Emily talks about some of the early stories of Dylan Thomas.
The stories are experimental, not all that successful apparently, but interesting nonetheless because of what it reveals about the author and his work.
Reminds me a bit of reading Seymour: An Introduction by JD Salinger. It was the last thing the man wrote. (Or, I should say, the last thing he published.) It is a rambling run-on sentence, filled with so many parentheticals that you get lost in them. The language is an emotional maze. It becomes apparent, as you go along, why he stopped writing: he could no longer make any statements with any authority. (Not that authority is the way we measure an author, but you can feel Salinger’s torment in the very act of writing the damn thing). Parentheticals have to follow every statement, exceptions, asides … It is an arduous read, with moments of brilliance, clarity and insight. It leaves me breathless, it leaves me sad. Because his voice is no longer with us. And it also makes me sad because – you can FEEL as you read that piece: Wow … this writing is like he is tearing out parts of his heart, his soul … It doesn’t feel fun. It exacted a toll on him. You can feel the price he is paying in the writing itself. I suppose he was no longer willing to pay that price, no longer willing to share those pieces of himself, it was too high a price to pay.
It was actually the later stuff that was “experimental,” though I use the word loosely. It’s painful to read, to actually watching the decay of a brilliant author like Thomas. Skin Trade was meant to be a novel that followed Samuel Bennet from his leaving Wales throughout his life in London, as he sheds a series of “skins” and slowly adopts different voice as he ages and matures. Knowing the work the way I do, I think it could have been positively brilliant. It depresses me to think about what we’ve all missed because of one man’s over-indulgence.
But I think too many people fall for the cult of celebrity that surrounds some authors, and hold their work in great regard, even if it sucks. I bet Thomas could have bronzed a piece of his mookie-stinks, and there are people that would have praised it as high art. I think his later stories should be described as what they are – rambling, incoherent and inconsistent, with underdeveloped characters whose motivations are never made clear. That’s not “experimental.” It’s garbage.
Sad, isn’t it – to watch an author disintegrate, and lose the ability. Was he aware of it? Or was he out of touch with the reality of how his writing had declined?
Speaking of experimental:
jeanette Winterson wrote one of my favorite novels – The Passion. She’s interesting, engaging … great story, great writing.
She was highly praised for it. (Perhaps over-praised??) Her ego then got out of control and every single thing she has written since then has been total crap. She calls them “experiments”. No longer do her books have plots, no longer do they have characters … it’s just page after page of incomprehensible prose.
I am sick of her experiments. They are boring, self-indulgent, and pointless. (All of the reviews say the same thing.) And yet – I keep buying the books, hoping that she will find her way back.
I don’t need her to just repeat “The Passion” – No. She can write whatever she wants to write.
But I am certainly sick of her writing just to please herself, and her ego.
I will not give up, though. Because The Passion was too good, too promising. And Winterson’s a young woman. I keep hoping she’ll stop jerking off, and be a goddamn writer again.
Ugh. I think ego is the greatest killer of artists, you know the old cliche about believing your own press releases.
Skin Trade never felt self-concious or anything like that. I don’t think Thomas realized how discombobulated he came across. It’s an easy thing for a writer to do, as I’m sure you know. Sometimes you have to remind yourself that everyone else is not aware of what goes on in your head and that intentions have to be made clear. There’s this moment in the beginning of the story, before Samuel leaves Wales, where he goes through his mother’s cupboards and breaks all of her china. Thomas provides no motivation and the character wasn’t developed enough to even begin to guess why he might have done something that drastic. Perhaps he had sorted it out in his own mind, but forgot to let the rest of us in on the joke.
About Salinger, I remember reading that he did keep writing, but he stopped publishing because he considered it a waste of time. I can’t quite envy him for reaching that decision — being so in touch with his muse that he no longer cared to communicate with the world. Such renunciation verges on, or maybe crosses into, solipsism.
While in high school, Seymour: An Introduction was a personal favorite that I read and re-read many times. It is not a work of maturity, but, as you said, full of moments of brilliance. At the time, I found it mesmerizing. As my own writing is full of parentheses(and thanks for reminding me this is a sign of weak and ill-focused writing–I always thought it was because I am a blabbermouth), I wasn’t bothered by that aspect of the writing. It fit the brilliant, but tortured, nature of the subject. As a young man, I was captivated by Salinger’s writing, his enigmatic ways, and the many rumors of his continued writings to be published after his death. As more was revealed about his personal life, he became less admirable as a person, but no less a writer. I remember reading about Jodie Foster’s obsessions with Franny and Zooey, but, for me, it was always Seymour Glass. When I first read A Perfect Day for Bananafish, it affected me for days.