In 1845, a writer and wannabe academic named P. L. Møller decided it was time to make a name for himself. As founding editor of the literary journal
Gæa, Møller had the perfect venue to go after a high-profile target, a man well-known (but not always well-liked) in his native city of Copenhangen. Møller published a scathing review of
Stages on Life's Way by Søren Kierkegaard, which included several cruel remarks on the philosopher's pretensions and even his personal life. It was unmistakably an attack.
Kierkegaard responded in kind. Among other things, he outed Møller as an anonymous editor of
The Corsair, a satirical publication that had, over the years, made quite a few powerful enemies. Kierkegaard believed that his reputation as an intellectual, combined with the public's disdain for
The Corsair, would naturally make him the victor in the court of public opinion.
He was wrong. Instead, Møller and
The Corsair doubled down on attacking Kierkegaard, publishing scathing articles and mocking cartoons that put a target on Kierkegaard's back. Before long he couldn't walk through the city without being jeered at and mocked, and the name “Søren” became synonymous with “pompous windbag.” Playwrights would even use the name when they wanted an easy laugh from their audience. Public opinion on Kierkegaard had plainly taken a sour turn.
In his book
Kierkegaard: A Single Life,* Stephen Backhouse describes the Corsair Affair as a turning point in Kierkegaard's life. While few people outside of the conflict thought it was that big a deal, the effect it had on both Møller and Kierkegaard was devasting. Møller never did become a respectable academic; instead, not long after being identified as an editor of
The Corsair, he left Denmark for good and faded into obscurity.
As for Kierkegaard, at best he'd become the butt of a joke. At worst, he'd become a pariah. However he might once have viewed himself — as an important citizen of Copenhagen, as a public intellectual, or as a friend to all whom he met — it all now came crashing down. The man who had published thousands of pages under a dozen different pseudonyms fell now into a long period of public silence.
*
We like to tell ourselves stories, but at a certain point these stories stop working. Usually it's the result of reality throwing a brick wall in your path. In the story you
want to believe, you're the sort of person who can walk straight through the stone, but in truth you're stopped dead in your tracks.
As a writer, that's a feeling I'm wrestling with. I started 2021 with a plan, a list of agents, and a manuscript. I was sure it was time to sell my first novel, and I had everything I needed in place. A hundred rejections later, I've had to face the reality that nobody's buyin' whatever I'm sellin'.
But, listen: This isn't my first day as a rodeo clown. This bull has chased me before. The typical cycle of a setback is to wonder whether I'm really cut out for all this. In the past, I'd ask other people – teachers, friends, other writers. Once, when I was eighteen and having these doubts, I visited a favorite professor during her office hours. Instead of talking about class I asked her The Question: "Am I really a writer?"
Well, what could she say? At that point, she'd read maybe two of my term papers, one of which was based on the very shaky thesis that, in the near future, all Westerns would be about vampires. (My evidence came from Preacher comics and the movie From Dusk 'Til Dawn. I wasn't a very diligent researcher.) My professor explained, kindly, that she couldn't really give me an answer, and that if I wanted to be a writer then I should probably keep writing. I left her office dissatisfied.
What I really wanted, then and many times after, was an authority figure to make a Final Pronouncement. “HEAR YE, HEAR YE! ALEX HAS DEFINITELY EARNED THE TITLE 'REAL WRITER,' WHICH IS IN NO WAY A MADE UP CREDENTIAL!” When I couldn't get anybody to do that for me, I did the next best thing and got my MFA.
But still, the doubts would creep in. Credentials, publications, the rare but always appreciated paycheck for a short story – none of settled The Question. Somehow I always circled back around to it, and if anything changed it was only the fact that I learned not to ask other people.
What's different this time around, though, is that for the first time I think I understand what my choices actually are. I've always assumed that the answer to The Question is either, “Yes, you're a writer, and you should keep writing,” or “No, you were never a writer, and it's time to give up.” And there has been a certain comfort to that. No matter how many times The Question arises, I always seem to write through it. The possibility of giving up doesn't feel very real, and so it doesn't seem like much of a threat.
But those aren't the only choices on offer. When I look back over my time as a writer, I realize I'm not so much walking in circles as trying to trudge up a spiral staircase. When I reach the point where I'm hitting The Question, “Am I really a writer?” the options are not to keep writing or quit. The options are to either stay where I am or find a way to keep climbing.
Those are very different choices, but cast in that light other things make a little more sense. The credentials and publications are not a final settling of The Question so much as evidence of an effort to improve, to take writing seriously enough to keep working and learning.
To the extent that this blog has been “about” anything, it's about writing and reading. As I start this next leg of learning, and recommit to being a student, I'll be sharing a few of the things that I find. And first up is this lecture from Barbara Oakley, “
Learning How to Learn.” The strategies she describes are useful to anyone, whether you're trying to pick up a new skill or improve at one you already have. I found it very helpful in developing a plan to study and learn about writing. Maybe you'll find it helpful, too.
As for Kierkegaard? The Corsair Affair was not the end for him. Although he stopped publishing for a while, he never stopped writing in his journals. His fall from public favor was a crisis, but also an important turning point. It forced him to clarify his goals, deepen his ideas, and articulate a vision of what he hoped to accomplish. When he began to publish again, he came roaring in like a lion. His enemies only increased in number, but this time Kierkegaard was ready for them.
*If you have any interest in Kierkegaard, I really can't recommend this book highly enough. At some point I'd still like to write up a proper review, but for now I'll just plug the book and say it's a great biography of a complicated person.