On Writing and the Writers

In his savage state, mere sounds could have been man’s communicative tools to vent his basic feelings that could have been limited to such as hunger and anger and pain and pleasure. In time, as he learned to civilize himself in communes, he would have needed vocabulary to synchronize his habitation therein. And in that lies the seeds of the tongues, which when whetted by the tenor of the times could have yielded the plants of languages. At length, it was the character of life as it evolved in a given commune that would have shaped the nuances of the letters. Understandably though, from the beginning, language would have stemmed from the twin roots of ‘personal interaction’ and ‘public communion’ that came to characterize its expression. In the end, while it was the script that gave substance to the tongue, the writing medium, especially the paper, flowered the art of writing. However, it was the advent of the press that turned out to be a boon as well as bane of this art of arts.

Writing, like speaking, as ever, has the personal as well as impersonal character to it. While in letters it imbibes the power to serve a private cause, in plays, essays etc. it bears the force to mould the public opinion. Inevitably, this innate ability of the language to influence the reader, besides catering to the vanity of the writer, makes it prone for abuse by man. What is worse, in our ‘era of media’ when the chance to see ‘one’s name in print’ comes on a platter, it is the vanity of the connected that tends to get fulfilled. Invariably, in all this, the writing itself becomes the unintended victim. Needless to say, this premise makes it incumbent upon one to define what ought to be true writing.

What is true writing then?  In its basics, writing is either private feelings conveyed in missives or public perceptions articulated in essays etc. In case of the former, true writing represents an outpour of emotions but not an exercise of faking feelings to grind one’s own axe. As for the essays and the like, they should carry the considered opinion of the writers but not bear the burden of promoters’ prejudices or receivers’ biases. In either case, writing should spring from an urge to express and not be borne out of a motive to impress. While the letter-writer is weary at the prospect of others purveying his outpour, save the famous who write with the knowledge that they would be thrown open to the public someday, it’s in the nature of his exercise that makes the playwright or essayist crave for readership.

Then evolved the novel with its fascinating blend of all that is personal and impersonal to writing into a literary mould to elevate one’s soul and in the same breath, stimulate his intellect as well. Thus it is no wonder that Jane Austen felt - in the novel the greatest powers of the mind are displayed. Though the power of the mind is at play in the novel, it is the force of the feeling that operates the levers of its plot. And what is that force of feeling like? It is akin to that youthful feeling of friendship when one, besides sharing his joys and sorrows with his buddy, would want him to experience the common pleasures he himself had experienced. It is only when written by one, gripped by the like urge, to share with his readers that the novel acquires its soul. Come the forties and the sense of sharing gives way to the desire to exhibit. It is the tragedy of life that the course of growing up diverges man to the ‘road of display’ from ‘the path of sharing’. It is when a novel is born out of the author’s urge to be known that it becomes a vacuous work.

Well what about the writers? Those who write to share, experience the joy of writing all its own and as Tolstoy put it, they get their reward in their work itself. Yet, since it is the urge to share that made them write, the urge to be read plagues them in the aftermath. As seldom, if ever, one gets to the frontier of readership, the writers are prone to suffer from the epilepsy of frustration. At any rate an unwelcome situation to be in for any and more so for those who ventured into the arena to share with others. Thus, it serves the writers to learn to treat their stint at writing like any other joy that life affords them besides realizing that a felt joy is all but transient that the memory too fails in the details for subsequent recollection.

On the other hand, those who treat writing as a vehicle of visibility would be incapable of experiencing the joy of the journey. In the end though, were they to come into spotlight, they might enjoy the limelight without experiencing the joy of letters. Even in case they won’t make it to the post, their pain cannot be intense for they wouldn’t have experienced any joy in the writing ride either. If it were a mere case of the life and times of these writers, no analysis would have ever been warranted. Sadly, however, these in their numbers that make the chaff of the written stack which bar its wheat from accessing the literary light of the day.