of the writer—is that the writer recognizes what
you just expressed and communicates the meaning
of some chaotic event or historical circumstance in
whatever way he does it, and people read that
because they recognize the writer as someone in
whom they trust and believe, and possibly as a
result of reading the meaning of what has hap-
pened, they are going to understand a little bit
more of what’s going to take place next, or, they
will understand a little bit more of the consequences
of behaviour the next time something comes up.
Not that they necessarily agree with what the
writer said, but they understand a little bit more.
And that’s about all the writer can expect?
About all the writer can expect is to be read.
That would probably be what most of us get. I
think the word I was looking for is ‘‘vitality.’’ You
were using ‘‘role’’ and changed it to ‘‘function.’’
But I think that thevitalityof the writer, for those
of us who are contemporary writers, who are
writing contemporaneously—because some of
us are literary writers who are not—is that we
are just a little bit of both. We’re a little bit of a
prophet, and we are a little bit of the historian.
And we’re saying, ‘‘this is the meaning that we
find. You have to take what you can.’’ We are not
Marx; we’re not sitting there saying, ‘‘A is A.’’
We’re not Ayn Rand either. We’re sitting there
saying, ‘‘I saw this through my eyes.’’
The word that you used that I do like is
‘‘trust.’’ There are certain writers that no matter
what they have to say, no matter how much in
agreement you would be with them, you simply
don’t trust the writer. I hate a damned liar. I really
don’t care what you have to say, or how awful you
might think it is, or how awful I might think it is,
but I hate a damned liar. Once you have given up
that, once you have given up your basic integrity,
then you have given up that, once you have given
up your basic integrity, then you really have noth-
ing else to offer. And maybe that’s harsh, and I
don’t intend to be harsh. But when Norman
Mailer, for example, had to pay offMarilyn,the
bookMarilyn, because it was plagiarized, I don’t
know what Mailer could write that I would read.
Itwashardenoughtobebotheredwithhischau-
vinism and his crap before that, but to recognize
that the man would be in a profession, but would
take the work of somebody else.... There’s just
no way. It couldn’t happen.Imean,Norman’s
spirit could descend in this room, and he could
start to read from something, and I’d say, ‘‘well I
have to leave.’’
Because the only thing you bring, the only
thing any of us, any professional brings, is your
honesty. You don’t mind that the patient died on
the table, as long as the surgeon wasn’t drunk.
It’s sad if he did. It’s sad to you; it’s sad to the
patient. It’s probably sad to the surgeon. But
you feel like, ‘‘well he tried.’’ And in my profes-
sion, if you’re not going to be honest.... It’s not
that you ask the reader to spend, which I think is
ridiculous, 15 dollars upwards for a book, but
that you’re asking them for their time. Because
they can go get another 15 dollars. That’s not
hard to do. You really cannot give back time;
you think about the time you spend with a book.
I mean, I’m a reader. You’d feel raped to think
that you involved your heart and your mind and
your time, that there were things you could have
been doing, and you were sitting there reading a
book to find out that it’s essentially dishonest.
You honestly came to that book. You chose it,
and that it’s a lie? I mean, it’s not acceptable.
Absolutely unacceptable. The profession is not
really strong enough to me on your basic plagia-
rism. I know lawyers who worry about lawyers
who are essentially dishonest. Because you can’t
always win. Those of us who are writers can’t
always be prescient, but we can always be hon-
est. So that if we make a mistake, if we misunder-
stand something, if we’re journalists and don’t
see something, that’s all right, because we know
that what was brought to bear there is the best
that we have. That’s all any of us are going to do,
because you’re going to miss a few calls there.
One reason you don’t shoot the umpire is that
you know the guy is watching the ball. Now if
you have to feel that other team gave him 10
bucks, then there’s no game. There’s absolutely
no way that we can play the game. And life I
think is like that.
It’s tremendously fragile, isn’t it, because it is
back to ‘‘trust.’’ We talked before about the for-
mula, learning how to write the formula and just
repeating it, repeating it. It takes a while for the
reader to catch on that that’s happening especially
if that reader has read that writer before and has
developed his trust and liking and is willing to
invest not only 15 dollars, as you say, but the
time and the emotional energy. And so it’s really
a very fragile kind of delicate thing between writer
and reader.
I honestly think—we were talking formula—
I think that formula is essentially dishonest. I’m
not fighting with my fellow writers who areWinter