Book-induced chattiness.

[smw]

I’ve just finished a book that I enjoyed, which always makes me mope. In an attempt to continue the experience a little longer I thought I would start a conversation here on one of the author’s topics.

Namely, in her Art Objects, a driving force of Jeanette Winterson's essays is the belief that prose needs to be intense, precise, poetic. In “A Work of My Own”, she has this to say:

A writer’s style is all she has and the price of the making of it is everything she has. To fit language to her hand she must command at her hand resources of body and mind, totality of self and the self of her that acts as a skein to carry the world in. She must be well read, she must be clever. She must be curious, she must be sharp. Whatever she can muster to her fingertips, let her, and her hands will begin to control the instrument she desires.

The ecstatic and emphatic nature of her persona makes a great place to begin talking, doesn’t it?

I’m curious: what do you derive from this? What does it make you think and feel? What concepts do you agree or disagree with? Obviously a paragraph pulled from a collection of essays only says so much, but this one is saying quite a bit despite that.

I’d like particularly to talk about whether style is as central as that. Can I presume that everyone here believes that prose should be beautiful, whether that beauty is got at through verbose or spare use of words? Do you believe that establishing a clear and genial relationship with the reader is foremost, or creating words and imagery that you as the author can love? & etc., of course. It puts hearts in my eyes when I say something and another person has an unexpected reply.

Comments

[intothewood]

There is compromise, although it's up for debate on who should do the compromising and under what circumstances. If you know you're going to be reading Finnegans Wake, you must expect to be in for a mindfuck - but I don't believe in confusing the audience for the sake of confusion.

The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro is a proper mindfuck as well, but it serves a real purpose, the reader is supposed to be thrown off guard and confused. I wouldn't want him to compromise one sentence for the sake of clarity because it would completely ruin his intention.

But there is an art to the thing. I think writing in an unconventional manner requires a great deal of skill in leading the reader where you want them to go without throwing them completely off track.