Less heroically, but certainly no less correctly, one could also see writing as a continually self-perpetuating compulsive act, evidence that of all individuals afflicted by the disease of thought, the writer is perhaps the most incurable.… How difficult it is in general to bring the machinery of thought to a standstill.…What I found most surprising in the course of these observations is the awful tenacity of those who devote their lives to writing. There seems to be no remedy for the vice of literature; those afflicted persist in the habit despite the fact that there is no longer any pleasure to be derived from it, even at that crucial age when, as Keller remarks, one every day runs the risk of becoming simpleminded and longs for nothing more than to put a halt to the wheels ceaselessly turning in one's head.… Evidently the business of writing is one from whose clutches it is by no means easy to extricate oneself, even when the activity itself has come to seem loathsome or even impossible. From the writer's point of view, there is almost nothing to be said in its defense, so little does it have to offer by way of gratification.--W.G. Sebald, quoted in Troy Jollimore's stimulating review. [HT L.A. Paul]
Alone in my circle of bourgeois scholars, I often find Sebald mildly irritating because he sells an intoxicating mixture of learnedness, nostalgia, and suggestions of depth to be found in imaginative engagement with the details of living --all irresistible to folk like us. I always struggled to express my irritation, but Jollimore helpfully quotes Sebald's preference for "something that is small and self-contained," which is for him "a moral and aesthetic ideal." While I instinctively admire Sebald's aversion against "large-scale things...in architecture or evolutionary leaps," his ideal leaves little room for expansiveness, natural and moral and systematically partakes in the humanistic project of self-domestication (recall). Sebald's moral and aesthetic preferences are a thinly disguised longing for control, even in the face of genuine self-knowledge that such control remains elusive. His is intrinsically a conservative aesthetic that offers a spirited consolation (by withholding ordinary forms of consolation) to those, I fear, that recoil the inevitable excesses in living. Of course, I wouldn't find Sebald irritating if I didn't recognize myself in these longings.
Without writing a blog a day, I can barely function either professionally or personally. The act of writing literally orders the machinery of thought so that I am facilitated to engage with my other duties or interests. This is why I prefer to write these digressions at the start of the day, so I can get on with the art of living or (more realistically) meet the next deadline. If, for whatever reason, I can't get to the typepad 'compose-page' during the morning, then after years of daily blogposts, I now trust myself enough that I can get by, albeit with some unease, if I know that I'll have a quiet hour later during the day.
Having said that, perhaps Sebald wouldn't let me qualify as truly addicted to the "vice" of writing because I never find the act of philosophical writing "loathsome." On the contrary, I continue to find writing pleasingly exhilarating. And, more likely, Sebald would probably find the self-presentation of my Impressions suspicious because your readership does gratify.*
I close with a reflection on Sebald's claim that "one could also see writing as a continually self-perpetuating compulsive act." Obviously, Sebald knows that writing comes to its natural end in death. Given our shared fascination with historical and biographical memory, there exists also a undoubtedly pleasing, mildly consoling hope that we will find posthumous readers. (Perhaps Sebald finds this thought adding to the loathing?) Philosophers have defended the legitimacy and functionality of this pleasing desire if and only if their writings and lives are appropriately philanthropic (e.g. Adam Smith). Obviously, self-delusion is likely.
When I first read Sebald's 'self-perpetuating,' I understood it to be referring to the idea that [A] each bit of writing leads automatically to the next bit of writing. This conforms to my experience. Each Impression generates ideas a multiplicity of future series of Digressions. The series may be mediated by my activity (typing, editing, etc.), but it is larger than Schliesser; so I participate in something expansive. I know this sounds delusional, too. But it does justice to the idea that often I experience of writing as the partial expression of something concrete, however (to use Cartesian terminology) confusedly I think it, that I discover while writing, yet whose existence precedes it.
Yet, upon reflection, I wonder if Sebald didn't mean to express another thought with 'self-perpetuating:' [B] the act of writing makes the self endure. This is a (fragile and heterogeneous) self that is literally located in the words that get written, and, by, as it were, a Spinozistic conatus, through these is continued in its existence. At the threshold of reflecting on the moral and metaphysical status of such an exterior self, I discern that [A] & [B] are not in tension, but mutually reinforce each other. In short: this self-perpetuation also holds the promise of self-transformation.
*In fact, after four years of blogging, I have a decent sense of the size of readership particular posts can attract. Obviously, knowing this allows me to try out different ideas for different kinds of audiences.
I thought the consensus in learned circles was that Sebald is at best middle-brow...
Btw, his aversion to large-scale things is bound to be the product of his years on the University of East Anglia campus...
Posted by: Bence Nanay | 03/29/2014 at 09:02 PM