Silences: not only of the book by Tillie Olsen but also of my own that the book helped me to to recognize.
Any reader must also recognize the circumstances that hinder—or prevent—one’s writing, or any creative enterprise by a woman. There have been men, too, but fewer,not so consistently, and for other reasons. Does Gray’s Elegy spring to mind?
“Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air. (Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard is a poem by Thomas Gray, completed in 1750 and first published in 1751.)
In this case the “sweetness” of an unknown labourer ha been stifled by tiredness and lack of opportunity. Olsen expanded this idea of tiredness and its causes in her book.
in his essay about Olsen, A,O, Scott writes: “The moral and existential danger of tiredness is a widespread modern malady, but an unusual literary subject.” He asks, “Is there a place in literature for unwritten work?” Wow !
I should have identified Scott before this. (Anthony Oliver Scott (born July 10, 1966) is an American journalist and cultural critic. He served as chief film critic for The New York Times. In 2020, Scott assumed the title of critic at large. He is the author of this fourth essay in a Times series, American Authors. He asks a political question: What do we owe the unvoiced? If anything. I long since discovered that art is very unforgiving. Unvoiced art is the easiest not to forigve, that is, to ignore.
In my early days of trying to write while juggling a household with four children and a demanding social life with the theatre, I used to say I was a writer when there were no measles or mumps or flu, no PD days (for teachers), no spring breaks or summer vacations, no opening nights or trips to them. When we had to attend an event in another city I rented a typewriter (in those days before portable computers ) from the hotel and stayed in the room writing until it was time to join the social life. In those days, my husband came first, the children second and my writing a poor third.
After Bill died, the writing came first because it was the only way I knew to make a living for the children and me. But it was a different kind of writing. Journalism was fast, with quick returns. Books, too—non-fiction books. I’d write an outline and a couple of chapters, get a contract and an advance and write a book. one a year, except one year I had to write three because one of my daughters got married and I had to come up with a wedding with as many trimmings as I could manage. I couldn’t do that with only one advance. I didn’t tell my publishers until it came to promotion time.
“You did what?” they said. But they were fairly easy to juggle because they were very different books. One was about women and money (Everywoman’s Money Book, with Lynn Macfarlane, Key Porter Books); one was a cookbook (Betty Jane Wylie’s Cheese Book, Oxford University Press—”Oxford Cooks”); and one was a biography of my challenged son (The Book of Matthew, (McLelland and Stuart). So they were reviewed in different sections of the papers. The books survived: the money book went into several print runs and two or three editions; Matthew had an American publication with suitable financial translation; and I still cook with my cheese book which picked up a request from yet another publisher for a cookbook for singles (Solo Chef, Doubleday).
I got very tired. I still am. After 30 years of independent living my challenged son and I are together again because of the pandemic, for our mutual safety. I can’t write as much now, with his presence and my responsibility. This morning I was up at five, to load the dishwasher and write here. It’s after seven now and I must make breakfast: Eggs McMuffin this morning. That means no Hollandaise sauce, just a melted cheese slice.
Tomorrow, maybe.