Monday 08 2024
When people ask me to describe my writing process for the Katyn manuscript, I chuckle first not because what they said was funny, and I laugh not because the question is silly or unreasonable. “How will they react when I tell them writing the book was like experiencing an exorcism, several of them” I say to myself while smiling at them. And I sense that the people who earnestly ask me that question and watch me giggle (and see tears welling up in my eyes) after hearing their question know that writing is a strenuous and excruciating activity and regardless want to hear my story.
I have experienced other people laughing at me—more like mocking me—when they ask me the same question. When I tell them teaching students about literature or writing an academic project is hard work, their snickers do hurt. Once their sarcastic and demeaning cackling ends, they have said, “try swinging a sledgehammer for 8 hours” or “show me your calluses and black and blues” or “what you do isn’t work” or “I wish I could sit around all day and do nothing like you.” Anti-intellectualism not only divides but cheapens us. It degrades us. It turns us against ourselves. And the mocking and devaluing of all kinds of work that makes all of us who we are and what makes our nation what it is only subverts our potential, not uplifting it.
When I laugh when people ask me about my writing process, it is an admission of survival, even a private celebration. I interpret my laugh as the following: “I’ve made it through. The journey is over. The monsters that prevented me from writing, and I had to defeat were challenging opponents.” My chuckle to that question is a kind of black humor, gallows humor because for me to overcome the numerous bouts of writer’s block, I had to overthrow many demons. Because I have shed too many tears during the writing of both the Melville book and the Katyn manuscript, laughter seems to be the only appropriate response to the question of: How did you write your Katyn book?”
And my response to the question of “How did you write it?” is a long one: “When I wrote the Melville dissertation, four or five demons were fighting me throughout its writing. One demon tormented me over the losses of the twins. Another one bedeviled me over the trauma of that loss; still another one tortured my marriage over that loss. When united, those three devils were terribly strong, and almost persuaded me to stop writing the Melville dissertation. That uncertainty gave birth to another fiend that whispered incessantly in my ear: ‘why write about Melville? No one will read your dissertation. No one cares. No one cares what you have to say. You’re not ‘professor’ material. Your students consider you boring. You’re a fraud. You’re not smart. You’re a dumb Pollock.’ On and on. When this devil’s commander appeared before me, this Lucifer also would possess my spirit and mind, sparing no insult, anguish, nightmare, or hopelessness to induce further misery.”
After a pause, I continue: “And somehow, I wrote it. I resisted them. I’m not sure if I cleansed myself completely of them because I haven’t taught Melville in a long time. Yes, I did teach Melville’s short story “Bartleby” and his first novel Typee when I worked at West Point, but I had to teach those texts; Melville was part of the course director’s curriculum. There was no way of me not teaching Melville. I personally didn’t want to teach those works. So, since 2009, I haven’t included any Melville in my classrooms. I still love Melville and his literature; however, I can’t teach or write about him anymore. Those devils are probably only sedated. So, I let them sleep.”
At this point, I assess my questioner. And I wonder: “Do they think I’m crazy? I imagine them saying, ‘exorcising demons is not real.’ Psychiatrists, not priests, are needed to treat ‘possessed’ people. Are they scared of me, anticipating that I will have a Linda Blair moment à la The Exorcist? Will they condemn me, saying, ‘Well, that’s what you get for listening to Heavy Metal music.’ Or do they empathize? Those who know about the ordeals while writing an academic manuscript also know that the Katyn Massacres as a writing subject is a bleak, pessimistic one. Devoting myself so wholeheartedly to it, they understand that I wouldn’t be the same person who started out writing about it.” And because their expression is one of interest and concern, I continue speaking:
“I feel stronger battling those Melville devils; after all, they were only a handful. Writing about Katyn, I felt as though I battled against an entire legion of devils. A whole army of them. These demons were much stronger than the Melville gang. Hell, it took me five and half years… relatively not a long time to complete a dissertation… the time period when I entered graduate school to when I finished the dissertation… to write the Melville book. I didn’t take a ‘sabbatical.’ And I persevered somehow… ‘You need to finish it quickly,’ I ordered myself. But with the Katyn manuscript, everything was different. Everything. Fifteen years of writer’s block! One group of devils plagued me with accusations of anti-Semitism because how ‘dare I write about the Jewish officers who also were murdered by the Soviets during the Katyn Massacres.’ This one corps of evil spirits immobilized me for years. Years! No matter the fact that I wasn’t a bigot couldn’t persuade me against this fallacy, and Steve’s emotional and powerful arguments trying to convince me that I wasn’t a bigot also didn’t work. And those devils knew that I wasn’t one, too; however, those devils knew that the shock of this outrageous and false accusation would halt all writing, that the bewilderment such an unfounded allegation would work, and they were right. The writing did stop. After years of teaching my Holocaust courses and continuing to use Holocaust texts in my war classes, I slowly taught myself how to fight those demons. Steve’s loving words defending me eventually did remind me that I wasn’t a bigot. For me, the Not Just Crosses section of my Katyn manuscript, therefore, is one of the most important parts of the book. It might have been one of the last sections I wrote, but I finally did write it. It’s a personal victory, one I needed to include in the manuscript.”
