Blogging politics, culture, sociology and life from Brisvegas
Picking up on Rob’s comment on Naomi’s excellent post:
Good writing always wins me over, whatever my politics, or those (that? - has to be a thread there) of the writer.
Can good writing move and inspire regardless of its politics? I think so - I certainly don’t identify with Tolstoy’s Christian mystical anarchism or Evelyn Waugh’s Tory reactionary nostalgia, but I love their work.
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Evelyn Waugh is an exception. Sure, he was an incipient fascist, but he had a great line in epigrams and black humour. PG Wodehouse was just as good, and he was nearly hanged for treason.
I’ve ploughed my way through half of ‘Atlas Shrugged’ in the past week, and by jingo I’ve been moved by it. Being something of a faultless, self-confident, hard-headed, straight-talking hero myself, I just love it when the protagonists let the bad guys make fools out of themselves. Trouble is, I also think it’s a particularly poorly written book, with misguided - not to mention contradictory - ideas.
Moral of the story? Even bad writing can move and inspire, so long as the reader is… er… easily misled?
Damn.
what of plato’s republic? isn’t letting the poets control politics a recipe for disasters? the aestheticisation of politics was something that the ahh … german national socialists … were especially good at.
“Can good writing move and inspire regardless of its politics?”
I think the answer is absolutely. Words are powerful things when used well.
For te sake of balance, I should point out that Keating’s racist speech of 1992 was also fatuous.
But it’s true that words have the power to move. That’s why they’re worth studying and getting right.
Too many people don’t know what words mean, and consequently lower their worth by abusing them.
I’m in agreement with the sentiments of the post. I also think Anthony Trollope had the best description of his politics - “Radical Conservative Liberal”. I guess they hadn’t invented the term “centrist” in the 19th century.
But what do you mean by “good writing” - is there anything objective and measurable at stake here, or is it purely a matter of taste and preference?
Based on the limited discussion here, I’d have to say the question is based on the assumption that verbal form is a type of container into which form is poured and that the two can be separated without altering either. I think that’s a mistake.
On another note, there was a thread here yesterday to do with evangelism that i can’t find - was it pulled? if so why? It’s not very encouraging if the first time a person enters the discussion on a busy blog the entire conversation inexplicably vanishes.
make that “verbal form is a type of container into which content is poured”
Laura, I’ll explicate. The post in question was by one of our guest bloggers. She looked askance at one of the comments, but pressed the “delete post” button instead of “delete comment”. It’s not possible to retrieve it. There’s been some email discussion between me and others which I think has now resolved the issues that arose - not in terms of the subject matter, but in terms of the way that the debate was conducted. I’d prefer not to say any more.
I apologise for the precipitate action, Laura. Put it down to inexperience.
As to your question, whether or not there are objective standards of good writing is a massive question - the basis for most debates in literary theory, I’d have thought. I’m interested really in people’s subjective reactions.
Shades of F.R. Leavis?
who, Kate? with the leavisitism, I mean
I think it is possible to judge ‘good writing’ objectively, although I realise that you can feel the egg sheels breaking underfoot when you wander into that territory. As Kim says, it’s a huge issue. I don’t know if there is an established discipline of aesthetics, and don’t really care, to be honest; but I think you can, quite objectively, contend that (for example) Doris Lessing is a better writer than, say, Jackie Collins.
It’s not just the obvious things - characteristation, plot-lines, convincing dialogue, etc. though of course these things are important. I have sometimes thought about writing an article about why Tolkien is not really a very good writer, but have always quailed at the thought of the response I’d get. In some ways he does write well: a good eye for description, a strong sense of narrative, and an effective picaresque plot-line. Against it you have: a tin ear for dialogue, wooden characters and - letting politics intrude into poetics for the moment - a strong strand of misogyny in his characterisation of women (by far his weakest and most unconvincing characters), as well as a plasticine sense of morality. None of this actually stops me enjoying the experience of reading LOTR. But it’s absurd, on any objective measure, to say it’s the best book of the 20th century. It might be the best-liked, but that’s not the same thing.
But as I say, it’s not just those obvious things. It’s more to do with the writer’s feeling for language, their ability to dig deeper into its unplumbable depths, to release the colour and vivacity that is there waiting for the right person to release it. It’s mysterious and difficult to define, but it’s there all right. When you read Les Murray’s poetry, you know it’s special. Or Dickens. Or Orwell (more his essays than his novels, I think). Whether you agree with their poltical message is not relevant to your appreciation of and response to their use of language. Similarly, if you have been privileged to stand in the physical presence of Leonardo da Vinci’s paintings, any sensitised eye knows it is in the presence of genius. It has nothing to do with politics or collaborative discourses or whatever. It’s great: you can feel it’s great.
It can come easily or not. I don’t wish to embarrass Naomi but I thought her post was quite simply a beautiful piece of writing. Unlike EP, I didn’t care what the underlying politics were or might have been. One simply responded to the language, to the written word. EP objected to what he saw as its political import - that’s his choice, but although I don’t necessarily quarrel with his politics, I responded in a different way, as I think did other commenters. Objectively, this was good writing.
