No longer that possibility to write as I do not have the connection.
What do I mean?
In every country of the former Soviet Empire from Bulgaria to Estonia there is a word for connection, for that person who will help you in whatever matter is at hand
If a person does not have a connection there is the shaking of the head and the lowering of the voice: it is or was very sad, he or she did not have a connection so it was not possible.
I have come to that moment in writing.
While in memory the pleasure of writing remains… the reality is that I do not have a connection that would allow my words to be read.
Dalkey Archive, Turtle Point, Harper Collins, Arcade, Melville, FSG have found even JUST LIKE THAT my most accessible novel and the one with the easy hook of being a book from the so-called Sixties to be too something or other…
I could delineate the reasons these publishers found for… but what is the point.. I could show the whim that lead them to whatever it was that they actually did publish…
I have no connection… and everyone should understand that publishing is a simple a matter of whim.. just as in the life in Estonia under communism: whim masqueraded as political reasoning…
So…
Even reading becomes difficult.
For two weeks I have been reading the new translation of PORNOGRAFIA by Witold Gombrowicz that Grove will publish in the fall, published only to maintain some connection to the reputation that made that publisher.. but when our hostess in Helsinki falls asleep looking into the poster of a pensive PAUL AUSTER… what hope is there for reading?
Anyone who might think that Paul Auster is a writer is beyond help… even my reading of PORNOGRAFIA is shadowed by the fact that Grove feels it must foreword the book by a popular writer like Sam Lipsyte--- who is supposed to write funny stuff about “losers” though his press agent seems to get him space in popular magazines to look down upon… but the bound galleys are not burdened by his words except for the blank space where the Foreword is supposed to be…
Even mentioning Auster’s name is a victory for Auster…
I wrote a review of NORMANCE by Celine for the Los Angeles Times... it might appear on 12 July... of course I remember and Celine’s words shadow these: you have to be a little bit dead to be really funny…
3 comments:
Dick Seaver's widow had to take Arcade into bankruptcy a couple weeks ago.
If you feel like breaking out the champagne for that.
Or whatever passes for champagne in Estonia.
WHY SHOULD I DO THAT? SEAVER WAS A LONG WAY AWAY FROM WHAT HE HAD DONE AT GROVE AND IN PARIS: HE HELD ON TO CIORAN BUT DIDN'T INSIST ON RICHARD HOWARD FINISHING THE TRANSLATION OF CIORAN'S NOTEBOOKS OR BETTER FINDING SOMEONE ELSE. CIORAN WAS SEAVER'S BEST CONTRIBUTION IN THIS INCARNATION OF HIS CAREER ALONG WITH THE FIRST BOOK OF MAKINE--- AFTER THAT I CANT THINK OF MUCH ELSE-- WELL, TWO OR THREE BOOKS OF PAZ, BUT WHEN HE WASN'T INTERESTED IN JUST LIKE THAT I REALIZED THERE WAS NO HOPE FOR HIM--- MOST OF THE BOOKS HE PUBLISHED WERE FORGOTTEN BEFORE THEY EVEN APPEARED--- I HAD HOPED THAT HE STILL HAD THAT ESSENTIAL SPACE IN THE LIST FOR JUST LIKE THAT SO WITHOUT EVEN HAVING THAT REDEEMING ASPECT TO HIS HOUSE... IT WILL GO THE WAY OF MARION BOYARS...
How refreshing to come across someone unafraid to trumpet what an absolute fraud Paul Auster is. I actually find his pretensions hilarious: the pseudo-European posturing, the Kafka-esque "Notebook" title, the "soulful" but oh-so-mannered retro photographic portraits...
I was unfortunately included in an embarrassing "oral biography" of a bookstore frequented by Auster (it was widely claimed that he used to score coke from the bookbuyer there in the '80s). In the first draft of the ms Auster talked about his uncle, the well-known translator Allen Mandelbaum, who lived in an apartment above the store.
In the revised draft, however, after Auster had a chance to check his quotations, no mention of his famous and well-connected uncle remained. After all, Auster's forthcoming book was an autobiographical bit of self-indulgence (histrionically) entitled HAND TO MOUTH about his hardscrabble early years in the literary wilderness of anonymity and Uncle Allen just wouldn't have been consistent with the hackneyed self-portrait he wanted to create.
I can honestly say that I've never met an intelligent well-read person who could bear to read Auster.
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