Who?
I am Luke Labern.
I am a 21-year-old writer from the South Coast of England studying Philosophy and English BA at the University of Sussex.
I am an outspoken atheist and (currently) infatuated with existentialism (and absurdism, if one wants to keep them separate). These two facts run throughout all of my work and these beliefs form the core of who I am, in the same way religion can define believers. An outline of my world view can be found here.
What?
I write stories, poems, articles for my uni newspaper, blog posts and other random bits and pieces (websites, for example). You can view my entire catalogue of works that I have self-published over the past three years, here. I love to create — I could never lie dormant and not try to change the world. Everyone has their talent, that one thing that they can do with ease with virtuosity that others try as they might. For some, it’s a head for maths; the ability to draw; the ability to produce beautiful tones with their voice, and so on. For me, it’s the combination of logical thought and expressing myself.
What I mean by this is that I simply love the language. I had always taken naturally to stories: looking through my work from ages 4 – 5, I was always strongest when telling some ridiculous tale assisted by some abominable drawing (where legs come straight out of the head…). It’s been that way ever since.
I’m aware of the tension between the digital age and the printed word, and despite the fact I’m typing on a MacBook I know that there will always be a place for the book. There’s simply nothing like sitting down and admiring a bulk of paper (especially with the word ‘Dickens’ or ‘Dostoyevsky’ written on it) and knowing that for the next few weeks/months you’ll be engaging in an asynchronous conversation with one of the greatest minds that ever lived.
It is my dream, my ambition, my meaning (as defined by the terms of my existential contract with myself) to be a writer — and not just a writer, an excellent writer. On this note, I would like to quickly point out that arrogance is something I despise and is the last thing I am. I am confident in my talent and in my work ethic. It is only in knowing myself — and facing doubt like a good human does — that I make that claim quite apparent. If I fail to become an excellent writer, lost to all (including posterity) then I am fine with being labelled like that.
I want my work to speak for me — and so I often avoid biographies like this. With this said, I here present my portfolio and am open to criticism — constructive or otherwise.
Why?
The science/arts dichotomy. I hate it. I’m tired of being relegated to a subcategory — especially one with a negative connotation. I am indeed an artist, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love science, logic and truth. In fact, they are three of my favourite things.
As I hinted at above, I believe there is something especially profound about literature. Along with music, I think they are the most enlightening of the arts. I have often said that for all that science teaches us, a life without art be a life not worth living. As Nietzsche once wrote in an aphorism: “we have art so that in order not to die of the truth”. Of course, doesn’t this support the dichotomy?
No: I accept the truth. That life (or rather, our attempt to colour it with a meaning) is absurd: and so, as Camus writes, fiction embraces the absurd.
And that is what I am all about: philosophy and English literature. I won’t list all of my favourite writers/thinkers — I will write up an extensive list in a separate post. (However, a few of my favourites are: Dostoyevsky, Dickens, Camus, Hardy (novelists); Lord Byron, Keats, Shakespeare, Shelley, Frost [poets]; Kant, Sartre, Camus [again], Nietzsche, Aristotle, Hume [philosophers].)
What?
So I have created this website as a sort of portfolio: a go-to place for anything to do with me and my brand of literature. For my close friends: this is for you — and for those who spend time criticising me: this is for you, too. Feel free to criticise me — I’d rather you had evidence and justified yourself by taking offence to my writings rather than my speculation about an admittedly very reserved person.
I am aiming for publication, but more important still is to build a fan base. I am writing because I believe there are thoughts in me that should be chewed over by the public en masse. I have long disseminated my works amongst various blogs (tumblr, for example) but I much prefer to have things displayed under a website designed and maintained by myself.
Well…
That’s one way of introducing myself. A far more interesting, subtle and profound way would be to engage with you via my art and other writings. I’ll be updating this site as much as my schedule will allow, which means in-between a rigorous gym schedule and uni work. I’ll post all of my literature as soon as I complete it and will do the same with any articles I write for my student newspaper — my newest idea is to keep a (relatively) steady blog. It will be in a completely different tenor to my art — less serious, more off the cuff. I hope to surprise with the sheer variety of things that interests me… (On that note, you might like to check out my music — there’s a lot of it.)
Thank you for reading: I hope you enjoy reading my works as much as I have writing them and preparing them for my audience. Any comments/interaction will be gratefully received, any suggestions you make to friends or family (or people from the literary world) would also be incredibly useful. Feel free to tweet me @1abern (my twitter feed is embedded into the footer — scroll down!) or add me on facebook if you want to talk about my work.
– Luke Labern