In which he confronts his own, worst self
It is sometimes a terrible thing to look into the mirror.
It can be an even more terrible thing to look into the mirror, and see yourself as you once were.
These thoughts had begun to haunt Bardelys as he transcribed via dictation his old and juvenile essays on literature, art, and criticism. He cringed every time he found his ancient self proclaiming ex cathedra upon matters of art and storytelling that the child Bardelys could not have known, for sheer lack of experience. He groaned aloud every time he had to repeat some idiotic and most extreme statement. He suffered enormously every time he had to say out loud his younger self’s pronouncements on how despicable all critics were, and how worthless all criticism, and are ignorant and foolish all theories of criticism.
And he had to wonder: was he any different now?
(He would like to hear from his readers whether they think that is true or not – and yet he also fears those answers!)
At least, he reflected, the young Bardelys had admitted in so many words that he was himself the target of his many jibes. The problem – the great fear and horror – was that neither Bardelys the younger nor the elder had enough experience (enough practical experience) to know the things he claimed to know, or to give anyone any advice on any matter pertaining to talesmanship, criticism, or art in general.
He was so far only half way through the process of transcribing the old notes and essays. He noted with chagrin the first line of one of these:
I cannot write, therefore I think.
It was so true, and it stung him to the quick, and made him so sad that in reading it his eyes refused to leave the words upon the page, and even afterward the words on the page hung in the air before his vision, prompting almost tears.
The very blog that he had been working upon so assiduously for three quarters of the year now, was it any better or more advanced than the childish ramblings of the over intellectual enfant terrible that he had once been? He wondered at the validity of almost anything he said it was not merely repeated from his teachers – and even those sayings were perhaps only repetitions of things those teachers had once heard from their teachers in turn.
Bardelys was reminded that the three most instructive and most useful books on writing that he had found at all three been written not by writers, but by literary agents. Those men all wrote about something very simple and mechanical: the kind of story, the kind of literary prose, that these agents had noticed would be most likely to be accepted by editors, publishers, and book buyers.
As for Bardelys himself, he really only had one thing to say:
I cannot write, therefore I think.
(Composed by dictation Sunday 5 October 2008)
