Althouse: "I feel against the stupidity of my epoch waves of hatred that choke me.''

December 12, 2010

"I feel against the stupidity of my epoch waves of hatred that choke me.''

What calls a man to write novels?

12 comments:

mesquito said...: That's a great quote. I think I'll use it on Daily Kos so people will think I'm smart.; 12/12/10, 9:03 AM
Kirby Olson said...: There are ignoble motivations in many people, including artists. Mathematicians need to make order with numbers. There are others who need words to make order. It keeps them from going nuts in both cases, I think. I just feel a lot better when I'm writing a novel.

I think mathematicians feel a lot better when they're working on an equation. It keeps the balance.; 12/12/10, 9:22 AM
tim maguire said...: Modern peace, affluence and convenience doesn't make people complain less, it merely increases the pettiness of their complaints, (which are made more loudly to try and distract from the naval gazing at the heart).; 12/12/10, 9:33 AM
rhhardin said...: It's hatred of students in high school English classes, actually.; 12/12/10, 9:42 AM
Unknown said...: I'm sure most of the people who write pulp fiction do it for the money.

It would seem railing against culture motivates the famous ones, which begs the question, since Western culture is in such a mess, why aren't any great novels being written on it?; 12/12/10, 9:59 AM
ricpic said...: Flaubert was a male voluptuary. And guess what? so was his American contemporary, Whitman. Madame Bovary, 1857; Leaves Of Grass, 1855. Must have been something in the air in the 1850's.; 12/12/10, 10:03 AM
Fen said...: I think I'll use it on Daily Kos so people will think I'm smart.

I miss the Democrat Underground days when they all thought it was cool to have the V for Vendetta clown mask as their avatar.

Pages and pages of it.; 12/12/10, 11:06 AM
Lem the artificially intelligent said...: What calls a man to write novels?; 12/12/10, 11:18 AM
Big Mike said...: What calls a man to write novels?

I'll bite. Maybe because the guy thinks he has something to say and that people will read what he wrote? Maybe because he thinks somebody will pay him for what he wrote? (Dickens, pretty famously, was paid by the word of some of his novels.)

@Kirby, sorry, but I'm a mathematician and what you put in your 9:22 comment doesn't describe my motivation. The sequence of steps taken to solve a problem, whether it's the daily Sudoku or proving some interesting new theorem (not "equation") or, in most of the work I do, a stochastic model that does a very good job of predicting actual system performance, it's all very beautiful. That not everyone else can see the beauty the way that I do, is immaterial.; 12/12/10, 12:03 PM
William said...: Happy memories of mommy rarely inspire novels. The writer chokes on mommy's withered dug and blames bourgeoise society for failing to nurture his grand, beating heart.; 12/12/10, 2:31 PM
traditionalguy said...: Don't get angry...comment on a Blog. The writers of novels always have a need for attention that their readers provide to them. Not that there is any thing wrong with getting or giving attention among people. "The play is the thing", said the Danish Prince desperately seeking to get some attention.; 12/12/10, 2:42 PM
PacRim Jim said...: Depart? I've seen no evidence that he has ever been the President.; 12/13/10, 2:33 AM