It often happens that a reader, usually a young one, will ask a writer, in all simplicity, why he wrote a certain book, or why he wrote it a certain way, or even, in more general terms, why he writes and why all writers write. It is no easy matter to answer this last question, which contains all the others: a writer is not always conscious of the reasons that lead him to write, he is not always driven by a single motive, and sometimes there are different motives behind, say, the beginning and the end of a single work. It seems to me that at least nine motivations can be discerned, and I will do my best to describe them here; the reader, whether he is a writer or not, will have no trouble coming up with others. Why, then, do we write?
1.Because we feel the urge or the need. This, at first glance, is the most disinterested motivation. The author who writes because something or someone inside him compels the words is not working toward a given goal; his work may bring him fame and glory, but those will be a plus, an added benefit, not something he consciously desired: a by-product, in other words. Of course, the case sketched out here is extreme, theoretical, and asymptotic; it is doubtful whether such a pure-hearted writer, or such an artist in general, ever lived. The Romantics saw themselves in this light; it is no accident that we believe we are able to descry such examples among the great men of the more distant past, about whom we know little, and who are therefore easier to idealize. For much the same reason distant mountains all appear to us to be the same color, one that often blends with the color of the sky.
2.To entertain others or oneself. Fortunately, the two variants almost always coincide: it is rare that someone who writes to entertain an audience does not also have fun writing, and it is rare for someone who enjoys writing to fail to convey to his readers at least some share of that enjoyment. In contrast with the previous case, there do exist pure entertainers, who are often not writers by profession, strangers to ambition, literary or otherwise, free of burdensome certainties and dogmatic rigidity, as light and limpid as children, and as lucid and sage as someone who has lived for a long time and to good purpose. The first name that comes into my mind is that of Lewis Carroll, the shy Anglican deacon and mathematician who lived a blameless life, and who has fascinated six generations with the adventures of his Alice, first in Wonderland and later Through the Looking-Glass. Confirmation of his affable genius can be found in the popularity that his books still enjoy after more than a century in print, not only among children, for whom they were theoretically intended, but also among logicians and psychoanalysts, who never seem to tire of finding new meanings in their pages. It is likely that this unbroken popularity of his books is due precisely to the fact that they never sneak anything in—neither moral lessons nor educational chores.
3.To teach someone something. To do this, and to do it well, can be invaluable to the reader, but it’s essential that there be a clear understanding. With only rare exceptions, such as Virgil in the Georgics, didactic intent tends to eat into the narrative fabric from beneath, tainting and deteriorating it: a reader in search of a story should find a story, not some unwanted lesson. As I said, however, there are exceptions, and those with a poet’s blood in their veins know how to find and express poetry even when speaking of stars, atoms, the breeding of livestock, and the keeping of bees. Let me scandalize no one by mentioning in this context Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well, by Pellegrino Artusi, another pure-hearted man who never daintily covers his mouth with one hand: he doesn’t pose as a man of letters, he passionately loves the art of cooking so scornfully dismissed by hypocrites and dyspeptics, he intends to teach it, he says so, and he does so with the clarity and simplicity of someone who knows his topic thoroughly, spontaneously attaining the level of art.
4.To improve the world. As you may see, we are moving further and further away from art for art’s sake. It may be appropriate here to point out that the motivations we’ve been discussing have very little to do with the worth of the work they produce; a book may be fine, serious, lasting, and enjoyable for reasons that are entirely different from the ones that led the author to write it. It is possible to write despicable books for eminently noble reasons, and also, though it happens less often, noble books for despicable reasons. All the same, I personally feel a certain degree of mistrust for anyone who “knows” how to improve the world; often, though not always, such a person is so enamored of his system that he becomes impervious to criticism. We can only hope that he lacks an outsized force of will, otherwise he may be tempted to improve the world with deeds instead of just words: that’s what Hitler did after writing Mein Kampf, and I’ve often thought that many other utopians, if they had had sufficient energy, could have unleashed wars and mass slaughter.
5.To spread one’s ideas. Those who write for this reason constitute only a smaller-scale—and hence less dangerous—variation on the previous instance. The category in fact corresponds to that of philosophers, whether they are brilliant, mediocre, or overweening, lovers of the human race, dilettantes, or madmen.
6.To rid themselves of some source of anguish. Often writing is an equivalent of the confessional or Freud’s couch. I have no objection to those who write because they are driven by some inner tension: indeed, I wish them success in freeing themselves of it, as I was able to many years ago. I do ask, however, that they make an effort to filter that anguish, to refrain from hurling it, rough and raw, into their readers’ faces: otherwise, they risk infecting others without giving any relief to themselves.
7.To become famous. I think that no one but a fool would sit down to write with the sole objective of becoming famous; but I also believe that no writer, not even the most modest, not even the least boastful, not even the angelic Lewis Carroll mentioned earlier, has been immune to this motivation. To possess fame, to read about yourself in the press, to hear others talk about you is sweet, without a doubt; but few of the joys that life can offer demand such effort, and few labors promise such an uncertain outcome.
8.To become rich. I never understand why there are people whose reaction is either indignation or astonishment when they learn that Collodi, Balzac, and Dostoyevsky wrote to earn money, or to pay off gambling debts, or to shore up struggling business ventures. It seems reasonable to me that writing, like any other useful occupation, should receive compensation. But I believe that writing for money alone is dangerous, because it almost always leads to a facile style, too compliant with the tastes of the larger public and the fashions of the moment.
9.Out of habit. I left this motivation, the dreariest of all, for last. It’s not pretty, but it happens: it happens that a writer runs out of steam, losing his narrative drive, his desire to endow the images he has conceived with life and shape; that he stops conceiving images; that he has no more desires, even for glory or cash; and that he goes on writing all the same, out of inertia, out of habit, just “to keep the name alive.” Let him pay attention to what he’s doing: along that path he won’t travel far; he’ll inevitably wind up copying himself. Silence is more dignified, whether temporary or definitive.