental restlessness. I jest, barely. While half of my identity is temporarily fallow, I am hoping that its partner-in-intellect, my creativity, will benefit from the sudden vastness of attention it is currently receiving.
I'll get back with you in a week. I will either be stir-crazy or revelling in a new sense of Achillean artistry or, as a wild-card option, resplendent with an assortment of new skills:maybe I will take up knitting or learn how to bake a killer baklava. You never know until you make the attempt.
(This is the third in a series).
