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/lit/ - Literature

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3300652 No.3300652 [Reply] [Original]

Do the cons of turning ones self into a character for the benefit of their writhing (i.e. Hemingway, H.S. Thompson, Bukowski, Kerouac, Berryman, and other people whose personalities were heavily divulged and represented in their writing). Do you think the pros of more interesting and potentially successful writing ought-weigh the possible negative outcomes (drug addiction, Alcoholism, depression, insanity, an unpleasant demise)?

>> No.3300699
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3300699

>ones self
>writhing
>first sentence doesn't make since
>ought-weigh


oh god no

>> No.3300713

>>3300699

Thanks for the catches, anon. I need to pay closer attention.

>> No.3300716

>>3300699
>since

>> No.3300726

Do you mean like a Mary Sue?

>> No.3300750

>>3300726

>Mary Sue

Yeah, but even though sometimes slightly exaggerated like Bukowski-Chinasky.

>> No.3300755

>>3300750
I only have problems with Mary Sue when they're are blindly executed, but if a writer has intentionally created themselves within a work as long as it helps to portray the message of the book then why not?

>> No.3300764

>>3300755

I'm talking about being the center of the writing, not like a Hitchock-cameo type of deal.

>> No.3300777

>>3300764
Oh... I thought I answered you... oh...

>> No.3300791

>>3300764
So do you mean writing autobiographically? Or do you mean being such a strong presence in real life that your reputation becomes equally, if not more, famous as/than the work?

>> No.3300799

>>3300777

Well, what I meant was, basically, do you think the risk of basically turning yourself into a character is worth the probably negative onset?

>> No.3300804

>>3300791

>reputation becomes equally, if not more, famous as/than the work?

Exactly.

>> No.3300811

>>3300799
Maybe. But it stands on a very thin line between something respectable and pure masturbation.

>> No.3300817

>>3300791

Like an author surrogate.

>> No.3300821

>>3300811

But if you were to maintain a respectful appeal, would it be worth it, in the case of the negative onset I mentioned earlier.

>> No.3300834

>>3300821
There's no point in not trying. Go ahead.

>> No.3300837

>>3300834

I'm not talking about me specifically, but that's "my" point... isn't there quite a bit to be gained by not trying? A potentially longer and happier life?

>> No.3301503

One, I don't think it's really a choice. Who wakes up one morning and decides "I'm gonna live a miserable life, but the books will be great!" Usually- and this is something I admit I do- it's an ex post facto romanticization. ("We tell ourselves stories in order to live" and all that.) And I'm not unconvinced there's not some inherent relation between being fucked as a human being and becoming an artist; can you name a literarily esteemed writer, besides maybe Herman Wouk, who's lead a happy and quiet life? A good bit of my doubt on that point is whether or not /everyone/ isn't fucked.

Two, excluding Bukowski because I know very little about him, out of that list only Thompson appears to have adopted a persona as a means to his art. Hemingway /did/ adopt a persona that's inextricably intertwined with his art, but it very much seems the persona came first, as a reaction to how his mom forced him to go in drag until he was six. Kerouac and Berryman seem to have just been who they were.

And Thompson was unique in a lot of ways: his output was, nominally, nonfiction, and depended on him tweaking the situation. Obviously something drove him to all those drugs, but he seemed to enjoy them in a rare way. He claimed his suicide was because he had "no more fun," and people close to him attributed it in large part to physical pain that made it impossible for him to even get up a flight of stairs. It's always read to me as euthanasia with a gun.

Third, fundamentally, everyone turns themself into a character on the page, or else they're a bad writer. Writing, even fiction, is self-re-presentation.

>> No.3301513

>>3301503
>>3300726
Also, this is something I've been wondering about: are there any artistically sucessful works (i.e. not Ayn Rand novels) that are Mary Sue-y? Not just character-as-proxy, but somewhat in the opposite direction of the thread, character-as-positively-idealized-version-of-the-self?