‘Who are these writers?’
‘Their names would mean nothing to you and by now they may have written, become frightened, and be impotent again.’
‘But what is it that happens to American writers? Be definite.’
‘I was not here in the old days so I cannot tell you about them, but now there are various things. At a certain age the men writers change into Old Mother Hubbard. The women writers become Joan of Arc without the fighting. They become leaders. It doesn’t matter who they lead. If they do not have followers they invent them. It is useless for those selected as followers to protest. They are accused of disloyalty. Oh, hell. There are too many things happen to them. That is one thing. The others try to save their souls with what they write. That is an easy way out. Others are ruined by the first money, the first praise, the first attack, the first time they find they cannot write, or the first time they cannot do anything else, or else they get frightened and join organizations that do their thinking for them. Or they do not know what they want. Henry James wanted to make money. He never did, of course.’
‘And you?’
‘I am interested in other things. I have a good life but I must write because if I do not write a certain amount I do not enjoy the rest of my life.’
‘And what do you want?’
‘To write as well as I can and learn as I go along. At the same time I have my life which I enjoy and which is a damned good life.’
‘Hunting kudu?’
‘Yes. Hunting kudu and many other things.’
‘What other things?’
‘Plenty of other things.’
‘And you know what you want?’
‘Yes.’
‘You really like to do this, what you do now, this silliness of kudu?’
‘Just as much as I like to be in the Prado.’
‘One is not better than the other?’
‘One is as necessary as the other. There are other things, too.’
‘Naturally. There must be. But this sort of thing means something to you, really?’
‘Truly.’
‘And you know what you want?’
‘Absolutely, and I get it all the time.’
‘But it takes money.’
‘I could always make money, and besides I have been very lucky.’
‘Then you are happy?’
‘Except when I think of other people.’
‘Then you think of other people?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘But you do nothing for them?’
‘No.’
‘Nothing?’
‘Maybe a little.’
‘Do you think your writing is worth doing — as an end in itself?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘You are sure?’
‘Very sure.’
‘That must be very pleasant.’
‘It is,’ I said. ‘It is the one altogether pleasant thing about it.’
‘This is getting awfully serious,’ my wife said.
‘It’s a damned serious subject.’
‘You see, he is really serious about something,’
Kandisky said. ‘I knew he must be serious on something besides kudu.’
‘The reason everyone now tries to avoid it, to deny that it is important, to make it seem. vain to try to do it, is because it is so difficult. Too many factors must combine to make it possible.’
‘What is this now?’
‘The kind of writing that can be done. How far prose can be carried if anyone is serious enough and has luck. There is a fourth and fifth dimension that can be gotten.’
‘You believe it?’
‘I know it.’
‘And if a writer can get this?’
‘Then nothing else matters. It is more important than anything he can do. The chances are, of course, that he will fail. But there is a chance that he succeeds.’
‘But that is poetry you are talking about.’
‘No. It is much more difficult than poetry. It is a prose that has never been written. But it can be written, without tricks and without cheating. With nothing that will go bad afterwards.’
‘And why has it not been written?’
‘Because there are too many factors. First, there must be talent, much talent. Talent such as Kipling had. Then there must be discipline. The discipline of Flaubert. Then there must be the conception of what it can be and an absolute conscience as unchanging as the standard meter in Paris, to prevent faking. Then the writer must be intelligent and disinterested and above all he must survive. Try to get all these in one person and have him come through all the influences that press on a writer. The hardest thing, because time is so short, is for him to survive and get his work done. But I would like us to have such a writer and to read what he would write. What do you say? Should we talk about something else?’