I Think You're Totally Wrong by David Shields Page A

really bad reader and know nothing about my life.
    CALEB: Whoa. Whoa. I wasn’t saying that as a criticism.
    DAVID: You don’t think my work turns toward contradictions?
    CALEB: Sure, but—
    DAVID: You don’t think anyone who lives an ordinary life has plenty of trouble and torment to write about? You don’t seek out pain; pain—
    CALEB: Maybe that’s it. Maybe you’re interested in ordinary life and I’m interested in extremities of life.
    DAVID: I mean, we’re all going to die.
    CALEB: We all die differently. You’re interested in “mortality.” I’m interested in murder.
    DAVID: We all suffer as human beings.
    CALEB: “Pain is mandatory. Suffering is optional.”
    DAVID: You’re quoting my back doctor quoting the—
    CALEB: From
Thing About Life
. And then there’s Bukowski: “All this writing about pain and suffering is bullshit.” For the most part, we’re responsible for our own suffering. I realize there are victims of trauma coming from external forces, but for you and me and your students and peers, suffering is different. The widow of Kabul’s suffering isn’t David Shields’s suffering. You say literature saved your life? Really? Really? Your life was in jeopardy? You’re not politically or socially oppressed.
    DAVID: Wow. That’s an incredibly banal and Maoist view of what constitutes suffering. If only the widow of Kabul’s suffering counts, why read
Hamlet
? I love the Yeats line that goes, “Why should we honour those that die upon the field of battle? A man may show as reckless a courage in entering into the abyss of himself.”
    CALEB: Yeats is an artist, he explores his abyss, and then says that takes more courage than facing a bullet?
    DAVID: He says as much courage.
    CALEB: Whatever.
    DAVID: If you take art seriously, it’s true.
    CALEB: You linger on pain, yours and others. I get the sense that you’re exaggerating your own—
    DAVID: Agony.
    CALEB: Sure, that. Perhaps, when you were younger, your suffering might have been more genuine. Stuttering must have had a tremendous impact. You could function one-on-one, but in groups you must have been terribly introverted. It would have made it difficult to “hang out with the guys.”
    DAVID: That’s right: ever since I gained a little more control of my speech, I’ve stopped suffering.

    DAVID: Natalie is insulin-resistant.
    CALEB: She’s diabetic?
    DAVID: Pre-pre-diabetic. I forget if you’ve ever met her, but she’s pretty heavy.
    CALEB: Related to the insulin?
    DAVID: She doesn’t process insulin correctly. Whenever she eats carbs, her body keeps telling her she needs to eat more. She’s doing better, though. She’s lost thirty pounds in the last year on a very specific regime of medicines, diet, and exercise. We’re hoping she keeps seeing progress.
    CALEB: When I first started dating Terry, I met her extended family—all happily married, financially secure, and with beautiful children. On the outside everyone seemed perfectly happy. The first time I met Aunt Karen, she said, “I hear you’re a writer. Our family must have many stories for you.” She married a man who worked hard. At a relatively young age, he retired a millionaire many times over. They have a house in Seattle, one in Leavenworth, one in Palm Desert. Two children, four grandchildren. The picture of the American Dream. Christian, churchgoing, golf, fantastic restaurants, vacations.
    So I replied, “Not really. Everyone seems happy, and happiness is pretty boring subject matter.”
    DAVID: And really fleeting.
    CALEB: Ennui sets in. I’d rather be interested and engaged and passionate than happy. Karen smiles and the subject changes. Turns out she stars in her own “good bad novel,” as you like to say. Money may not buy happiness, but it alleviates suffering. At about the age of eighteen