Writing and publishing a book can induce all manner of feelings and anxieties. For me, the publication of Portals: Reflections on the Spirit in Matter, was surprisingly harrowing. I experienced a mixture of shame, humiliation, joy, and fear. One can ascribe these feelings to many things: a sense that one ought not dare to express oneself too much, take up too much space in the world; a realization of all the inevitable imperfections, mistakes, awkwardness of prose and structure (only after the book was bound and published could I even begin to see how much I would have liked to edit, improve, curb my many self-indulgences); a fear that the ideas within the book would shock or displease people whom I love; and then the inevitable anxiety waiting around to see what people think, whether they would now hate me or think I am arrogant or inane or immoral or if it would just be ignored.
While some of these feelings are neurotic and less than helpful, others are, I think, part of a fruitful learning experience. In particular, the new vision I gained about the writing, which, I hope, will help me to improve my style in the next book, or even a revised edition of this one. And, of course, the whole question of whether it would offend or please is rather more necessary than not: if the book had nothing challenging to say it might not really have been worth writing in the first place. The drive to explain my questioning of some of the trends of contemporary thought and life was, in fact, an impetus to the writing.
So, while I am trying to work on a number of new things at the moment (and it is very difficult, this business of beginning something new!), I also still have half an eye on what people are and are not saying about this already published one. There are some lovely reviews up on Amazon (US and UK), and I am not beneath asking those of you who liked the book to add your voices (stars and/or comments) to that commercial arbiter of success! And individuals have written to me, some even people I don't know or didn't know before, telling me how much the book has meant to them. It is clearly not a book for everyone; but a few people have said: it was just the book they had been waiting for, that it makes them feel less lonely, that it seems to articulate thoughts that they themselves had but could not express, that they can't put it down, and other very nice things. I don't know if they know how much that means to me.
This morning, David Auerbach, whose Books of the Year lists are always immensely interesting and exciting, posted his final list (this year he did it in parts), and my book was at the top of the list, along with fascinating-looking books by Arhika Noga ( The Ceiling Outside) and Rens Bod (World of Patterns) and, among many other exciting works, Elizabeth Sewell's The Orphic Voice, which I have been wanting to read for some time. David, who wrote a great memoir, Bitwise: My Life in Code and who has a new illuminating book, Meganets: How Digital Forces Beyond our Control Commandeer our Lives and Inner Realities, is one of the most widely-read, multi-disciplinarily cultured, and interesting people I know. Also a really funny and passionate person. So I am especially honored and happy. One need not have many readers, but I am blessed with a few really fine ones.
Here is David's humanities list:
https://www.waggish.org/2023/david-auerbachs-books-of-the-year-2022-humanities/#comment-71882
Comments