The Big Six

Recently read a book titled "The Trip To Echo Springs - On Writers And Drinking", by Olivia Laing.

As the book jacket reads, it "examines the link between creativity and alcohol through the work and lives of six extraordinary men: F.Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, John Berryman, John Cheever, and Raymond Carver."

All six of these dudes were raging alcoholics. I'm talking the type of drinker who consumes a quart of whiskey a day and more. I have never in my life consumed that much whiskey in one day. It is something to aspire to.

All six were successful and revered writers.

Olivia's approach was to travel around the country and visit the homes of these men, the places where they wrote, the places where they drank, the hotels they frequented, to collect stories and to absorb the vibe and the rhythm of their lives.

Her close proximity to these giants made it's way into her blood because much of her writing is pretentious. The descriptive stuff. The stuff describing her travels. Like she's trying to channel their greatness through her brain.

But when she writes about the writers, it is good. There are many insights into their creativity, their tortured souls, the way they justified their drinking and made excuses for it, the way they denied being alcoholics.

For a good chunk of the book I was kind of wondering what type of connection she was trying to make; what she was trying to say. But reading about these lives was fascinating in and of itself.

I got turned on to more good writing. I am currently reading the collected short stories of John Cheever. 692 pages of beauty and reality. The kind of writing that eats like a meal.

Reading short stories is hazardous to my mental health. I get invested in the characters, emotionally wrapped up in the story (and Cheever's stories jolt your emotions alive) and suddenly the story ends. I have to stop to catch my breath before I move on to the next story.

Somehow, so far, I have survived.

I discovered the poet John Berryman, whose words I shall soon own. Dig:

"Hunger was constitutional with him,
wine, cigarettes, liquor, need need need
until he went to pieces.
The pieces sat up & wrote."

Eventually Olivia makes the connection I have always trumpeted, which is that these people are intelligent and sensitive souls not equipped to deal with the world as it is.

So they write. And they drink.

Sometimes the drinking helps the writing, sometimes the writing helps the drinking. Sometimes the whole thing is self destructive and uncreative.

Hemingway and Berryman committed suicide; H at the age of 61, B 58. Interesting enough both of their fathers committed suicide. Tennessee Williams died at the age of 71; F.Scott Fitzgerald was 44; Cheever died at 70, Carver at 50.

All too soon.

Fiercely creative people. People who explore their own emotions and the emotions of others and set them down in words.. What is it all about?

On a superficial level it might have been better for these giants to go through life with head down and back exposed to the whip. But without their words our lives would be lessened.

Any attempt to explore the human psyche and express it creatively makes us better; gives a chance.

At least in my romanticized version of the world.