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Writing for its own Sake: Joseph Conrad 4/24/2016 4:11:49 PM
People who write do so for different reasons. Some write because an event or fashion or something that's wrong inspires them. Others write to support themselves and still others for the sake of writing, because their imaginations drive them and they know that they'll write well and occasionally brilliantly.
Some years ago I bought three paperback novels by the American Wright Morris (1910 -1998). I'm now getting around to reading them. I finished his first novel "My Uncle Dudley" the other day and am now reading "War Games". The quality and originality of his work astonished me. A brief sample from "War Games": "...the Colonel would stroll as far as the Brooklyn Bridge....Out there he sometimes felt the curious remoteness he had often felt as a boy when he sat in the kitchen with the stereoptican cards in his lap. The nearness and farness of life deeply troubled him. On one of these cards, a street scene in Paris, the river and the trees were like objects in amber, removed from time."
I believe that Morris fits into my last category: a writer who wrote because he loved his craft. One commentator described him as a writer's writer. From what I've seen, I agree with this assessment. I may have more to say about him later on.
Another writer whose work I've been dabbling in recently and who wrote for the sake of his craft is much better known, Joseph Conrad. I've read most of Conrad's novels over the years and am now listening for the third time to an audiobook of "Under Western Eyes", a political novel about doings in Russia after the 1905 revolution but before the 1917 one.
As a reader of Conrad's novels, I can't claim a higher status than admiring amateur. All I know about his life is what I can read in Wikipedia. Still, I can make some observations about his quality as a writer.
He made use of his early-life experience in his work. Wikipedia taught me that Conrad's father ran afoul of tsarist authorities and was imprisoned with his family. He died young, and Conrad went to live with his uncle. Childhood experience awakened a lifelong interest in politics. And then there was the sea and the merchant marine. Conrad spent 19 years as a sailor. He resented being called a sailor who turned to writing. Instead, he was a writer who went to sea.
His ever-moving years on board ships taught him about human nature and brought to his novels an impressive geographical range -- from Russia to Europe to Africa to Asia to South America, not to mention the sea. How many first-rank novelists have given us an equally wide view of the world?
Conrad was a serious writer who didn't shrink from taking on challenges. He wrote magnificently in his second language. The opening of "Lord Jim", for example, casts a spell for some readers. Conrad's novels are unique and original.He's had numerous followers but who went before him?
He was persistent and steady. He didn't give up his calling even at times when he and his family had little money coming in. He didn't say: "I've made a mistake. I'm going to become a stock broker or maybe I should study law." He went on with his work.
I want to take into account, too, immeasurable qualities like talent and gift that Conrad worked hard to develop.
William Faulkner once said that one person's best is as good as another's, a statement that needs to be qualified. No matter how hard I try, for example, I could never be a physicist or play professional sports. We do our best when we work in a field for which we have an aptitude. Conrad found where his talents lay and developed them. He didn't quit or waver or cheapen his art. He must have had many satisfactions as the number of his stories increased.
For a concluding thought, I realized while typing these notes that I referred exclusively to male writers. I can think of several women I'd add to my personal list of people who were writers first: two Canadians: Gabriel Roy and Mavis Gallant, two Americans: Emily Dickinson and Eudora Welty, and two Brits: Iris Murdoch and A. S. Byatt.
