Friday Column: A Matter of Style

A couple weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending a performance of Carl Orff's 1937 piece for orchestra and voice, Carmina Burana. You all know this piece. You've heard the first bars in Cesar's Palace commercials or, more recently, on Capital One credit card commercials. The high-pitched, frenzied singing of Latin and the apocalyptic orchestrals sound like a storm of fire coming down around you.

Or that was the way it should have sounded, except that this momentous opening had been thoroughly dulled by a lifetime of hearing it excerpted in TV and film. Instead of fire and brimstone, I heard something vaguely familiar. Oh, this old thing.

It's the same thing that happens when you hear, or rather fail to hear, the first notes of Beethoven's Fifth. This motif originally connoted the iron tyranny of fate, but now slides by like just another jingle. Everybody's heard it, so now it's just something you drum your fingers along to. It doesn't strike you upside the head like it's supposed to.

I don't like this, but not because I disparage the commercialization of culture. I don't like this because Cesar's Palace and Capital One robbed me of the experience of hearing Carmina Burana for the first time. I listen to classical music partly to hear things I've never heard before. The moment when you hear a new melody can be magical, it can be electric, it can make you shiver. Part of the thrill of listening to a new composition is the potential that you'll discover something incredible. I would have discovered something incredible when I listened to the Burana, except that I'd already heard it ad nauseum.

In this way, literature for me is like classical music. When I read, I want to read things that I've never read before. I want to see thoughts expressed in ways that make them new, books plotted in ways I never imagined they could be plotted, novels construed in ways that no one's ever thought of. When this happens, it's wonderful, but when it doesn't, a book feels like the first bars of Beethoven's Fifth.

I didn't always read like this. In years past I wouldn't pay as much attention to style. I figured a thought was a thought, and it didn't matter much what container a writer put it into. My search for books to read didn't emphasize authors that were approaching old forms in new ways. Difficult prose wasn't something to be weighed, pondered, and maybe savored, but just an added obstacle toward determining what was being said.

As I've read more and more I've found myself paying greater and greater attention to style. The book that really got me thinking in this direction was a potent little volume called The Sound on the Page. Without fetishizing style, Ben Yagoda inquires into what it consists of, how great authors have created their own, and what it takes to maintain it through the course of a career. This book, more than anything, got me moving down the road of thinking about a book's style.

I wouldn't call myself a "style snob" because I think people take this way too far (I've heard of literary journal editors rejecting a story because the first sentence sounded too "first sentency"--ridiculous). Moreover, "snob" implies that I gauge prose against a rigid set of standards that I've already determined, but this isn't what I do.

If I had to pick a word, I think I'd choose "connoisseur." I'm always on the lookout for novels that are doing things that I haven't seen done, and part of this is not knowing exactly what I'm looking for. It's a bit like that famous definition of pornography--I know it when I see it, but I couldn't tell you exactly what it consists of. And when I don't see it, I know because a novel leaves me with a tiny, telltale emptiness. In terms of plot, structure, characterization, a book may be a good book--it may even be a great book--but if it's not working for me stylistically I'll feel something lacking, a little tinge of disappointment. More often than not, when I feel that tinge a book will fail to stay with me.

Where literature is concerned, I'm a great believer in the medium being the message. If you want facts and theories about the world, I think you can do a lot better than fiction. But if you want books that communicate the feeling of a certain experience, then literature is your best bet. And most often there's a lot of wisdom bound up in this communication. When I look at the list of books I read in 2006 (on the sidebar to the right) the books that remain freshest in my mind aren't those that overwhelmed me with deep thoughts, but those that communicated a unique view through the way in which they were written.

I see titles like Mulligan Stew, which showed me how to make art out of cliches, Michael Martone, a book that so defies conventional boundaries that it's maker simply calls it a "fiction," Wittgenstein's Mistress, a novel composed almost completely of simple declarative sentences, Wizard of the Crow, which adapted the conventions of Kenyan storytelling into an epic novel, Hopscotch, a book that communicates freedom--or the opposite--by letting you decide how much you read, Europe Central, which distilled the madness of fascism into a series of interlocked moral quandaries.

A single volume of Nietzsche will furnish you with far more quotable theories about the world than any of these. But Nietzsche tells you what to think. These novels, like all great art, embody interesting ways of viewing the world and rely on you to decide what they mean.

This is why I don't like to read much about a book before I read a book. (Reviews are an exception, since most are short and general enough to only pique your interest without really getting into the mechanics of a book.) That would be like hearing the best parts of Carmina Burana in an advertisement. I'd rather have the opportunity to discover these things for myself.

These moments of discovery are what put the fire in reading for me. David Foster Wallace once described it as like the ping of a Geiger Counter. I think that's a good metaphor for it. I read for a lot of different reasons, but if I had to choose one I'd say that I read for these moments.

Comments

[Alex]

I'm curious what you think of style in works in translation vs. works in their original language. I have a pretty strong preference for reading works that were written in English, because I feel like I'm getting a certain style dimension that's stripped away when a work is translated from another language. Reading a novel in English, written by a master stylist like Nabokov or Joyce or Fitzgerald, just feels like a "fuller" experience to me.

