Dovlatov had done his Soviet army service as a guard in a labor camp and wrote dark, funny stories about camp life—"Solzhenitsyn believes that the camps are hell," he wrote, explaining the difference between himself and the master. "Whereas I believe that hell is us."
Ha ha, he says. I say it too.
A week before I left for grad school, I was talking with my friend Glory in my kitchen about our futures. She was going to be an artist. I was going to be a writer. My dad walked in the room and said, "What sort of job do you picture yourself getting after you graduate?" "Oh, Dad," I said. "The whole point is that someday, we'll just make art!"
Keith Gessen delineates the frustration of the "working" writer's life (those quotes are so necessary, for give me the name of an honest-to-God writer who isn't
working) much better than I ever could.
And when you think of the long-standing idea of art in opposition to the dominant culture, if only by keeping its autonomy from the pursuit of money—the only common value great writers from right to left have acknowledged—you begin to sense what we have lost. Capitalism as a system for the equitable distribution of goods is troublesome enough; as a way of measuring success it is useless. When you begin to think the advances of doled out to writers by major corporations possess anything but an accidental correlation to artistic worth, you are finished. Everything becomes publicity. How many writers now refuse to be photographed? How many refuse to sit for idiotic "lifestyle" pieces? Or to write supplemental reading group "guides" for their paperbacks? Everyone along the chain of production compromises a tiny bit and suddenly Jay McInerney is a guest judge on Iron Chef.
It's a depressing piece. But it feels good to commiserate. And seriously, that "ha ha" is one of the best I've ever encountered in an essay. The piece is funny, too, and I love that it ends on such a bittersweet note.
After you've read the article and gotten yourself thoroughly down about life, try the following uplifting
exercise: Gordon shares his beliefs in
After the MFA.
Write yours out, too. He says:
I’m merely admitting to myself that it’s OK to let what I feel strongly about seep into what I write. And for the sake of my own conscious commitment, I want to put a few of these beliefs down, for the record, and for the ages.
What are your beliefs? What secretly drives your work? There's something
big (or small) you're trying to get at. So spit it out!
Mine:
1) I believe that people (left, as Gordon says, to their own devices and will) are fundamentally good, and will redeem themselves in the end. However, people need to take responsibility for themselves and what they have the power to change/control in order to be truly good.
2) Desire is complicated. And often, the "conveniences" we've built into our lives, along with our desires for such conveniences (whether they be commitment-and-guilt-free sex or iPhones), are what stand in the way of our being/becoming truly good. I believe that many of the things/lifestyles/people we believe we desire are ciphers, standing in for what we truly want (which is usually also what we need).
3)
Something deep and incomprehensible -- not God, really, maybe something more like Gaia or time itself -- is woven into and through everything. This
something caused and created everything and everyone and connects us all. There are wondrous happenings in this world/universe -- and sometimes, if things fall into place just right, we might just get a glimpse.
4) I believe that reality & history & physics are permeable and meaningless. I believe, vaguely, in ghosts and that if I try hard enough, I can fly. Mirrors might be portals. Sometimes, for just a second, I think that if I can't see you, you can't see me.
5) Something/someone can be both bad and good, up and down, black and white, at the same time. Of course, I think there's a spectrum of morality in us all and we should have round characters and intriguing events. But also: This is to say that good and bad can occur simultaneously.
6) Nature = nurture. And vice versa.
I've always thought of myself as kind of a pessimist, so I was surprised and delighted by my secret optimism.
