Writers Paradox

Writers have a reputation for being aloof, solitary beings who are often shut in their flats, subsisting on alcohol and semi-perished food.

I thought about this while reading Sabina Murray's A Carnivore's Inquiry (and excellent, v well written, if dark, book where most characters get absolutely sloshed every other page).

In the book, one of Murray's characters, Boris, claims writers detest parties and social occasions of all kinds because they take up too much of one's time while adding precious little to one's creative and observational stock.

It takes up time that could be used in a better way. In a writer's case - writing, or reading.

So yes, I suppose writers do tend to be people who observe a lot but who don't seem to spend time with other people. When do they get to do all this observation, if this is true? Is reading about other characters enough? Are good writers able to "substitute" real people -and the fresh ideas or personality traits they might have- with their fictional characters?

One of the great works of literature to which I dedicated three whole days and then was bitterly disappointed by was Anna Karenina. I couldn't leave the book for three days in a row, pausing only to eat, shower, and go buy cigs while the coffee was brewing. And then she kills herself. She spent the entire book striving, only to kill herself? No, Tolstoy. NO. You cannot do this to me, I repeated, out loud, while standing in a cold, empty flat, alone, outraged, cheated. Oh, the drama.

Because Anna Karenina, in the way she was presented to me (or perhaps in the way I read her-- does it make a huge difference?), would not have committed suicide.

Which brings me to the problem. She's a fictional character, not based on a real person with coherent, believable personality traits. Either that OR Tolstoy drew inspiration from a real person and then ruined her personality in the end of the book. Maybe she's a woman with whom he was in love and killing her was the way he found to get over her? Get back at her? Or, yet another alternative, she was based on a real person, one with serious mental health problems. But if this is the case, Tolstoy did not cover that minor detail.

The Anna Karenina conundrum aside, the question remains: when do these writers go out and observe, if they're such hermits?

Marc-Édouard Nabe, I have it on good authority, still roams the streets of Paris and goes to the corner café near his place and chats about this and that mind-numbingly boring news that's hot that week with the other patrons. He observes real people.

Houellebecq, on the other hand, doesn't, despite the fact I saw him once, while coming back from my local café where I'd gone to buy cigs while the coffee brewed and a Nabe book waited for me, splayed open on the kitchen table, surrounded by dirty coffee cups. Houellebecq writes based on his idea of people, I heard, especially since he moved to a house in the middle of the Irish countryside, largely to avoid paying taxes in France.

Ok. So. This is all. Leave your comments if you can (and even if you can't) help me with this one.