While in grad school (late 80’s), one of my sociology research classes was a project contracted by a do-gooder org. to explore the need for child abuse services in Temecula, CA. The 12 of us worked individually on different aspects —I interviewed “key informants”, such as judges, welfare workers, clergy, etc. At the conclusion of the project, we combined our efforts for the presentation. The prof was ecstatic. It read like one person had done the entire project. We were all excellent academic writers. And no sentence began with a pronoun.
Style matters. When it comes to objective information, its communication must be clear, precise, and concise. What about story-telling?
After reading your article, it seems to me that you’re saying the answer to that question is: it depends. When you re-wrote the Melville description of the bar, I think you captured the mood better than the longer Melville version. It seemed to me that the biggest flaw in ‘classic’ story-telling is the the author gets lost in the words, and forgets he IS telling a story. (So, get on with it!)
However, I can also see that, reading in the time of no visual/tech assistance, words were the only way to get people lost in new worlds. (Especially, if one lived in a place called Iowa and had never seen a whaling ship, a dock seedy bar, or a whale up close.) How an author reaches his audience is irrelevant as long as he does reach it.
As for Faulkner, his expertise,being on the losing side of a war, prepared him well to lay the foundation of Southern Gothic. Them damn Yankees wanted that dizzying feeling or triumph to last, and Faulkner gave them all they wanted by confirming their righteousness, their bias, and their fear the South might rise again. Why not let them wallow in the slow, agonizing death of a defeated culture?
What Faulkner couldn’t see, and I don’t fault him for this, is that he not only co-invented a genre by his style and content, but also laid the groundwork for an industry of grievance politics. (Ah find that immensely inner’estin’ ‘cause ah lives in a border state, and the War of Northern Aggression is still bein’ fought. Ah was raised up poor, mahself, but my Mama didn’t own but one slave: me.)
The above parenthetical sentence has a purpose. I like your Faulkner-inspired paragraph about the swimming hole. The sentence “My grandfather took a friend and me to the river, and it was his idea we go skinny dipping, leaving our britches on the deck and jumping into that cloudy water the same way we came splashing out of our mothers’ nether regions; and what a funny thought—now that I think it—she being his daughter and all; but all things circle round, and all things are made true in the fullness of time.” is so well-written as an example of what the essay is about, I was blown away.
I also found it a great example of tongue-in-cheek humor —whether you meant it to be one or not. First, there’s Gandfather urging young men to get naked with him to swim. (uhhh-huh.) Then there the POV of writer, that he, of unknown age, thinking about his origin — which immediately made me think of Gustave Courbet’s The Mother Of Us All, the up-close and personal display of mama’s ‘nether regions.’ (okay) What young man skinny-dipping DOESN’T think about that? No one, ever, and no one comes out “splashing,” conscious of his — playful side? I admit, I laughed, and laughed, and laughed.
That left me with the conclusion that you’re right. Write enough and you’ll develop a style that breaks the rules of rhetoric, but can sell a lot of books and movies even if you’re a lousy writer, Stephen King.
The 80s were my jr high - college years, and until I left home for USC, I spent them in Orange County, but I'm originally from the south and after 20 years in California, returned to the south for another 20. The last few years, I've moved up around St Louis.
lol. I think you may enjoy To Hell with William Faulkner, as it’s partially about whether style matters at all.
While in grad school (late 80’s), one of my sociology research classes was a project contracted by a do-gooder org. to explore the need for child abuse services in Temecula, CA. The 12 of us worked individually on different aspects —I interviewed “key informants”, such as judges, welfare workers, clergy, etc. At the conclusion of the project, we combined our efforts for the presentation. The prof was ecstatic. It read like one person had done the entire project. We were all excellent academic writers. And no sentence began with a pronoun.
Style matters. When it comes to objective information, its communication must be clear, precise, and concise. What about story-telling?
After reading your article, it seems to me that you’re saying the answer to that question is: it depends. When you re-wrote the Melville description of the bar, I think you captured the mood better than the longer Melville version. It seemed to me that the biggest flaw in ‘classic’ story-telling is the the author gets lost in the words, and forgets he IS telling a story. (So, get on with it!)
However, I can also see that, reading in the time of no visual/tech assistance, words were the only way to get people lost in new worlds. (Especially, if one lived in a place called Iowa and had never seen a whaling ship, a dock seedy bar, or a whale up close.) How an author reaches his audience is irrelevant as long as he does reach it.
As for Faulkner, his expertise,being on the losing side of a war, prepared him well to lay the foundation of Southern Gothic. Them damn Yankees wanted that dizzying feeling or triumph to last, and Faulkner gave them all they wanted by confirming their righteousness, their bias, and their fear the South might rise again. Why not let them wallow in the slow, agonizing death of a defeated culture?
What Faulkner couldn’t see, and I don’t fault him for this, is that he not only co-invented a genre by his style and content, but also laid the groundwork for an industry of grievance politics. (Ah find that immensely inner’estin’ ‘cause ah lives in a border state, and the War of Northern Aggression is still bein’ fought. Ah was raised up poor, mahself, but my Mama didn’t own but one slave: me.)
The above parenthetical sentence has a purpose. I like your Faulkner-inspired paragraph about the swimming hole. The sentence “My grandfather took a friend and me to the river, and it was his idea we go skinny dipping, leaving our britches on the deck and jumping into that cloudy water the same way we came splashing out of our mothers’ nether regions; and what a funny thought—now that I think it—she being his daughter and all; but all things circle round, and all things are made true in the fullness of time.” is so well-written as an example of what the essay is about, I was blown away.
I also found it a great example of tongue-in-cheek humor —whether you meant it to be one or not. First, there’s Gandfather urging young men to get naked with him to swim. (uhhh-huh.) Then there the POV of writer, that he, of unknown age, thinking about his origin — which immediately made me think of Gustave Courbet’s The Mother Of Us All, the up-close and personal display of mama’s ‘nether regions.’ (okay) What young man skinny-dipping DOESN’T think about that? No one, ever, and no one comes out “splashing,” conscious of his — playful side? I admit, I laughed, and laughed, and laughed.
That left me with the conclusion that you’re right. Write enough and you’ll develop a style that breaks the rules of rhetoric, but can sell a lot of books and movies even if you’re a lousy writer, Stephen King.
The 80s were my jr high - college years, and until I left home for USC, I spent them in Orange County, but I'm originally from the south and after 20 years in California, returned to the south for another 20. The last few years, I've moved up around St Louis.
I’m originally from San Diego, CA….but, for the last 25 years, I’ve lived in Missouri, Iowa and then finally Kentucky. Small world, eh?