Comments on: FUNNY WOMEN #24: Torture, Please!

By: fwarg

fwarg — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:11:16 +0000

Totally off the point of your article but you mentioned Hemingway and I can’t resist.

I think the problem is that people fixate on the end of Hemingway’s life as an indicator of the pathway of his writing.

The truth is, his insight into the taste of alcohols and the feelings they evoke are throughout his stories (Robert Jordan in For Whom the Bell Tolls, the woman in The Hills like White Elephants) but these are not the markings of an alcoholic but rather of a man who understood the role alcohol played in life. The impact it had on the moment and the escapism that all people could find within it – whether they be in bar or at the cusp of a traumatic breakup.

By: Jimbob Joebob

Jimbob Joebob — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 17:32:14 +0000

Clapton produced wussy music once he quit heroin. So, did Lou Reed…

Pearl Buck…well, it was good for junior high.

In all seriousness, though, I think that the issue is, no, you don’t have to be zonked to be creative. But, there are reasons why people get zonked, and usually it is because of some tortured aspect of their life. I don’t think it’s causal, but it is symptomatic.

By: Kerry Ashwin

Kerry Ashwin — Sat, 15 May 2010 10:11:04 +0000

Winnie the Pooh didn’t need to suffer for his art.

He sums up the whole writing thing in a nutshell saying…
Well I sort of made it up ,
it comes to me sometimes.
Ah said rabbit
who never let things come to him
but always went and fetched them.

If we do suffer, it is never in silence!

very well written. I’m just tossing up now if I go for the drink or drugs cause I’m on a budget. I want something my biographer can sink their teeth into. Is kudos a drink?

By: SK

SK — Thu, 13 May 2010 13:47:02 +0000

How funny! I too was pulled in by this writing, and feel as though I have a sense of this writer as she sat musing about classmates and cliches. We’ve all been around drunk colleagues, and people who are struck by their own brilliance. And yes, drunk MFA students really do talk like that.

I do wonder, though, Miss Margaret, if you were perhaps on something when you wrote this? A stimulant perhaps? A legal one? A whole-milk vanilla latte? I think so.

Keep up the writing. You’re going to go far, lady.

By: Chuck Truck

Chuck Truck — Thu, 13 May 2010 07:45:43 +0000

That’s pretty funny. I didn’t know women could be funny. You should maybe try your hand at writing.

By: Stephen Elliott

Stephen Elliott — Wed, 12 May 2010 22:56:13 +0000

true

By: Jesse

Jesse — Wed, 12 May 2010 22:45:47 +0000

Excellent point, I really enjoyed the column!

I know this is a discussion about literature but I would like to bring in a less literary artist… Al Franken, the Comedian, Actor, writer, and now Senator, who wrote in his book “Oh, The Things I Know” that (and I paraphrase) he went through a period of depression in his life where he felt inept and unable to be productive and live his life. He discovered an Anti-depressant drug that allowed him to enjoy life and go on to be the productive, funny, politically active, actor/senator we love (or hate) today.

Can we agree that an artist can be too tortured, or tortured in the wrong way? Some artists may need to become tortured to have something to say while some may need relief from torture to contribute.

By: Dan S.

Dan S. — Wed, 12 May 2010 19:51:07 +0000

art + illness = illness

By: David Breithaupt

David Breithaupt — Wed, 12 May 2010 11:27:53 +0000

How come no one ever asks if Pearl Buck would have been Pearl Buck if she’d been drunk instead of sober? Would her earth have been bad instead of good? Would she have disappeared deep into China on a saki binge? Yet another question to ponder.

By: kate flaherty

kate flaherty — Wed, 12 May 2010 10:37:29 +0000

Why I think Hemingway might have done okay in the writing dept? According to his memoir, A Moveable Feast, this was his general order of business on most days:

1. Write
2. Drink

It works much better than the other way around. I’d love to see that texted poem though.