A friend drew my attention to the text by Josée Blanchette, Too many books, and I am very grateful to him since it was an enlightening read that made me progress. As an author, I find it difficult to get rid of a feeling of imposture that I have always had. I’ve been writing since a very tender age, but I systematically destroyed everything (flame, shavings of paper in the toilet, etc.) what I wrote as I went along until my first novel.
And despite this coronation of publication and even that of the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ), I persist in giving myself the right to write backwards. I do it despite everything, because telling is stronger than me and it’s when I meet readers that I find the missing piece of the puzzle of my little literary life.
I am indeed part of what is called the lower middle class where I have always been lapping. I don’t complain about it, only when I read a text like Too many books, immediately, of course, I wonder if it’s not my own books that aren’t too many. And why ? Why do I persist in this belief that literature is inherently classist and that only certain groups have the right to publish? In his article, M.me Blanchette mentions the drop in libido of readers which is confronted with the tenfold vigor of those who write. Publishers are overwhelmed with manuscripts, I have no doubt. But I wonder if the wind blowing on this perfect storm is not that of social networks.
Since the advent of these “open” mass media, everyone can go and publish their message there, which will be read by a more or less wide audience. On the other hand, this same world can spend its days there reading what is published there. As, it seems, porn is a love killer, wouldn’t social networks be a “reading killer”?
And conversely, wouldn’t they contribute to the literary impulses of a mass that otherwise would not have written? Is this mass publishable? It’s not for me to judge. As it is not up to me to judge my writings, I leave that to my editors, readers and literary critics who are willing to look into my “work”.
Are there really too many people writing and not enough reading? I hesitate to say yes. To write, is it not to read oneself? Because writing is one of those processes that allows us to understand and heal ourselves. In this era where care for our psychological suffering is sorely lacking, I would tend to say that we cannot be too numerous and numerous to write. But yes, surely we should more often stop unrolling the skein of our social networks to open a book, because other people’s books heal us too.