The Road to Hell and Back Maybe - Umberto Tosi
Gilgamesh, the Babylonian king, back from the underworld, on the wall of an eponymous Indian-chic eatery in London. "For the record," used to mean on paper. Now, not so much. I mused on this while going over one of my favorite books on writing, Negotiating With the Dead , by the grand dame of dark irony and literary feminism, Margaret Atwood . I'm wary of the hidden traps awaiting all writers - the beguiling allure of presumed permanence, the fantasy of fame, the chimeras of book covers, notices, prizes, and reviews, of writing for posterity, of measuring oneself against what's gone before, of wondering if I have anything to say. Comes with the territory, says Ms. Atwood. Towards the end of her memoirist exploration, she makes her hypothesis plain: " all writing of the narrative kind, and perhaps all writing, is motivated deep down, by a fear of and a fascination with mortality - by a desire to make the risky trip to the Underworld, and to bring s...