this weekend i saw the norwegian author and future nobel prize winner karl ove knausgaard give a talk at the town hall here in seattle. there were perhaps several hundred people in attendance. compare this to the last author i saw give a talk, hanne orstavik (also norwegian, by some coincidence) where there were perhaps a dozen people there to listen, and you can have an idea of how popular he is globally.
i have only read one of his books, which i read specifically because he was coming here, and which i described somewhat in my previous post. but in reading that book i would not have guessed at his ‘method’, which he repeated over and over during the talk and during the following q&a session: “i don’t plan” and “i don’t know what will happen” and even “i don’t think while i’m writing”
what is this supernatural or mystical aspect to art? time and again you hear artists say things like this. they say ‘it’s not me, it just flows through me’ or ‘it’s something i tap into’ as if the art already exists on some other plane that the artist is doing their best to access. is art an invisible substance that comes into us, perhaps from the spirit world, and flows out through our pens and paintbrushes and pianos?
i have often felt similarly about my own writing. that is, that it is something outside of me that i am trying my best to channel. but i have never gone so far as to try ‘not thinking’.
perhaps thought only constricts and blocks art. perhaps i must lean into the unknown. perhaps i must simply let go, relax the brain muscle, and let the divine or mystical energy or power or whatever flow through me. perhaps i must look inward, feel, and accept what is there and what appears, without trying to force it into a preconceived shape.
i never until now have thought ‘maybe i could plan even less‘
but maybe i can.
after the talk i waited in line with the crowd to get my book signed. a book i had spilled red wine on and dropped down the stairs. but i always prefer to have signed the copy that i personally read. he didn’t have a comment for me. the idea of signing so many books for so many people seems overwhelming, deadening. but he did so kindly. he seemed a very patient person.
perhaps, as with his writing, he was letting the crowd wash over him, without trying to resist or control it.
Jonas David 