I can’t believe goodness in writing is simply a matter of personal taste. I still enjoy reading authors whose politics I despise (Robert van Gulik, John Buchan, Ngaio Marsh, even - God help me - Trotsky) simply because they write well. [I could be wrong about Trotsky; it’s quite a while since I read his stuff.] Conversely, there are some authors (e.g. Richard Dawkins) who have good and strong ideas which I agree with to a greater or lesser extent but whose books I find boring because - objectively again - they simply don’t cut it as writers.
I love great soeeches too Naomi - Keating’s redfern is a great one (and when will Howard make a great speech? Never! Its just not in him), but my two favourites are, in order, here. Both made me cry one time or another. And Im a big lefty (elitiit) bloke!
Xanana Gusmao, in September 1999, addressing a crowd the day, or two, after INTERFET arrvied. Dili is still smoke and ashes, and he is wailing like a wounded giant in Tetum language to the Timorese crowd, calling out their pain. Even the English subtitles made me weep. I wish I could remember it verbatim, but it was much like this
“We have won our long struggle. Today… we take our fallen warriors … the men and women who died, our brothers, our sisters, in our arms. We hold them in our arms. We hold them in our hearts…” The entire crowd is wailing by this point.
The other is Salvodor Allende’s final, defiant message on Chilean radio as Pinochet’s CIA backed coup commenced its brutal first hours. The first bombs were falling near the Presidential Palace as de defied the General’s demand that he resign.
“I speak to all those who will be persecuted and tell you that I am not going to resign: I will repay the people’s loyalty with my life. I will always be with you. I have faith in our nation and its destiny. Other men will surmount this gray and bitter moment where treason seeks to impose itself. Rest assured, soon the great avenues will be open again, where free men will walk, to build a better society. Long Live Chile, long live the people. These are my last words. I am certain that my sacrifice will not be in vain”.
Allende took up a rifle and was killed hours later in a gunfight in the palace on September 11 , 1973.
I was gonna say what Rob just said. Perhaps better, perhaps worse but he said it first.
I’d only add there’s another factor - the rise of the author as celebrity over the past 150 years or so, followed from the mid-20th century onwards by their public psychoanalysis.
What this seems to mean these days is that the personality and prose are smooged together as some sort of indivisable golem, animated by others intepretations handed down to the poor bloody reader. The fact someone can be a real shit and a great writer or a great human being and a shitty writer seems to escaped many, especially in academia, who assume the prose is the personality and vice-versa.
Sometimes writing is all about trying to be someone else. Which reminds me - “Write about what you know” is one the most dim-witted pieces of advice I have ever heard.
“Did you do much research for this novel?”
“No, it’s a work of fiction. That means I made it all up.”
Rereading Waugh’s “Sword Of Honour” trilogy right now. My god, that’s a dark, funny and piercingly clear look at the upper-middle classes and the demi-monde trying to stay afloat in the first true citizens’ total war of modern times.
Laura, I wasn’t accusing anyone of being a Leavisite.
It’s just that this whole “good writing bad writing” thing is tricky. And it always makes me think of Leavis and his claims for greatness.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t good writing and bad writing, just, that, it’s hard to say what makes something good. Bad writing is easier to spot, it’s cliched, grammar is poor (but not deliberately) narrative is fuzzy, things don’t add up, characters are very poorly fleshed out, there is a strong over-reliance on blunt, over-used adjectives etc etc. Read any of those short stories in Woman’s Day for an example.
But good writing? I mean, I don’t like Tim Winton much (as a writer, as a person he seems rather nice) and there’d be many an Australian who would be horrified that I could think so little of a “good” writer. But then, I love Michael Ondaatje and many people don’t. Go figure. (Though I defy you to read this poem and not swoon: http://www.poetryconnection.net/poets/Michael_Ondaatje/2925)
Anyway, we covered this in first year of uni and things don’t seem to have changed much in the past seven years. My standards for good writing are demonstrably different from Rob’s. Where do we go from here? We don’t go far, that’s for sure.
“Fiction writing is great, you can make up almost anything.”
- Ivana Trump, on finishing her first novel
from stupid quotes…
Some may say that the writer’s style itself is irrelevant, particularly if you can get his content from elsewhere.
Witness the following apposite quote from Metropolitan, that I nicked from a particularly clever analysis of the fillum:
I, however, subscribe to the school of thought that says style is important. Reading should be a pleasure in itself, not just a means to an end. Moreover, there is also meaning and context in style, which flavours the content it carries. Original sources for ideas are always best.
Good writing defines itself. Great writing defines its times and the best writing defines a generation or more.
Great writing gets endlessly discussed but resists characterisation.
(Bad writing such as my attempted epigrammes above are easily spotted.)
Great writing will always be a little difficult to read unless you are a soulmate of the writer, in which case it will be as if the writer has taken up residence in your head and you will be transported and rendered incapable of fair judgement. (If, but, you are violently opposed to the writer’s world view then you will also not be able judge it.)
Great writers, if they get published, will command a long-term and devoted following. Mediocre writers will be quickly forgotten with the exceptions of those who serve for a while the ideological interests of certain groups - such as the execrably bad Ayn Rand.
Merleau-Ponty argued in The Prose of the World that good writing has an ability beyond the words on the page to throw you into a different world, a mixture of the writer’s imagination and your own.
I don’t quite see where your standards and mine diverge so widely, Kate.