Death by Writing

In Bill’s final scene, there are three different actions that I found to be evocative: the first action is Bill’s willing approach to the three vets drinking wine and his admission of being a writer, the second is his decision to go to a club with the vets, and the third is his voyage to Junieh.

Bill has been running from his book as well as his loved ones for all of this time, and he has done everything in his power to be forgotten. The extreme measures Bill takes to get away from all that he once held as familiar suggests that he’d rather be alone then be recognized as a writer, yet, when Bill approaches the vets and introduces himself as a writer. Though  he refuses to say just what kind of writer he is, he has behaved in a manner that is inconsistent with his previous paranoia. I wanted, at first, to say that it was just the alcohol and pain that drove him to make that admission and engage the three vets, and that could be the case, but what threw me off was that little passage about Bill’s love of doctors.

He had a big chesty laugh that Bill liked. Bill’s first wife despised him for liking doctors because she thought he was contriving to outlive her (207).

By mentioning that Bill had a special fondness for doctors, I thought his approach was one of necessity, not only for his health, but for his spirit. Despite the fact that he is running away from people he loves, and is trying to be forgotten, he still seeks out companionship of other people. It’s not that he doesn’t want to be with other people, it’s just that he wants to be stripped of his former identity. He doesn’t want to be “that kind of writer” (205). Being around people who do not know who he truly is seems to alleviate some of the stress he feels as a famous author. Scott, Karen, Brita, and even Charlie put pressure on Bill that he just cannot handle. He sees his perpetually unfinished work as a failure and that failure is reflected by those he sees around him because they are the ones who know him the best and know what his work should be. They are constant reminders of what he has created and what he is trying to escape. The vets are a neutral party, a new beginning. I think this is why Bill decides to go into a crowded place where there are tons of unfamiliar faces that he hopes to meld into. It’s a way to distance himself from what he once was: an isolated celebrity.

After finding out his diagnosis, Bill knows that he has two choices: to live or to die. He could go to a doctor or he can continue on in pain and die. Bill chooses to suffer and die, but I am not so sure I understand why he makes this decision. One possible explanation could be that he really wants to take this voyage to Beirut and that he is so driven by this idea that he suppresses his own wellbeing. Going to a doctor could expose his true identity or make his trip impossible. Another possibility is that he thinks he can survive the trip.

Inevitably, Bill chooses to go on his voyage and die. It is significant that any form of identification is literally stripped from his body (217). He dies anonymously and he dies because of his work.

It was writing that caused his life to disappear (215).

Writing, it seems, is this act of terrorism for Bill. It literally terrorizes him, makes him paranoid, and drives him to his death. I think that is most explicitly shown in his final scene.