Ever since I became a famous and fabulously wealthy writer, people always ask me to describe my work. Well I’m sick of it. Everyone gives me the same dumb look when I tell them to imagine that the collected works of Homer, Sappho, Lao Tzu, Shakespeare, Miguel de Cervantes, Joan Didion, Ray Bradbury, Zadie Smith, and every other great writer who ever lived had a baby.
What no one seems to understand is that, as an artist, it’s my duty to pay homage to all the literary titans who have influenced me, without any one of whom I may never have written books that nine out of ten critics called, “Right up there with the Bible.” (The other critic is a practicing Satanist.)
At the high society events I frequently attend, someone always asks, “How could you possibly be influenced by every great writer? Surely you can’t be familiar with all of them.”
To which I reply, “Did you know that the expression ‘the bee’s knees' is anatomically inaccurate? Bees don’t technically have knees, just jointed limbs.”
And they say, “What?”
And I say, “Oh, I’m sorry, I thought we were playing the stupid question game.”
Now, being beyond brandable may sound cool (and it is), but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. A publisher once threw an electric pencil sharpener at my head because he couldn’t decide what category to inscribe on the back of my books. I told him to write, “Like all your favorite books in one, but better.” He liked that.
Living with all these illustrious influences running through my head is no walk in the park either. It’s hard, for instance, when I can’t decide whether to write the next Epic of Gilgamesh-meets-Pride and Prejudice-meets-Neuromancer-meets-The Devil Wears Prada, or a refreshing new take on Hamlet that takes place in Miranda Priestly’s office, where Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are replaced by Fred and George Weasley, and instead of saying, “To thine own self be true,” Polonius says, “You’re a wizard, Laertes.”
Whenever I’m stuck between equally promising ideas like these, I just have to suck it up, choose one, and crank out another masterpiece: Harry Hamlet-Potter and the Chamber of Haute Couture.
But I’ve got worse problems than creative indecision. Every day Hemingway and Faulkner break out into shirtless brawls in my head, and every day I have to reassure them that they’ll receive equal thanks in my next two-day-long Pulitzer Prize acceptance speech. I rarely get any peace. Cervantes is always crashing Chitty Chitty Bang Bang into windmills, Percy Shelley won’t eat his daily lembas bread unless he can write an ode to it that makes him cry, and Emily Dickinson randomly texts everyone, “The horror! The horror!” and then ghosts them for weeks, just to mess with them. Indeed, the pain of this constant clamor can be crippling, but that is the small price I pay to be dubbed an “eclectic genius” by Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club.
Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever get bored of writing yet another Great American Novel, or being the “toast of Broadway” for the 800th time. I wonder if I’ll ever throw in the towel and pass the torch to a younger generation. I could buy an old farmhouse up in rural Vermont and live out my days amassing a stately collection of briar pipes and corduroy underwear, along with several full-sized Gutenberg printing presses that I destroy because I can’t figure out how to use them. Maybe then I’ll find the peace I so long for.
But could I really tell my loyal muses to “go home” or “shut your big yaps once and for all?” I can’t expect Dante to content himself sipping Mai Tais on the scorched banks of the River Styx forever. I can’t ask Keats, Chekhov, Kafka, Katherine Mansfield and the Brontë sisters to die of tuberculosis again.
Alas, in spite of our differences, with all their drunken fist-fights, laudanum overdoses, and constant ethico-philosophical quarrels, history’s greatest writers and I need each other. They need me to keep their voices alive and relevant, and I need them to help me win another Academy Award for Best Screenplay so I can finally buy one of Oscar Wilde’s capes.
In the end, they’re stuck with me, and I’m stuck with them, too. Sorry, younger generation, I guess I’ll have to keep the torch for now.