I read "Oh Joseph, I'm So Tired" over lunch today. After I put the story down I cursed Richard Yates. I cursed him because he showed me, in less than half an hour how a short story should be written. How words should flow efforlessly but deliberately, how a story arc should be developed, how charcters should be revealed, how to show off by criss crossing through time to keep the reader engaged.
He showed me what a complete and utter putz I am.
I think reading a well written piece of anything is like engaging in a sport I am moderately proficient at with an Olympic champion. Sure I play badminton, I think I'm pretty good actually, better than the next guy. Most guys, even. Then I play with someone who's a genius. Someone who understands the game so well, it's like he's dancing.
To watch someone do that, to be able to read something that good, will make you simultaenously want to cry, tear your hair out, embrace the author, and then burn everything you've ever written. Hay. (In moments like this, I lose the facility of speech.)
I've asked myself why I bother writing anything out if won't read like something Mr. Yates has done. I know this is being highly presumptive of me, but read his work. It's so simple, so heartbreakingly uncomplicated, it's as if an imaginative 12 year old (with a good vocabulary) wrote it. The images are so clear. Hay.
Which is absolutely not the case, I know. To be able to write like that, in clear crisp sentences, you need to be more than good, you need a gift. You need this intagible, indescribable natural facility with words. To know precisely what to say and when and how. What I would do to be able to do that.
I'm just an imaginative 31 year old with a good vocabulary.
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