On Writing and Failure

Or, the Peculiar Perseverance Required to Endure the Life of a Writer

De: Stephen Marche

Narrado por: Stephen Marche

Writing is, and always will be, an act defined by failure. The best plan is to just get used to it.

Failure is a topic discussed in every creative writing department in the world, but this is the book every beginning writer should have on their shelf to prepare them. Less a guide to writing and more a guide to what you need to continue existing as a writer, On Writing and Failure: Or, On the Peculiar Perseverance Required to Endure the Life of a Writer describes the defining role played by rejection in literary endeavors and contemplates failure as the essence of the writer’s life. Along with his own history of rejection, Marche offers stories from the history of writerly failure, from Ovid’s exile and Dostoevsky’s mock execution to James Baldwin's advice just to endure, where living with the struggle and the pointlessness of writing is the point.

©2023 Stephen Marche (P)2023 Field Notes

Reseñas de la Crítica

“The Canadian novelist and essayist describes the defining role rejection has played in his career and reflects on its importance in the lives of notable writers, from Ovid to Dostoyevsky and Baldwin.” — New York Times

“[Marche's] writing style is buoyant and funny. [...] When the stars are aligned, someone writes a work as provocative, informed and droll as On Writing and Failure.” — Maureen Corrigan, NPR

“On Writing and Failure: Or, On the Peculiar Perseverance Required to Endure the Life of a Writer must be considered essential reading for anyone seeking to write for a living, be it as a novelist, essayist, poet, columnist, or any other writing genre. Itself exceptionally well written.” — Midwest Book Review

Straightforward and insightful

Exactly what I would expect from Stephan, he doesn’t sugarcoat, but I think he’s right. Insightful. Rich in his research. I really enjoyed this piece.

Best Writing book in print

Absolutely loved this writer’s narrative of how complex a writer’s journey can be. Marche is funny, authentic, and candid. I loved this book and bought several copies for gifts.

Insufferable

What in the toxic masculinity did I just listen to?

This book is such a whinge. The whole thing is just Marche lamenting how many (male) geniuses have gone unappreciated throughout history. Never mind, really, how little any previous age of publishing is relevant to the conditions writers operate under now. Marche's entire tone is self-important, smug, self-obsessed, and supercilious. Obnoxious, really.

Reading this book, you would think that women make up maybe 5% of working writers, rather than (as of 2019), close to 55%. You would also think that women had nothing to do with the supposed genius of male writers in previous centuries, rather than providing all the emotional labor and support that allowed people like Hemingway and Thoreau the luxury of wallowing in their self-importance. Marche's understanding of history is also exceptionally shallow. He has a broad awareness of anecdotes but no sense of context or his subjects' position within a broader world.

He also judges everyone in history, up to and including Confucious and Jesus of Nazareth, on *his* metric of success and failure -- which is entirely to do with "making it" in some indefinable way, but largely seems centered an obsession with dying "in the gutter" that I suspect reveals something about his own deep-rooted fears and insecurities -- and concludes that they are all failures. Apart from the problematic nature of viewing failure as something you *are* and not something you *do*, Marche entirely fails to conceive of what historical figures' goals might have been. They are not failures if they failed, by your judgment, at something they weren't even trying to do.

Then there's the absolutely horrifying passage on the relationship between writing and mental health. Marche straight-up refers to his friends' struggles with mental health as "going insane", then insists that "readers love suicides" and claims that it's practically an unavoidable occupational hazard. One that he, of course, isn't susceptible to, because he has such a loftier view on things than his fellows. He speaks entirely without compassion. He laments the "pathologizing" of suicide in western culture and speaks admiringly of Japanese culture's tolerance for it.

This book has nothing to say to you if you're not one of the privileged literati living in New York City, and even then, I'm not sure it has anything to say to you if you're there today as opposed to decades ago. This book is obsessed with acclaim and reward. I kept waiting for it to turn around into something meaningful, but it never did. Please, do not read this book. It is not, as its jacket copy claims, "a guide to what you need to continue existing as a writer." It offers literally exactly nothing in that sense. If you're looking for a realistic perspective on living as a writer in the modern day, read Chuck Wendig's excellent Gentle Writing Advice. Its perspective is so very much healthier.

Marche, please go to therapy