Introduction to the World of Harry Hogg
Or advice on how to get lost
Thomas Mann — ‘A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.’
Harry Hogg — ‘You cannot treat creative writers as normal human beings. Because, by all standards, they never have been, never likely to aspire so high. They can be cruel, selfish when afraid, and never protected well enough.’
Me — ‘I don’t know that I’m in any way different to everyone else. I can be difficult. My belly is filled too much, and my penis rises at dawn. I am a man but the pain of being a child holds true.’
Creative Writer — ‘I’d never want to meet you, never have that dance, never feel your warm breath on my face, but know that in my whole life I’ll never be closer and more loving than I am right now, on the page. Harry, such a name, why? I hear it in my head, the chosen name, it transcends any name before it and has become my own. Being Harry, my chest is the strongbox containing my heart, protected by brass ribs and a spine, like a cobbled road, holds my back strong. So alone, so wild of eye, with hair that once blew in waves like a cornfield in summer. Harry Hogg, more than just a boy, a whirlwind upon the shore where his skin burnt, and his fingers played tunes on pebbles and on the shells of crabs. You need the heart of a bull to love such a man, you need a bolt for his neck and a razor for the cavity in his throat. When his eyebrows are shot together with fear, and his breath becomes that of a dragon, you must end it for him. There is pain in loving such a man, you walk the battlements of creative genius and all he can do is love you, love as hot as lava and graceful as the willow. Harry lives in a ruined kingdom of dreams; dreams such as no man should ever have, and he fights his confusion with troubled answers.’
Harry’s victim — ‘If you’re going to love him, let’s begin by loving the whole world of Harry Hogg. There’s no hero there, no knight on horseback, only a man of some beauty, an invented man who believes he can perform lesser miracles for those he loves, a man who knows how to run away from anyone who dares to love him as much he loves them. He lives in his own windy castle, writing his love to the world because it is more satisfying than reading newspapers, drinking too much, and worrying. He’s imprisoned in his character but hopes there’s no escape.’