John C. Wright's Journal

G.K. Chesterton, as on every topic save one, shows a width of human understand and a height of wisdom one might expect from so enourmous a man: no doubt he was fashioned to be huge so that his inward and outward parts might be in harmony.

Being a medievalist and a stout Catholic, he was as out of harmony with his times as he is with our times: and we live in times so lacking in character that all honest men devoutly wish to be out of harmony with them. Chesterton was one such man. He had the soul of a poet, and loved the paradoxical and crooked because he beheld the truth so straightforwardly.

Here is an essay of his, which expresses my own sentiment more poetically than I ever could. It appeared in Alarms and Discursions, which is available online at http://www.dur.ac.uk/martin.ward/gkc/books/alarms_and_discursions.txt:

The Three Kinds of Men
ROUGHLY speaking, there are three kinds of people in this world. The first kind of people are People; they are the largest and probably the most valuable class. We owe to this class the chairs we sit down on, the clothes we wear, the houses we live in; and, indeed (when we come to think of it), we probably belong to this class ourselves. The second class may be called for convenience the Poets; they are often a nuisance to their families, but, generally speaking, a blessing to mankind. The third class is that of the Professors or Intellectuals; sometimes described as the thoughtful people; and these are a blight and a desolation both to their families and also to mankind.
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• John C Wright posted on March 30, 2014
  What pleases me is that, looking back, I see I was honest enough to give credit where credit was due.…
• fernandezrew posted on March 30, 2014
  I love all these old posts, right before you converted 'Oh, look at that, I agree 100% with some Catholic,…

Yesterday, when I came home, Orville ran up to me and said, “I have a bookmark!” and was chided by his mother, “That was supposed to be a secret!” He made me a bookmark to give me as a birthday present, but, overwhelmed with pleasure at the prospect of giving a gift, blurted it out. Naturally, I was pleased, since I don’t mind having a son who does not keep secrets from me.

I am forty-two today. Here I am at work, and I get a phone call from my wife, wishing me a happy birthday. In the background, I hear my children screaming happily.

The wife tells me that Orville (who was still asleep when I went off to work) was sad that he did not get to give me his present this morning: he will have to wait for tonight. We talk about this and that, and the conversation is interrupted by the wife (addressing the oldest son): “What is that chocolate on your face?” and then a gasp of horror. Orville (who is five) is now old enough and naughty enough to undo the child-safety lock on the refrigerator, and has helped himself to some of Daddy’s birthday cake.

Mother is stern: Daddy is going to have to spank Orville when he gets home. Great. I get to celebrate my birthday by taking my boy to a visit to the spankological institute. However, an examination and autopsy of the cake reveals that is it still in a serviceable condition, and can be eaten, and so, upon appeal, the sentence is commuted to community service (sitting in time-out).

I am still on the phone, a passive auditor of this drama. Orville then hops up to examine Daddy’s birthday presents. He asks about one of them. Mommy, still on the phone, says, “Maybe Daddy will watch Robin Hood with you when he gets home.” (The Erol Flynn version, thank you, not the lame one with the Waterworld guy.) I gently point out to the wife that this had been a surprise: I didn’t know she had bought it for me. She is indignant. “Of course you remember that I bought this for you!”

Naturally, I am delighted that a man my age still gets a cake at all, much less presents. And, at my age, it is the thought that counts, not the surprise, which no one in my family seems to be able to keep anyway. A cake with my son’s chocolate handprint in the middle will taste better than the finest feast the pagan gods of Olympus enjoy.

I am not a religious man, but it is clear, even to me, that God must have a sense of humor, otherwise He would have had us reproduce by fission, or sporing, or something. Children are both a miracle and a source of lowbrow slapstick comedy. A person too coldhearted to wonder at miracles, or too highbrow to laugh at comedy, will have his heart and brow cured of their pretenses when he has kids of his own.

MORE ON MY FAVORITE TOPIC: ME!

Deadprogrammer (http://www.livejournal.com/users/deadprogrammer/) asks Q: Does GUEST LAW tie in somehow with the Phoenix trilogy and the rest of the stories?

A: Not to my knowledge. However, if the crew of the Procrustes (in Guest Law) were descended from colonists or rebels from the Second Oecumene (in THE GOLDEN AGE), they would have ghost-stories about the evil machines that had swallowed the Earth and reduced mankind there to pets. Keep in mind that an author can sometimes be as surprised to discover a tie-in when he invents it, as the reader when he reads it.

Q: It would be really great if Tor published an anthology of your stories. They are truly excellent.

A: Please feel free to pass your opinion on this matter to Mr. David Hartwell at Tor books.

Q: I am also curious about your creative process. How do you work?

A: You should never ask a writer this question. We are a boastful lot, and prone to exaggerate our powers, so as to create the mystique and glamour needed to sell our wares. Have you never written a paper for school? The process of writing a novel, in essence, is the same. Except novels are longer, and require dogged and irrational persistence to see through to the end.

Q: I am also curious about your creative process. How do you work?

Well, since you insist on an answer, good sir, I will oblige.

I write entirely by intuition, without forethought, off the cuff. I start at the beginning, write one draft, and end at the ending. The turmoil, trouble, care and pain that bedevil other writers, I am blissfully unaware of, and I know not why. On the other hand, they may be better than I am, so neither of us has cause for complaint.

A modern man of talent thinks he is a genius, and is proud of his work. An old-fashioned man of talent thinks he is possessed of a genius, and is thankful for his good fortune. I am old-fashioned.

It is like fishing. The fisherman is not responsible for the fish he catches, its beauty or its sleekness or its taste: but he can feel a workmanlike pride in the fact that he took the time and trouble to sit with his rod at the fishing hole every day, and be patient. The fisherman who casts even when the fish are not biting, is like the writer who writes even when the muse is mute: any man who lacks the courage to stare at blank paper, he can never be a writer.

more bloviating here, and a few nuggets of sound advice

Deadprogrammer (http://www.livejournal.com/users/deadprogrammer/) asks: When is the book due? And did they give you the date for The Last Guardian of Everness? And I hear that another fantasy book of yours got picked up by Tor, right?

In all honesty I am looking forward much more to your next sci-fi book that you mentioned here. The world you started building in your short stories is a gold mine. I am really intrigued. Which two stories are you talking about?

Answer: It will be a long wait for EVERNESS. Patience and faithfulness will be required.

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