Topical Guide 218
Mark Dorset
Author as God or Magician or Puppeteer or, well, Author
Life of the Mind, The
Every evening, I spent hours rewriting the manual to fill the gaps and make the necessary repairs. I couldn’t just add things at the end as Mr. Summers had told me to, but I knew it wasn’t right to disobey him, so I included as part of a description of the duties of the Scribe “to retype the manual as often as necessary so that it looks neat and finished.” Mr. Summers never noticed. …
“Peter,” my father called up the stairs one night, “what are you doing up there?” …
“I’m working on the Tars Manual,” I called back, truthfully. …
I crawled into bed. Too tired to sleep, I lay awake in the dark for a long while, my thoughts crawling through the fog of my tired mind, bumping now and then into a figment of my imagination. Just before I fell asleep I came upon an idea, another important lesson from the Tars, the idea that I could get my father to permit me to do almost anything if it was done for, or in the name of, a cause of which he approved. I could even write Larry Peters stories—if they went into the manual.Little Follies, “The Young Tars”
The imagination is limitless. . . . There is no crime in thinking about a crime.
Jean-Claude Carrière in an interview on The South Bank Show
One of the many reasons for my suspecting that I am headed for the last break-up is my Subconscious is getting to be a better man than I am. In fact, I am thinking of resigning and letting my Subconscious take over the business.
I go through the day in my bungling way, making mistakes, forgetting names, going north when I mean to go south and, in general, messing things up pretty thoroughly. I can get affidavits to this effect from five hundred disinterested observers. My average of direct hits is getting smaller and smaller each day and I am afraid that, before long, I shall have to hire somebody to go about with me just to keep me from hurting myself on sharp corners.
But once I get to sleep and my little old Subconscious gets started working, things begin to pick up. It does everything but sing to me. Dates and names that I have been unable to remember during the day are flashed before my closed eye-lids; ideas which have kept coyly hidden behind a barricade when I wanted them suddenly trip out and say: “Here I am, Daddy!” Solutions to problems which had me beating my head and heels on the carpet when I was awake offer themselves with startling simplicity, and if I could only train my Subconscious to make notes during the night, I could get through the next day with flying colors.Robert Benchley, “My Subconscious”
See also:
Author as God or Magician or Puppeteer TG 17, TG 94
[more to come on Friday, March 18, 2022]
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