Diving In

Nick Smerker, a sharp young techie at Washington College, suggests that I blog about creating the class, “Writing Your Blog.” I think it’s a good idea. So here I am.

My first task is to create a reading list. I want to read first-rate literature, modern classics, fitting with the goal of this class, to marry the opportunities of new media with traditional literary values like voice, character, and emotional honesty. A good class could consider, in a full way, how the new media is affecting voice and style and all that. But I don’t know enough about the blog landscape to take that on. And I fear the project might spin off into madness without a standard to which to retire.

But I’d like the reading to resonate with our task, and that made me think of travel books and diaries, since those are two analogues for blogs (anablogs?) Also, books of letters.

I’m enough of a geezer that I think in phrases like “traditional literary values.” But I’m enough of a techie that my first research instinct is to search for “literary diaries” in Google. And this yields a fascinating site, The Diary Junction, which lists more than 500 significant diarists.

I went through and culled the list to about 40 and then picked four to start with:

Virginia Woolf
Franz Kafka
Andy Warhol
Paul Klee

I was at first discouraged. Started with Kafka, then picked at Vols 2 and 4 of Woolf. But on a third round, went at Volume 5 of Woolf and became absorbed. Perhaps it’s because she is more mature, stronger — I don’t know her biography. But certainly, one big difference is that I know how this volume ends. Gives it tension. Also, the tension of intrusion — heightened with these stakes of life and death.

And this entry, which stopped me still:

[Sunday 9 February]
“The most extraordinary thing about writing is that when you’ve struck the right vein, tiredness goes. It must be an effort, thinking wrong. At 5 to one, after a sterile bitter morning, the vein flows. I think now I see to the end.”
The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Anne Olivier Bell ed. Vol 5 1936 – 1941 (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984), 12

Then I picked up Warhol. What a different voice. That sounds so timid. How shall I say it?

Let me try it this way: Both Woolf and Warhol are speaking to the diary as though it is a person; they use shorthand, yes, but they really seem to be addressing someone — themselves. Woolf is talking to a bright, weary, ambitious, fearful middle-aged woman. Warhol is talking to a studiously light, ambitious, socialite fashionista artist. Striking, too, how essential acts of self-definition and ordering combine with practical efforts in both cases. Woolf makes deadlines for her work, and insists she will do this, she won’t do that. Warhol makes note of what everything costs, as in

Went on a tour of Winterthur in the morning (tickets $24, books $59) (2)
Cabbed to 82nd and First ($4) for Bianca’s birthday party (647)

Kafka is speaking to a man who may or may not exist, who may or may not be on the earthly plane, who may or may not have a spiritual reality. Just like him. God, this project has me alternating between excitement and bewilderment.

[Oh, now I remember what Warhol said: I’ll have to track down the passage later. He was talking about Julian Schnabel visiting his studio, and said that he was energetic and pushy. And then he said, something like, that’s all there is to life, being energetic and pushy.]

Just touched on Klee for a moment. I picked him because I love his art. Here is the first entry from Italian Diary (October 1901 to May 1902):

277. Milan, 10.22.1901. Arrival. Brera: Mantegna (Luini?); Raphael not particular well represented. Surprise: Tintoretto.
Molto vino. Pimples from the vaccination. Tricky use of the Italian language. Hotel Cervo. Good food: risotto. Departure: 24th, at 3:40 p.m., to Genoa. (63)

I love this. I love its complete absence of pretension, its full honesty, and attention to what the writer wants. Makes me think, if I start keeping a diary, what will I notice everyday, and what will I let drop away? On the way to work this morning, thoughts competitive and petty, and remembered all the places I’ve been in the world, all the times, and the competitive and petty thoughts that, if I could remember them now (which would be an effort) would seem like a dream, like a mannequin of myself. The point is, most everything drifts away. So little will be remembered. Yes, there are 50 million blogs or something. And, probably, when Klee, Woolf, Kafka, and Warhol kept their diaries, a similar proportion of people were keeping diaries. So which ones, and why, will be remembered, and mulled over?

Over breakfast this morning (Product 19 with raisins and flax seeds, organic milk 2%) I read the front page review of the NYT book review on Leo — Leo — shit, it’s not in front of me and I can’t even remember his name 10 minutes later. Just looked it up. Leo Lerman. A legendary magazine editor and literary socialite, so I read:

Okay, need to stop this, but want to develop this central point once more: the resonance between old diaries and this new blog is that, where before the anonymity was in being closed, and put away in a drawer, or whatever, now the anonymity is being available — alongside EVERYTHING that is available. We should probably keep diaries, too, private ones, with the thoughts that we don’t want around until we and all we know are dead. But I think there is a huge intersection between blogging now and diary writing in this older age.

This is the first time in my life that I’ve written something intending for it to be blogged, and I find it fascinating, and relieving, and terrifying.

Will ask Ben to pick up four more diaries, and post on them later:

Evelyn Waugh
Sofia Tolstoy
Alice James
Joseph Campbell


p.s. Have just gone over this entry; it is so contrary to my nature to post it; I am used to holding onto pieces forever (just gave up an essay yesterday that I've been working on, in some form, for 7 years; and writing in earnest for 6 months). But that’s part of the game here, to just let go. What to do, when I look back and feel foolish? Can delete, but Google will remember.