muse

I think it worked out okay. Sorvino always was and always would be the same. He laid my manuscript on the table, and then, uncharacteristically, he smiled. And then he laughed lightly, I think.

One hour earlier I had stepped into his office, unannounced. "Do you have a minute – I need to talk," I said, or some such thing. He had been plainly irritated, marking his spot on the page with his forefinger (were he to mark it with some inanimate object my tension would have been lifted). "What is it?" he replied, without even sliding back his chair. What was it? I had no idea.

My mind was a jumble and my purpose had vanished.

Meekly I pulled out a sheaf of papers. "Well, I've been working for some time on a sort of book…"

"Fine," Sorvino said, briefly looking up. "I'll read it tonight."

"No, no… I mean, thank you. But I want to preface it. I mean, I want to suggest some ideas. Not about it, but for it. I mean, I have very specific ideas about its production. To tell you. I'd like to explain them. The ideas, you understand. I mean, I think that you will."

He paused, his mind spinning orthogonal to my own. We had been friends for years. We made miserable associates, though, when it came to any business dealings. His manner was very different than mine. That is why, I suppose, he could sell books. He would probably refuse dealings with me altogether, but occasionally I had the fortune to interest a reader or two, to get a good review, to generate some profit. Never a lot, but enough to make his efforts justified by more than the inevitable charity he felt towards a longtime friend.

"I'm sorry, David. I'm really rather busy today. But give me a brief overview. Tell me your brilliant plans."

Strange the sensations one can feel. But I checked my spite and began.

"It is a collection of stories. The longest is a couple of pages. I would like to put selections of them together into books. But they are all of a period. They came in spurts. There is no logical order, you understand. So I thought that somehow the… dynamics of their creation should be reflected in their production. Let me tell you what I envision."

I began to regain my confidence.

"Say for sake of argument that I have ten stories. Each of these stories has four 'versions'. Different versions simply change a bit here and there to effect a different spin on the underlying notion. The goal of this versioning is to remove the arbitrariness of my thought processes. That makes no sense. Let me describe the proposed production process in greater detail.

"Each book would be comprised of the ten stories, each story of a random version. By this method one could produce roughly a million different books. In addition, the order of the stories would change from book to book. But that would not be reflective of any content-change. What I'm saying is that if I give you ten stories of four versions then you would have to print all 1048576 possible books. Or, contractually, you would have to print a sufficient number to ensure that each version of each story occurs in at least one book."

He countered: "So I will print four books."

"No, no, no… they must be combined randomly. So with four and ten, as I proposed, it would take quite a few. But, of course, with editorial control, you can request instead three and nine, or two and five. This will reduce the number considerably. But you run a risk. Say that you read what I give you today, and propose printing three versions of six stories. The number of printings that you target will be based on the stories that you read. But you have no way of knowing which six stories, or which three versions of each, I will then submit to you. You lack knowledge of the underlying pattern. So as I re-submit again and again your target number will shift and shift, and this series of negotiations may never converge."

Sorvino looked frustrated. "I will read them, and then wish to print one book, no more. I will then ask for one version of ten stories. This will teach you a good lesson: self-editing. Later (perhaps a day) I will put these stories in an anthology with maybe another poem of yours and I will print however many copies I like."

"Okay, okay. You've made your point. Somehow I don't feel that I've made my own. Let me take one more stab at things.

"An instance of writing is like an argument in bed; you know that the perfect words will never come, but something needs to suffice, to quell the anger and misconceptions of the other so the final spasms can be wrought. We twist and turn with our minds and hope that in the end the other understands. Perhaps after all it comes down to our eyes. But the reader has no beneficial gaze. What I'm saying is for the same communication to occur between you and I any combination of words will do, or none will. It's largely luck, this simpatico of the soul. With repeated attempts perhaps I'll strike a chord and convince.

"So the several versions are like several refractions of the same light. We both know that certain books, Notes from Underground, Hunger, The Fall, these books are repeated time and again by hundreds of authors. For me these books are perfect, for others they may be limp. I want to strike from several angles at once.

"And there is another dimension to it. Over time a book evolves and transforms. Its meaning mutates. It would be fun to compress the quanta of time, to accelerate this process. By my multiple seedings perhaps the time-integrated work in its fullness will be realized sooner."

"Are you finished?" Sorvino asked.

"Because I'd like to reply."

I supposed that I was.

"First of all," he began, "your earnestness is out of proportion to your talent. You are aware of this, so I don't hold it against you; we know talent is easily faked and often unimportant. I accept your arrogance. I do not, however, accept your underlying metaphysic. It is severely flawed, as I'll explain…"

This was the Sorvino that I liked.

He continued. "Suppose you present a different side of yourself to every woman that you meet. The third woman in the series could have liked the first impression in the series. The second woman could have preferred the fifth impression, and so on. You could have five perfectly matched women and sides of yourself that they could identify with, and you may come away with each of them thinking you a scoundrel. The only chance is to unintellectualize such things; don't treat ideas as you do clothes. If you simply let the many sides of you evolve to an individual, then he or she will see you for what you are, and love or hate you authentically. There is no room for trickery in literature. Good stories are not games for the parlor.

"And this continues into your argument concerning time. Time is continuous as is meaning. You belittle this continuity with your seedings. I know your reaction; What do you mean, meaning is continuous? You love me one minute and hate me the next, is that it? That's crap, it is. Some underlying fact, perhaps, some nugget of information shed light on me, causing you to about-face, as they say. But when you about-face you come around, you physically pass through all the points on a compass. Watch a smile turn into a frown – it is the same, it is continuous. It is a flow.

"Our culture arrives at new meanings, it does not suddenly appear at them. We see this in every individual's 'Aaaah, so that's what you mean.' You get nowhere by placing different people at different places on this continuum, especially if it's a random process. Or, rather, I will not say you get nowhere. I will argue that you get to exactly the same place."

He seemed finished, or rather my ideas did. "So you don't intend to publish the stories as I suggested."

"I will," he chuckled, "I will. Together with time and the infinite variety of listeners I will do exactly what you say. But every book will be physically identical. Go buy a red pencil and get to work. Tell me when you have isolated the perfect ten. Or if you like, reduce the whole thing to one story, or a paragraph, or a single word. Better yet, reduce it to perfection, that is, an infinite silence. But that, dear boy, is not how we make our money. Tell me when you think you are… somewhere."

"Okay, okay. I accept nothing you say, I refuse your continuum, I delight in my polarity, my discreteness, but I'll get to work. Thanks for your time. Oh… and tell Sally that I expect you both for dinner around eight." I held my smile until I got to the door, cherishing the pleasant quietude of his defeat. The bastard was getting harder and harder to intrigue every day. We all were.