On Mon, Nov 24, 2025 at
9:45 AM <Cary Fagan wrote:
It had been your idea
for quite a while that we collaborate on a piece of writing. As you know, I had no such experience and was somewhat wary. I'm curious about what happens in collaboration that you enjoy so much?
On Monday 24/11/2025 at
10:53 am, Rebecca Comay wrote:
Was it my idea? It just kind of happened, didn't it? I don't think
we were intending this to be an official collaboration, certainly not something
that we'd actually publish, more something to entertain ourselves while in
Lisbon. But yes, I've always enjoyed collaborative writing (I've done lots),
even though it can be annoying. Among other things, I love a moment of relief
from my oppressive superego, the chance to shed my own obsessional need to
control the outcome, and to just see what happens... (But I think you don't
suffer from that particular neurosis, do you?)
On Mon, Nov 24, 2025 at
11:14 AM <Cary Fagan wrote:
Actually, sharing the notebook was my idea. I was referring to the
idea of doing something together in general. But yes, I was the one who
wrote something in the notebook and then gave it to you to respond. We
agreed that we could only write one sentence. I found that my first
entries were probably more hesitant and more self-conscious. I loosened
up over time. And I think we got better at responding to what the other
person had written while still putting down something that was our own.
When I read it over now, it seems to me that there were little waves running
through it. Two or three entries that were more descriptive of place or
more humorous or more enigmatic. As to your question, I don't think I
feel an "oppressive superego" exactly, but doesn't everyone want/need
to escape the self sometimes, impossible though that is? I wonder if the
fact that I write fiction in other voices and about other
"characters" allows me to escape more in my regular writing life,
whereas your voice is always some version of your self? I suspect you're
going to think that naive.
On Monday 24/11/2025 at
11:43 am, Rebecca Comay wrote:
Good points! [sorry, that wasn't me talking - I see that google AI just
provided a menu of replies to choose from...]. Well, all writing is an
escape from (or perhaps an expansion of) the self, no? I'm not sure I see
the difference between fiction and philosophy in that regard - there's a
certain fabulation or ventriloquism involved in philosophy too. I suspect it's
probably more about personal demons in this case, but we don't have to go
there. Anyway, yes, I had the same reaction to the notebook - funny to have
stumbled upon it after all these years --we begin with these stiff little
disconnected observations and eventually started writing - not exactly
dialogically or conversationally but more diagonally, in indirect response to
the other. Eventually we loosened up a
bit and forgot who was speaking, or at least tried to hide our tracks. I also
noticed that we always referred to ourselves, or to some fictional analogue of
ourselves, in the third person- "he thought... "she wondered"...
"he said." (Who knows which pronouns belonged to whom, or if they
were the best or only pronouns, or at least that was my conceit, I’m sure it’s
ploddingly obvious who was who…)
On Mon, Nov 24, 2025 at
12:15 PM <Cary Fagan wrote:
Interesting. Would you say that there was any relationship between
your entries and your philosophical writing? Or did it seem as if those
sentences were coming from a completely different place? To answer my own
question, for me this felt like something different and new. Certainly
not like fiction but also not like the more limited non-fiction essays that
I've written. I would say that these sentences perhaps share something
more with the poetry that I've been trying to write since, although there is
certainly not an exact correspondence. What about you?
On Mon, Nov 24, 2025 at
12:24 PM Rebecca Comay wrote:
Not really. [says AI which apparently knows me better than I know myself].
On Tuesday 25/11/2025 at
1:48 pm, Rebecca Comay wrote:
Just to continue for real: I've never really thought much about where my
writing is coming from. I guess I didn't feel especially "poetic"
when I was sitting down to do these, at least it didn't have the gravitas I
often associate with poetry - or with philosophy either for that matter - more
like a game. There was a bit of a
surrealist "exquisite corpse" aspect to the exercise. We
weren't exactly in the dark about what the other person was doing, but we
usually weren’t directly responding to the previous entry either. I did make a point of "forgetting"
what had gone before. I wanted to be surprised at the very end when we would finally
unfurl the thing and see the bits and pieces laid out side by side. I wanted
that feeling of chance. Which brings us back to your original question: wasn't
this actually the very opposite of normal collaboration? Whatever was going on,
it involved minimal coordination or confabulation or cooperation on our parts -
it was more like parallel play between toddlers.
On Tue, Nov 25, 2025 at
2:01 PM <Cary Fagan wrote:
That makes sense to me. Parallel play sounds right. So here
is another question. When we try this again (which we've talked about),
how do you think it will be different? Would you want to change the
'rules'? To me it feels like it has to be somewhere other than where we
live. We'll be going away in the spring and have talked about doing it
then, which I'd still like to. I feel like we should approach it at a
somewhat different angle, but I'm not sure what that should be. Maybe
we'll just have to wait and see. Any ideas?
On Tuesday 25/11/2025 at
2:31 pm, Rebecca Comay wrote:
We always agreed that it had to be away from home, away from regular
life, with a fixed beginning and end --new routine, new rules, new tempo. It
would be a little grandiose to call this procedural poetry, à la Oulipo, but
there's something akin. Rules… Is there a rule that says we have to have
one? From a super-egoic point of view, it's always a relief to have
someone (or something) else set the rules, even if it's just a scenario, or a
language game, or something as simple as a time frame.
On Tue, Nov 25, 2025 at
2:46 PM <Cary Fagan wrote:
Well, will we stick to one sentence per entry? It works well so I
don't think we need to change it. One question I have concerns the amount
that we respond to the new surroundings. I like when entries are grounded in
place but there's always the danger of it becoming a sort of tourist's
response. Oh, look at that lovely building! Oh, how delicious is
this pastry! Okay, I'm exaggerating but you know what I mean.
Still, one of the things I like about "The Sun Will Bleach It Away"
is how it recalls for me that time and place. Even if it doesn't
necessarily do the same for a reader.
On Thu, Nov 27, 2025 at
9:19 PM Rebecca Comay wrote:
Oh yes -- "The view! The view!" “Fado!” (I suspect I was
the one most guilty of such outbursts). As for readers: I’ve always found it odd
that the experiences that one finds most absorbing - a smell, a flash, a touch
- can be the most excruciatingly boring for someone else to listen to.
(That's why you have to pay a psychoanalyst to listen to your dreams. Or
be a Proust.)
On Friday, Nov 28, 2025
at 10:16 AM Cary Fagan wrote:
Well, let’s do it again!
Rebecca Comay teaches philosophy and comparative literature at The
University of Toronto. Her books include Mourning Sickness: Hegel and the
French Revolution (Stanford UP) and The Dash-The Other Side of Absolute
Knowing (with Frank Ruda, MIT Press). Her next book, On Persistence
is the first of two essay collections forthcoming from Seagull Books. She is a
co-editor of the chapbook house, espresso. More work can be seen at
rebeccacomay.com
Cary Fagan is the author of eight novels and six story collections as
well as many books for children. Just published are A Fast Horse Never
Brings Good News (book*hug) and Robot Island (Tundra Books). His
novel, Still the World, will appear in 2027. He is a co-editor of the
chapbook house, espresso, and the publisher of Found Object, which focuses on
bringing work back into print. His books can he seen at caryfagan.com.
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