28
PARTISAN REVIEW
will ask a writer, in all simplicity, why he has written a certain book,
or why he has written in this way, or even, more generally, why does
he write and why do writers write. To this last question, which con–
tains all the others, there is no easy answer: not always is a writer
aware of the reasons that induce him to write, not always is he im–
pelled by only one reason, not always do the same reasons stand
behind the beginning and end of the same work.
It
seems to me that
at least nine motivations can be identified , and I will try to describe
them; but the reader, whether he is of the same trade or not, will
have no difficulty in finding other reasons . Why, then, does one
write?
1) Because one feels the drive and need to do so. This at a first
approximation is the most disinterested reason. The author who
writes because something or someone dictates to him from within
does not work with an end in view; he may obtain fame and glory
from his work, but they'll be a bonus, an additional benefit , not con–
sciously sought : in short, a by-product. Admittedly, the case out–
lined is extreme, theoretical , asymptomatic ; it is doubtful that there
ever existed a writer - or in general an artist - so pure of heart.
That's how the romantics saw themselves; not by chance we believe
that we find such examples among the great men farthest from us in
time, about whom we know little and who can therefore be idealized
more easily. For the same reason the most distant mountains appear
to be of one color, which often blends with the color of the sky .
2) To entertain others and oneself. Fortunately these two
variants almost always coincide: it is rare that the person who writes
to entertain his audience is not entertained by his writing, and it is
rare that the person who enjoys writing does not transmit at least a
portion of his enjoyment to his reader. In contrast to the preceding
case, there exist pure entertainers, often not writers by profession,
alien to ambition, whether literary or otherwise, lacking cumber–
some convictions and dogmatic rigidities, light and limpid like
children, lucid and wise like someone who has lived for a long time
and not in vain. The first name that comes to mind is that of Lewis
Carroll, the timid dean and mathematician who lived a blameless
life and fascinated six generations with the adventures of his Alice,
first in Wonderland and then behind the Looking Glass. The confir–
mation of his affable genius is found in the favor that his books enjoy
after more than a century oflife, not only with children, to whom he
ideally dedicated them, but with logicians and psychoanalysts who
