Voice

There is a popular internet meme I see passed along authors on Facebook. It is a cute little cartoon of a kind English teacher handing back a story to a young child with the caption: “This is really good. You should think about becoming a writer.” The punchline of the meme is underneath the cartoon, which goes thusly: “And therefore little Anne’s life was ruined.” Certainly, anyone who has wanted to make writing into a life’s passion sees the dark humor embedded within this simple meme. However, what does make writing so hard that we can make jokes about its destructive tendencies in a writer’s life? Perhaps it is the lack of monetary security. Even the most famous authors cannot rest on their laurels. Very few can afford to retire on their New York Times bestsellers. Nonetheless, many occupations require equal amounts of intensive labor with little monetary reward. Watching my parents operate a farm thought me this, that one should not fall into the hubris that writing is the hardest of labors. Perhaps it hinders our social lives and development. Sacrificing a night with friends to finish that story that will be (hopefully) accepted by this prestigious magazine, whereby one’s career can launch into that grand hall of published authors. That one’s work can finally be taken “seriously.”

Again, I find this to be a fallacy of sorts as well. I know many authors, both genre specific and literary, that have cliques, groups where they support and encourage each other’s writing. In fact, one could make the joke that writer’s have the reciprocal of an AA meeting. Instead of trying to break the addiction, we try to push each other further along the path. Suggesting more books to read, enrolling in better workshops, and attending more public readings are considered essential aspects of the writer’s life in order to better saturate oneself in the writing process. As we can see, authors can make a lot friends by writing. Sure, you have the exceptions like Thomas Ligotti or Emily Dickinson who chose a life of reclusion, but I think writing serves as means of keeping contact, even for them, with the world and not the primary cause of the reclusion. In the end, writing does not separate us from the social fabric. Does not condemn one to some cloistered life. Again, why do we both laugh at and forlornly agree with that meme then? If writing consists of the same labor as any other endeavor and requires the same dedication as any other endeavor, why do writers all have this consensus: that writing can consume your life? That to start down the path of writing is basically signing yourself into the sanatorium? Why have so many authors gone crazy or made the heartbreaking decision to end it all? 

The answer may seem simple, but the consequences of this truth are anything but. That writing, and for that matter all artistic endeavors, forces us to engage with the most alien entity known to us. Ourselves. Perhaps no other author in past few generations has felt the anxiety and the horror of encountering yourself than David Foster Wallace. Reading Wallace was a pleasure for me in my younger days, because I felt his struggles. What is an authentic self anyway? Some have called Wallace’s writing in desperate need of editing. It needed to go on a diet. His greatest achievement, Infinite Jest, was both a success and a disappointment. Many praised his writing and imagination, but wondered why the book had to be the seize where it could serve as a lethal weapon. In fact, whatever parts Wallace was force to remove he kept in the book by transforming the edited parts into footnotes. Optional sections that reader could decide if he wanted to read or not. If there ever was an individual who had a passionate affair with footnotes, it had to be David Foster Wallace. However, what many consider to be bad revision or perhaps even artistic stubbornness on Wallace’s part is actually neither. The truth can be found in one of more melancholy sentences in one of the most melancholy stories in his collection Oblivion: 

“What goes on inside is just too fast and huge and all interconnected for words to do more than barely sketch the outlines of at most none tiny little part of it at any given instant.”

What we see here isn’t someone so enraptured with their work they cannot bear to part with it. Instead, all these words, all of those pages, are the frustrated sketches of someone who can’t quite get it right. Like the artist who will rip away the poor sketch of a bird, Wallace kept piling up words in order to form a barricade, a cordon, where he can stop what’s going on for just a moment so he can actually get a glimpse of himself. I think of the story of Moses when he asks to see his God. Although God agrees that he can see him, Moses has to look away or otherwise he will be blinded. He could only see God in the periphery. One cannot directly see him. Wallace finds this is true of our own selves. We try and we try to find out who we are. Wallace once told a friend that in the end we of course become ourselves. Sadly, this sentence became all too true when Wallace took his own life after years of fighting his depression. Wallace understood the terrible truth that artistic endeavors demonstrate to us. That writing comes from us, from ourselves. That for some ironic reason the biggest stranger we will ever encounter is the image confronting us in the mirror. I always love when writing instructors tell their students to write what they “know.” Write your pain, your struggles, your scars. Strangely enough, these are the hardest parts to write and not just because of the possible traumas that lie within those investigations. Because as Wallace knew, we do not know what any of this means. We don’t know what these scars or pains mean. We are left to interpret them. We are left to pass by in the periphery of other people’s vision. Wallace wrote works so large because he wanted sketch his soul. To me, this is what makes artistic endeavors so hard, because in the end of course, we are trying to sketch our souls. This is the basis of what many would call the Author’s “voice.”

