"The only thing I was fit for was to be a writer, and this notion rested solely on my suspicion that I would never be fit for real work, and that writing didn't require any"
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Baker’s line is a straight-faced detonation of the romantic myth of the writer as noble striver. He frames his vocation not as calling but as avoidance: “fit” shows up twice, first as destiny, then as disqualification. The joke is that the same word can mean talent and employability, and he uses that double meaning to puncture both. If you can’t pass as “fit for real work,” he implies, you can still pass as an artist. It’s funny because it’s mean, and it’s mean because it’s aimed at himself.
The subtext is less laziness than class anxiety. “Real work” is the phrase of people who’ve had jobs where the body pays the bill: factory shifts, deliveries, the kind of labor that leaves evidence. Journalism, especially in mid-century America when Baker came up, sat in an uneasy middle: a white-collar craft that still wanted to sound like a trade. By pretending writing “didn’t require any” work, he’s parodying the way society undervalues intellectual labor while also mocking writers who secretly enjoy that undervaluation because it flatters their mystique.
Intent-wise, Baker is buying credibility through self-deprecation. He’s telling you: I’m not here to sermonize about genius; I’m here because I’m slightly unmanageable in ordinary life, and I turned that into a job. That candor is a quiet flex. It reassures readers that the sentences were earned, even if the persona insists they weren’t.
The subtext is less laziness than class anxiety. “Real work” is the phrase of people who’ve had jobs where the body pays the bill: factory shifts, deliveries, the kind of labor that leaves evidence. Journalism, especially in mid-century America when Baker came up, sat in an uneasy middle: a white-collar craft that still wanted to sound like a trade. By pretending writing “didn’t require any” work, he’s parodying the way society undervalues intellectual labor while also mocking writers who secretly enjoy that undervaluation because it flatters their mystique.
Intent-wise, Baker is buying credibility through self-deprecation. He’s telling you: I’m not here to sermonize about genius; I’m here because I’m slightly unmanageable in ordinary life, and I turned that into a job. That candor is a quiet flex. It reassures readers that the sentences were earned, even if the persona insists they weren’t.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
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