Some people are the worse for learning that they are not alone, some take comfort in the idea and try to make the best of things and a few of them take another big step forward: they start noticing patterns, joining dots and making connections.
It seems strange to me that some of the writers featured on here appear never to have reached even the first stage. Their writings are full of insights about themselves and their lives but they looked at it all in isolation.
No context for their lives
I first mentioned this important point in an article about the poet Kathleen Raine: I said that while she made a good, honest evaluation of herself and her life, she did not compare it with the personalities and lives of other creative writers. She actually had many ideas, insights, feelings and experiences in common with some of them, but she never, at least publicly, did much to put her life into the context of the lives of other, similar, people.
For example, she admitted that her thoughts about and feelings for Gavin Maxwell placed a heavy and intrusive psychic burden on him and that he eventually turned against her because of this. He may not have been the only person she had a bad effect on: he called her a destroyer.
Would it have made things better or worse if she had known about the terrible effect that J. M. Barrie had on the Llewelyn Davies boys and their parents or Benjamin Disraeli had on various people?
As for Stella Benson and Antonia White, they too were very self-aware but they seem to have been self-obsessed to the exclusion of everything else. I wonder what difference it would have made if they had known of the common elements in their lives. What if they had known that Kathleen Raine too had felt fundamentally different from the people around her?
L. M. Montgomery was Canadian; Stella Benson was English. They came from different generations and very different backgrounds. They had very different lives and wrote very different books, yet they had more in common with each other than they did with most of the people around them.
What if Stella Benson had known about the similarities in her and L. M. Montgomery’s lives, their unhappy marriages for example? Would they have benefitted or would it have made them feel even worse?
Finding the personal context level
It is not just painful experiences that are relevant here: shared ideas, opinions about various issues and attitudes to life in general are also of great interest and help.
Just as some writers separated by space and time had more in common with each other than they did with the people around them, so do some people need to turn to books and biographical material to find others who share their views, outlook and experiences. They may have more in common with dead writers and fictional characters than they do with the people in their lives, even though very different eras, nationalities and lifestyles may be involved.
There is something timeless and universal about the words of some writers; the words of a dead novelist may resonate much more strongly and be more interesting, relevant and useful than anything some people can get from their acquaintances in the real world.
It can feel like a major breakthrough when people read something that makes them think, “I could have written that myself.”
The discovery that they have not only painful experiences but outlooks in common with some people who made a name for themselves can be gratifying and liberating. They have found their tribe! They have found people on their wavelength who understand how they feel and speak the same language.
They may decide to leave it at that.
Staying at the personal context level
Some people may realise that what they have endured seems to be an inevitable part of life for their kind rather than the result of individual deficiencies and difficult circumstances or being singled out for special treatment.
It may be enough to learn that they are in good company. They may not have the analytical mind necessary for an objective analysis of the material they have found.
They may sense that going further might have very unpleasant consequences and decide to leave well alone.
The next levels up
The next stage for people who collect information and notice some common elements is to look at the material objectively and summarise some of it. This is when dots are joined, patterns are detected and connections are made.
After this stage, a select few of these people move on to even higher levels. This is where the forces behind the patterns are investigated.
L. M. Montgomery was Canadian; Stella Benson was English. They came from different generations and very different backgrounds. They had very different lives and wrote very different books, yet they had more in common with each other than they did with most of the people around them.
What if Stella Benson had known about the similarities in her and L. M. Montgomery’s lives, their unhappy marriages for example? Would they have benefitted or would it have made them feel even worse?
Finding the personal context level
It is not just painful experiences that are relevant here: shared ideas, opinions about various issues and attitudes to life in general are also of great interest and help.
Just as some writers separated by space and time had more in common with each other than they did with the people around them, so do some people need to turn to books and biographical material to find others who share their views, outlook and experiences. They may have more in common with dead writers and fictional characters than they do with the people in their lives, even though very different eras, nationalities and lifestyles may be involved.
There is something timeless and universal about the words of some writers; the words of a dead novelist may resonate much more strongly and be more interesting, relevant and useful than anything some people can get from their acquaintances in the real world.
It can feel like a major breakthrough when people read something that makes them think, “I could have written that myself.”
The discovery that they have not only painful experiences but outlooks in common with some people who made a name for themselves can be gratifying and liberating. They have found their tribe! They have found people on their wavelength who understand how they feel and speak the same language.
They may decide to leave it at that.
Staying at the personal context level
Some people may realise that what they have endured seems to be an inevitable part of life for their kind rather than the result of individual deficiencies and difficult circumstances or being singled out for special treatment.
It may be enough to learn that they are in good company. They may not have the analytical mind necessary for an objective analysis of the material they have found.
They may sense that going further might have very unpleasant consequences and decide to leave well alone.
The next levels up
The next stage for people who collect information and notice some common elements is to look at the material objectively and summarise some of it. This is when dots are joined, patterns are detected and connections are made.
After this stage, a select few of these people move on to even higher levels. This is where the forces behind the patterns are investigated.
The story of Kathleen Raine:
