Recently in The Library Category

I wanted to "sit down" with Athol Dickson and discuss the craft of writing a little bit. He kindly agreed. This is our conversation.

J. Brisbin (J): One of the things that really interests me about your development as a writer is your (can I say "Fine"?) Art and Architecture background. I personally see myself as an "artist" even though I’m really not; not in a classical sense, anyway. I hope to demonstrate artistic merit in my writing, but I’m not Rembrandt, nor will I ever be able to execute the form at that level (though all writers probably think of themselves of at least being capable of having that level of mastery...if they wanted to...but of course the reason they’re not masters is because they don’t really want to be...but I digress). You’ve talked a lot about the "craft" of writing. Is your sense of what makes good writing informed by that artistic background? Is the study of Art helpful to writers, even though it may not seem directly related?
 
Athol Dickson (AD): The idea of "the craft of writing" can be unpacked in different ways. Not all of them relate to art. To me at least, it can call up thoughts of craftsmanship in the sense of correct structure, grammar, spelling and so forth. That is not what I mean by "art". It can be about communication in the sense of the accurate transfer of facts from mind to mind. That is not art, either. It can even imply a transfer of emotions, which are accurate to the extent that the reader ends up feeling exactly as the author hoped she would. But while we’re getting closer to art, we’re still not quite there. With the understanding that our discussion is limited to fiction, the craft of writing begins to be informed by art when it enters into something much less easily explained. For me, "art" is any form of expression that intentionally explores an ineffable aspect of the human condition. The word "ineffable" in my personal definition is the key that separates "art" from "craft." An articulate conversation or the numbers on a clock may involve correct and accurate communication, but they are not necessarily art. When one angry driver expresses his emotions by rudely cutting off another driver in traffic, he may transfer his emotion very precisely, but that too is not art. (These examples could be portals into artistic expression, but in the interest of communication we must draw the line somewhere, otherwise "art" becomes synonymous with "everything" and looses practical value as a concept. One cannot really think of "everything," nor can one apply it to one’s work in practical terms.)
 

I've been going back over some of the old posts and organizing things a little better now that I've converted the site over to MovableType 4. I ran across this little piece of creative non-fiction that I wrote as a posting on the school's bulletin board in our discussion of Herman Melville's story "Bartleby the Scrivener". I have to say, it's a work of pure brilliance! Or, something:

An Analysis of Melville's 'Bartleby the Scrivener'

I felt like I should fish it out of obscurity because I liked it so much. Sometimes, you just end up having a love affair with your own words...

Since his book (Re)Thinking Worldview is coming out on October 12th, I asked J. Mark Bertrand if he would mind talking to me about a wide range of topics. He kindly agreed. This is our conversation:

J. Brisbin (J): We post-moderns are forced to deal with a steadily-increasing amount of information every day. Much of it an everyday Johnane (politically-correct cross between a John and Jane…nevermind) would not have had access to a few generations ago. Discussing something as intricate as Worldview would have been conversation fodder for intellectuals and philosophers. Yet here we are, normal working stiffs, talking about it.

J. Mark Bertrand (JMB): You mean "talking" about it. We're still using the old terminology, but the process, as you say, has changed.

(Ed. note: this is a post I made on the school discussion board regarding our recent tackling of Melville's short story "Bartleby the Scrivener")

Fasten your seat belts. [knuckle cracking] The only thing I ask is that you still respect me in the morning.

I think poor, mistweeted Bartleby (who is just misunderstood and needs a hug) is important not because there are similarities between Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener” and the atheistic philosophy of a prominent, though dead, German philosopher (a perpetual fascination with whom continues to elude my understanding) or, for that matter, that of a long-dead Austrian coke-addict. If Marx and Freud were on the North Pole, I would be. . .oh, I don’t know. . .floating in an anti-gravity penthouse somewhere above the red spot of Jupiter. So I won’t use either of those esteemed gentlemen’s yardsticks. While his antiestablishmentarianism (Scrabble score: 34) is an obvious and important aspect to his character (something that strongly appeals to my rebellious sensibilities), his role as an allegory for the under-appreciated masses of worker-bee seems to be the clincher for what draws people to his character.

