Sensuous

5 April — Monday

From yesterday’s Book Review section:

In his introduction, the editor of Vagabond’s Day-Book stresses that its author wrote it with the constant intention of its being published after his death... But are not all diaries undertaken with the conscious or unconscious anticipation of eventual publication? I would tend to think so. That they are an assist to memory, that they provide a medium for dialogues with the self, does not sufficiently explain the compulsion to record day by day the events of one’s life. Almost every long-term diarist is concerned with style. Matters are explained which he would not need to explain to himself; the explanation is surely for the eventual benefit of the assumed reader or readers. I am sure many diarists would shudder at the thought that their private confessions would ever pass before eyes other than their own, let alone see print, and am equally sure many such diaries are deliberately destroyed out of that very fear. But unconsciously it would seem that the diarist does crave an audience for his thoughts and observations, the public and private details of his experience. A dual drive, the twin needs of secrecy and confession (and thus absolution?) would seem to motivate those diaries ostensibly “not for publication” to a greater or lesser degree...