When I began blogging my novel, "The Uninvited Guest," two months ago, I hoped to unite my two overwhelming passions: Italy and money. I ultimately wanted to sway those of you with household incomes in excess of $180,000 ($260,000 in major metropolitan areas on the East and West Coast) to subscribe to my Italian tales using a fee-for-service model.
Unfortunately, I find the first 19 installments of my novel confused and dull. (Actually, I find them confused; my wife finds them dull; and I find my wife confused and dull.) It turns out novel-writing is a tricky business (As I said to Philip Roth during a recent stay at his guest "barn" in northwest Connecticut, "Now I know why only four of your 27 novels are any good").
I've never claimed to be the wittiest fellow in America (after all, we are a nation of more than 300 million souls), but merely the wittiest unrecognized fellow. To know that my novel is dull hurts. You may call me many things (the aforementioned witty, clever, wry, subtle, perspicacious, acute (basically perspicacious with more education)), but don't call me dull.
So I'm ceasing my blog as of this post. No, no, I won't drift away and become one of you. I'll still have the hubris to believe that what I write is worth sharing (i.e., shoving down the throats of others electronically), but I just won't be doing it for a while. If your lives are a bit poorer in the interim, so be it. Most of you reside in choice parts of California anyway; I do not pity you.
I would, however, like to thank those who've supported me during the past weeks with their thoughtful criticisms and suggestions: Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis, Christopher Hitchens (thanks, Hitch), Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, and Kazuo Ishiguro. As for J.M. Coetzee, V.S. Naipaul, and Seamus Heaney: what can I say, guys? I couldn't have done it without you. For your recent hospitality, I thank you, Philip (and won't, as you requested, divulge the precise location of your house in Little Cornwall Bridge). Most of all, Michiko, I truly appreciate your taking time away from your busy job on the newspaper to offer midnight critiques of my work on a non-professional basis.
It's always difficult to say goodbye, particularly when one never bothered to say hello. I burst onto your screens like a comet, achieved a readership that never seriously threatened to put Pat (or Frank) Conroy out of business, and was gone.
But I'll be back. Probably. With a big, fat, readable novel that demonstrates the very skill we all know I possess. So I wrote 19 installments of a dull book before my spouse read excerpts of it aloud at a dinner party to make me stop blogging? So what? Not to compare myself to Michelangelo, Ali, or Jesus Christ, but all three made or are expected to make big comebacks. You'll know when I'm back: your lives will be richer, fuller, more textured, and finally worth living again. In the meantime, ask yourselves the question I do: Did I really fall short in cyberspace or am I simply too large for this small medium?