I will be the first to admit it. I really enjoy reading Proust, but have yet to finish his first book. It may sound crazy, but although I have probably only read half of Proust first book in his series In Search of Lost Time, I feel a great understanding of the writer of those words that enrapture me. Perhaps, though many will most likely find this an excuse for my literary laziness, it is a book about individual sentences instead of a story. One could randomly go about his books, read a sentence, and feel as if something profound as been absconded by your eyes. I suppose the main appellation for his collection of novels should be a rather obvious clue. Regardless, it doesn’t take master student of English to understand that Proust goes to painful effort to recreate the past. The details of his sentence, the way his language attempts to replicate every detail, makes me marvel. In fact, I agree with Michael Cisco when he says every writer needs to read Proust. And, the true beauty, you wouldn’t have to read them all. Don’t get me wrong, I hope to finish all of his novels one day, but for anyone wishing to become a writer reading one sentence will show you the way. 

Digressions aside, Proust seeks to sketch the self in spatial settings. Careful, constructed sentences bestow proper nouns for flowers and alters, breathing full life all around the character. Which is interesting, we know the name of the character, but they never tell us their name directly. Now, I know you will time me out and say that I am in no position to make such a claim, since I have not read the entire series. And you would be right, however, I read the first book, and in my limited experience, the character usually gives us their name in the first book. We only learn his name from his family. Proust attempts to find his self, his “voice,” by bouncing it off all the objects of his life. Even the most common weed has an affect on us, and we should use its proper name. We must introduce ourselves to this world forming us. We must see things with new eyes, which, in essence, is how Proust is describing memory. He even says so, “Remembrance of things past, is not the same thing as they were.” The words may be accurate and the description fully matches its object, but that does not mean the imagination does not toy with it. Proust does not enter into a rather pedantic debate about simulacrums and reality. It’s not an anxiety of caused by the social. Instead, it is an anxiety caused by the soul. Proust’s voice’s primary mission is to construct the soul. To illuminate the materials used to build it and thereby continue the journey of its construction. 

Perhaps now would be a good time to talk about originality. Certainly, one cannot deny the original feeling of Proust’s work. However, haven’t you encountered original work and found it boring? Donald Bartholomew was such a writer for me. Praised for his playfulness and postmodernism, he often serves as a icon for the avant grade of literary fiction. Nonetheless, none of his stories have enriched me. I would not even say that he uses tricks. Instead, Bartholomew is more of a spoil-sport dragging us to see what’s behind the curtain. When a poet first rhyme tomb and womb, it became a marvelous trick that made the mind think. When a postmodernist spoils the joke, it makes us bored and fatigued. I find it a cruel truth that writers trying to protest the great machine in which we all are but mere cogs in did not damage it at all. Instead, they merely proved its point. See? There is no meaning out there in the world, so stay in here where it is safe. The point of the hero is not destroy, but to lead. To point to a familiar horizon and show it as new. What the postmodernist fail to understand is that they turned the very system they opposed into a hero. 

For me, this is originality. It is not something new, but rather seen with new eyes. What we feel is original in Proust is not some new kind of writing, but rather someone making the world new through their “voice,” through their soul. As Chesterton once mused in his masterpiece, Orthodoxy, “is not better to set sail and think one has found South Africa, but instead has returned to England?” Which is why I always despise the term “escape from reality,” when it is applied to works of art. Star Wars is not an escape. The Lord of the Rings is not an escape. Le Guin’s Earthsea series is not an escape. We enter these worlds not to flee from our reality but instead to realize where are merely heading home. It seems Wallace is correct, but I would change the quote to this, of course in the end everything becomes itself. Originality can be seen as the term we use not express the newness of content or style, but rather how the author takes us home. How the author’s attempt to understand his self allows us to learn a little something about ourselves. I think Franz Kafka put it best when he describes good writing “hacks away at the frozen seas within us.” And the reader picks up an implement along with the author, and both help each other hack at these frozen seas. 

