Tim Parks - The Server

Yeah, wow, yawn. But this is another bit I could have written myself. We all get these moments at the Dasgupta.

The thing about The Keeper was definitely the house. He wanted to keep the family together because he loved the house. The point of the novel perhaps was to capture the essentially bourgeois spirit of the embalmer. The serial killer keeps a beautiful garden. The neighbours are admirers. ‘Very able with roses and climber plants,’ someone tells the BBC. ‘Quite the artist .’

I love the bay windows. I love the old fireplace. I adore the rose arch .

And the irises .

In the end all those murders never made much money. I’d have done better publishing porn .

The loo is full of smoke. Time to open a window. Cig four already. Two to go. But I feel calmer now. The more upset my diarist is, the calmer I feel. Maybe that’s why Jonathan read all those miserable books. Cormac something. Thomas Bernstein? The more other people are in the shit, the more the reader breathes easy.

Don’t think Mrs Harper would approve.

Started crying in the field. I was on my back in the grass. Suddenly the thoughts turned to tears, the thoughts streamed out of my head in tears. Kept muttering, I love my wife I must escape I hate my wife I must escape I love my wife I must escape I hate my wife I must escape. Life is unfair unfair unfair unfair unfair unfair unfair unfair unfair .

Instructive .

So there I am on my back in the field weeping and I realize I’m weeping for JOY. Yep. Lunatic. This meditation stuff has driven me mad. I’m a hopeless failure but I love life. I’ve thrown away my life, my marriage, twenty-five years, but I’m full of optimism. Criminal. Meditation should be banned. Definitely. It is dangerous for a mind to be left in silence for long. We need music, we need the radio, we need the television, we need parties. Even books. Good news, bad news, anything. Actually, nothing better than bad news. A tsunami an earthquake a flood volcano bomb anal rape female circumcision torture scandal atrocity. Send a donation write a letter post a comment make your point say your piece anything but this silence alone with your thoughts .

Not just me but all of us. Think. 150 people all desperate together in the same room. 150 desperate silences in the same room, ferocious seething cancerous silences .

300 stiff legs, stiff ankles, sore knees .

All the stories. Think of all the awful stories revolving in all these sick heads. Worse than my Master Murder list. Dissolve them in acid, silent acid, acid silence .

Whatever you do, don’t write them down. Don’t publish!

Or maybe no, write them down the better to destroy them. Good idea. Paper can be torn up. Computer files can be erased .

Instead of a publishing company, an UNpublishing company .

Gap in the market!

‘ My dear young man, this is a very interesting novel you have written, extremely poignant; the account you give of your hero’s decline into poverty, old age and perversion is at once moving, disquieting and deeply, deeply disturbing. Anyway, I’m pleased to say we can offer you a contract to destroy this story in all extant editions typescripts electronic files and whatsoever other relevant media. Our offer will be for world rights of course. We undertake to keep the story out of print worldwide for at least ten years from the date of signature. Our boast is that our titles are all surrounded by the utmost silence and secrecy; under no circumstances will your name as author appear in any publication. No, my young man, neither you nor anyone else need ever be troubled by this moving story again .’

The author has exercised his moral right .

What do stories do but glamorize pain? That’s true of all the novels I’ve published, all the pretentious sagas I hoped would change the face of English literature. They glamorize suffering. Only a life with suffering is glamorous. That’s obvious. Starting with Christ. Physical suffering love suffering spiritual suffering. No suffering, no glamour. We’re in love with dukkha. That’s the truth. Head over heels in love with pain. Pretending we want happiness, we go prospecting for misery, like paupers panning for gold. Our lives have to be moving stories. No triumph without adversity. Long adversity. The longer the better. Angela’s acid ashes. And the seduction is in the adversity, not the last-page triumph. The seduction is in the sentiment that clings to adversity. Oh, poor thing. Oh, poor David Copperfield. Oh, poor Little Nell. Oh, my generous heart having these generous feelings for these poor people .

Let’s catch some tsunami with our supper .

Tsunami salami .

Dasgupta teaches emotional calm. The girl cries in the quiet of the meditation room. She has a story to tell, a novel to write. All too soon she’ll be running to the publishers with her typescript. How many misery memoirs will be waiting on my desk when I get back to the office? Then her pain can be made public and everyone can hold it in their hands, savour it, caress it, fold back the page and sigh, Oh, what intense feelings, oh, what infernal dilemmas, oh, how noble the human soul! Oh, what a fascinating life!

Dasgupta says, My friends, the last thing we need is your unhappy story, the last thing we need is an account of your pain .

We need silence .

If you can’t stop crying, please leave the room .

Harper was right not to enquire into my difficulties, to dismiss me with a simple injunction. Don’t shoot that second arrow, mate .

Leave the room. Put down your pen .

The second arrow is the pen .

Of course!

Second Arrow Publishing. Brilliant!

A profitable unhappiness .

The cute little girl was absolutely right. Oh, I could kiss her. You love your pain too much. How can she be so young and so wise? You love your pen too much. Your pein. Oh, I could kiss her wise little rabbity lips .

Publishing should be banned. Forbidden. Publishing is not a right livelihood. Not part of the eightfold path. Harper should have said something. Should have said, Students, you’ll never get to nirvana by publishing .

After this retreat I go home, I wind up Wordsmith, I tell Susie her life is hers to do what she wants — absolutely whatever you want — I tell L it is over between us. Linda, it’s over. It is truly over. And T. I tell T it’s over too. Terry, it’s over. I only needed Terry to stay with Linda. I’m a disgrace. Charlie is a fine man. Take care of your husband .

Everything’s over .

I wish .

And what then? Where am I?

JONATHAN HAD NO mood swings, no indecisions. I could get up now, go back to Dormitory A, take off my jeans, stretch out in bed beside my diarist. ‘Just looking in your eyes now,’ he wrote on a beer mat ‘is the most beautiful moment of my life.’ That was our best evening together, the one before the last. Not for a second did he think of changing his plans. I could storm into his bedroom and shout, ‘What a shit you are, Mr Diarist! What a twisted mixed-up worm!’ I could dump his diary in the bin and forget about it. I could sneak it back to his bedside with a word of wisdom. ‘Just let go, GH. Let go of your big ego.’ I do feel compassion for him and his wife. They’re lost. I feel compassion for my parents. They will never be happy together and they will never be happy apart. Talk about people embalming each other. Marriot’s was a funeral parlour. It would have been death to marry Carl.