Monday, September 22, 2014

Postscript to a Passing.

Twelve years ago this past May, the friend of my youth died. Nothing spectacular, not even a definable cause- the cause of death was listed as "congestive heart failure" after his body was found on his kitchen floor after an indeterminate amount of time by a relative who  came by to check on him.
For at least half of his fifty-seven years, he had tried to be a writer, a writer of serious fiction....although what he had in mind was a fiction that already belonged to the past. He tried to write novels, because people who could, or who wrote about people who did, told him that's what he needed to do. So he was determined, and to the end of his days, to do that very thing. Not just a novel, but The Great American Novel.
Unfortunately, this desire matured in a time when virtually all currently written novels had devolved into two categories: novels to pass the time, and novels that must pass peer review.
The first constituted entertainment for a mass market, and 500 pages or more was de rigeur. Better was a series of such novels, based upon a character or characters and in situations which could be cranked out at the rate of at least one a year, to keep the gravy train rolling. The final criterion, of course, were novels written in such a way that they were readily adaptable to the movies or television, thereby greatly widening their audience (not to mention the stream of cash). If figurines and other toys, along with video games were possible, so much the better.
The second variety of novel he was closer to, and he saw a published early mentor at university as just such a model. One wrote "stories" that were accepted with minimal academic pedigree into what were called the "small presses." The small presses had the virtue (at least soi-disant) that they were read by Those Who Matter when it came time to have one's serious effort put to print. Not so very different, all in all, than passing one's thesis committee within the Ivy-Covered Halls....which is where it all originated. The days of "serious" fiction being between author and publisher being over, it was necessary that literature pass through the halls of academia, the better to be vetted for purity of thought and ideology by late 20th Century druids.
Neither would avail, no matter how he tried. At one point, he managed to crank out around fifty pages of something that Accomplished Authors told him could indeed be a Great American Novel, if he could just turn out five or six hundred more pages of it. Alas, he could not.
And so he waxed epistolary, as he had always done, well and in huge volume, and to a number of people...myself being one of those.
Over the years I accumulated his writings, and disposed of several rather large boxes not long after his death. Letters short and long, on bond, onionskin, cheap legal pads, postcards. Letters wrapped in crumbling rubber bands and stuffed in manila envelopes and folders. Most with U.S postage, some from Mexico and Guatemala.
Came a day in early Fall, his favorite time of year, so I decided it was time to consign what was left of his scribblings to the ages. I made a nice fire and began to feed it. About halfway through the box, I came upon something I didn't remember, a really large manila envelope, not only clasped but sealed.
Upon opening it I came upon a huge manuscript, the sheets all uniform with word processor line numbering. I read a few pages, and it was The Book. He had written it after all, unknown to me or presumably anyone else. I looked back at the envelope, but it had no address or other marks on it, and the manuscript itself was free of any corrections or clue as to his intention...but clearly a final draft.

I thought about it, not for very long, and threw it into the fire.

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