About a Year Ago
About a year ago, I discovered Henry Miller. I started reading Tropic of Capricorn. I got caught up all kinds of ways in that book. Man. Mr. Miller can be a depressing and sadistic guy, morbidly hilarious, perverse, honest.
Somehow, magically, when I finished the last page of that morose book, I found my optimism all over again. I’m not sure how that worked (I’m certain that optimism was by no means Henry’s intention) but that’s what happened. I got about as philosophical and introspective as any goofball can be. I thought about humans in general and our propensity toward contradiction, love, knowledge, and anticipating the good things.
I started writing a lot just then. And about a year ago, the most beautiful man was born in my brain. I adore him so much that I’ve been selfish with him; I’ve kept him to myself. He has made appearances in three short stories now, bits and pieces of this character, but just bits and pieces. I haven’t quite been able to get him out. To let him go.
A couple of members of my writing group can see that he’s in there, waiting to come to life on the page. They’ve even gushed a little:
He’s in my brain so much, especially when I’m writing, that I almost forget and think he’s real. It’s hard to be sure. He’s not perfect by any means. He’s human. Flawed. All scarred up with living and being. He’s damn smart and quick-witted, socially awkward, charismatic in spite of himself, ghastly inappropriate. He feels real to me.
Not sure what good it does me, but it does me good from time to time. It’s on my brain so I’m saying it out loud. Here’s to Henry Miller. If he’s not the great instigator, I don’t know who is. And happy birthday to the stranger in my brain. Hopefully, he won’t be trapped in there forever.
Somehow, magically, when I finished the last page of that morose book, I found my optimism all over again. I’m not sure how that worked (I’m certain that optimism was by no means Henry’s intention) but that’s what happened. I got about as philosophical and introspective as any goofball can be. I thought about humans in general and our propensity toward contradiction, love, knowledge, and anticipating the good things.
I started writing a lot just then. And about a year ago, the most beautiful man was born in my brain. I adore him so much that I’ve been selfish with him; I’ve kept him to myself. He has made appearances in three short stories now, bits and pieces of this character, but just bits and pieces. I haven’t quite been able to get him out. To let him go.
A couple of members of my writing group can see that he’s in there, waiting to come to life on the page. They’ve even gushed a little:
“That guy. THAT guy. We need more of HIM.”Well yeah, no kidding. So do I. But it’s hard to write him down and do him justice. Or even come close. At least as I see him.
He’s in my brain so much, especially when I’m writing, that I almost forget and think he’s real. It’s hard to be sure. He’s not perfect by any means. He’s human. Flawed. All scarred up with living and being. He’s damn smart and quick-witted, socially awkward, charismatic in spite of himself, ghastly inappropriate. He feels real to me.
Not sure what good it does me, but it does me good from time to time. It’s on my brain so I’m saying it out loud. Here’s to Henry Miller. If he’s not the great instigator, I don’t know who is. And happy birthday to the stranger in my brain. Hopefully, he won’t be trapped in there forever.
Comments
Of course by then literary standards had opened up; I had already read some *real* racy fiction, and had not yet *really* absorbed the lesson that whispers about a book like this tend to be radically overstated.
Perhaps I should dig up a copy and read it seriously, instead of as a prurient teenager.