A Wailing into Night

For some writing is a reawakening. When I think of Roberto Bolano I think just such thoughts, a reawakening into a cold, feral Chilean night. When a writer writes he or she lives within the moment of that existence, away from a non-being that faults and encourages penitence. Perhaps all writing is a form of penitence, contrition, an apology for sins never committed. If this is so, and I believe it to be so, then the writer is a penitent, a waking child who survives, flourishes, when the inside becomes the outside, the hidden the revealed. But this self-disclosure has a cost, and many are unable to shoulder the weight of their contrition, their apology for sins never committed. A child believes, takes to heart, a parent’s voice even when the absurdity of the voice, the incongruence, is deafening. It is from this very deafness that the inside becomes the outside, the hidden the revealed, the voice bellows and cries. For some writing is a reawakening, a revelation, a wailing into the night.