Caricature of a Writer

I believe that I am better than the system. I am, and that is why I am damned.

I have never seriously considered publishing my work (Caryatid) because I believe that it is too good for the system--the broken system that churns out formulaic plot-driven trash with characters who are nothing but good ol' flat caricature. My beloved book is better than that. On the contrary, it is driven by characters. Or perhaps by one character in particular, even after he is murdered. My books are beautiful in my head. They have simple, painfully real and wretched backdrops but speak to truths that are, I hope, universal. They are about ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances who find themselves torn apart. They lose the essence of their person. The idealist is forced to sacrifice his ideals in order to save them. The duty-bound moralist sends his morals to hell to fulfill a moral duty he isn't sure he should. The romantic tries to please her truth-loving husband by answering his seemingly innocent question honestly, but he emotionally abandons her for it. The young cynic knows she is absurd for retaining her ideals and believing in lost causes, but she fights for them all the same. The scarred veteran turned dove wages the most destructive war in all of human history for his tyrannical vision of peace. The lover, who wants nothing more than a healthy and committed relationship, accepts an entirely one-sided relationship based solely on the physical.

It occurs to me that these, my primary and secondary characters, all sound rather pathetic when broken down like this. And I suppose they are. That is the point. We are all rather pathetic when we view our actions through the objective lens of our own goals and desires. A report card graded through our own criteria shows undeniable failure for every human being. No one is happy, and those who say they are are only deluding themselves. Everyone is quite internally miserable, even if they blame outside events for their misery. Modern literature fails to acknowledge this, or anything, really. It pretends that everything and everyone are fine and happy. That they are only sad in the dark of night. That the sun and love chase away the nightmares. That all people are the victims of circumstance. In that sense, they are almost correct. People are the victims of circumstance--their own internally-created circumstances. Each individual creates his or her own personal hell. Happiness is boring; misery is much more exciting. The happiness is in the pursuit, not the accomplishment. Everyone is a masochist because society has taught that it is far better to be a masochist than a sadist.

My books dare to show humanity for what it really is--an assemblage of pathetic, mindless, driveling hypocrites. Myself included, of course.