I don't really feel like 'blogging today. I don't really have much to 'blog about. But I said I was gonna, so I guess I need to.
I've been reading a Chuck Klosterman book lately. I avoided him for a long time because I saw a joke on The Onion in relation to trendy-hipsterism (hippy-trendsterism?) that referenced his writing and I didn't want to invite the comparison. If there's one thing I want to avoid, it's any sort of fashion statement that gives off an intrinsic "stuck-up a-hole" vibe. I can take care of that on my own, thank you very much.
In hindsight, though, I'm kinda disappointed I didn't pick his stuff up earlier. He's a great writer, though I can see where the hipsterism comes through. He makes really specific references to very detailed aspects of pop culture in order to make seemingly non-existent comparisons between different ideas, and he never stops to fill you in if you aren't up-to-speed with him. If you're unfamiliar with (or just don't care about) whatever it is he's making reference to, it can seem like he's just showing off how much trivia he knows--a very hipster thing to do. I had to skip an entire chapter because he was talking about some basketball player I had never heard of and making reference to various basketball strategies. By the time I was pulling up Wikipedia on my iPhone, I realized that I was working too hard to follow something I don't care about. Like, at all.
For a writer (or, at least, for someone trying to be a writer), finding a new book/author that you like is similar to making a new friend: it's fun and exciting, but you feel like you're cheating on all your old friends and you're constantly making comparisons the new one. At first, it's pretty tame. You start saying things like "Dude, Brennan is going to FREAK when he finds out I've been hanging out with Chuck," or "Man, Don would never say something like that." But then it gets all weird. You start wondering what they would think about certain things and trying to mold yourself to fit in with whatever you think they would approve of: "Chuck would never go for that," or "I'm not sure Chuck would be enthusiastic about these shoes." Everything starts to find itself under the microscope to be examined; to find out whether or not it would be good enough for <fill in the blank with whoever it is this week>. Eventually, I have to put the book away on a high shelf and promise not to dig it out again, lest I shame myself into burning everything I've ever written and swear never to touch a pen to paper again as long as I live. I'm not sure why it happens. In fact, I'm not even sure if it happens to anyone but me.
I think there's an insecurity inherent to every writer that sort of crumbles a little bit in the face of talent. We all want to be validated as something more than what we feel we are, so we tend to get a little star-struck whenever we run into someone we think has got "it" more than we do. Bear in mind, I'm certainly not trying to even the playing-field between me and Chuck Klosterman: if authors were comedy films, Chuck Klosterman would be like The Big Lebowski or The Royal Tennenbaums; I'm somewhere between Slam Dunk Ernest and Ernest Goes to Africa. But I do think there's a part in all of us that's terrified of finding out that our ideas really are as stupid as the voices in our heads said they were. I doubt that Chuck Klosterman is reading my 'blog and biting his fingernails over whether or not I like his book, but I'm sure that there's someone out there that makes him want to hang up his hat whenever he reads their stuff.
But there's a part of me, too, that thinks Chuck Klosterman does what he does because he feels like he has to; like he'll never get a good night's sleep unless he puts his thoughts down on paper. I think that maybe it's this way for all writers; I think maybe we're all a little bit crazy. No, that's too cliché. I'm not saying that I think Chuck Klosterman is crazy. But I do think he'd still be writing even if his stuff never got published. I think there's something inside him that compels him to write because, honestly, what the heck else would he do with it?
I'm really tired and I feel like I'm not making sense. Maybe I am, but there's no sense of purpose to it. I don't really have a point with it, and there's no Bible verse for me to wedge in there and tie it all together. I guess the bottom line is that Chuck Klosterman is a really good writer and if you've never picked up his stuff, you should. He's what we all wish this was.
Goodnight, everybody. Hopefully some rest will make tomorrow's better.
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