It's a shame, because there's so much wonderful literature written in languages other than English, and while we can still appreciate it on a number of other levels, one of the most subtle and distinctive ones is lost on us.

[Robert Arnold]

I think it's very apt to consider style in writing
within the context of hearing a certain piece of
music. I often think of the writers that I like in
musical terms - as having perfect pitch and
rhythm. To me it's as if the best writers know
exactly the song they're singing and it's
reflected very specifically in the tone and
cadence of their language. If I can *hear* the
writing as I read it - it almost doesn't matter
what the writer is writing about - it's really
more about enjoying the interior sound it conjures
for me. Some 15 years ago I bought a fun book
which addressed exactly this - "First Paragraphs"
by Donald Newlove. I think it's out of print now,
but he gives you a guided tour of the first
paragraphs of his favorite books. His enthusiasm
and passion is infectious, and he's very keyed
into the music of language - and I have to say
Newlove more or less made me aware that it was
precisely this musical quality that I enjoyed most
as a reader.

[amcorrea]

Alex, I wouldn't say that style gets completely lost in translation. It's not quite the same experience as reading the original, but good translators are fully aware of this and are particularly interested in communicating a work's style. That's the challenge of translation--otherwise, it would just be interpretation. By all means, keep reading translated books.

I must say that Edith Grossman's translation of Don Quixote and Gregory Rabassa's translation of Cien años de soledad are particularly amazing. (In the case of the later, García Márquez has even gone so far as to say that he thinks Rabassa's translation is better than his original!)

Excellent post, Scott. I admire how well you communicate your thoughts on reading and literature.

[Scott]

On translations, I agree that it would be better to read it in the original language, but I think I'm more with amcorrea in that good translators can bring readers something of the original. I guess in this sense I'm more of a "poeticist" than a literalist--I want translators to give me their impression of the author's style rednered into another language, not a word-for-word rendering.

Regarding Robert's comment on music, as I've listened to classical music more and more closely, I've noticed more parallels between it and literature, from the level of phrases and melodies to the larger structures of novels and symphonies. I think there's a lot of potential in comparisons between the two, and I do appreciate prose that "sounds" a certain way in my head.

[Steven Augustine]

Certain aspects of a "master stylist's" style often devolve into distracting tics and trademarks. E.g., obviously Hemingway, of course, but what about Nabokov's tendency to over-describe (there's a passage from Pnin in which he describes a squirrel as having an "oval face"), or DeLillo's (as much as I love his work) weakness for turning descriptive sentences into aphorisms?

Great stylists are like movie-stars...they're always, essentially, playing themselves...but I wonder if actual *great writing* is more often done by artists who fall short of being household names by being too fluid, too mercurial...too *good* to parody? Any writer with some chops can pull off a wicked burlesque of Martin Amis (in fact, I've read a few); I can't help feeling that represents some small failure.

I'm an avid reader of many of the alpha dogs of style but I'm wary as I read them, too.

[Sylvia]

If we're talking about style icon in literature Hemmingway is my all time favorite. Style is so simple and quiet in literature.It's like the music in your head that comes when you figure out the presence of 'word music'.

The BlueRectangle Crew

[Scott]

Steven,

I agree that some stylists take their style too far (opening it up to parody), but I think that this is what I like about them. There's something singular about an author who's willing to take his vision to such lengths, and it makes his fiction compelling for me.

Admittedly, this can turn sour quickly. Some styles just aren't meant to be taken to such lengths, and they come off looking gimmicky or amateuristic.

[Steven Augustine]

Scott:

"There's something singular about an author who's willing to take his vision to such lengths, and it makes his fiction compelling for me."

Absolutely. The noted stylists who can (generally) avoid the pitfall of allowing style to overpower the truth of the given passage earn my trust (along with my pocket money).

[Laura Stamps]

This is something we definitely have in common! Even though I am a novelist now, I started out in the writing business 19 years ago as a poet, and I consider it some of the best training I could have ever received. It taught me how to hear the music in words, to love experimental formats (in fiction), and to write tight and beautiful sentences. Thus, like you, I am always on the lookout for that exceptional novel.

I have come across a few that just floored me. "I Was Amelia Earhart" by Jane Mendolsohn is a wonderfully creative novel in terms of experimental style and mood. "I Lock the Door Upon Myself" by Joyce Carol Oates is one of the most awesome novellas I have ever read, another treat for those who enjoy experimental formats that create a mystical mood. I have lost track how many times I have read "Wintering" by Kate Moses. It is a novel about the last year of Sylvia Plath's life and written so poetically you can tell Moses hovered over every word, making sure each one was the right one in the right place, creating a novel that is so beautiful the words just roll off your tongue.

I guess you could say the novels I remember are the ones that gave me an exceptional ride, no matter where I end up. The music in the words, experimental formats that work, and most of all the ride...that's what matters most to me as a reader and a writer.

[Nigel Beale]

Hi Scott,

The more I read your blog, the more impressed I am with it. Thank you for writing.

I recently read The Sound on the Page and was similarly impressed by it. Probably because I've always read for style.I typically judge a book by the number of choice phrases it contains...profound observations and humour expressed memorably. This is why the Russians are so great.

While Martin Amis may not be as profound, I can't think of any other contemporary writer whose prose gives me as much pleasure.