The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, January 28, 1974, Page Page 4, Image 4
Page 4
Nove
"Sure...you do feel sometimes
you're writing in a kind of
vacuum-writing is a solitary
occupation. But I've determined
that there're a lot of people out
there reading and waiting for
what you have to say."
"Do you ever feel that writing
is useless, ever wonder if it's all
worth it?" was the question
directed to the foremost
American novelist of his
generation.
William Styron, Pulitzer Prize
winning author of The Con
fessions of Nat Turner, Set This
House on Fire, Lie Down in
Darkness, and The Long March,
visited the USC campus Thur
sday to exchange ideas with
students of James Dickey.
Styron's visit to Columbia was
"strickly social"-the Dickeys
had invited him and Mrs. Styron
down from Connecticut. It was a
natural-enough visit-to see old
friends again, and then to travel
to Tallahassee for a visit with
Mr. Styron's father.
But the Thursday afternoon
exchange in Dickey's graduate
seminar on contemporary poetry
and seminar in verse com
position had to be considered a
major literary event of the
current academic year. For it's
not often that young writers
achieve such close rapport with
a fine novelist and two fine poets.
(Mrs. Styron, who accompanied
her husband, has recently
published her first book of
poems.)
"Now...this course concerns
ELE
Fst Styl
BY DAVID
HAVIRD
the human sensibility and
imagination and how these
manifest themselves in words,
whether in poetry or prose
fiction," said Dickey, in
troducing Styron.
"Today we've got with us one
of the great novelists of the
century; he's with us today and
today only. Let's take advantage
of it."
The first question directed
toward Styron concerned the
usefulness (or uselessness) of
writing. "I ultimately came to
the conclusion that I wouldn't be
doing it if there weren't
something in the act worth
loing," Styron answered.
"I remember once reading
something by Faulkner who was
asked the same question. His
inswer was very simple. This is
i paraphrase, I guess--if you sit
lown and write a novel, there'll
)e someone who will read it.
rhis doesn't make the novel
ouchstone to anything--only that
f it has quality in this age, it will
ituden
n
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have readership.
"And I hear the novel is nearly
dead as a literary genre. But I
don't think so. 'You have to
consider its history, which is
pretty recent in the scheme of
things, and it's always titilated
me to consider the novel as a
continuing record of life as we
have lived for 200 years-it's the
way people have been ordering
their own history."
"That's right," Dickey in
terjected. "Here's the
proposition. There're two kinds
of novelists. One kind reflects
his time, and the other does
something to his time that
changes it someway.
"For example," Dickey
continued. "Read Dreiser. His
stuff is essentially documentary;
he tells you of the twentieth
century bureaucracy deal by
deal-highfinanceand sex. On the
other hand, Kafka tells you what
it's like to be caught in the moils
of this bureaucracy. It's
ultimately psychological--a
surealistic madhouse. The real
artist doesn't try to tell the truth;
he makes it."
Dickey's observation bore
great relevance to Styron's The
Confessions of Nat Turner, the
penetrating psychological and
often psychoxexual study of the
slave who, in Virginia in 1831, led
the "only effective, sustained
revolt in the annals of American
Negro slavery."
The novel, related by Styron in
the persona of Nat Turner,
caused many outcries of protest
(See STYRON, Page 7)
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