In any analysis, you have to make some assumptions:

1) Bartleby “prefers” to work as a scrivener. There is nothing in the text to indicate that he takes the low-paying, somewhat-unskilled job of copyist because someone is threatening to remove any of several arguably necessary bodily appendages with a pair of safety scissors. (translation: no one made him do it on pain of becoming a eunuch)

2) Copyists are essential to the transaction of business in Bartleby’s world.

3) Owing to (2), the work of copyists is not arbitrary or superfluous and has real, measurable economic value and is in fact the production of a commodity (the copied document) and not an ethereal stand-in for otherwise unclassifiable labor.

4) Who’s Charles Babbage? (translation: computers, and thus electronic office equipment, don’t yet exist to make all of their lives soooo much better)

5) Owing to (4), trained chimpanzees would actually work better but they continually soil themselves and often throw it at each other.

Now, let’s dive in, shall we?

On the question: Is Bartleby oppressed?

Exhibit A: He is never once coerced into doing anything immoral or against his will. He “prefers not to,” so he doesn’t. The prosecution rests.

You’re resting already?

I’m tired. It’s after midnight for Christ’s sake! Oh, alright, fine.

Exhibit B: Can’t Bartleby be characterized as a whining, sniveling child?

Objection! Hearsay. Badgering the witness.

Your honor, I withdraw the question.

On the question: Is Bartleby alienated from his work in a way that demoralizes and dehumanizes him so much that he willingly prostitutes himself because he has no other choice?

Exhibit B (the real one): Owing to assumption (3) and exhibit “A” regarding the question of oppression, how can Bartleby be said to have been alienated? Wouldn’t that imply that an external force—either a third party or the very nature of the work itself—acts on Bartleby to enforce that alienation? But can’t that alienation instead be attributed to his own actions and “preferences” first, rather than immediately assigning culpability for said alienation to said third party? If he’s not alienated by his own choice, by what mechanism can the work he does do the alienating? Isn’t “work” just a euphemism for an outpouring of ourselves? No, gentle-men and women of the jury, Work, with a capital “W”, is not an entity or an active force. Work doesn’t alienate people, People alienate People.

Exhibit C: How many attempts are made at bringing Bartleby in from the steppes to eliminate his isolation and alienation?

Objection, your honor! Calls for hearsay. Also cunningly alludes to a German novel by the venerable Hermann Hesse, who doesn’t write until after the time period in which Bartleby lived. By the way, your honor, the defense believes there should be a law against changing the subject merely for the purposes of interjecting humor.

I agree, counsel. Objection sustained. The jury is instructed to disregard the prosecutor’s last question. Pull that again, counsellor, and I’ll find you in contempt. [points gavel at prosecutor]

Exhibit C II: …

Objection!

What now?

How can counsel introduce exhibit 102 when he just tried to introduce exhibit “C”?

Good question. Counselor?

Those weren’t roman numerals. I meant exhibit SEE-TWO, SEE-THE-SECOND, SEE-JUNIOR, not SEE-EYE-EYE.

Very well. Carry on.

Exhibit C [prosecutor holds up two fingers to defense counsel] (2): Owing to assumptions (2) and (3) and exhibit “B” (the real one), can’t it be said that Bartleby blissfully reflects the hypocrisy of contending that proletariat Bartleby has no value other than that of his labor while maintaining that he must hold that labor in perpetuity or risk it being devalued within the false consciousness established by his capitalist employer and since God is either dead or stuck on the train to Poughkepsie and can’t testify actually has NO value?

Objection! I have no idea what the hell he just said!

Overruled. A sentence of 80 words and only one comma! Counsellor, you need a hobby.

I’ll take that as a compliment.