I must confess, I have become very picky with who I hack away frozen seas with. I examine the popular books and I do not sneer at them, but rather I see them as junk food for the mind. While the writing may be on point, I would rather be lost in Wallace’s Infinite Jest, then read a well streamlined novel that just titillates me in some way. It would be like a honey bee landing on the floral pattern of wallpaper. It may look like a flower, but I cannot drink from it. An artist does not just try to replicate the flower, but show me that I can drink from flowers. It must lead me home. Must give me a sharp axe to hack with, instead making me forget the cold underneath me for a few minuets. Now, please do not get me wrong. I am not of the mind to call these people writers and sometimes we all need to indulge in a Snickers Bar. In fact, I would probably be in a minority mindset and call these people the true writers. They know story, plot, character, and structure so well that they can produce an enviable bibliography.  It is a dangerous business to write from the soul. It often causes you delve into places of yourself that would be better left buried. As Bilbo told Frodo, “It is a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you will be swept off to.” I think for some authors, they close the door. In all honesty, anyone can become a writer with enough hard work and dedication. It is not a special calling for a select few. When I think of Flannery O’Connor saying that the best thing an MFA can do for someone is turn them away, and that “many a best seller could have been prevented by a good teacher.” I enjoy her acerbic remarks about these programs. How since “fine writing rarely pays, fine writers usually end up teaching, and the degree, however worthless to the spirit, can be expected to add something to the flesh.” I am interested in her phrase, “worthless to the spirit,” in regards to the MFA degree. 

I remember many of the students I took undergraduate writing classes with. There was always a tangental point to their desire to write. For example, one student was an engineering major who enjoyed the puzzle like quality to poetry. Others write little stories about some experience in high school, don’t know how to finish, and basically say, hey, why not take this writing course? Others sought to illuminate a truth unto the world through their writing. While these individuals were very noble in their beliefs, they did not write very interesting stories. Of course, I wrote horrible stories. I was riveted to how cool postmodern authors were and how they showed the nihilistic tendency of all life. I burned everything I wrote for those classes. I remember the best piece of advice I received from these classes was from Angie Mlinko, a fantastic poet, who told me that I was to spacey, to out there. She even accompanied this statement by raising her arms in the air. To be honest, I had become disillusioned about a lot things, writing being one of them. The coolness of the postmodernist was fading. And I felt kinda lost. My writing was mostly just tantrums of structure, trying to dismantle everything around me. I had closed the door. I wasn’t engaging in the dangerous business of walking down the road. Instead, I retreated to where it felt safe. I wanted to escape reality, and found I could not. I did not need any technical advice. I did not need to brush up on my descriptions. I needed to tend to my soul. When I first started writing, it was something stirring inside me. During that dark period of my writing, it did not move, and I feared it dead. Truthfully, I still fear it dead inside me. That feeling that writing was not just a cool thing to do to oppose the injustices of the world, but rather something that helps me understand me. Helps me to understand my soul.

One must remember. Like Proust, we must go searching for lost time. I know I must. At the moment, I have no voice. I am a ghost, beyond the earthly realm, unable to touch be touched. I know words like soul are not in vogue, but for me, it is the best to describe how perceive what’s inside me. A soul. I remember a book I have not read in some time. Although I may not consciously recall its impact upon me, it still ripples inside me today. Till We Have Faces, which in my opinion, is C.S Lewis’ best novel behind That Hideous Strength. It is a retelling of a myth concerning Cupid and Psyche. As of the moment, the books is sitting next to me as I write this. I have not read it in a decade, but I can still remember scenes and moments. The story of Orual, Psyche’s older sister, who is ugly. There is so much I could say about this book, but it would not be germane to this essay. Instead, let us consider Orual’s book of poison that she wrote herself. Basically, it is a telling of her life and love of Psyche, and its tragic loss. She blames the gods, who have her such an ugly face, for the death of her sister. If she was not ugly, then her sister would have loved as Orual had loved her. She conceals her face and buries her love in the day to day minutia of running a kingdom. Now, is the book poison? No, rather, there is poison in Orual’s soul. She does not love herself. Told by her own father that she was too ugly to marry anyone, Orual had so many voices inside her that her own voice became a whisper in the storm. Her book was comprised of those other voices. As in one of the images her old teacher shows her at the end of book, she is a shadow next to Psyche, carrying her “book of poison.” She didn’t have a self, all of it consumed by other’s words. Her story was not her own. Whether your story is written by others or just for the sake of writing something, it will not be you. Although it will not be a book of poison, you run the risk of something worse. Nothing. Your soul atrophied for being so protected that it has become a shadow. That it has to retreat so far that we cannot even say things that are real inside of us means we have no face to face the gods. 

