First steps with Lorenzetti

Some two months after the events which started the gestation of “Walks with Lorenzetti”, I have entered into the phase of writing which I enjoy the most: the sketching-out.  I have spent this afternoon trying to draw up the basic ground-plan of the edifice I wish to construct; once that feels right, in some sense, the writing is simply a matter of time.

For the last eight weeks I have been trying to prepare myself for this spiritually.  I have re-read from time to time my notebook of Venice; I have listened to Vivaldi, read parts of the biography of him; I have gone through a study of Canaletto, read books on Palladio and his influence on the development of art in Britain; I have joined the British Library in an attempt to winkle out information on Visentini, and on that most elusive of characters, Lorenzetti himself.  During this time, even when I have not been actively thinking about the book and its plan and content, I feel the subject matter bubbling away within me like some rich broth which must be reduced down to its concentrated essence.  Nothing is too obscure or too remote from the central subject; nothing is irrelevant.  Those things that I seek and find I may not use; those central elements I have hunted and have so far failed to obtain may well turn out to be unimportant.  Although everything is contingent, this does at least mean that whatever structure I end up with has its own incontrovertible logic.

Now is the best time because everything seems possible.  I can envision a work of stunning originality, enormous amplitude, profound thought and moving insight.  I know it could be the best thing I have ever written; each part could serve the whole and yet offer sharp contrast; the themes I treat will weave deftly in and out of the narrative like weft and warp; the uniquely apt structure, with all its balance and symmetry, offers the chance of near-perfect work.  Above all, this stage is best because I am unhampered by the crude facts of my failure in one or all of these areas, which I shall be forced to confront as the writing itself progresses.

And as the work progresses, so shall my sense of that failure.  Each day it will become harder to motivate myself to continue with this grand fiasco.  I will see that I have over-reached myself, that my pretensions outrun my limited abilities, that what I have tried to create is collapsing under the weight of its own cumbersome superstructure.  Every word I write will be like treacle, squeezed out of me with pain and labour.  Every sentence will be irredeemably stamped with my petty mark, rank with my own stylistic stench.  If and when I finish, I shall be heartily sick of the whole enterprise and doubtful whether I shall attempt anything so ambitious again.

Then, many months or even years later, as I prepare to write what could really turn out to be the best thing of my life, or after I have tried to write it and, once more, failed to bridge the yawning chasm between aspiration and realisation by means of my all-too limited inspiration, I may, perhaps, turn to my poor “Walks with Lorenzetti”.  And although I shall not think it a masterpiece, nor even particularly good, I shall be amazed, as I am amazed now by my other poor work of the past, that I, and no one else, wrote this small work which exists, now, independently of me.

(5.3.88)

See also Walks with Lorenzetti

and Moody's Black Notebook Travels

Index