It wasn’t.

In closing, fair folk of the jury: I’m not a smart man, but I know what Love is.

Objection! That movie made me cry!

Overruled. Wait a minute, you can’t object during closing arguments!

As I was saying, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Bartleby was what he chose to be. Like the lazy servant who buried the one talent entrusted to him in the ground, Bartleby squandered the opportunities he had to realize his potential value. A value the defense and prosecution both agree was waiting right there.

(Ed. note: This discussion comes from an email list in which the topic was, essentially, "why isn't there more fiction for guys?"):

I too wish there was more fiction for guys. It's a curiously circular thing. If guys don't buy fiction then publishers don't think guys read so they don't produce fiction for guys but then guys don't have anything to buy so they can't show the publishers that they do, in fact, read.

I'm in the ACFW and I was on their email list for a while, but I was absolutely drowning in estrogen, so I dropped off. I have a feeling it's going to be that way in my future professional career as well.

So what accounts for this? Feminism.

I think it's silly that I should have to qualify what I say here, but I just know someone is going to think that I'm an advocate of revoking women's right to vote or something stupid like that. I'm speaking from my own personal experience in literature classes (like yesterday, so this is not many moons ago). There has been, for many years, a push by feminists to have much of literature reinterpreted according to their own viewpoint. I have more female professors than male and they each claim "women's studies" as a focus of their own professional interests (could you imagine how quickly the Anti-Christian Liberals Union would be knocking at the college's door if they created a "Men's Studies" program?), and boy are they hostile towards men. Listening to them, you'd have to conclude that men are evil, horrible, oppressive, hypocritical, self-aggrandizing, and ultimately, unimportant cockroaches of beings and not fit to wear their own skin. I come away from my literature classes thinking that the prevailing feeling in academia is that women want to crush men under their heel and not just level the playing field, but tilt it in their advantage. I have yet to be in a discussion where the male characters in a story were strong, sympathetic characters. They're either maniacal mad-scientists (from Hawthorne's The Birth-Mark), sexual privateers (Rev. Dimmesdale from Scarlet Letter), or impotent nobodies (Bartleby the Scrivener). And that was just yesterday.

So where is there room for men in today's literature? THERE IS NONE. Maleness is hated in academia. An honorable male character is relegated to historical or fantastical contexts (or, as in romance, remade in the likeness of a woman, rather than accept men as the flawed beings they are). Every where I turn in my literature classes and every time I try to put in my own two cents, I get blown off. I am one of two males in my 700-level lit class of 11. Last semester's Faulkner class was also the same demographic. It's been me and this other graduate student in these classes for a year now.

So what do I conclude? Men are not wanted except when they exhibit female characteristics. If you want to be a "real man" then you're deluding yourself because there is no such thing and even if there were, you'd be stoned for aspiring to that because it's a slippery slope to oppression and male dominance. You can't have male characters that are really men because those just aren't interesting (unless they're a watered-down, put-down-upon allegory for Marxism…then that's okay). Oh but what about Clive Cussler's books and Larry McMurtry, et al? Not literary fiction, but popular. And unrealistic—Romantic even (I mean that in the 19th-century literary tradition meaning, not Harlequin meaning). No man as flawed as we all are could possibly be those people.

Yes, I'm bitter. I'm angry at the establishment even though it won't do a lick of good and I would get tarred and feathered for ever saying these things in any of my classes. I would be accused of trying to drag us back to some Victorian past in which men were put back on top and brow-beat the fairer sex into submission because of fear over their own inadequacies. I swear I'm not exaggerating any of this. These are attitudes that I have heard expressed in discussion in class and it's nigh impossible, even in my bitterness, to misinterpret and magnify those attitudes beyond what was intended.

So what's the answer? For men to write important, literary fiction with strong, flawed, sympathetic male leads. For men to be Men and not sissies. To be unapologetic about who we are and the fact that God made us the way he did ON PURPOSE.

And to buy books and read them.