I've been dipping into May Sarton's Journal of Solitude, which I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. There is so much to like about it and so much wisdom in those pages. I keep dog earring the book planning on coming back to passages later and sharing some of them here.
There are two in particular that I read today that resonated with me. One a bit longer on Virginia Woolf, which I think I will save for another day that I found very interesting, and one about writing. She talks about her work, her poetry and novels and a lot about creativity. In a way there is a lot of darkness in her journal. Perhaps not darkness exactly, but maybe despair? She seems almost to thrive more in these moments, become especially creative and more productive than at other times. I think there is a relationship between depression and creativity--so many artists who were really brilliant also struggled with depression. It's interesting to think about, and I would love to read more on the reasons why.
I don't know enough about Sarton to know if she suffered from depression--any more than anyone else that is. But I think as a woman of her age, living alone, writing poetry, struggling with her writing, she seems very sensitive to her environment. The passage I want to share is about her writing and it's reception with critics. It is a sobering thought to read how an author feels about her work and how the critics receive it. It's so easy to disparage a book we don't like, but how often do we think about the writer behind that work. This is not to say that criticism is not sometimes warranted, and that a book should stand on its own, but it's good to remember that there is someone on the other end of our words. I could never be a writer, and bare my soul in the way many do, for dear of it being cut down to nothing.
The passage below is from December 1st (1972 I believe).
December 1st
"The darkness again. An annihilating review in the Sunday Times. I must have had a premonition, as I felt terribly low in my mind all weekend. Now it is the old struggle to survive, the feeling that I have created twenty-four 'children' and every one has been strangled by lack of serious critical attention. This review is simply stupid. But what hurts is the lack of respect show by Francis Brown in not getting a reviewer who had some knowledge of my work and would be able get inside it with sympathetic understanding. It is odd that nonfiction appears to get a better break these days than fiction. On a deeper level I have come to believe (perhaps that is one way to survive) that there is reason for these repeated blows--that I am not meant for success and that in a way adversity is my climate. The inner person thrives on it. The challenge is there to go deeper."
"What a lonely business it is . . . from the long hours of uncertainty, anxiety, and terrible effort while writing such a long book, to the wild hopes (for it looked like a possible best seller, and the Digest has it for their condensed books) and the inevitable disaster at the end. I have had many good reviews and cannot really complain about that. What I have not had is the respect due what is now a considerable opus. I am way outside somewhere in the wilderness. And it has been a long time of being in the wilderness. But I would be crazy if I didn't believe I deserve better, and that eventually it will come out right. The alternative is suicide and I'm not about to indulge in that fantasy of revenge."
"Somehow the great clouds made the day all right, a gift of splendor as they sailed over our heads."
More on Sarton later. I am hoping and planning on finishing this diary by the end of the year.