Tuesday 13 October 2009

What Makes A Good Writer? By Zadie Smith (6th Part)

This time Zadie Smith's question is whether we should follow the norm or rebel against it. For parts 1-5, click here, here, here, here and here.

Writing as inauthenticity

Here is another novelist, in another email, answering the question: "How would you define literary failure?"

"I was once asked by a high-school student in an audience in Chennai: 'Why, sir, are you so eager to please?' That's how I tend to define failure - work done for what Heidegger called "Das Mann", the indeterminate "They" who hang over your shoulder, warping your sense of judgment what he (not me) would call your authenticity."

That novelist, like me, I suppose like all of us who came of age under postmodernity, is naturally sceptical of the concept of authenticity, especially what is called "cultural authenticity" - after all, how can any of us be more or less authentic than we are? We were taught that authenticity was meaningless. How, then, to deal with the fact that when we account for our failings, as writers, the feeling that is strongest is a betrayal of one's deepest, authentic self?

That sounds very grand: maybe it's better to start at the simplest denomination of literary betrayal, the critic's favourite, the cliche. What is a cliche except language passed down by Das Mann, used and shop-soiled by so many before you, and in no way the correct jumble of language for the intimate part of your vision you meant to express? With a cliche you have pandered to a shared understanding, you have taken a short-cut, you have re-presented what was pleasing and familiar rather than risked what was true and strange. It is an aesthetic and an ethical failure: to put it very simply, you have not told the truth.

When writers admit to failures they like to admit to the smallest ones - for example, in each of my novels somebody "rummages in their purse" for something because I was too lazy and thoughtless and unawake to separate "purse" from its old, persistent friend "rummage". To rummage through a purse is to sleepwalk through a sentence - a small enough betrayal of self, but a betrayal all the same. To speak personally, the very reason I write is so that I might not sleepwalk through my entire life. But it is easy to admit that a sentence makes you wince less easy to confront the fact that for many writers there will be paragraphs, whole characters, whole books through which one sleepwalks and for which "inauthentic" is truly the correct term.


Image by Garrincha. To visit his online shop, click here








Copyright 2009

Next Post: 'Nowhere in Africa' (Review) to be published on Thursday 15th October at 11:59pm (GMT)

29 comments:

  1. Love the new image and look! Very Halloween and Dia De Los Muertos! Zadie truly nailed it with this one. Although inauthentic isn't always the same as lazy writing, they are both situations any writer strives to avoid.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you for sharing Zadie and this illustrator with us. Both go together like frijoles negro y arroz blanco. Love your new header and quote. Fantastic.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you, again, for sharing this with us. And I do love the orange and the new header.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This is an excellent series, which makes me think about writing.

    Perhaps an "inauthentic" writer is simply one
    who is fearful of going deep into those dark places of our soul where authentic writing drags us. Every author writes for different reasons and what one sees as a "literary betrayal" may, to other authors, be sufficient unto their reasons for writing. Is it then a betrayal, or only a betrayal on someone else's terms?

    ReplyDelete
  5. "Filming is natural, but editing is political" I love this quote.Fantastic!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I have always thought that the success or failure of any work of art was measured by the degree to which it matched the artist's original (or amended)vision.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Editing is political, the personal is political, so the editing of writing becomes political when trying to root out the 'inauthentic'. I love the admission about being too lazy to separate "rummage" from "purse". Orwell would approve :-)

    ReplyDelete
  8. A frivolous word about your Groucho persona..at THE BALL..please check my AM blog to see your photo in full glory! Thanks..and back to seriousness..

    ReplyDelete
  9. You have to be true to yourself for sure. Neat new look!

    ReplyDelete
  10. I like your new colors, Cuban! Festive for sure. As for Zadie, well, nobody wants to read writing that sounds like it's "put together" to please. And so many writers do that, unfortunately. And they're published! Give me the quiet writer whose soul I can see inside just by reading a few words, and I'll be happy for life. Thanks for sharing this!

    Nevine

    ReplyDelete
  11. "eager to please"...i guess this is one of the reasonable explanations to failure or non recognition of some creative work. But then, we or "they" at times do not like to be confronted to new or bold patterns or concepts.
    Authenticity in art is such a broad and complex subject...
    Great post Cuban!

    ReplyDelete
  12. I agree with Zadie Smith on this one: clichés are lazy. The only place for them would be in dialogue to highlight a character’s lack of imagination. I occasionally trip into them myself in a first draft, but luckily my husband plays cliché police.

    I love this line: “To rummage through a purse is to sleepwalk through a sentence….”

    Thanks for sharing this series with us!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Cuban: This has been such an interesting series. The 6th Part makes me think: as in writing, so in life. We can be a cliche, we can sleepwalk, and it is so easy to allow ourselves to be inauthentic. The challenge of every life is to wake up and be the author of your own actions.

