Yes, my friends, it has indeed been a while. I plead vicious stomach-flu — the last several days have seen my schedule full of things like “vomiting”, “sleeping”, “moaning in agony” and less-mentionable things.

I did, however, have a chance to catch up on my reading, and an interesting little tidbit from the inimitable Quentin Crisp caught my imagination. Mr. Crisp was talking about the dangers of “comparative originality”:

If a man were to look over the fence on one side of his garden and observe that a neighbor to his left had laid his garden path round a central lawn; and were to look over a fence on the other side of his garden and observed that the neighbor on his right had laid his path down the middle of the lawn, and then were to lay his own garden path diagonally from one corner to the other, that man’s soul would be lost. Originality is only to be praised when not prefaced by the look to right and left.

With respect to Mr. Crisp and his literary stature, I don’t know if I buy that. Is it more impressive when someone comes up with something completely original without being aware of his competitors in a field? Sure, absolutely. But Mr. Crisp would have us believe that a work — indeed, an author — is somewhat lessened if a piece is deliberately constructed so as to be different. While I will admit that quality will often suffer when someone’s main purpose is to transgress the strictures of a genre or form, lack of quality doesn’t necessarily follow such transgression, and furthermore, there’s nothing inherently ignoble about striving to be an alternative.

I don’t know for sure, though. What do you folks think? Am I totally off-base, or perhaps misinterpreteing Mr. Crisp’s intent?