You probably know Brett Netson from his work with Built To Spill and Caustic Resin. Now he’s back with the excellent Scavenger Cult EP, credited to Brett Netson & Snakes. Netson will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week.
Netson: A writer friend of mine handed me this book one day and explained that this guy Vardis Fisher was an Idaho writer from the ‘30s to the ‘60s. An atheist and a total badass. God Or Caesar? said on the cover that it was an instructional book for writers. My friend said, “You could apply it to music.” Well that book wasted no time blowing off the mechanical instruction of writing to go deep into “why” would a person be a writer and asking, “What kind do you want to be?” You can be commercially successful, but you gotta get the hell over yourself to do that. You can write for the ages, but don’t expect anyone to give a shit. The dude was talking directly to me in the 2000s. This guy gets right with it, and he ain’t fucking around.
Although I think it’s part of the effect of the book to say you have to pick a side, I tend to think that if he were alive today, after seeing the Beatles, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, there could be more to say about serving both God and Caesar. And it would surely take a whole book to sort that one out!
Here’s a somewhat more comprehensive explanation from that same friend who gave me the book:
Vardis Alvero Fisher (March 31, 1895 – July 9, 1968) was an Idaho-based writer best known for his popular historical novels of the Old West. He also wrote the monumental 12-volume Testament Of Man (1943–1960) series of novels, depicting the history of humans from cave to civilization. It was considered controversial because of his portrayal of religion, especially the Judeo-Christian tradition, emphasis on sexuality, and conclusions about anthropology.
Fisher also wrote a book on creative writing entitled God Or Caesar?, which has long been out of print (used copies are available on Amazon and Abebooks.com). It’s possibly one the most important books written for artists as it challenges writers (all artists) to either become commercial artists who sell delusions to the masses or to become truth tellers who expose and reflect societal follies, hypocrisy and ignorance in an attempt to make society more honest and capable.
He claims artists have two basic choices: Go the artistic path (God), which will likely find the artist little financial success or acclaim, but those artists will die knowing they hopefully created something timeless and useful; or go the commercial route (Caesar) and take the temporary money and fame by catering to popular culture.
Once you read the book, the decision he puts in your head becomes something you can’t ignore. You have to pick or figure out a hybrid. Decide and then stop being neurotic about it.
Referencing the psychologist Otto Rank, Fisher outlined in the book three types of artists:
Adapted type
These people learn to “will” what they have been forced to do. They obey authority, their society’s moral code, and, as best as they can, their sexual impulses. This is a passive, duty-bound creature that Rank suggests is, in fact, the average person.
Neurotic type
These people have a much stronger will than the average person, but it is totally engaged in the fight against external and internal domination. They even fight the expression of their own will, so there is no will left over to actually do anything with the freedom won. Instead, they worry and feel guilty about being so “willful” They are, however, at a higher level of moral development than the adapted type.
Productive type
Rank says this is the artist, the genius, the creative type, the self-conscious type, and, simply, the human being. Instead of fighting themselves, these people accept and affirm themselves, and create an ideal, which functions as a positive focus for will. The artist creates himself or herself, and then goes on to create a new world as well.
Nearly each sentence in this book is either a revelation, a confirmation or both. If this book were required reading in art and creative-writing schools, we would have far less people selling their talents to ad agencies, corporate entertainment conglomerates, propagandists, etc.
Also worth checking out is the “Idaho Guide” that was a WPA/New Deal program for writers during the depression. All states appointed a local writer to do the guide for their state. Vardis Fisher wasn’t fucking around there either, he got right into an un-varnished, heavily researched explanation of what really happened when trappers, farmers and then the Christians all came through Idaho headed west. Holy smokes! His descriptions would make modern writers from cable TV blush.
