Thinking on Style

 Style. I think I have none. Well, maybe a style like Theodore Dreiser, the most disparaged American writer.

I was reading a review from the Brisbane Times about Cormac McCarthy's latest, and ran across this paragraph:

On almost every page some Faulknerian dazzle finds you, and while his language verges on the purple or overripe, it’s thrilling to return to writing as unashamedly biblical and rhetorical as this, when compared with the dutiful sentences and sturdy, balanced paragraphs of contemporary prose.

If you go back to my post Across the Universe to Muncie, I excerpted some short stories, and commented on their style. They make me think of the "dutiful sentences" mentioned above, and there is the difference between me and those stories. Maybe this is an MFA thing? Running the grammar checker through "Exemplary Employee" turned up two, three, sentences of more than 40 words. The grammar checker hated them. I kept them because they said what I wanted in the way I wanted to express myself. They were not sturdy, dutiful.

 

One person I know laughs whenever I mention Marcel Proust. I am probably the last person anyone would think as being capable of appreciating Proust. Well, what I am about to say is based on reading only the first two of his novels: he is brilliant even in translation. I find a musicality in his work. He managed to convey the emotional attachment of the insignificant. I would love to do what Proust did. That I cannot will surprise no one. I do not know that one can say his prose is sturdy or dutiful or balanced, but it is alive and lively and unbalanced in its eruptions of feelings.

I enjoy reading Jose Saramago (thank you, Joel C. for the introduction), but I cannot write a 45-page sentence. Reading such a sentence from Saramago gives me joy and wonder and delight. His prose I would not say is sturdy or dutiful or balanced.

 

I never expected publication. What I wanted to do is write about the people and situations I knew about. I wanted my writing to be not only competent, but also to convey their feelings about life and my feelings about those characters. I read widely and deeply as possible to get a sense of what I was about, to gain some experience of competent writing. However, I do not write with the training of an MFA behind me, or reside within such chic confines as Brooklyn. Yes, one story has been picked up, and I await its publication. I am more surprised than anyone else. None of the rejections have ridiculed my writing; what most said indicated to me a wariness towards my subjects. Part of me wants to write the kind of sentences that are acceptable for publication. Even more, I wish I could write like Cormac McCarthy or William Faulkner or Proust or Saramago.

I gave up too early and started again too late for a style. That is just how it is. do not repeat my mistakes.

 

sch 10/27/22