My First Blog…

I’ve never “blogged” before. From what I’ve read about “blogging” and what my designer Nicholas Stephenson has told me about “blogging” it seems to me to be a great way to connect with people who have read my book. If you arrived at this web site and are now reading this “blog” then I am pretty confident you got the URL address from either the e-book or the paper pack version of my novel. So, I want to thank you for purchasing Clinamen and I hope you found it to be full of ideas that were interesting and worth the time you took to read it. I was trying to come up with an idea for this month’s “blog post” and I thought of a few things and then finally I remembered that a newspaper reporter wanted to interview me about Clinamen. She asked me to prepare some sort of background information for her so she could get a better idea of what to ask me when we met face to face. So, what follows is what I came up with. I hope it will shed some light on some things you may have wanted to ask me. Here you go:

Questions for the author.

Why did you write Clinamen?

Well, I can think of a few things.  I can’t remember who said this so I’ll just read it to you from my notes – “the value and pleasure of literature is the discovery of glimpses. Despite the rapid pace of contemporary culture, and the deceptive appeal of the audio-visual, literary art remains important in its edification, because, at its best, it can reorient and rearrange the priorities of the intellect to concentrate on what truly matters, and what truly makes our lives worth living.”

 And on a deeper more psychological level I have to agree with Jim Harrison the poet and writer when he said-

 “You have to follow the affections of your heart, and the truth of your imagination. Otherwise, you will feel badly.”

 I knew when I retired from teaching and administration work at Penn College I had to re-direct myself from a daily teaching routine to something new otherwise I would flounder in self-imposed contentment. I have studied philosophy all my adult life so I looked to two men that I believe have had an important impact on understanding the human condition; Carl Gustave Jung and Victor Frankel. The former spoke of the “hero’s journey” and the latter “the will to meaning.”

 And what did those two say that helped you?

 Jung’s views delve in the metaphysical; the unconscious mind. I found great solace in understanding his views on why we are biologically imprinted with certain needs to go forth and seek our destiny so to speak. His ideas are very helpful for young men who are seeking a better understanding on how to navigate through life. Frankel on the other hand was a holocaust survivor. His view was man must find meaning in life to live life. So, I said to myself writing a novel about men for men would give me purpose that would sustain me as I began my retirement years.

 I must admit though, I laugh out loud sometimes when I re-call what Jim Harrison said about writers. He said “I wonder who it was that got the idea that writers were so important in the destiny of man? Maybe Shakespeare qualifies, but otherwise it is vanity and perhaps the influence of religion, to believe that you – regardless of who the “you” is – are more important than other creatures in nature.”

Maybe it’s like what I said to you in the beginning of this interview. The value and pleasure of literature is the discovery of glimpses. Glimpses into life. And if we read literature we may be able to get a better understanding of how to live a good life. Someone once said “fiction is truth inside a lie.” I like that!

One of my favorite author’s is William Faulkner. He was asked what are some things a writer should write about?  His reply – “The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself.”

I think that sum’s up my way of thinking too. I put my heart and soul into writing Clinamen. It was a wonderful journey for me to write a book. In looking at the experience now years later I must say that the journey was difficult but well worth it in the end.

And finally, if people now call me an artist because I wrote a book then I’ll defer to Arthur Miller’s maxim – “the job of the artist is to remind people of what they have chosen to forget.”

Maybe it was I who wanted to remember all the things I had chosen to forget. Yes, I think that’s about right.

Until next month, I bid you adieu. This is Rob saying goodbye to all of you who want to join me in trying to understand the human condition.