On Hilary Mantel and my new life in New York
September 26th, 2011 § 2 Comments
Did anyone else see the incredible interview with Hilary Mantel at the weekend? That woman is a seer… and an inspiration. Something she said resonated particularly with me. She said that if circumstances had not thwarted her she would have been something in politics. Circumstances did thwart her completely, endometriosis and its misdiagnosis damaged her body and took away many of her options, in effect forcing her to her desk and to her writing. But how interesting that inside the writer is the politician frustrated in changing the world, driven instead to change it through imagination.
Perhaps fiction writers are frustrated politicians. I often wonder if poets are frustrated lawyers. In many ways I am. One of the most beautiful elements of poetry is the elegance of its ‘argument’, not the finger-wagging sort, but the presentation of truth, the persuasion of the reader to see one’s world. What draws me to the world of the law is that same elegance of presenting a case, of persuasion, and most of all the principle of not choosing one’s case, of finding the truth in what you have been presented, regardless of your own conviction. It’s taking ‘truth’ out of the self, and yet investing all of one’s self in it. And it’s about finding principle in a world of human compromise. In my next life, not only am I going to New York and missing out my Britain phase (I’ve so done that in this life), but I’m going to law school. I know I’ll drop out and go and write poetry somewhere in that life as well, but it’s going to be great fun before I do.
Mantel said a great many fascinating things in that film, but a final thought to share with you. She said a childhood filled with secrets had made her great desire to be to know what was being said on the other side of the door, that ‘everyone’ wants to know if it is evil on the other side of the door. In fact she believes self-preservation depends on knowing if there is evil behind the door. The interviewer pointed out gently, ‘But not everyone thinks like that.’ With her magnificent blue eyes unblinking, Mantel said ‘Fools!’ That is what makes the great writer, or indeed the great politician, or indeed the great lawyer… that ruthless mix of curiosity allied with principle, that makes an uneasy person but a real artist.
The last paragraph – gorgeous. Those people – seers – who articulate and thereby blow away the fog the rest of us would otherwise stumble through endlessly.
I think it may be true that most writers are a frustrated something-else, but not necessarily lawyers. (I used to want to be a barrister at 14 but that was because i watched too many courtroom dramas). Now I’d call myself a frustrated archaeologist, which no doubt explains a lot about how I write…