Writing, Reading and Living

Citing John de la Casse with whom he agrees, Tristram says, that when a “personage of venerable character and high station” becomes an author, all the devils in hell turn against him in order to “cajole” the writing. During the 18^th century, when Sterne wrote and published Tristram Shandy, cajole meant “to prevail upon or get one’s way with (a person) by delusive flattery specious promises, or any false means of persuasion.” A writer while writing is beset by untold outside influences—all the devils in hell— that would lead the writer to question everything about the work in progress.
     I often feel that way when I write. With every word I put to paper a doubt arrives with it. Every thought has its antagonist, and every statement set down contains a question that must be addressed before the work might proceed. And then there is the writer’s concern regarding the projected audience that sits not in front of the author but atop her shoulders at her desk. That audience speaks its demands into the writer’s ear, insisting on certain emendations, corrections and additions that regularly compromise the integrity of the writer and the writing.  Yes, writing is a battle. I remember reading somewhere in Roth’s corpus that he could write for a full day—eight hours—and produce a yield of only a single page that at the beginning of the next day’s effort he might even discard. The life of the writer, says Tristram, is therefore not so much a life of composition as it is one of warfare, and that the writer’s success in writing depends not so much on his wit as on his resistance! I agree mostly.
     The above is a preface, and a rather poor one at that—I have earlier written a chapter on the nature of prefaces, and Tristram composes and places his preface as Chapter XX of Volume III. My preface call into question the very presence of prefaces, and Tristram’s preface is neither a defense of his book nor a summary of what the book will be about; Tristram’s preface does not frame the work to follow because in fact this particular work defies framing. The writing, Tristram, says, must speak for itself! Rather, in his preface Tristram addresses the nature of wit and of judgment and the necessity that the two qualities must be balanced in any work. Thus, in this preface Tristram tells us how to read not only this book but how to approach any and all works of art and scholarship: with a balance of wit and judgment. In his belated preface that is no preface, Tristram tells us how his book ought to be read: with a good deal of wit and judgment.  
     For example: narrating the story of the fallen sash that hit young Tristram (--‘Twas nothing,--I did not lose two drops of blood by it) and Corporal Trim’s subsequent proactive dismantling of every sash in Uncle Toby’s house, “he had taken the two leaden weights from the nursery window: as the sash pullies, when the lead was gone, were of no kind of use, he had taken them away also, to make a couple of wheels for one of their carriages.” Thus, says Tristram, since there was no real method to Trim’s practice save his fierce insistence that every sash be removed and thus, disabled, Trim in fact disabled the entire mechanism. Tristram adds, “A great moral might be picked handsomely out of this, but I have not the time—‘tis enough to say, whatever the demolition began, ‘twas equally fatal to the sash window.”  I am reminded of Sancho Panza’s observation in The Man of La Mancha: Whether the stone hits the pitcher or the pitcher hits the stone, it will be bad for the pitcher.
     But Tristram’s refusal to draw the moral that he claims might be drawn from the story leaves that effort to the reader! Do it yourself, reader, the book demands; the preface has already defined the requisite tools to be engaged in this effort: wit and judgment! Thus, here the writer invents the reader by defining first the qualities a work should have and therefore, instruction on how the work must be read! Tristram Shandy is a book about reading as it is about writing! And how a life might be lived: with tolearance for our contradictions, our foibles and our virtues. “Now I love you for this—and ‘tis this delicious mixture within you which makes you dear creatures what you are—and he who hates you for it—all I can say of the matter, is—That he has either a pumkin for his head—or a pippin for his heart,--and whenever he is dissected ‘twill be found so.” Here, here!