Via Negativa – Philip Traylen

November 1, 2024

What I need to do is to produce an all-inclusive literary package, a kind of literary package holiday, I thought, four seconds after waking up. But no, I thought, not everyone wants to read the same thing, I have to be strategic, I have to think in terms of segments. I should write one story for the 0-3 age group, one story for the 4-6 age group, one story for the 7-10 age group, etc., I thought. For older groupings the brackets will widen, gape, even; what’s the difference, mentally/physically/spiritually, between a 40-year-old and a 60-year-old? Or between a 60-year-old and anyone? My primary target, then, will be the 61-101 age bracket, the world’s largest demographic, ‘old people,’ for short. After that, I’ll move through the 0-3, 4-6 and 7-10 groups chronologically; best to take a tri-pronged approach, I thought, given the developmental differences. Once I have broken into the ‘old people’ and ‘children’ market segments, I will finally turn my attention to the remaining group, the mysterious 11-60 segment, famously a ‘hard nut to crack,’ because, as I’d read online, they’re all either a) busy or b) mentally ill.
        From the beginning, my work will be quasi-global in outlook, I decided, three or four minutes after waking up face down on a five-dollar yoga mat in a shed in North Macedonia. There simply aren’t enough people in any one country to support a writer, so all writers must be transnational, in the sense of ‘not concerned with anything in particular,’ I thought. To avoid getting confused, ‘biting off more than I could chew,’ I decided to divide the global market into halves, one running from Tallinn to San Diego, the other from San Diego back to Tallinn. I’ll begin with the first half; I have first-hand experience of this part of the world, I thought, while the other half is a mystery to me, more than two thirds of it is simply water. What do all people aged 61-101 in the area from Tallinn to San Diego have in common, I asked myself. Well, firstly, they’re all interested in the war in Ukraine. Given their age, they also have some knowledge of other wars; they probably want to know whether this war is similar to other wars (to what extent, hm?). What’s my opinion about the war in Ukraine, I wondered? How similar it is to other major conflicts, now and in the past?
        I started thinking about a short film I’d seen about the siege of Grozny (1999-2000) a few years earlier. Everything distant, grey and collapsing, not unlike my target demographic, people living between Tallinn and San Diego, aged 61-101. You are the siege of Grozny, I could start with that, I thought, or better: I AM THE SIEGE OF GROZNY. This bold beginning would have a Whitmany appeal, I thought; Walt Whitman was, after all, the first true globalist, with his ‘I am this, I am that… and what about you’ rhetoric. I’m knocking on the door of the first person-singular, I thought, I just have to keep pushing and I’ll break through. I AM SIEGE, I said to myself, as I looked for the video online. I remembered it having a vague narrative structure, but no luck; just a thermobaric highlight reel, three to four minutes long. But it was somehow compelling, I thought, it was magical to watch low resolution analogue war footage on a cutting-edge digital platform (YouTube.com). I felt like a witness, not to the siege of Grozny itself, but to the intermingling of distinct media flows; it was like looking out of a car with the wind-screen wipers on, the leftward swing adding time, the rightward swing taking it away. An apt metaphor, I thought, for the futility of war and the problems of aging. But at the same time, the intermingling of the flows, digital and analogue, suggested the possibility of reconciliation, an idea which I thought would appeal to readers aged 61-101. The 61-101 demographic is known for its hard-won understanding of Eastern spirituality, I thought.
        I didn’t want to have to choose between writing fiction and non-fiction; it would undermine the global element of my marketing strategy, I thought. Non-fiction was increasingly popular in America, I’d read online, but not in Europe or the Middle East where many people considered it ‘childish’ and ‘stupid.’ One of my literary friends in North Macedonia even described non-fiction as ‘the devil’s ejaculate.’ So the book would start, I thought, with a short story in the Borgesian mode. I would describe how, because of the siege, the city of Grozny became mazelike, difficult to navigate. The story would open with a Chechen student trying to find the remains of the Grozny Astronomical Society by celestial navigation, but repeatedly confusing the constellations because of all the dust in his eyes (‘even blocking out his tears,’ I’d write). I’d describe other inhabitants going around in circles, asking each other: ‘is this the old [x]?’ But against the general atmosphere of confused and despair there would be a light of hope; group of elderly women, a sort of sorority, who somehow knew where everything was, what everything used to be. It would slowly be revealed that the women were navigating the ruins using ‘memories of love, something thermobaric missiles don’t understand,’ or ‘navigating the ruins by the eternal compass of the heart,’ I’d perhaps write. The story would be called Surviving The Borgesian Maze, I decided.
        The rest of the book will be about the effects of television on the human brain (non-fiction section), I thought as I poured out my first coffee. Everyone’s brain, I thought, has been more or less destroyed by television; why and how this occurred is surely a topic with global appeal. Of course, ‘television’ means different things to different people; the generation 61-101 was destroyed by ‘early television’ while the generations 0-3, 4-7 and 8-10 are being destroyed by ‘late television,’ or rather by the splintered fragments of the disintegrating medium. Fragments of the idea of television are lodging in their developing brains, I thought, but most of them don’t realise this, on account, perhaps, of those very fragments. What television, you, the siege of Grozny and I all have in common: an examination of modern life, could be the title of the second part of my book, I thought. 
        All this thinking tired me out, and as I waited for my coffee to cool, I started to have second thoughts about some aspects of my publishing plan, especially in terms of demographic strategy. Since the destruction of the younger generations (0-3, 4-7, 8-10) is still ongoing, perhaps I should start there, perhaps it’s more urgent for me to write for readers aged 0-10, I thought. Even better, perhaps I should write a book that the older generation (who have, by far, the most purchasing power) will buy for the younger generations (who have, as yet, no economic power at all). I only need to write one book, I thought, a one-off pedagogical book, which the older generation (61-101) will buy and then read aloud to the younger generations (0-3, 4-7, 8-10). Everything your baby didn’t know it needed to know about mediated sieges (and one Borgesian reflection) could be the title of my book, I thought. Or Your baby is growing up, tell them about the Grozny now (or I will) (and one story in the Borgesian mode). Or Why not tell your baby about Grozny, bro? (What’s stopping you, don’t you love them enough? Yeah, I heard you don’t love them enough…) (including a short story inspired by Borges).