Arthur and Millhauser on writing, perception, and imaginative worlds

Arthur argues in (En)trance that there is no one correct way to right, contrary to what he might have believed earlier in life. As such, he describes, it is possible to truly open up the world if one embraces their own very nature. In Phantoms, Millhauser asks us to do much the same thing. He presents a world where one town sees its phantoms and believes in them, then challenges the reader to join that world. Both of these authors challenge preconceived notions, and seek to demonstrate to the audience that such notions are needless constraints. When one opens one's mind, the hidden world can be revealed. The two pieces also highlight the role of the intermediary in this exchange, translating the hidden world for the audience. Arthur describes the approach that Millhauser adopts to his writing, but they both convey much the same message about perceptions, and about the role of writers as the intermediary between our perceptions of the world and the reality of the world.

Arthur's Analysis of Writing Approaches

Chris Arthur analyzes the writing process in his work (En)trance. He with an introspection, not unlike the opening chapter of Slaughterhouse Five that discusses his writing, and why and how he writes the things he does. He likens it to sexual orientation - "there's as little point to pining for a genre that doesn't fit your writing as to pretend a sexual orientation that doesn't match whatever sparks your passion." His reflection comes from the fact that when he was younger he had assumed that there was only one real way to create a written work, only to later discover that this way was not natural to him. After this opening prelude, he begins his first-person descriptive account of a visit to the pillars at Shandon in Ireland.

Arthur continues throughout his work a pattern of alternating between describing his experience at Shandon and his reflections about writing style. He is, in this exercise, making a point about with his non-linear approach. Instead of separating out the two ideas, Arthur prefers to present them as if only loosely organized. The thoughts, as they appear on the page, are whole, in paragraphs, so are perhaps not entirely the way they came to him at Shandon, but they do convey the totality of his experience there. Part of his Shandon experience was, after all, engaged in thinking about the writing process.

The Shandon gates are his entrance, just as he writes about the process of creating. When he writes, he is creating an entrance to a world, and for the reader this world is the pillars at Shandon, which must be imagined only from the writer's description where the writer, already there with the gates in front of him, is able to enter other worlds. This juxtaposition of entrances highlights the intermediary role that the writer plays. How the writer chooses to function as the intermediary is precisely what makes a writer how he or she is. In the case of (En)trance, Arthur positions himself into the narrative in order to describe his sensory intakes and his thoughts about the experience.

He argues in favor of writing to one's own feel and sensibilities. He positions this approach against the conventions of his straw man normal writer: "Such writers prefer the ordinary tempo of hours-days-weeks-months-years, our customary backdrop of duration cut to allow our fleeting presences to show up, their significance assured by the scale of the familiar screen." He demonstrates that such an approach is unnecessary, specifically by doing the opposite.

Perceptions

At the core of both works is the need to challenge our perceptions. Where one might have a preconceived notion of how the world should be ordered (as in Phantoms) or how one should go about a critical task in the world (as in (En)trance), the point both writers make about perceptions is that while they may exist, they only serve to constrain our thoughts. The less we rely on preconceived notions about how things are done or how the world is structured, the more equipped we will be to find a sense of enlightenment, with a greater understanding of our own nature.

The role of the writer as intermediary is made clear by Arthur. While both writers illustrate this in a superficial way, the greater point that Arthur makes is that the intermediary controls the way things are done, and the way that things are perceived. You receive his view of the pillars at Shandon, internal thoughts and all, because he is the intermediary. When you put that together with Millhauser's expression of the conception of phantoms, you realize that we all perceive our own reality, and it is our senses and our thoughts that serve as intermediary with the world. These writers are cutting to the heart of communication, and then prove the effectiveness of their approach by adopting it. Lesser writers might try to prove the effectiveness of their approach with a logical fallacy, pointing out the flaws in some other approach. Arthur could have made a cogent logical argument about the absurdity of his preconceive structure of writing, but it would not have had impact, and it would not have truly made the greater point. The intermediary is crucial to the dialogue between our inner selves and the world around us. The reader, as the second person, is placed in that position in Arthur's essay, as Arthur both describes his perceptions of the physical gate and of his own inner thoughts.

There is a further point that both writers make about the fluidity of reality, which again highlights the importance of the role of the intermediary. Arthur writes "From my temporal kestrel's vantage point, the land can be seen changing so much across time that it seems like liquid." The phantoms, too, represent a glimpse through time, at least into the past. The non-linear structures of these works reinforce the message that an intermediary may be more effective by crossing the conventional bounds -- certainly time is not a necessary constraint, no matter how critical it is to the organization of our lives. If we move past time, we may see more.

This is perhaps the most critical point that either author makes. The intermediary, ultimately, in this world is one's own self. We can choose to see our own phantoms, or not. We can ready Arthur's account of Shandon and take away little more than a descriptive passage distracted by a writer's willingness to indulge his own thoughts on the page. Yet it is only we who are the intermediary between the world that is real and the world that exists only in our heads. How we organize the world is critical to our understanding of it. More to the point, we have the ability to organize the world any way we see fit. This may be conventional, but it may be entirely unconventional. Either way, we benefit from being freed from constraints. The implied metamorphosis that Arthur has undergone, for example, is to understand the best way for him to write. He will be better, more expressive, with greater clarity, if he follows his own path rather than one that has been laid out for him. The same is true for the second person in Phantoms -- that person might choose to see phantoms as they exist, and accept that existence as a normal part of life, rather than some freaky exception. If we all did that, phantoms would just be a normal part of the world -- it would not be a question of believing in them or not -- it would simply be a matter of looking at them. This may well hold true also for thought patterns and one's sensory perceptions, seeking to interpret for the internal audience what in this world is real and what is not, only to find the task futile.

Conclusions

There are broad lesson to be taken away from these essays. They both carry with them a message about leveraging one's ability to act as intermediary with the world to fit the world to us -- what works best for us will set us free and that none should fear being themselves in that way. If there is a unique or different approach, there is nothing wrong with that. If time and order are no longer relevant -- if time has indeed become liquid -- then we have truly begun to perceive the world in a different way, but one that offers us substantial insights we could not have otherwise gained.

The authors reinforce their point by eschewing normal structural conventions in their work, and turning out a product that is better for it. Had their essays been clumsy, the effort would surely have failed, but these were successful pieces that made the points clearly. They argue against conventional wisdom by showing the value in other perspectives. Both narrators strongly value their viewpoints, even if they are unconventional, and that lesson could only be reinforced through successfully practicing what one preaches.

Arthur displays skill in alternating between his internal monologue and external descriptors. By the same token, Millhauser has multiple perspectives and clear breaks between them in an approach that is unusual but effective. Their approaches are effective no doubt in part because the approach suits the author. If one is to be a successful writer, a worthy intermediary translating the world that exists in one's imagination to contextual relevance for the modern reader, then one needs to be true to one's approach and one's style. It is only by this way that the writer will excel, and find his or her voice. That is a clear takeaway from Arthur's work, and seeing the way that Millhauser tells an entirely different story an entirely different way but still delivers the same messages and the same themes really highlights how powerful the intermediary can be, and how differential execution of the intermediary role can completely shape our understanding of the world. Flowing from that, not only should every writer stay true to himself or herself, but every writer should also write, for there is no benefit in a paucity of ideas or viewpoints -- expression is the key and writers should uphold that principle above all else.