Those Who Can Do, Do. Those Who Can't, Do Anyway

So I've decided to write a book.  This soon-to-be-dearly-missed fellow suggested it first.  The credit is rightfully his.  In the past couple of weeks a couple of other folks have also decided that I possess the requisite wit and insomnia to research and write a book while researching and writing a dissertation.  Since they know people who know people—and since with each passing day my dreams are shoved, stopped, started, carried, routed, rerouted, diverted, guided, and conducted to avenues that lead to avenues that lead to cul-de-sacs—I think I'll take them up on their advice and spend time otherwise "invested" in re-re-re-watching some familiar film in a desperate attempt to stuff a stopper in the day's thought doing something productive instead.

Like writing a book.

What will this book be about?  Why me of course!  What else would a solipsistic fraud like me write about?  I've lived a quaint life, yes, but I've lived the whole damn thing deaf.  When you talk to me about your work, do you know what I hear?  This:

ə wə hə əw də ən m əlmo fənəsh wə də gəchə.  ə thəm you wəl ləg ət.

That's not accurate at all.  I've basically clipped all the hard consonant sounds and schwa'd all the vowels, but since I ain't written the book yet, I haven't thought too deeply about what exactly it is I hear.  I'm so accustomed to seeing the words I hear that I'm not actually sure what it is I actually here.  I'm going to have spend some time transcribing with my eyes squeezed shut and my headphones nestled before I can transcribe what auditory cues I actually hear.  I'll also be experimenting with ear plugs in order to figure out the exact extent to which I lip-read.  In short, much like Joan Didion in her deservedly acclaimed Year of Magical Thinking, I'll be spending some time researching my own life.

I'm looking forward to interviewing my parents.  My wife.  My friends.  My doctors.  The people I work with and the ones I work for.  In my spare time, I will rewrite proverbial history:

"Those who can, do.  Those who can't, do anyway."

I'll write in the genre I've taught to so many students whose prose talents, frankly, far outstrip my own.  I'll increase the value of my name in this reputation economy by becoming more than "Professor Office Sex."  (Which is still better than some people I'd rather not know.  Better to be "Professor Office Sex" than "Adjunct Attacked a Group of Women of Color in a Parking Lot for No Reason.") 

What does this mean for you?  Probably more self-involved posts about what it's like being deaf.  I envision the finished product to be a John McPhee-esque memoir in which the personal collides with the researchical in ways which entertain and inform all.  Something along these lines.  If my best and brightest can appreciate the form, I have no doubt others can as well.  (Those who can't do but teach still change minds and lives.  Whatever I did this quarter vis-a-vis teaching McPhee certainly worked.  If only I could pinpoint exactly what it is I did differently.)

Comments

[Pierce Nahigyan]

I'd read it. Not only for the personal enjoyment and literary illumination I would be sure to find therein, but also to bear silent witness to the further genesis of such beautific words as 'researchical.'

[Pierce Nahigyan]

Removing my foot from my mouth for a moment I'd like to add that 'researchical' would probably be a beatific event, and not beautific which, unbeknownst to me, isn't even really a word.

However, let the record show that it should be.

[Adam Roberts]

Take it from me: writing books is a doddle. Why, I've written one just now, whilst simultaneously typing in this comment.

[Scott McLemee]

It would be bard to beat "Professor Office Sex" as a title. Hell, I'd buy it. Or request a review copy anyway.

How did we ever get along without the word "researchial"?

[Mike S]

Researchically, Scott's book is sure to dazzle.

To be honest, your book idea sounds boring. ("Life as a Semi-Deaf Person"?). Why not write fiction, or better yet a thriller inspired by your blog experiences? How about this: one night you have a particularly nasty exchange with an Internet troll. The troll finds out where you live and, while you're teaching a Lit J class, abducts your wife. Then you and your academic friends must turn amateur sleuths in order to find her. So you go on the road with an angry Irishman who picks fights with everyone, and a Sikh who's shocked both by mainstream American ignorance of all things Indian and more specifically Punjabian, and even more repelled by granola-eaters who think they're culturally enlightened because they listen to Cornershop. The true horror of your novel could emerge when it turns out that the troll is not acting alone, but is linked to a shadowy anarchist organization inspired by the writings of an obscure Slovenian philosopher, a disciple of Friedrich Nietzsche and Georges Sorel. The book would conclude with the rationalist scholar-detectives entering the halls of Chicago's Divinity School, where you find out a close friend is not a friend at all. Your semi-deafness could then be a key element in the denouement, but it wouldn't be the basis for the whole book. (Maybe a final twist could be that your wife wasn't abducted at all, but that she, herself, is the leader of the secret organization. The last paragraph could have the terrifying millenial apparition of Cthulhu or Excess or King Arthur or whatever.)

Well, I think it's a good idea.

[Jason]

Am I going to be in it? Can I be the guy from Nantucket?

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

Comment notification? Who needs that? Sorry for going all absentee on you, but I didn't realize you existed.

Yes, Jason, you'll have a bit part in my drama...unless you fork over some of that cash money I love so much.

Mr. Anonymous, you're absolutely right: next to that, a literary journalistic take on my life sounds positively dull. But, as per the LJ usual, I hope that the quality of the writing will mask the real lack of narrative oomph.

Adam, you make me throw up a little in my own mouth sometimes. How do you write so much?

Mike and Pierce, many thanks for the votes of confidence, and also for the love on my parallelism. I was at a loss--as I've been quite frequently of late, pace tonight's post--and just went with it. You too, Scott. (Do I get a kickback on the review copy? 'Cause if not, no dice. Alright, one die, but that's it.)

[Ray Davis]

Inspiration's cheap when someone else has to do the work. I'm delighted you're going with the idea.

Mr. Anon, go with your idea, too. Plenty of room for both.

(Occasionally back when she was alive and not talked about in academic circles, I'd daydream about writing a critical biography of Patricia Highsmith but it would always turn into a plotline where a biographer and his subject become stalkers of each other and at least one ends up murdered....)