“Every once in a while, not very often, I fall in love with my own punctuation.” – Ann Beattie
This week’s thought
Every year that goes by, I understand a bit better the notion that artists have to suffer, in order to excel. I don’t mean that anyone needs to self-flagellate their way through making art. Or that anyone who hasn’t gone through deep trauma is disqualified from being an artist. It’s more of a question of having the antennae to capture the feelings of pain and hurt that we all go through, and distilling those into a magical artistic potion that brings up those feelings to anyone reading or experiencing the art. I suppose that’s where we get a sense of a work feeling authentic (as opposed to commercially engineered to end up on a bestseller list).
Oscar Wilde, who is featured in this week’s newsletter, certainly went through his fair share of humiliation and tragedy towards the end, but seemed to lead a pretty charmed life whilst he was at his peak. Maybe a wit that is legendary helps to compensate…On the flip side of that coin, I come back to Norman Mailer, who very much created his own brand of suffering and fuelled his writing on that. This week’s short story is also worth checking out if you have a second. Unusual stuff.
Oscar Wilde’s final witticism
A few months ago I did a little spotlight on some authors’ famous last words. However, dear reader, I would like to apologise for an outrageous oversight – I missed a great one.
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