    I'm afraid that in my exuberance to capture thoughts on the written page, I fall into many of the negative habits Zadie Smith describes. Then I console myself saying, but I am not a writer. What an inauthentic copout! I will now try to wake up, pay attention, and be a more authentic master of my words.

    Thanks for the nudge!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Many thanks to you all for your kind words.

    Surely Zadie is referring to writers who write, at least, in English, or in their mother tongue. Spare a thought then for the writer who delves into a tongue different from his/her maternal one.

    And you know what? Some of us are sleep-walking cliches. There are two reasons for this: insuficient vocabulary, or an abundance of it. The former is easier to analyse, the latter less so. With the latter, what you have is many terms and phrases, but only one or two will click with you reader. So, for me 'to rummage through a purse' is poetic because I wasn't born hearing or reading that phrase. I don't think it a cliche for the same reason, the sentence 'there's a light at the end of the tunnel' is not a cliche either. As non-natives, some of us absorb the meaning of that phrase first and then make an aesthetic judgement upon it. And still we fall into cliches because to us, to me at least, savouring the sentence is as important as the impact they have, intellectually or not, on the context.

    In the last couple of days I have come across an array of poems, columns and short works of fiction that give the heave-ho to that 'eagerness to please'. May the authors of those pieces keep up their good labour.

    Many thanks for your feedback.

    Greetings from London.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Fantástico artículo Cubano. Me ha hecho pensar mucho!

    ReplyDelete
  16. Thanks for your comment on my blog...nature vs. nuture - you've given me an ideo to write about.

    much love

    ReplyDelete
  17. I'm glad I don't have to worry about anyone looking over my shoulder! :)

    ReplyDelete
  18. I like that phrase about trying to avoid sleepwalking through a sentence so that authenticity is maintained...again another one to use with my students...Greetings from Mexico

    ReplyDelete
  19. To me, this was a really good part of the series. Self-scrutinization here we come! (:

    ReplyDelete
  20. Oh, when will we learn that what is true and strange conquers all...?

    and thanks, I'm back to normal (if you can call it that) and I do realize that I am not a god or anything much less

    ReplyDelete
  21. I agree to a point. But I do think cliches exist for a reason - people understand them and they make sense.

    If I say he had jet black hair, you'll know immediately what I mean. And it is a more pleasant description than "he had tar black hair".

    As with everything, cliches should only be used in moderation ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  22. Cuban in London, I really appreciated your take as a "non-native" on cliches. Even after years of seeming nativeness on my part, I am often surprised by language which is new only to me, but not to someone who is a native English speaker or writer. Though I strive to avoid cliches, I recognize that in my hybridness, I will likely write with a hybrid sensibility. I hope that those critiquing my work will point out to me when that works and when it doesn't. Once again, a column which makes me reflect. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Another fascinating and thought-provoking post, Mr. Cuban. Authenticity in art is something I question time and again. In fact - albeit in another context - I did a post about it recently. The Shock of the New. I'd be very interested to hear your opinion on that!

    I'm very much looking forward to your post on 'Nowhere in Africa'. A compelling autobiography - and one that does not in any way, shape or form aim to please. It was a book that reverberated with rich resonance for me..and one that I will treasure always.

    PS. I have an honorary 'dong' for you on my blog. Monday's post.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Many thanks for your kind comments Judith, in response to your hybridness, ditto here. And you know what? I think that the market for that hybridness is ripe now, what with globalisation and all that jazz.

    Greetings from London.

    ReplyDelete
  25. I agree with everything in this article. But I particularly like this sentence: the very reason I write is so that I might not sleepwalk through my entire life...

    I think that's why I write.

    (I look forward to your next post. I haven't read the book, but I loved the film... )

    ReplyDelete
  26. Hello London....As a non-native English speaker, I think you have a distinct advantage in that your take on the language is fresh and alert, far more so than if you had heard it from the time you were born.
    My Francophone companion's use of English in both speech and writing is unconventional and eloquent - something I try very hard to achieve but which comes quite naturally to him.

    ReplyDelete
  27. I like this about writing, and it carries through to life---to be true to our authentic selves.
    Socrates spoke of it how many 1000's of years ago and we are still having difficulty with it now...
    it's like the movie Ground Hog day, we have to keep doing it over and over until we get it right.
    Once we learn to truly be our authentic selves there will certainly be another lesson to learn...
    ka na?! (:)
    Thanks for this continuing insightful salon. I enjoy visiting and 'waking up' to the discussions you present.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Many thanks for your wonderful feedback.

    Greetings from London.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Lots of people want to be writers (LOTS!)...and specifically lots of people want to get to the point where other people call them writers too. For me one of the big dividers between the writers and the wannabes is simple and it's that odd blend that is talent/skill. A writer (for me) is someone who is good with language...so good that they at least seem a 'natural'. They make you think 'how could they possibly do anything else?'.
    But then of course it's partly down to taste too. My idea of what is 'good with language' might be very different to someone else's.
    x

    ReplyDelete

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...