Towards Mediocrity
Your exceptionalism is the problem the parasite.
Artworks by Jaakko Pallasvuo, from his wonderful project Avocado Ibuprofen.
With my book launch in two weeks, I’ve been thinking about how to “speak intelligently about my art”. I revisit random pages from the manuscript and extract themes and talking points into a list, phrases like fulfilling moments of catharsis or the male capacity to compartmentalize or what one inevitably writes about when one does not belong to a milieu. I read the lines back to myself, chuckling at the thought of uttering such things in public. I ctrl+F the manuscript for the word “shrug” and find eighteen instances. Almost ten percent of the pages in the book contain a shrug.
I attend the book launch of an established Canadian author. We’ll call him B. He is in his late sixties, if I had to guess. This is his twentieth book. There are six people in attendance: B, his interlocutor, myself, another writer, and two booksellers who run the store. I feel embarrassed for B, but he does not seem embarrassed. He calls the small turnout an “ego adjustment” and merrily reads excerpts from his new book. The work is discussed casually between the six of us, as if we were in his living room.
The interlocutor is a debut novelist with a buzzy new book. He is smart, passionate, beloved in the Toronto scene. The rapid ascendance of his career is a phenomenon I might wish upon my own. His questions signal a literary education, a practiced critical lens, a close reading of the text. He unloads plenty of praise upon B, who meets each suggestion towards the lofty achievements of his book, and the wisdom it imparts to the world, with a gentle sort of bemusement. I wouldn’t dare claim any such thing of my work, he says. Two copies of the book are sold.
“So you really want to be a writer, eh?” says B, after the event. We are strolling around town, looking for a place to eat. He talks openly about sale volumes, his travel budget, his book advance. The numbers are not glamorous. My advance was also a teeny tiny number I have mostly kept secret, ashamed that the thing I’ve given so much care to is valued so little by the market (the Capitalist religion still has its hooks in me). I share my anxieties about the launch with B: the make-up of the audience, the handsome faces that will (or won’t) appear, the authority with which I’ll be able to talk about fulfilling moments of catharsis and the male capacity to compartmentalize and not belonging to a milieu—signals which, of course, have no bearing on what it means to be a writer.
We eat dinner. Over two tacos and a Modelo, B tells me a story about a billionaire who once became his patron, whose money he later rejected because his writing process was not at all respected by the man; about discovering that one of his works had been adapted to a TV show without his being notified or compensated; about his and his partner’s decades-long meditation practice, the fruits of which are written on his face and in the lack of contempt in his voice as he recounted the two prior stories. It seems impossible that a man at such peace with the world could have any need to write twenty books. But perhaps the only way to be so prolific is to be at peace with the world and what it chooses to do with your art.
The author’s son, V, who is a friend of mine, has also decided to pursue writing. V is a good writer. He takes it seriously and is not shy about his ambitions. I ask if he has any reservations about V pursuing the path. In my head, what I’m asking about is practicality. And by practicality, I mean money: the thing I assume every parent frets about when their kid becomes a writer. It doesn’t require the hundreds of pages of dialogue B has written to understand that I’m not really asking about V. But perhaps it is the decades of writing that form his response, which is, of course, not about practicality or money. It cuts right to the heart of the issue.
“I couldn’t be happier that he chose writing,” he says.
“I just don’t want him to get hurt, or to ever feel like a failure.
Because he really seems to love it, you know?
So long as he knows that loving it is enough.”
You can buy “Avocado Ibuprofen” here. You can pre-order my book here.
