"Roman Letters" by Evan Calder Williams (published 2011)

To put it lightly: every time I've picked up "Roman Letters" since its publication I've been reminded that I'm fully alive, not quite dead yet, and that I hate it. And yet, it is precisely the letters in this book that have urged me continue on, despite all my illnesses, mental and physical, and all the disgusting politics that go with that. With steady words, the stories Williams tells throughout this masterpiece of a text convince me that maybe it's not so bad, maybe it's completely OK to go on living with this hatred of my existence; moreover, that it is necessary for me to unpack what's there, to go in deep into that emptiness, and, for the sake it, become that gorgeous thing like Williams' Napoli... that Italian city that he traverses (Rome and Bologna among others)... a city that is gorgeous, "gut-clenching gorgeous, because it has stopped caring whether or not it exists, but still it does." (81)

"Roman Letters" is the work of a seasoned theorist and artist. A refined technique Williams brings here is unlike any other attempt I've seen tried before. To be able to allow his subjects (i.e. his readers) - in which case, I assure you, you would be if you were to read this book: it will reduce you to the subject you are, whether you like it or not - you might find yourself becoming that city, that dog, that woman he kisses, that church, those skeletons, those rose petals, that friend back home, that sick graffiti, that 14-year old miniature fascist, etc. - is done without the crude seamless blending of writers that make such connections either glaringly obvious or dressed up in a laughable costume. Williams presents these subjects so beautifully it hurts; beautiful because it is subtle, a light jab to your heart, your gut, your groin, your mind (depending on which letter you're reading) letting you know that he too relates in such a way, that in fact, we are all just an assemblage of *objects* that feel. What makes this realization worse is that maybe we *aren't* yet those kind of subjects and damn it: how the hell do I get there? This technique is the simple fact of teaching by sharing, teaching by telling himself and then having the guts to share it with us, however it might pain us (Williams is unafraid of taking that risk, of hurting his readers).

In a series of twenty letters, Williams records parts of a trip he took to Italy from start to finish. Though it may come off as a trip solely to fulfill goals of the intellect, there are sections within in which we get some real juicy diary-like minutia. An example, in Letter XV, "On floating and eating", he writes about what he's been doing besides writing, and as with all these letters, he asks us to judge ourselves as harshly as he does himself, asking us if its even important that we push ourselves to continue a this intellectual labor, or whatever productivity with the blind faith that it actually matters. But it must, because why else would he come back and write this, share with us that meal he had on that rare occasion when it wasn't important whether or not he liked the music or the people, that fact that for a while, he knew it wasn't the right time for analyzing, he knew it was the time to let it all just flow. 

In another letter, Letter V, "On squandering and progress", he talks about these same things (or similar) while in a completely different emotional state, and we understand it more, see the bigger picture. That maybe there is value in doing nothing, that the wasting of time actually can come to mean something later, that squandering is the giving up of everything not for the sake of that later, that the value increases only because it's discarded in the first place. And in another, Letter XI, "On tentacles and graffiti" (one of my favorites), he writes about the failure of returning to a source, an origin, a point of an authentic beginning, offering us a really intriguing view of all this as *tentacles*:

"Centers aren't made *ex nihilo*. They're stopped and carved out slowly, grindingly, from the surrounding space, a consequence, not a cause. They aren't attacked because they are central, although they dream it to be so. They're what remains after the falls, thicker, denser, where axes might hack and saw, and space is cleared around them, where there's a bit less to start, so that cities stick out in relief, a bundled hedge looming over all the chaff and dead space. Or rather: there are thickets of tentacles, they twist and turn, and when we try to clear them away, we reveal cleaner shapes, blocks and towers, boutiques and bad parts of town, banks and plazas. And those come to know themselves as such, as a point of freezing and grounding, as the foundation, as the essential, not what they are, which is just slightly more obstinate tangles we dull ourselves against and through which our passages are narrower and lightless and raw. And we don't have very good axes today or yesterday. All to say that if we commit to this thought of the network, as I think we should from time to time, it has to be a thought of the centerless." (63, 64)

There are many scenes within these pages that will give you a raw view of Italy: I will not divulge them for you, at least right now. They are yours for the taking. His writing of them is enough for me to re-read this book a million times over, until the pages are filthy like dirty smut prints, all creepiness and jokes aside. Furthermore, though I know this book is essentially about negation, communism, and pessimism, there is still much I just don't get. And I won't stop reading these pages until I do. I want to be broken by these letters, again and again. 

After reading "Letters to a Young Poet" by Rilke, I told everyone that I was going to carry a copy with me wherever I went. But I didn't keep my word then. But I will do it with “Roman Letters”, sure as hell. Again: I want to know this book, inside and out. I know I still don’t. And for the record, Evan Calder Williams is a writer I can imagine keeping fidelity to, and I probably will, all plans aside. 

*I wrote this hastily. Though I make no apologies I may return to edit my thoughts in the near.