The case for Chasing Phantoms
When I first read William Cullen Bryant's “Thanatopsis,” it was a muddle of words. At the time, I was teaching my first high school American Literature course, and I emailed my very kind department head: “Thanatopawhat?”
She took pity on me and walked me through it, explaining that the poem is a rumination on death -- more specifically on how we might understand the true nature of the end by simply and deeply contemplating nature, which is both brutish and gentle (in a brutish kind of way…)
Inside that poem, I found the gem that has become, over the years, the primary way I make sense of why I write. It’s an odd way to spend a life because it is, at the same time, fulfilling and concussive. He writes:
“The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee.
”
Again, when I first read these lines: no magic. But after time, I saw it clearly and found it helpful: “Each one as before will chase/His favorite phantom.”
My favorite phantom. The chase.
I’ve come to believe that it is a gift to have a phantom to chase. It’s also a gift to accept the phantom’s phantom-ness -- to recognize the temporary and illusory nature of our ambitions — and still press on with the chase.
This is a long and pretentious way to explain why I spend so many hours pecking away on the keyboard and why, while driving to work, I dictate scenes into my phone like a lunatic.
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In the sport of writing, I’ve had my wins. I’m grateful for the publications and the moments of recognition. Truly, though, the moments when I’ve nearly caught the phantom arrive when I find the word, spin the scene, come up with the apt image. In those moments, the phantom is somehow skin and bone, muscle and sinew -- something that I could possess or become.
I am also contaminated with this compulsion to make things that move people. And, for me, these two opposite ends of the artistic act form a circle. The more I make, the more I seek to move -- and not just to amuse or affect. I want to ruin readers for days. I want my words to stick in the soft tissue of their undercarriage and make them ache like they’d swallowed a pit or a small batch of poison. It’s another odd thing to want from this one life.
It can also be painful. Some years, the rejections pile up like flakes of skin on the mantle, dust, detritus, nearly invisible until they've accumulated into something discernible, a hump of notes in my in-box, omens of death, or souvenirs from a life lived.
I have a spreadsheet that calculates my submission to publication average. It’s presently at 2.5 percent. I’ve submitted stories nearly a thousand times, and I’ve had 34 acceptances. Each one has been a triumph at the end of a seemingly interminable winter.
My rejections are often filled with kindness and polite declines. Editors wish me well and hope I find a home for my novel, my story, my latest ill-fated attempt at flash fiction.
I take them at their word. And, also, really? Why do I invite disappointment into an otherwise graced life?
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The word rejection derives from The Latin noun rēicere, which means "to throw back." In its most benign form, rejection reminds me of a regulated fishing trip in the Colorado River, the echo of the fly line slapping the water in the still pools cooled by the rock faces that hide from the sun. Catch the fish, release it back so it might grow and procreate. If that’s what the letters intend, then great. I might grow.
But that’s not what rejection feels like. Instead, it resembles those glances a father inadvertently sends to an obnoxious teenage son, inelegant, with spotty hygiene practices. Rejection feels like the veil briefly dropping and the world telling me what it really thinks:
Thank you so much for the exclusive look at Terry's novel, which I read over the weekend. I loved falling back into Wade and Will's voices, and found that the same heart and soul that I loved in the book on the first read is still there in spades. While I agree that adding a female POV is a smart, crucial choice, I ultimately had a tough time connecting to Amanda's voice, and her characterization and interiority weren't fully working for me. That's clearly just a matter of taste, and I know another editor is going to appreciate this revision in a way that I'm failing to. I wish I had different news, but I wanted to get back to you quickly so that you could go wide to find that person who can champion Terry in the way he deserves.
I know this is one of those overused editor phrases, but I really will be cheering you both on!
And then, days later --
Terry Dubow has written an emotionally and philosophically rich novel about regret, loss, and healing. However, I just didn't feel the love-at-first-sight spark as I read, so I'm going to step back and cheer Dubow on from the sidelines. Nothing is more subjective than our responses to fiction and I have no doubt that this novel will sell beautifully to an editor with the perfect vision for it!
I imagine a field with all of my New York literary figures there on the sidelines, sipping coffee from travel mugs, cheering me on as I chase a ball feebly before glancing at their watches and sneaking off, late already for their next meeting.
These are lovely notes, and the fact they use some of the same bromides or take opposite positions on the same characters doesn’t detract from how gratifying it feels to be read and considered.
But the rejection still feels awful when it arrives.
These are the moments the phantom feels like a corpse I’m trying to resuscitate with CPR and mouth-to-mouth. How many chest chest compressions am I supposed to administer again? And two breaths or three?
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Who cares though?
That’s the point of “Thanatopsis.” Who cares?
And the answer isn’t “Nobody.”
The answer is “I do.”
This chase is a remarkably generative organizational principle of my life. I care about it and pursue it and want it so so badly, and also, it’s entirely fine if this is as far as I get. The chase is what matters.
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When I was younger, I used to go to a bookstore and feel envy. All those books and not a single one by me!
Now, when I go in, I feel almost like an uncle, proud that people worked all their lives and invested everything they had into pages that will never be read by most people. What a heartbreaking and triumphant act of boldness.
Look at all these people, I think.
Look at all these human beings who chased and caught their favorite phantoms. Enough to have a reading in a bookstore or maybe appear on a podcast. Or maybe more. Likely not, but maybe.
But it all ends up the same, and that, in the end, is a piece of grace.
At the end of the poem -- which, by the way, Bryant revised for years -- he writes:
“So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, which moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
”
“So live.”
What a chunk of wisdom.
So, live. So, chase.