Excerpt from Of Human Bondage by William Somerset Maugham.
I finally finished reading Of Human Bondage. Honestly, I didn’t want it to end. It’s an amazing book that resonated with me on multiple levels. My copy has kept me company toilet-side for the past year and is dog-eared and slathered in orange highlighter. I’ll probably be posting more quotes from the book whenever they come to mind.
There were so many “Yes!” moments for me in the story watching Philip explore what it means to be an artist, not only of writing or painting, but an artist of his own life.
What do you sacrifice for art?
For authenticity?
For beauty?
For originality?
For love?
This quote, spoken by Philip’s friend Clutton, is a perfect example.
“Oh, my dear fellow, if you want to be a gentleman you must give up being an artist. They’ve got nothing to do with one another. You hear of men painting pot-boilers to keep an aged mother – well it shows they’re excellent sons, but it’s no excuse for bad work. They’re only tradesmen. An artist would let his mother go to the workhouse. There’s a writer I know over here who told me that his wife died in childbirth. He was in love with her and he was mad with grief, but as he sat at the bedside watching her die he found himself making mental notes of how she looked and what she said and the things he was feeling. Gentlemanly, isn’t it?”
I think every writer develops the capacity to objectify people, events, and emotions. We have to distance ourselves from them so that we can examine them – whether they are tragic, vulgar, absurd, joyful, wrathful – and render them in their truest light according to our perspective (or that of our characters). The more I write, the more skilled I become at this distancing. It’s kind of creepy.
Does this make artists predatory, opportunistic sociopaths?
Weeelll, I say.. not completely.
I admit, I do sometimes pursue adventures in the same way the proverbial lawyer chases an ambulance, but I also do it as a means to greater understanding and depth of experience. For me it’s a form of delirious homage for all the mysteries, horrors, and delights of existence. It allows me to ignore my ego’s emotional investment in a situation so that I have the ability to look at it simply as it is, and not what I believe it is or should be.
(Let’s hope I’m not outing myself on some personality disorder here.)
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic. Have at it below!
Reblogged this on Writing Portfolio.
Thanks for reblogging, Jeremy. Note: I’m getting a notification but the link says the site is no longer available?
Yeah, for some reason it reblogged to an old site I forgot I even had and I can’t seem to switch it. Oh well. Great post anyway!
It’s the thought that counts 😉
Christa, I totally agree with you, If you write it and don’t “feel it” it will be just stuff. And if you see it you can’t just look at it you must really see it. Like when I looked at the Hawaiian/Irish girl I looked at her beauty but I did not really see her. That was a great observation on your part, I get it. Good tip to your writer community. My new rule: if my gut does not twitch, it is stuff, not honest and true. (a good check, if some thing you have written is not sitting right with you)
A couple of words from you and I learning to be a better writer.
Thank you.
Reblogged this on christieadams23 and commented:
Definitely food for thought…
Is it terrible that I am comforted in knowing I am not the only one who picks apart moments monumental moments?
I don’t always do it as they happen, but I have always done it.
I recall a very tragic moment in particular, when someone I know tragically lost her husband, and I took in every single thing that happened inside that little room at the hospital. Every sound and action burned itself into my brain.
That was long before I knew I would be a writer and I never thought of what I was doing was odd. I was just trying to understand.
Yeah, I think documenting events in our minds and then writing about them is a way of trying to understand life and a way to process our emotional responses to them.
What Margaret Atwood says about writers being miners – of their own lives and the lives of others – resonates with me. I suppose we can be ruthless in that sense. Great post! 🙂
Miners. Yes. I suppose we’re mining for the ore or the jewels of our experiences. Writers want to find out what, in essence, each event and our reactions to it mean.
I have a collection of Margaret Atwood in my reader. I better get to it.
Thanks so much, Anita!
She ranks high on my list of favourites. Thanks for the post! 🙂
This happened to me. There was this horrid women I worked with. She was so beautiful, the perfect face hand chiseled by God. She was 1/2 Hawaiian 1/2 Irish. The long silky black hair, the Irish big blue eyes and every feature on her face was perfection. She was a cold bitch in every sense of the word. She was hated, yet envied by all for her beauty. I only befriended her as I wanted to paint her for my own selfish reasons. When she modeled for me, she had no friends and vented on me. She had an awful child hood, she was physically molested and abused because of her beauty, mentally abused from her parents and foster care. Women would not want her around for fear of their men lusting after her, men did not approach her for fair of rejections. She was not a bitch, she was a scared, lonely little girl. I put down the paint brush, I did not want to paint her beauty anymore. I picked up a pen and wanted to write her sad story. A bitch by no means, it was her personal self preservation protection.
I lowered myself for my craft, got kicked in the teeth by reality.
Note: she is still my friend to today.
An honest and beautiful insight. Most people don’t peer that deeply into others, and especially not into themselves. I think a good writer has to be honest about what he sees and feels, otherwise it’s just fluff.
Yes: “every writer develops the capacity to objectify people, events, and emotions. We have to distance ourselves from them so that we can examine them – whether they are tragic, vulgar, absurd, joyful, wrathful – and render them in their truest light according to our perspective (or that of our characters).” Just reviewed Susan Taylor Chehak’s “Story of Annie D” and this is exactly what I was trying to say, but you said it better. I will quote you on this if you say yes. Cite your blog, Christa Wojciechowski @ChristaWojo –?
Yes, you are most welcome to. I’m flattered. Thank you!
Just another addiction to add to the list.
Are you writing a book yet? You should be. I always was jealous of your writing. You wrote the best letters, you remember? The ones we used to write on notebook paper and send through the mail?
Haha, yes, I remember. I would write a book, but I have no patience and no memory of anything interesting. It’s a curse.
Write fiction. You don’t have to remember anything, just make it up. Have you tried it? You have no idea what’s brewing in your brain until you start writing it down. You’ll surprise yourself. It’s so much fun. Trust me.
There’s a singer I like, Frank Turner, who has a line, “Yes, we’re definitely going to hell/but we’ll have all the best stories to tell.”
Oh, yeah. All the writers will sit around the fire and brimstone and swap tales.