on immortality and writing

Right now I’m reading Milan Kundera’s Immortality for the fifth time. I read it every fall, because it feels like it belongs to this time of year, and by now it’s a habit. Leaves change colors, and I pull Immortality off the shelf. When I first read the book, I’d been slowly reading my way through Kundera’s work. I’d read a book, think about it for awhile, take a break, read another one, etc., but this one stopped me. I remember finishing the book while sitting at the dining room table (which is not a comfortable place to read and I can’t figure out why I chose this spot, though I read Milton’s Samson Agonistes and Dante’s Inferno while sitting there as well, which isn’t necessary for you to know, but now you do, and ah, knowledge!) and I read the last line several times, partly because I didn’t quite want the book to be over yet and partly because, well, fucking hell, Milan Kundera, fucking hell. The following year I was looking for something to read and I picked up the book again, because I remembered that I was simultaneously in love with and infuriated by it and I wanted to make sure I really got it all. The next year, same thing. That photo above? That’s from my reading of it in year three.

Lately I’ve spent plenty of time in waiting rooms, and so I’ve been reading it again. I’m about halfway through now, and this time around it’s almost dangerously familiar, but I do have to say that I am still so impressed with it. It doesn’t exactly hold any surprises for me anymore — I know what’s going to happen and when, I know what the seemingly random digressions will be, I know that it all (the story and the digressions) will get tied up together in the end so well that it pisses me off a little — but even now as I read it feels like it shouldn’t work and then it does. Perhaps I could explain it better than that, but I don’t really think so. If you’ve read this book then you’ll understand. And if you haven’t read this book, then hop to it.

I’m not really sure why I like Milan Kundera as much as I do, especially because while I appreciate him I fully understand why people hate him so much. Like with the book Slowness, I thought I hated it until I read the ending and then I realized that no, I liked it so much. Sort of in a “Ha, you clever bastard” sort of way.

As history has proven time and again, I do like clever bastards.

Perhaps my reading of this book is especially timely this year, because the thing I like about it the most is the way the novel itself is constructed. I like the fact that it feels like watching something come together. And I’ve been thinking a lot about the mechanics of novel writing lately because (ugh, this isn’t a grand announcement) I’m writing one.

I know, I know, blah blah. I said I was going to write a novel before (the one I wrote when I was 13 doesn’t count because it’s HIDEOUSLY BAD and if I don’t get around to it before I shuffle off this mortal coil, will someone PLEASE torch it after I’m dead? PLEASE? MY GOD IT IS SO BAD and yet I feel a strange fondness for it because I was such a thirteen-year-old girl and I would sit down every day after school at my typewriter (yes kids, I’m an old lady) and write pages and pages, and though its mere existence embarrasses the hell out of me because it is so terribly earnest, I also can’t quite bear to part with it because it is so terribly earnest, but I must say that the dialogue is really not too bad, all things considered, because I’ve always had a way with the talky bits and wow, I really can’t save this now so I guess I should crawl back out of the parenthetical and move on, thereby making this sentence even longer) and I wrote about 10 pages and said “Fuck this” and went and watched some stuff on TV. I was, I don’t know, 23 or something? It doesn’t matter.

I’ve always considered myself better suited toward the short story, mainly because I have the attention span of a flea, but sometime — I can’t remember when, but it was back when I didn’t have to wear real shoes outside, I can tell you that much — I was having a conversation about my disastrous job search and I said something like “I could have written a novel by now.” You know, so whenever people would ask me what I’m doing with my life, I could say “I’m writing a novel.” Because that sounds a lot more impressive than “I somehow played Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook for three hours today and I ate some cheese. So I’ve obviously been very productive.” I meant all this as a joke, because I wasn’t really going to write a novel, and then I stopped and thought “Oh.”

All the trouble I’ve ever gotten into in life has been because I stopped and thought “Oh,” by the way.

Well, not all of it. A great deal of the trouble I’ve gotten into in life involved absolutely no thinking at all.

I’d had this vague idea floating around in my head for most of my life, and I never intended to turn it into a book, but somehow, when I did that, when I stopped and thought “Oh,” it clicked into place and then I thought “OH!” And then it all started making sense, which concerned me a little, because like I said, first comes “Oh,” then there’s the trouble, and then “Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time, and I’m truly sorry about your shoes.”

And so it goes.

This post is turning out to be very long, and I didn’t mean for that to happen, especially because at some point I might want to consider sleeping, but I figure that if I’m actually updating my blog I might as well go for it.

I have a terrible habit when I’m doing any so-called serious writing of paralyzing myself with perfectionism and never get anywhere so I’ve had to fight my inherent tendency toward editing every sentence as I write it and getting frustrated and giving up and just make myself write. I just want to write the damned thing. I can make it better later but I have to get it all out first. That’s one thing.

Another thing is that it’s kind of a bizarre thing to do, really, and sometimes I get distracted from the writing itself because I end up thinking about the act of writing. Because I’m like that.

The best thing, though, is that it’s such a surprising process. It’s already not what I thought it was going to be when I originally started putting some thought into it. I love that. Because it’s turning into something better. Or at least for now I think so.

I don’t want to tell you what it’s about because… I don’t. (No, I’m not writing like Milan Kundera, because that is not my style.) Maybe I will tell you what it’s about someday when I finish churning out a draft. For now I guess I’ll mention that it’s harder than I thought it would be, but there are these moments when I hit my stride that are pure exhilaration, and they make the other times when it’s just work worthwhile.

So, among other things, that is what I’m up to these days. Reading Immortality and writing a book. Now you know.