I've been reading Alfonso Zapico's James Joyce: Portrait of a Dubliner this morning. I'm only about 1/5th of the way through it, so there's plenty of time for my opinion to change, I suppose, but at the moment I am consumed by one thought: James Joyce was a complete asshole. A totally self-absorbed and cruel asshole.
And that made me wonder, "What if you had a choice between being a great writer (and a complete asshole) and being a decent human being?"
And that made me think about some of the great writers . . . and I started thinking, "You know, most of the ones I can think of were complete assholes. Maybe even all of them--depending on how you define 'great writer.'"
And that made me think, "Maybe in order to be great at anything you have to be an asshole . . . because in order to be great, you have to devote all of your energy to that thing."
Of course, that might just be jealousy speaking. I would like to be a great writer and I'm not, so categorizing most / all great writers as assholes gives me some spiritual leverage. Or it might just be that I haven't read the biographies of enough great writers.
Still . . . James Joyce certainly was an asshole. Unless Alfonso Zapico just made a lot of shit up. I guess I shouldn't discount that possibility, either. Anyway, interesting book. I think I'll go back and read some more of it.
2 comments:
I came away from reading Howard Gardner's "Creating Minds" thinking the same thing. Have you read this book? He's looking for common denominators among creative people. He chooses six: Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Gandhi, TS Eliot, and Martha Graham. Except perhaps for Einstein, they were in love with their passions but incapable of being decent people to those around them. No doubt exceptions exist, but you're definitely onto something.
I haven't read that Gardner book, but maybe I should. It disturbs me to think about this great artist / crappy person thing. But as you say, surely there are exceptions.
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