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31. Writer Unblock
At the end of the Seminar on Esthetics, Stan is approached by writer-in-residence Jerry Salinger. "Dr Pelc, is it possible for me to see you as patient?"
"Possible? I am honored. May I ask now, what about?"
"My writer's unblock?
"Unblock? Isn't the problem normally writer's block?"
"My default condition as writer is block. Only special stimuli unblock me. But the stimuli are too personally painful." Salinger stops. "Here is not the place for the psychoanalysis. I have spoken with a fellow writer you helped in a remarkable way on a park bench."
Stan chuckles, "You mean my psychoanalysis under the elm?"
"Yes. When may we start?"
"Tomorrow at 12:30, on the park bench in Van Cortlandt forest.
32. Psychoanalysis Under the Elm
Stan, carrying a brown-bag tuna with herbs and olive oil sandwich, cut in quarters, and also a big Golden Delicious Apple and screw-top bottle of green tea, approaches the park bench in the forest after a 15-minute walk from hospital. It is an early afternoon that evokes Autumn in New York. The forest path, black-paved, made by the City Parks Department leads him to the bench and he sees Jerry Salinger has preceded him. Jerry is sitting on the bench doling out peanuts to squirrels, a single small hare and a black & white striped skunk, along with numerous pigeons and other small birds. It is a happy scene.
"Hi there," Stan says, dropping down on the end of the bench to Salinger's left.
Salinger empties his bag of peanuts with a throw and says, "Allow me to begin my beguine, Doctor."
"By all means." Stan's technique in starting a psychoanalysis is to allow a natural telling. He has learned that interruption spoils it.
"As early as I remember, I have been writing. I guess I got it from my mom who was a big fan of Ernest Hemingway. My motivation to write is money, money, money. It just seemed such an easy way to live well. I visualized Hemingway sitting down and knocking out stories, novels, whatever, and publishers paying big bucks and the writer enjoying life to the full with no need for 9 to 5 salary slavery, in contrast to my poor father and my friends fathers.
"So my earliest memories are sitting at kitchen table with pencil and paper writing story after story and as I got older, the pencil and paper got replaced by an Underwood typewriter.
"There was one problem. Everything I wrote was junk. My mom, who read all my work, tried not to hurt me but every once and a while she would say, Jerry, why don't you give it up? You just don't seem to be made for a writer.
"I constantly read and re read my stuff and, like most young amateurs, thought it was Nobel Prize fare. But every time a rejection slip. Finally, one slip had a brief analysis. It read, "Like most amateurs you are not creating, you are copying life. Your own life. And this is intensely boring to others. You must do something to start creating. Otherwise give it up and get a job.
"Then came the War. I had gone to military school so I got 2 stripes and was a big wheel after basic training. I got shipped to England and, with the invasion of Europe, found myself in southern Belgium a place called Bastogne in the Winter of 1944, right in the middle of the Battle of the Bulge where one hundred thousand Americans died. But not I. I turned out the worst coward the Army ever saw. I cringed in my trench, could not go over the top. In disgust my company commander sent me back to England and I was treated for shell shock. Everyone knew I was a faker and I had my first nervous breakdown - was mute for weeks, did not clean myself, refused to speak. One thing I could do during that time was write. I took out my Underwood and for the first time I created a story. Today, everyone thinks For Esme - with Lov e and Squalor is autobiographical. After all, I was stationed in England, I did go on to fight in France and I had a nervous breakdown like in the story. But everything I wrote in it was created: I never did or said what the character did and said and I never met a girl like Esme or her brother. For the first time in my writing I invented a story and it was so stunningly real that my literary agent asked for more Esme stories. But by then I had recovered; I was back to my healthy, happy self again. And all I could write was the usual junk about a character who was obviously me and about events that had obviously happened. Too obviously for my agent to sell. After I talked it over with my agent, he suggested I have another nervous breakdown.
"The problem is, you cannot make one happen. A nervous breakdown has to be caused by an unexpected, unhappy event.
"One night shortly after the war and discharge from Army I went to a bar in a sleazy part of town, looking for sex. I picked up a floozie, we had some drinks and soon I was in a hotel room hot to go. We kissed furiously, my erection came out of my pants and the floozie went down on me. I said, 'I don't want to come too quick. I want to fuck.' She took off her dress and - Lo! - I discovered what I'd thought a she was a he. I had been making love to a man dressed like a woman. But at that moment I was so erotically aroused I wanted to put my erection in the nearest, tight hole and it was his rectum. It turned out the best fuck I ever had and I got hooked on men. For a year I did the homo bar scene. But it tore at my conscience because I have been brought up to be ashamed of homosexual self-behavior. So I got my second nervous breakdown. This one lasted nine months and I wrote nine brilliant stories, one a month. You can buy the book, my most famous Nine Stories - it became a best seller and I am being mentioned for the Nobel Prize because of it.
"That brings us to today. I am the most unhappy guy in the world. I do not want to have another nervous breakdown. I want to write one or two novels, make a million and then I never want to write again."
Jerry stops and Stan realizes it is his turn. He says "First, allow me to eat my lunch." Jerry goes back to feeding the animals as Stan chews bite by bite his tuna sandwich, munches his apple, and drinks his green tea. He folds his empty brown bag and puts it in his pocket for re use. As he gives his analysis he looks away from Jerry at the natural forest setting.
"You have talked yourself into a corner. You made assumptions: first, you have a default condition of writer block; second, it takes a painful experience with nervous breakdown to unblock; and, click third, you constantly are at risk to slip back into your default and block. Also you misjudge your talent and ability to evolve as a writer.
"The years before your Esme story were ones of experimentation and evolution of your writer's knowledge. With Esme it finally all came together. Yes, there may have been a connection with the mental breakdown but not magical. You were wrestling with it, like Jacob with the angel. The breakdown gave you nothing else to do but to finish the solution and you came up with a brilliant original story that had roots in your experience in England but that also contained the fruit of your learned evolution as a writer. So you wrote your first great story.
"Then you got writer's block. I have studied that problem. Every writer gets periods of block. After all, you lurk in the bushes, metaphorically, waiting for good ideas for a story. A non writer is under no stress to write a story but a writer, especially who has delivered once, is being pushed either by his own conscience or his agent or publisher to constantly deliver again.
"Now, my advice. You are evolving the correct idea. Do one or two big successes then stop writing and enjoy life. Above all give up this wrong idea that you must suffer to write a good story." Stan stops, thinks a moment, then adds. "OK, that is my for-what-it's-worth analysis. Think it over and then first thing you should do is go on a vacation from writing. It could be a trip; it could be just attending to a new, fascinating hobby at home. Put your Underwood in a closet, lock its door and give the key to me. Then wait 6 months enjoying life to its healthy hilt. Then get the key back from me. And you go from there.
Salinger looks mildly disappointed. He says "How much will this analysis cost, doc? Takes out his wallet.
"I want one percent on your first year profit from the great novel you are going to write after I give you back the key."
Jerry laughs and hold out his right hand. "'T'sa deal!"
Postscript. Fifty years later, when an old Dr Stan was sorting through his memories, he recalled that Jerry after following the advice wrote The Catcher in the Rye and, after several years, Franny and Zoey. Then he mysteriously stopped writing and lived a happy life with wife and children. Only Dr Stan knew why and, now, you too, dear reader, know.
For next, click 15.(33-34) Wedding Night for Eddie & Nina
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