By Lisabet Sarai
One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra
I’d
never heard this quote before yesterday, when my husband ran across
it in a book he was reading (a collection of plays by Strindberg).
Taking it out of context, I interpreted it as a statement about
creativity. Artists must trample comfort, eschew order, conquer fear,
embrace the whirling terror of a universe without rules or logic in
order to create work that is truly great. This is, at least, a common
belief—that
suffering, even insanity, is
the font from which flows
transcendent, timeless music, painting, poetry or fiction.
One
can easily cite examples. Vincent Van Gogh. Sylvia Plath. Edgar Allan
Poe. Robert Schumann.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Wikipedia has a category
list of more than 200 writers who committed suicide.
The
conceit that one must suffer for one’s art has always bothered me,
mostly because I haven’t, much.
Suffered, I mean. Aside from my half-decade struggle with anorexia, I
have mostly lived a healthy, productive and comfortable, if not
completely conventional, life. Furthermore, I can’t really see much
of a relationship between the times when I have been suffering
and my creative output.
I’ve been writing since I was six or seven years old, both fiction
and poetry, roughly six
decades. I
actually wrote less during the period when I was an inmate in the
state psychiatric hospital (though I did do a lot of drawing).
If
the theory that chaos triggers creativity is true, what does that say
about me? Well, I understand that my work is not exactly “timeless”.
Still, I believe that I’ve produced few transcendent stories and
poems, without (as far as I can tell) the assistance of chaos.
And
I have to admit, I don’t like chaos (not nearly as much as my
husband does). I have a fairly low tolerance for ambiguity. I’m not
obsessive or anything, but I get pleasure out of having
some organization and
order in my environment.
Perhaps
I’m simply shallow, wallowing in self-delusion when I call myself a
writer.
Then
I remember all the other
great artists who produced incredible masterpieces without going
insane, committing suicide or nearly starving due to their poverty.
Bach, for instance. Or
Michaelangelo. Or William Shakespeare.
Still
I wonder whether one can have chaos within, while appearing to be
comfortable and in control. This thought leads to another: if
this were true, would you
even recognize that chaos? Or would you simply assume that the wild,
crazy, thrilling, horrifying ideas that swirl around in your head are
normal?
Perhaps
I can
give birth to stars after
all.
I've always thought that truly gifted people are usually close to insanity if not textbook loons. It's the people like Dean Koontz or Stephen King that make me wonder what goes on in that brain of theirs. How writers can come up with horrific tales is a mystery to me.
ReplyDeleteAs a fellow writer of smut, I play out the acts in the stage between my ears. Often in the early morning hours, I'll lie in bed and watch the actors play out the next scene in my current story. Then all I have to do is write down what when on. Does this make me a loon also, possibly?
That's kind of the question I am asking myself. I know I am creative. So are you. Does that make us crazy? Is the stuff going on between our ears different from people who don't create art?
DeleteI agree about Stephen King Larry. I watched IT, a movie based on one of his books, and it was SCARY. I could never have written that. He definitely brings to the table a warped sense of the world.
ReplyDeleteLooking down at my writing table right now I see a form of chaos. I have my third book of stories in a thick pile in the middle of the table, most of them finished, several still not, my fave pens Pilot G-2 10's scattered around me, magazines I want to skim through or read then get rid of under the laptop, my eight pound weights off to the side for when I wanna use them, notes for a class I wanna teach online. So, yeah, I guess I work in
some form of chaos.I also have three Golden Retrievers under foot so, to some, more chaos. It's just my normal I guess. Lisabet's hubby would probably be shuddering!!!
Hi, Mary!
DeleteHe'd definitely prefer felines over canines...!
I don't think one has to be bipolar or otherwise mentally ill to create, but it has surely helped some notable artists. Chaos figures prominently in some of the best noir literature. Dashiell Hammett's private detectives may be unsavory anti-heroes, but they all adhere to a personal code of conduct that keeps them from being swept up in the chaos of the universe, which is why Sam Spade sends his lover over for a trip to the gallows, because when someone kills your partner, "you're supposed to do something about it." Hammett's detectives recognize the universe is a chaotic place and the solid ground one feels beneath one's feet can be yanked out from under one at any moment. As far as I know, Hammett, aside from a drinking problem, was not afflicted with any mental illness.
ReplyDeleteIt's an interesting question, how far gone one has to be oneself in order to imagine insanity.
DeleteI'm reading an amazing mystery right now, The Fifth Woman by Henning Mankell. The murderer is clearly insane - and she's unbelievably methodical, the anti-thesis of chaos.
I think that whatever you experience, you believe to be "normal." When I was much younger, I thought everyone walked around with stories swirling in their heads...with characters talking and interacting, while I felt like the audience.
ReplyDeleteBesides, I find that the act of writing a story shuts up those characters, so for a short time, I've quieted the chaos. Eventually another group starts to whisper, then talk, then scream at me to write their stories. Which I do, then it's quiet, etc. etc.
When I got my first book published, friends and relatives kept asking me, "Where do you get your ideas?" I felt weird having to explain to them that the characters and events were ALREADY IN MY HEAD. All I did was write them into my laptop. They'd shake their heads, some muttering, "Mensa people...isn't genius supposed to be close to insanity?" And yes, yes it is.
The other part that honked me off was everyone assumed that I was writing about my husband and me, in my sex scenes. While I admit that my heroes are always the kind of men I'd fall deeply in love with, because I do when I'm writing their stories, I object to people like my one sis-in-law who said she couldn't finish my first book because she kept picturing her brother and me. Sheesh! I did have other experiences before I met him, even though we've been married for over 30 years. Besides, I write FICTION. Flightful fantasies that my brain entertains me with. Do people assume that Stephen King has bodies buried in his basement? That he's a murderer who is "writing what he knows?" Then why is a writer of sex scenes judged more harshly than a writer of violent murders? Or creepy horror stories? Psht! Americans are so Puritanical!
Definitely true, Fiona. On all counts.
DeleteThat's funny about your sis-in-law Fiona! I often get asked where I get my ideas. Some people just don't get it.I never have a good answer and I need to come up with one.
ReplyDeleteWe do have an odd sense of sex in our culture. On the one hand it's everywhere, especially on Instagram in summer, semi-naked babes abound. My friend is an exotic dancer who is featured around the country and she tells me she gets the most horrible messages on her Insta and FB accounts which she promptly deletes. I live in Silicon Valley so I'm surrounded by techies. I love telling them I write erotica. Although I primarily write literary fiction. I got a poem Stripping For Blind Men published in a San Francisco high end erotic mag. That was fabulous...
I love that poem! (In fact, I reprinted my review of your book on my blog on Tuesday...)
DeleteIn the categorization of characters in many role-playing games one can be "chaotic good" or "chaotic evil," which I think indicates unpredictability, or maybe just a lack of attention to the rules. Or maybe something else entirely--I've only observed this from a great distance.
ReplyDeleteInteresting distinction. I would have said that one of the characteristics of chaos is that it is beyond the labels of good and evil.
DeleteWhere did my comment go?
ReplyDeleteInto the swirling, unpredictable, inchoate chaos of the universe, maybe? ;^)
Delete