Reading is as intensely intimate as the sexual consummation of love. A best-selling author repeats this orgasmic sharing of self with millions of total strangers.
Strangers aching for the pleasure to be derived from the printed page.
Strangers whose coin lines the pockets of a Writer who has whored out his innermost sanctuaries.
Strangers who make this rich creation unique to themselves, each filtering it through a lifetime of experiences, prejudices, emotions, actions, inactions, successes, failures and unacknowledged sins.
The art of this Writer – this Lothario, this whore, this genius, this enigmatic dreamweaver – rivals awe inspiring Michaelangelic strokes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel … mirrors the power of the athlete’s churning thighs … fuels the siren-song of the screen actress in her greatest role.
We assume this great art of writing is a super power – the sort of virtuosity reserved for Mozart, Einstein, daVinci, Socrates, Galileo, Curie, Poe, Newton, Goethe, Genghis Khan, Clark Kent or Shakespeare. But another genius, Thomas Edison, famously preached that diligence, hard work and good fortune are as important as inspiration.
How many geniuses have squandered immense God-given talent in favor of drink, lust or sloth? How many relatively inferior minds have created great and lasting works that endure in testament to the sweat of the brow, defying the ravaging winds of history?
Read and learn the lessons of history. Pore through the great works and the mediocrities. Try to discern how the process of thought evolved. Imagine a book unwritten, and the tenacity required to bring it to life. Step by painstaking step, bits and pieces have fallen onto the page, spiriting themselves into a coherent, compelling, then masterful body of work.
Gaining understanding by deconstructing the masterpiece – THAT is the process of reading.
The best example on the streets right now? David Benioff’s City of Thieves. Its plot evolves innocently enough – but quickly proffers layers of subtlety that enfold the reader in the mantle of words spinning from the page. Slowly, the reader recognizes the tale of a book being written, an author being born. It is the story of human talent and will being applied to need … with the inevitable emergence of situational genius.
I’ll say no more, save to recommend it for the next session cuddled in front of the fireplace. And when the page turning reaches Chapter 17, linger awhile to admire the artistry of what is, perhaps, the consummate passage in the literature of the new millennium:
Talent must be a fanatical mistress. She’s beautiful; when you’re with her, people watch you, they notice. But she bangs on your door at odd hours, and she disappears for long stretches, and she has no patience for the rest of your existence: your wife, your children, your friends. She is the most thrilling evening of your week, but some day she will leave you for good. One night, after she’s been gone for years, you will see her on the arm of a younger man, and she will pretend not to recognize you.
Embrace the mistress.
Next: Back to Basics (Part 7) – Practice
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