Am I merely writing poison? What am I anymore? These questions are not symptoms of despair. On the contrary, to ask them is initiating the process of breaking off the manacles of our voice. To write is to wrestle with yourself. I cannot remember the author or book, but I remember reading that secret to writing was not to write for publishing. Instead, you write to explore yourself and if any of it is good enough to be published, then that is wonderful. I believe the author of that particular book phrased it as writing for yourself. I prefer to view it as exploration, going off to see a strange land, finding it instead to be home. Of course in the end you become yourself.

Although The Lord of the Rings will always be my favorite book series written by Tolkien, it is rivaled by a little known tale. Tolkien wrote a story titled simply, “Leaf by Niggle.” It follows the story of an artist on deadline. He has a train to catch in the future, though he is not sure when exactly. He just knows he has a journey coming up. Furthermore, Niggle has a rather serious problem. Trying to paint a tree, he cannot get past a single leaf. Now, the similarities between Tolkien and Niggle are not lost on any reader familiar with Tolkien’s struggle to finish writing The Lord of the Rings. Many people seem to lack sympathy with Tolkien with this regard, calling him a perfectionist, a cruel assessment of his writing process. One of my theories is that many people think that writing fantasy is a rather easy task. After all, you just make up stuff as you go along like Hobbits and Orcs. It is the opposite of easy, but that is for a rant instead of an essay. Secondly, it is a matter of creation. Voice and creation are entwined. Niggle struggles with his leaf so much because it does not look like a leaf. It does not move when the wind blows. It does not wither and fall of during the winter. Is he really creating anything or just merely copying nature? Could he really be called an artist at all then? Is it Niggle’s leaf? Is it his creation or can what he does be best describe as thievery? Now, this question is different from the one of originality. That is the discovery of something new internally instead of externally. This anxiety delves much further. Am I even real? After all, can we not be described as the learned behaviors others? That we were not created so much as we copied. Copied our parents, our siblings, our friends. Is our soul a replica or a creation? Voice is our struggle to assert our authentic self into the world. That part which is our’s alone and not the learned behaviors of others. 

I remember that I teared up at the ending of this tale, because Niggle only got one leaf painted on his tree. He had to go on his train ride without coming ever closer to completing his masterpiece. However, at the end of his journey, Niggle discovers something quite wonderful. When steps off the train, he catches the sight of a beautiful tree, branches and leaves tossing in the wind. As he examines it more closely, he is stunned to notice one particular leaf. He knows this leaf quite intimately, because it his leaf. It came from his own soul. His leaf will be as real as any leaf we will ever see. Our voice can create.

Perhaps, in the end, I have answered nothing. Maybe made you are even more confused about what voice is and how it affects writing. Perhaps you didn’t even know this essay was about voice at all. I have come to know that voice is our inner self, our soul. That to find our authorial voice is to search for ourselves. That writing is unleashing our true authentic selves. In truth, the previous statement can be applied to any endeavor not just writing. However, I believe that in the arts it is a much harder to hide from yourself than in other professions, because you cannot hide behind deadlines and contract disputes. Sure, you can turn writing into a mechanical process that cranks out a nice story, but did have an imprint of you on it? Could anyone else have written it and people would believe it? Or do you wish to write something that people could only believe you could have written? That your soul is so clearly inside these words that they have to come up for air, because we are taking them deep into themselves? I am no expert. I have not finished a novel and have only wrote a few short stories. However, I think I am going to risk opening my door and get swept away by the road. I invite you to join me.