I remember how it was with him forty years ago when he was in his mid-forties and was working on a novel, The Joker. He would spend fourteen hours a day at his desk. Since he was punctilious about literary virtue to the point of vice, he would, what with deletions, corrections, and revisions, manage to advance his narrative two or three hundred words. One page a day for fourteen hours of horrendous labor. Since his powers of concentration were intense, it was, indeed, a labor for which no other adjective applied. Fourteen hours. Horrendous. I, a more self-indulgent writer, used to complain that a thousand words in three or four hours was hardly a fair bargain for me. I asked him once, “Why do you insist on remaining a writer? With your intelligence, with your culture, you could be successful at so many things. Writing may not be a normal activity for you.” He happened to agree. “You are absolutely right,” he said. “I am not a natural writer. There are even times when I detest this torture.
