Monetary Report of Week 18, and Some Thoughts on Literary Scenes

Not a bad week. I earned $5.90, which brings the total to $694.82. Soon, though, I’ll have a $0.00 week. I can just feel it.

Now, on to scenes. Or groups. Or crews. Or circles.

I sometimes hear people lament that there isn’t really a literary scene in the tri-cities . . . to which I say, thank God. I never could really put my finger on why I think scenes are bad for the participants, other than to suggest that they are incestuous and self-congratulating. Then, I read this great passage by Turgenev that summed up the whole “scene” thing for me. In this case, he’s talking about student circles in Moscow universities in the Nineteenth Century, but he could just as easily be talking about literary scenes in the Twenty-first Century.

“. . . a circle’s the destruction of any original development; a circle is a ghastly substitute for social intercourse . . . Wait a minute, I’ll tell you what a circle really is! A circle is a lazy and flabby kind of communal, side-by-side existence, to which people attribute the significance and appearance of an intelligent business; a circle replaces conversation with discourses, inclines its members to fruitless chatter, distracts you from isolated, beneficial work, implants in you a literary itch; finally, it deprives you of freshness and the virginal strength of your spirit. A circle – it’s mediocrity and boredom parading under the name of brotherhood and friendship, a whole chain of misapprehensions and pretences parading under the pretext of frankness and consideration . . . respect is paid to empty gasbags, conceited brains, young men who’ve acquired old men’s habits; and rhymesters with no gifts at all but with ‘mysterious’ ideas are nursed like babies . . . a circle is a place where underhand eloquence flourishes; in a circle, the members watch one another no less closely than do police officials . . . Oh, student circles (literary scenes)! They’re not circles, they’re enchanted rings in which more than one decent fellow has perished!”

Turgenev nails it with the last line. “Enchanted rings.” Here’s the problem -- scenes, crews, groups, circles are like drugs. They feel good to belong to because the members are almost always misfits. Writers, artists, intellectuals – they never quite fit in anywhere, which of course is what gave them the potential to be writers, artists, and intellectuals to begin with. So, joining a group feels really, really good – but then they begin to lose that misfit nature, which is their creative nature. They belong but, subsequently – by belonging – they begin to lose something. And, yet, they can’t walk away because the group feels good – it’s enchanted. And, self-congratulating. The group can make you feel like you’re a part of something big – when really 99.9% of people aren’t even paying attention.

Beware the group or scene or crew or circle. It may extinguish that which was good and true and original in you. It’s not always a physical thing – like people who live in a city and go to each other’s readings. It could be an online thing . . . a group of people who read and comment on each other’s blogs. It could be a small thing . . . two people who “talk writing” for two hours before watching a Tigers game.

Try to shut out the group if you can. Avoid its enchantments. Stay true and original. Try to do some "isolated, beneficial work."

Most likely, you will fail and, as with any powerful drug, continue using.

If any group would have me, I know I'd be an addict.