Directory of Lost Causes (By Quentin S. Crisp)

A Writer's Life For Me




Last year, 2004, was, for me, something of a Dickensian ‘best of times, worst of times’. My second collection, Morbid Tales, came out in hardback, and garnered a few good reviews. At least one person made predictions as to my future greatness. I quote, because I can, from Douglas Campbell’s review in the magazine All Hallows:

“For all that I’ve picked out more than a dozen allusions and influences, the power of the best stories here is in the way in which Crisp has been able to use his influences to reflect deep within himself and draw out something that is strikingly new. The Buddhist parable of the blind men and the elephant comes to mind: the names I’ve dropped are as big as they are diverse, and I feel I may be trying to describe a talent well on his way to joining them.”

Naturally, I shall not bother to reproduce the less favourable parts of that review. It is sufficient for me to say that I was placed in the company of Mishima Yukio, H. P. Lovecraft and other such literary luminaries. And it was a well-written review, too, which convinces me that this was not hyperbole, whether or not the judgement is eventually borne out by history. Of course, for someone as yet unknown, or little known, to talk in this way about his own work, is insupportably arrogant, but this is a theme that I should perhaps deal with another time.

2004 was the year that more than one person put me in the company of H. P. Lovecraft. It was also the year that I made more attempts to find publishers and agents than ever before. It was also the year that I failed to find any publishers and agents.

The Friends of Arthur Machen send me their journal, Faunus, twice yearly. In the volume for Autumn 2002 there is an excellent article by Edgar Jepson entitled ‘The Gamble of Literature’. The title is an amendment of a phrase that appears in Machen’s ‘The Hill of Dreams’, to wit, “the Adventure of Literature”. In Jepson’s view, ‘gamble’ comes nearer the mark, and I would wholeheartedly agree. I was reminded of this when a friend recently tried to encourage me by likening publication to winning the lottery; it has no closer relation to talent than that. Yes, so literature is a gamble. But imagine a lottery for whose ticket you have sacrificed all hopes of a career, of happiness in love, of a level of material wealth deemed normal by yours peers... That is the price of the particular ticket I have purchased.



For some time I have been thinking of writing a series of articles, perhaps on this blog, perhaps on a completely new blog, under the general, and, needless to say, ironic title of ‘A Writer’s Life For Me’. I suppose the best way to start the series would be with some words of advice for aspiring writers. My advice to aspiring writers would be thus: Give up. Forget it. Why? The reasons are many. First of all, to get a major publisher, you need an agent. For the most part, a publisher will not even read your manuscript unless you have an agent. However, finding an agent is generally agreed to be even harder than finding a publisher. Are you beginning to get a feel of the futility of it now? Let’s say a publisher is considering your novel. You must on no account send it to another publisher at the same time. That, I’m afraid, is bad form, and is frowned upon. Months will pass, at the very least, and not infrequently, years, before you hear the publisher’s verdict, which is, most of the time, a resounding ‘no’. So, now you are free to go to the next publisher and wait another year or so for your next rejection. After a few of these you find Michael Crichton, or some other whore, has already used all the ideas in your novel anyway, and it’s way out of date.

Still want to be a writer?

Well, if you think you can write like Zadie Smith, Nick Hornby or another of those inconsequential media prostitutes, then I would still advise you to give up, first of all, because you probably don’t have the right connections, and secondly, because I just don’t want any more gurus of smugness in the world than there already are.

If you’re not Nick Hornby, if you’re not J. K. Rowling, you will not make money. Most publishers despise writers and think they’re doing you a favour if they publish you. Forget about money. People may buy your books, but little of that money will come your way, if any. Most of those people won’t even read the book. They’ll put it on the shelf and forget about it, making damn sure it never gets read by anyone. Occasionally someone will read it. Occasionally they might even like it. One in a thousand of those that read it and like it might actually write to you and tell you so. Their choice is, sound sycophantic and say they thought it was perfect, or... say they thought it was good, but you could have improved it by doing something that for you would make the whole book pointless.

And remember – there are no groupies for writers. Writers are voyeurs. We are the stalkers of the art world. And our fans are the stalkers of stalkers.

So, you still want to be a writer?

If, after all I have said, you will discard my advice and still want to follow the path of literature, you are, very probably, a TRUE writer. I pity you from the depths of my heart, and it were better that you had never been born.

That is how I would begin my ‘Writer’s Life For Me’ series. But, to tell the truth, I’m already exhausted from a dozen abortive projects, and I don’t think anyone would be interested in this one either.

To celebrate the monumental misery or literary creativity, I have decided, instead, to translate a couple of essays, by one of my favourite writers, Dazai Osamu.

I’m too tired to give a biography here. Why don’t you find out for yourselves?