Reflections On Reading "Writing In An Age Of Silence"

Writing In An Age Of Silence

(Verso Press  By Sara Paretsky)

 Finished the Paretsky book late last night—well, 3AM or so—the final pages made me want to cover my head and hide in my bed—don’t know why—I didn’t read anything in her book that I don’t know myself, and that I don’t read in the news on any given day—may be the difference between a writer and a good writer, eh?  

I guess I’m reacting to the idea that fascism in America has spread to the point where she felt compelled to write this book.  There’s some of it that went over my head—some kind of denial, I think, and I’ll read it again some other time.  And maybe it’s that so many people are writing so many words about all these events and people still aren’t motivated to do much about it.  

Contrails?  Aerosol Prozac?  Who the fuck knows why we aren't angry about the Bush and Co. rape?  

Maybe it’s the internet—and yeah, you can state your opinion for the first time in human history and send it ‘out there’ to whatever—potentially billions of—folks happen to see it and coming together with like minds the way it used to be when our younger selves took it ‘to the streets’ was a substitute for the desire to speak in one’s own voice and the only way to be heard then was to shout in many voices as one voice.  

I know the internet figured vastly in my own awakening to current issues, and maybe I had something to do with people awakening to all this crap—I’ll never know for certain, but that’s just fine with me, too.  

I can hope that I did—that’s more than I’ve ever had before in the way of ‘making my mark on eternity’. 

 Growing up down South, I was and always have been driven towards leaving something in writing and permanent behind for ‘posterity’.  I don’t think you can grow up next door (symbolically speaking) to Faulkner/Williams/Cather/O’Conner/McCullers, et alia, and not feel that writing a book is the one true path to immortality and that immortality is a desirable aspiration.  

Ferlinghetti/Kierkegaard/Nietzsche and others sidetracked the hell out of my young self;  I read the existentialists way too early and spent the rest of my life catching up with what I had read and taken to heart.

Sometime today I’ve got to formulate a reply to my friend of 40 years, David, a retired U.S.Army general and totally unapologetic conservative:  we’re having an email exchange of ideas regarding my feeling that S/M (aka ‘Torture’) predisposes McCain to the master/slave behavior of S/M—David knows a LOT, but he has not a clue about any of this—he thinks I’m saying to him that McCain is something of a ‘Viet Nam Manchurian candidate’ and that’s far removed from the point I’m trying to make.  

Ah, well, life is full of challenges and distractions, ain’t it????