The Dark Arena: An Anecdote about the Writing Life

Throwback Thursday*

Nearing the finish of Mario Puzo's The Dark Arena, an early novel written before his fame. He must have been dealing with his own inner demons here, after going through the war. Was Puzo (the character) Mosca? The book is dedicated, "for Erika." Written in 1953. He was writing for almost two decades before producing his mega-blockbuster The Godfather. Years of discipline and development, unseen in the womb of dark struggle, where the writer is formed: The Arena. Only the best gladiators will survive... the rest are washed away and forgotten. We remember not their names. "The race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but time and chance happen to them all."
April 20, 1998

I wrote this journal entry upon completion of my short story Unremembered History of the World and as I neared the end of Puzo's book, which I was reading at the time. In my youth I remember vividly the reading of his compelling blockbuster The Godfather. One evening I couldn't put it down, and when my mom got up in the morning I’d been lying on the couch reading all night.

The power of good books is revealed in this anecdote which I remember from a Puzo interview years ago. He had been a struggling writer for years, but with the success of The Godfather he suddenly had more wealth than he could have ever dreamed of. For a year he did everything money could buy, went everywhere, exhausted himself in his pursuits. At the end of it all, he was bored by everything... except his books. Reading, he said, was the one thing that he never tired of.

I would concur.

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* During my first year of blogging (2007-2008) I would riff on passages from my 30 years of journal writing. This blog post was published 2 January 2008.

Related Link: Unremembered Histories: Six Stories with a Supernatural Twist