A conversation with
William Styron
By ADAM
TANOUS
Express Arts Editor
An argument
could be made that the literature of the 20th century was
shaped by just a handful of writers. These are men and women who brought
original voices, narrative techniques, emotional truth and, perhaps most
notably, a power of language to the page. One of those writers is William
Styron.
William
Styron Photo by Adine Sagalyn/Stills Press
To get some
perspective on Styron’s career, consider that he published his first
novel at 26. What’s more, that novel was "Lie Down in
Darkness." The year was 1951, and Styron was fresh out of the U.S.
Marine Corps. Styron then moved to Paris in the early ’50s, and with
friends Peter Matthiessen and George Plimpton created "The Paris
Review," a literary magazine that has continued to publish fine
writing for half a century.
"The
Long March" was Styron’s next achievement, a novella written out of
his experiences in the Marine Corps. He went on to publish "Set This
House on Fire" in 1960. "The Confessions of Nat Turner"
(1967) won the Pulitzer Prize. Then, in 1979, Styron published
"Sophie’s Choice," which won the American Book Award for
fiction in 1980.
In the
mid-80s, Styron suffered a major case of depression that nearly cost him
his life. Remarkably, he recovered and went on to write an account of his
sickness titled "Darkness Visible," a piece that has entered
into the medical literature on depression.
Styron
published "A Tidewater Morning: Three tales from Youth" in 1993.
For many
years, Styron and his family have split their time between homes in
Roxbury, N.Y., and Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. Styron and his wife Rose
will travel to Sun Valley next week to participate in the Sun Valley
Writers’ Conference, held Monday through Thursday.
Last
weekend I spoke with Styron about a range of subjects.
IME:
I’m curious about the process of choosing a subject for a novel. There
are so many things that might interest a writer, how do you know a given
subject will carry a novel?
Styron:
As a writer you have certain preoccupation and ideas that seize your
imagination. They more or less choose you rather than the other way
around. Certainly, I’ve had blind alleys—not in any of my major works.
But I don’t think any writer has not had ideas evaporate.
IME:
When you start a novel, do you envision it whole and the writing becomes a
matter of extracting it, line by line? Or are you starting from a single
image and spiraling out from there?
Styron:
You have a general idea of where you are going. You have to trust your
subconscious and imagination to fill in the blanks.
IME:
What do you feel is the most important part of a novel to get right?
Styron:
One of the more important aspects of writing is to establish characters
that are real. If you can do that—that’s more than half the battle.
IME:
When "The Confessions of Nat Turner" was published (1967) there
was some controversy over it. (Some called his novel immoral and racist.
Others considered Styron an enemy of African Americans). Were you
intimidated by the attacks?
Styron:
It was, I have to admit, disconcerting. It was not pleasant to be attacked
when one felt he had done a service to the intellectual community by
writing honestly about a thing like slavery. To have it damned and
vilified was not a pleasant experience, but I never allowed it to deflect
me. I knew I had done nothing to warrant that kind of criticism. So on one
level, I felt really quite stable … because it was terribly unfair and
politically inspired. So it didn’t alter my general view of being a
writer, or anything like that
IME:
Do you feel—I presume you don’t—that there are limits to imaginative
leaps writers may make?
Styron:
No, in fact, I think often it is a testimony to writers’ risk taking
abilities to essentially make a leap. It seems to me a challenging aspect
of a writer’s life is to jump into a work where he is finding himself in
alien territory. Indeed, I think it is the testimony to the high ability
of literature to accept any challenge. Not to sound too grandiose about
it, but think of an artist like Shakespeare. Think of the leaps he took.
He went anywhere and everywhere … That kind of risk taking, any writer
would want to emulate.
IME:
Writers, in general, seem to be riddled with self-doubt. Is that something
writers grow out of, or is it is a healthy quality, or part of the
territory?
Styron:
It depends entirely on the writer. Some writers seem to have boundless
self confidence. Others, myself included, are plagued by self doubt, and
it never quite ends. But it is part of the territory that you surmount,
otherwise you end up not being a writer at all. Certainly, it seems a
natural part of being a writer.
IME:
In "Darkness Visible" you pointed that so many writers and
creative people have suffered through depression. I’m not sure if you
stated it explicitly or not but I’m wondering if you believe there is a
direct connection between the creative process and depression?
Styron:
I think, on the one hand, depression is universal … Yet, I think it
could be argued that creative people are more vulnerable to depression, by
far. Now whether it is creative function that creates depression or vice
versa, I don’t know.
IME:
Was it difficult to go from the somewhat veiled world of fiction writing
to "Darkness Visible," a nonfiction work in which you were so
open and honest about your personal life?
Styron:
No, in fact, I wrote it with a totally open mind. I really wrote it as an
exercise in self-expression about my own experience with depression …
without any pre-conceived idea that it would be much more than a magazine
article.
IME:
Was it therapeutic to write it?
Styron:
It was in
a way cathartic—a sort of freeing of demons by describing what had
happened.
IME:
Has your perception of what "being a writer" is changed over the
course of your career?
Styron:
You do change over time, still it has always been a kind of calling … a
profession that I had to be involved with … otherwise life wouldn’t be
worth living.