Frank Kermode on E. M. Forster and the creative person

[David]

From Andrew O'Hagan's review of Concerning E. M. Forster ...

*****

"Carpenter", writes Kermode,

pretty exactly fits Forster’s idea of one kind of creative person. He or she must be making something; it needn’t be something of great value or beauty—his writing in both prose and verse was poor, but the point is that the work has involved the person concerned in a disinterested exercise of creative power, an achievement that has nothing to do with success.

For Forster, art was a state as much as a pursuit, a place where someone

is taken out of himself. He lets down as it were a bucket into his subconscious, and draws up something which is normally beyond his reach. He mixes this thing with his normal experiences, and out of the mixture he makes a work of art. [It] is a blend of realism and “magic.”

*****

... one kind of creative person. He or she must be making something; it needn’t be something of great value or beauty ... the point is that the work has involved the person concerned in a disinterested exercise of creative power, an achievement that has nothing to do with success ...

That's us, isn't it?

[Ros]

But don't you think that (latter) description fits anyone who gets really involved in an activity, so that they concentrate and forget themselves? I'm not sure that necessarily has to be creative, just fulfilling and absorbing. I think creative might be something a bit more, and perhaps has to feel successful, at least to the person concerned even if not to anyone else.

Ros

[David]

Where you draw the line between creative, and fulfilling and absorbing, I'm not sure. Perhaps what we're doing is only fulfilling and absorbing, but the quote rang true for me.

[k-j]

... one kind of creative person. He or she must be making something; it needn’t be something of great value or beauty ... the point is that the work has involved the person concerned in a disinterested exercise of creative power, an achievement that has nothing to do with success ...

That's us, isn't it?

I'll go along with that.

[cameron]

It's the doing of it, I think, that is important. The completion, even if successful (whatever that means) is somehow a disappointment. The interest (for me) is in the chase: the searching for something, the waiting for something, the arrival of something, the shaping of something, the honing of something. Once it's finished, I lose interest and start the whole process again. In a sense success and failure are irrelevant.

'...one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it.'

[David]

Wow. I feel as though I just saw J D Salinger. Or even Nick Drake. A fleeting visitation. Hope you're well, Cam.

Cheers

David

[brianedwards]

It's the doing of it, I think, that is important. The completion, even if successful (whatever that means) is somehow a disappointment. The interest (for me) is in the chase: the searching for something, the waiting for something, the arrival of something, the shaping of something, the honing of something. Once it's finished, I lose interest and start the whole process again. In a sense success and failure are irrelevant.

'...one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it.'

I'd go along with that Cam, which is why I have such a backlog of "unfinished" poems.
The Eliot quote is apt, as is Valery's idea that "a poem is never finished, only abandoned" - abandoned as the author resumes the hunt.

B.

[Lake]

It's the doing of it, I think, that is important. The completion, even if successful (whatever that means) is somehow a disappointment. The interest (for me) is in the chase: the searching for something, the waiting for something, the arrival of something, the shaping of something, the honing of something. Once it's finished, I lose interest and start the whole process again. In a sense success and failure are irrelevant.

Well said, Cameron.

Best regards,

Lake