“Another squad of demons would undermine me by mimicking the voices of unsympathetic critics or those who mocked my identity as a hard-working teacher and writer. They didn’t hold me up for a long time, but they certainly made their appearances.”
“One powerful group of devils from the beginning was a coven who challenged the various truths I was revealing about the Katyn Massacres. How critical would I be of Roosevelt and Churchill’s betrayal of a reliable ally (Poland) and their acceptance of Stalin’s lies that Hitler had ordered and committed the Katyn Massacres? Writing and publishing that book review on Polish World War II history taught me the ways to express carefully and precisely those vexing questions.”
“However, the writing of the opening chapter was the most difficult one because I needed to explain to the reader the backstory of why the Russian FSB officers tracked me down in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and interrogated me. That backstory involving my time at West Point was terrifying for me to write about because, in essence, I did create the reason for the Russians to investigate me. I went through dozens, yes, dozens of drafts recounting those events in West Point and Saint Petersburg that set-in motion my interrogation. In those preliminary drafts, I was evasive about that backstory, worried I would reveal too much about the events that led to the Russians visiting me in my Saint Petersburg hotel. I was worried because my clumsiness with my word choices or phrasings would misrepresent what happened. Years of these devils possessing my mind and spirit prevented me from moving onward with the writing project. Eventually, annoyed by my procrastination, King Arthur ordered me, ‘Just say what happened. There are ways to describe the backstory where you don’t have to be so precise. If you feel unsure of something you’ve written, the editing process can round off that section. You need to finish.’
“So, writing this Katyn book was an exorcism for me. I needed to purge myself of the doubts, fears, influences of certain people, and so many other things. There’s writer’s block, and then there’s the kind that is an affliction. That writer’s block, the one I went through, was like a possession by a devil. And in my case, I had hundreds, thousands of them within me.”
When I answered The Lady of the Lake’s (my senior year English Catholic high school teacher) question of: “How did you write your Katyn book” with the above confessions, I saw tears in her eyes. She took my hand and squeezed it. She then replied, “Yes, writing is an exorcism.” She then recited some Yeats poetry about the struggles artists go through creating their art. I nodded.
The etymology of “exorcism” is revealing. Some linguists claim that the origins of “exorcism” may derive from the Greek word exorkizein, meaning “to bind by oath.” I had lost faith in the writing process. Somehow and through a lengthy re-discovery of that oath, that commitment to writing, my exorcisms performed by myself (re)taught me how to write. Other scholars trace part of exorkizein to herkos, meaning “fence;’ perhaps this “fence” alludes to a boundary that separates two worlds or parts of one’s identity—in this case, my identity as a writer. This “fence” had fallen into disrepair in my unconsciousness, thus allowing the demons to cross over the threshold and hound me. Regaining faith in my writing was no easy task. And my “fence” needed strong buttressing to keep out those demons.
Publicly acknowledging my own struggles with writing, I hope, convinces you that writing is not easy for anyone. I always tell my students: “We are not born as writers; we become writers. Even professional writers and artistic creators go through bouts of writer’s block.” My lesson now takes on deeper meaning. To some people, my way of describing writer’s block may be excessive or flamboyant, using demonic and religious allusions; however, to the struggling and insecure college student who believes they can’t write, they, too, may feel hopeless when the words are out of reach. Nonetheless, writer’s block isn’t a permanent condition, no matter how long it feels. It can be exorcised. And the empowerment that comes from that exorcism is that you can do it all by yourself.