What is the best literary style? It is a facile question. The best literary style, if we are to honestly attempt an answer, is that which suits the story. This, as would be expected, is so many crumbs thrown to dust for the literary sycophant. They cry that you prevaricate and are the perfect child of facetiousness. Yet look what they demand. Nothing less than the book written and all ready for them. as well as a detailed analysis and blueprint of its production. You want to know what style to write in? It's easy, first you get a life.
And writing is such a simple labour. What is it but an individual sitting with a pen looking at the sky, through a window or in his head, and trying to understand. And where the train goes, style follows.
It seems to me that the aim of a good deal of criticism is to seek out what is in the most vaguest terms called the truth. To dissect style from story or sense in this goal is of little value. The style must, after a fashion, be the story. They are one in the same. One informs the other. If a writer has a consistent style it is only because they have a consistent story. At some point the writer decides what he likes and what is good in the world and so his writing becomes an affirmation of these prejudices. The good writer is the one who scribbles on despite the resistance. Or in several cases in spite of or to spite the opposition. What is essential in any writer is the wherewithal not to mind such opposition in himself and others. The nettle stings only half as bad if you have a mind to it and even then the barbs never last. The fidelity to ones own convictions is more important than obeisance to fashion or received wisdom. How can there be evolution without pioneers? And so how can there be new forms without challenge? But that is preaching to no small converted gathering. Isn't it de rigueur to be violently different from the tradition or that which was before? There has always been a tendency in art to confound expectation, but nowhere quite to the degree of the modern writer. This, of course, is nothing more than a paroxysm of post-modernism. Instead, the writer must not hold so dear to tradition yet not be so scurvy towards it. The merits of the story must be the lead. The genius of writing lies more in experience than in ability. The felicity of the pen is between so many various forces. There is nothing in word or art that can formulate exactly where that is.
So we have many styles. From the simple to the stimulant. There is Orwell, there is Elliot. There is Murakami and Smith. Style, in my opinion, must be concise and precise. It must be efficient, it must be as simple as possible. It must pack as much for as little as possible. Its impulse must be to economy. Yet at the same time it mustn't be boring. It must stimulate. It must engage. It must set the reader at the centre, whether he lives now or many years into the future. It mustn't acquiesce to his wont, it must question his bias and stir his centers. A good story leaves an impression, and the best long after they have been read. There is no thing certain. How can it be written into stone one thing with the cosmic certainty of its truth, yet how can it at another extreme be said that truth doesn't exist. That all is relative when there is plenty that repeats.
Therefore the writer must follow the thread where it goes. Be it simple or not depends on the story which in turn depends on the writer and his experience. Style is a product of these things and not an element of them. A style maybe worth imitating in as much as it is worth understanding the author. But not much more. Style is in so many ways the extension of the writer's personality. Therefore questions of the best are silly. The writer should ultimately look to himself for guidance more than others. The writer should celebrate the mind and its instinct and trust it.
And ultimately the best thing to know, is oneself. All else then follows.
And writing is such a simple labour. What is it but an individual sitting with a pen looking at the sky, through a window or in his head, and trying to understand. And where the train goes, style follows.
It seems to me that the aim of a good deal of criticism is to seek out what is in the most vaguest terms called the truth. To dissect style from story or sense in this goal is of little value. The style must, after a fashion, be the story. They are one in the same. One informs the other. If a writer has a consistent style it is only because they have a consistent story. At some point the writer decides what he likes and what is good in the world and so his writing becomes an affirmation of these prejudices. The good writer is the one who scribbles on despite the resistance. Or in several cases in spite of or to spite the opposition. What is essential in any writer is the wherewithal not to mind such opposition in himself and others. The nettle stings only half as bad if you have a mind to it and even then the barbs never last. The fidelity to ones own convictions is more important than obeisance to fashion or received wisdom. How can there be evolution without pioneers? And so how can there be new forms without challenge? But that is preaching to no small converted gathering. Isn't it de rigueur to be violently different from the tradition or that which was before? There has always been a tendency in art to confound expectation, but nowhere quite to the degree of the modern writer. This, of course, is nothing more than a paroxysm of post-modernism. Instead, the writer must not hold so dear to tradition yet not be so scurvy towards it. The merits of the story must be the lead. The genius of writing lies more in experience than in ability. The felicity of the pen is between so many various forces. There is nothing in word or art that can formulate exactly where that is.
So we have many styles. From the simple to the stimulant. There is Orwell, there is Elliot. There is Murakami and Smith. Style, in my opinion, must be concise and precise. It must be efficient, it must be as simple as possible. It must pack as much for as little as possible. Its impulse must be to economy. Yet at the same time it mustn't be boring. It must stimulate. It must engage. It must set the reader at the centre, whether he lives now or many years into the future. It mustn't acquiesce to his wont, it must question his bias and stir his centers. A good story leaves an impression, and the best long after they have been read. There is no thing certain. How can it be written into stone one thing with the cosmic certainty of its truth, yet how can it at another extreme be said that truth doesn't exist. That all is relative when there is plenty that repeats.
Therefore the writer must follow the thread where it goes. Be it simple or not depends on the story which in turn depends on the writer and his experience. Style is a product of these things and not an element of them. A style maybe worth imitating in as much as it is worth understanding the author. But not much more. Style is in so many ways the extension of the writer's personality. Therefore questions of the best are silly. The writer should ultimately look to himself for guidance more than others. The writer should celebrate the mind and its instinct and trust it.
And ultimately the best thing to know, is oneself. All else then follows.
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