The problems of a writer are different from those of anyone else

23 Listopad 1990, Pátek, Praha

Read ‘Amadeus’.

[Continued from yesterday.]

But, as I have written elsewhere, I can’t follow Havel in the reasons for his beliefs, although his pragmatic style of individual political, or apolitical, action contains many very important points.

What are my other problems? The problem of individuality versus membership of a democratic community. The problems of a writer are different from those of anyone else. The writer’s primary aim is to continue writing; to write more and to write better. I think the writer will sacrifice everything, including personal integrity, to this.

I have difficulties when I find that what I write does not agree so simply with what I consciously think. For example I have recently been writing a poem about artists, of various sorts, particularly poets, and when I speak of them I use ‘he’. But it is far less powerful to put ‘s/he’ or ‘he and she’ in every time. They have no history of use.

I’m also coming round to dangerously sexist views of women writers. Where are these great women writers? Where are the great works women are capable of? You can’t complain about difficulty. Van Gogh and Dostoievsky and Cezanne didn’t have it easy. Difficulty and opposition shouldn’t be complained about.

I am writing the poetry of deep assumption. I don’t usually write consciously of new ideas. But I wish I could actually question those assumptions, but still write with the same strength. To dislocate.

The entry has been a sort of map of my political mind over the last few months — showing the courses my thought usually runs in.