(DEVELOPMENT [continued(3)])[29th March 1987]

[Redbook3:56-58][19870329:1210f](DEVELOPMENT [continued(3)])[29^th March 1987]

19870329.1210(BST)

[continued]

It* was, I believe, connected in some way with my decision to start writing**. At the age of about sixteen, an extraordinary change comes over boys: they grow up and become capable of civilisation***, noticeably when you live among them. Kenneth Tynan, I believe it was, said that every author's first novel is about the author as Christ or Faust. I used to say that my first completed book – The Gift****, in its re-incarnated form as [0] – was about the author as Christ and Faust, or perhaps I should now say Christ, Faust and Mephistopheles, in the sense that all these Archetypes are picked out of one's own unconscious in the process of writing. Unlike (I presume) Tynan, though, I do not aspire to pass from this condition, merely to develop it; although I expect to veil these Archetypes in later books. The ultimate book, of course(!), consists of blank sheets of paper.

Gradually these wonderings became merged into the structure underlying the books I wrote**** *, which until [0] were all really experiments, and all seemed to deal in some way with personal inner development. All of them before [0] can be thrown away, along with (and especially) the short stories; but “[+]” has a special place as the first which I felt was relatively complete in itself and of a sufficient standard to be an adequate vehicle. But the structure underlying has enabled me to answer the juvenile wondering without, on the one hand, losing my grasp of or grip on external reality, or, on the other hand, cutting myself off from inner realities. I do not place myself **** ** at any particular point on the Circles, least of all the +C point, but I suspect a tendency or link with one point more than others**** ***

*[See last previous entry]

**Yes: the question ended just about the time when the writing began; and the writing very soon produced +C. <890929>

***(by each other as a group, not just by parents and teachers.)

****[fiction]

**** *(Did they? I don't remember this.) <870401>

**** **(i.e. permanently) <880805>

**** ***[Presumably approximately 225 degrees clockwise, 135 degrees anti-clockwise, from +C.<201510c>]

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