7/5/66

Writers venerate life- because they have
been murdered at one time and are
seeking proof of their own an others'
existence.

Bob Dylan- in the record jacket- "experience
teaches that silence terrifies people the most."
I am frightened of any pause in the
intensity of relating with people- cigarettes
and fear punctuate my minute to
minute conscious existence. Miller quotes
Emerson as saying "Life consists of
what one thinks about all day." My
thoughts are "peopled" by sadness,
a constant lamenting of my
"dissatisfaction with life." Really, it is a
disappointment, as if I hungered always
for "excitement"- philosophical,
literary or emotional roller coaster
ride:- thrills of personal intercourse
with others. Ed Marks said to Susie
that she was insatiable. This is just
as true of me.

Durrel on writing-
Balthazar-p.115
When Pursewarden "wished to discuss a
bad work of art he would say in tones of
warm approbration 'Most effective'...
'the effective in art is what rapes the
emotion of your audience without
nourishing its values'
p.114-"In questions of art great secrecy
must be observed." What does this
mean? I desperately wish to know
because- I crave instruction.

American writers are lucky because
we don't have to struggle to express
ourselves- in the sense of embellishing
our phrases. We are naturally aphoristic-
Emerson, Miller, the terse statements
of Hemingway's characters, - we have
become or will become the great masters
of short novels- and poetry!- once or if
we recognize that poetry is the best
opporunity for simplicity (sincerity) in writing-
where formal, "neat" elegance is best
used, where muscular, rambling lines
are most spectacular in their breadth.
(I learned today of Wolfe's fear (shame)
of writing poetry, I could add Miller's
condesension (same thing) towards it.)
Poetry is distant from life in the same
sense that consciousness is distant from life..