Q&A with Adam Haslett discussion

I recently wrote an article for the Financial Times about the art of sentence writing (you can find it here: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/8c60799c-24...). In very brief form, it's an argument against a certain kind of American minimalism that has become a default "realism" in much contemporary fiction. In this thread, I thought we might start a conversation about sentences and literary style: favorite sentences, thoughts on contemporary style, etc. I'll drop in a few of my favorite lines along the way.

I reckon you're unwilling to name names--impolitic, and look where it got John Gardener, calling Bellow, Roth, Elkin, et al "immoral"--but yeah, minimalism has its limits. It's lousy as a total aesthetic.

I've always admired Elkin's wacky, pages long diatribe sentences, and Moody's (not quite as ambitious), when he's not being silly about it. And so forth.

But, some writers do lovely things with wild rhythms and variations in sentence structure, and others seem to say what they need to with...not much. I think you were advocating choice and variation, yes?

How much of this problematic minimalism is the function of the MFA workshop hive-mind? How much is helpful wisdom from on high? Upon arrival at the program I went through, I told one faculty member (whom I assumed would be sympathetic and encouraging, since his sentences sometimes seemed Elkin-influenced) I was a big fan of Elkin's, and he told me, "I'm not sure you can learn from him." I forced myself not to think what that meant (yes, in part to prevent myself from engaging in unproductive loathing of my teacher, but also because I was going to read, use, and sometimes ape my hero, regardless of who did or didn't sanction it, and I figured out right quick that at least one important figure in the program would try to make me stop).

And I suppose I should also ask how much of this trend--it's a trend, right, a fashion, likely a passing thing?--is dictated by editors and the publishers for whom they work?

First off, good for you for not buckling under the poor advice that you can't learn much from a writer you love. That's humbug. I believe close attention to the rhythm of the sentences of writers we admire most is perhaps the most helpful thing in learning to write things that don't simply fit a formula but have meaning for us. This isn't to say that abject imitation is any place to stop as a writer. It may, for some, be a place to begin. The point is that none of us would write if we hadn't, somewhere along the way, been transported by other writers' work and if we fail to notice and work with that energy we might as well become dentists.

I think you're also correct to suggest that some of the default minimalist realism I'm getting at in my article does come from the MFA world. That's a huge generalization, I know, but from experience I can say that while there are loads of wonderful exceptions, i.e. people who went through programs and never got "programmed", there remains the standing danger that art-by-committee will forever tend back towards plain statement if only because at some base level it is unimpeachable. Which is merely to say it contains no surface errors, which are the lowest hanging fruit for discussion in an MFA setting. Thus it becomes a kind of defensive writing. More ambitious work is full of problems on the surface because it's trying to get at something that isn't easy to capture.

As to whether publishers and editors are co-conspirators in these developments, I'm less sure. At this point, I think they've seen so much of that material that they're bored with it. It's hard to quantify. Certainly with the popularity of writers like Foster Wallace, Shteyngart, and other longer winded folk it wouldn't be fair to say that minimalism is any longer the dominant trend in American letters. That probably hasn't been true for twenty years. But I submit that it remains a background norm from which these authors are seen as departing. Will that change? I don't pretend to know.

I am actually a little starstruck. Adam Haslett responded to me. ME.

Well...deep breaths.

Okay.

Funny, it just occurred to me that I never mentioned what line of work I'm in. As a graduate of an MFA program my choices are limited (almost entirely by the career "choices" I made before my late entry into academia). So now I teach college comp.

Aside from being a fallback job for artsy writer types (and yes, I like it a lot, and I get a kick out of doing it well, when I'm able to convince myself I am--helping people, being useful, blahblahblah), it's a job that makes me an early influence on a handful of students (nascent writers) who at least claim they're interested in writing literary prose. And I confess I've commented on their essays, "This run-on sentence is trying to convey several ideas at once. Revise for clarity by breaking it into smaller parts."

I wonder whether I and my ilk are also culpable.

I wouldn't go that far. There's no doubt that for the purposes of basic expositional prose, most students would be better writers if they internalized Strunk & White's rules. It's always a matter of control. If you're students aren't in control of logical sentence ordering and basic argumentation, then certainly concision and pairing away unnecessary verbiage is central to getting them to write (and think) clearly. That said, if and when writers do have control of those basics (and I realize that is far, far from a given), then I think there is the question of what carry-over effects those internalized rules have on literary style and, I want to say, literary thought. Terse, declarative sentences, no matter how many of them you write, simply don't have the capacity to capture whole ranges of psychic and spiritual life. For that we need what is too often derisively described as "ornament." Which is say sentences as complicated, mobile, and capacious as the forms of consciousness they are trying to evoke, or perhaps even replicate.

More power to you, JW. Much of this, I think, comes down to the right sort of internalization. All rules, in whatever system, can be more or less consciously applied. Mathematicians don't pause over arithmetic on the way to higher formula; it runs beneath conscious thought. The same applies to grammar. No competent writer "reminds" themselves to include a verb in a sentence. The verb is coterminus with the thought. At the next level up, composition begins to operate in the same way. The superfluous thats, verys, and almosts don't have to be cut because they aren't placed on the page in the first place. And a step beyond that we get to literary style where the choices are no longer about "correctness" but about aesthetic effect regardless of rules. It's at this last level that a prejudice in favor of shorn prose can emerge. My argument is simply that we shouldn't let that, too, become unconscious. To use the philosophers' lingo, I'm talking about a second order problem. Not competent exposition, but imaginative reach.

Mr. Haslett,

Thank you for Union Atlantic. I don't think I'll ever forget the scene when Henry takes Evelyn to see the cages of gold below the sidewalk.

On the sentence appreciation topic, here's one I just read in M Bovary - "The metaphors of betrothed, spouse, heavenly lover, marriage everlasting, that recur in sermons, awoke in the depths of her soul an unlooked-for delight."

Why do I like it? Groovy, germane list, and "awoke in the depths of her soul an unlooked-for delight" is a treat because this is only p.48, and we readers know what this gal is in store for (if we've listen to the hype for the past 150 years. Or read the book jacket).

So. Here's my dilemma. I don't really know why I like a sentence, other than it making me laugh, surprising me, or teaching me a new vocabulary word. When I read what sentences my writing heroes love, I'm confused. I think, He picked that one? There's not much going on there. I don't understand syntax. I mean, I could locate the subject, verb, direct object, modifiers, and adjectives, but the categories blend together, and I'm only looking for the meaning, for what happens next. Which is how one should read? Or not?

I spent most of my childhood and teenage years watching television. I never learned a foreign language, only crammed the night before a Spanish exam.

I'm wondering if my affection for reading would grow if I learned how to diagram a sentence, or speak French. I bought Fish's book online yesterday. Perhaps that will help.

Last thing. I promise. I gave my manuscript to a writer and teacher whom I respect. He cut fifty pages of what I thought essential. I read my own work aloud, and I like the way my sentences sound. It's really hard for me to cut anything I write. I used to act, and I say my words back with panache. Maybe I should read my work aloud like a robot.

Thanks again for your work. Looking forward to reading more of it.

Maggie