The essence and purpose of effective writing

¶ … stylistic prose, and attention to detail.

I like simple beginnings. I've often argued that one can tell how good a book or a short story will be by its opening sentence. Great writers know this. They know that the first sentence is a real selling point for the rest of the manuscript. Yet, they don't try to do too much too soon. They exercise restraint where other, less experienced writers attempt to impress the reader with opulent language or poorly wrought style choices or ostentatious remarks, etc. What these neophyte writers do not understand is that less is more when it comes to great fiction.

John Cheever's short story "The 548" opens like this, "When Blake stepped out of the elevator, he saw her." Wow. At first, it doesn't seem like much. It's a simple, straightforward, declarative sentence. And when stripped away of its prefatory clause, the operative clause is rather plain: "he saw her." A reader's initial thought is "boring." But then when the reader thinks about this sentence some more, mulls it over, and bam! It hits the reader: there's a lot going on in this little sentence.

There's drama and tension in this opening sentence. For starters, who is she? Blake sees this woman, but who is she? Why is she standing outside the elevator? All these questions, and more, begin to appear almost subconsciously. The reader doesn't really think about these questions so much as he/she just intuitively wants to get to the next sentence. This opening sentence works because it impels the reader to the next sentence. It pushes the narrative forward. It makes the reader want to know more about Blake and this woman standing outside the elevator. It simply works.

There are plenty of other examples of great opening lines, "I'm Homer, the blind brother" from E.L. Doctorow's Homer and Langley. That qualifying remark is so intriguing "the blind brother." There are two of you? What's the other brother like? Or, "I'D been working in the emergency room for about three weeks, I guess" from Denis Johnson's short story "Emergency." This sentence sets up a major literary device that is the source for much of the humor in the story, the unreliable narrator. The "I guess" is a tip off to the reader that this narrator is not the most upstanding and competent man (these suspicions are certainly confirmed throughout the rest of the story).

So, as stated, I like simple beginnings, but I don't necessarily like simple books or stories. A certain level of complexity is important. In part, because a certain level of complexity is what upholds Italo Calvino's aphorisms, "Every reading of a classic is in fact a rereading" and "A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say."

To unpack this idea further, I have been rereading James Joyce Ulysses for years now. I still find myself confused at times, blown away at times, and enlightened at times. This book doesn't beg to be read, it begs to be reread, reinterpreted and reanalyzed. It's a challenge. And it's a worthy pursuit. Here is an excerpt from Ulysses that has boggled my mind for years, "Ineluctable modality of the visible: at least that if no more, thought through my eyes." What does this mean? I'm still not sure, and I've read several explications written by literary elites. But whatever it means, it intrigues me. There's something very compelling about literature that just escapes one's comprehension. It has a haunting effect on the reader. The hope is that one day it will make sense.

Likewise, David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest is equally challenging for an average reader. This book has layers, allusions, literary references and enigmatic elements that deserve to be explored and re-explored throughout one's life. According to DFW, Infinite Jest was structured to resemble a fractal and attractive fixed set called the Sierpinski gasket, which was created by the polish mathematician Wac-aw Franciszek Sierpi-ski. To say that the book is a maze of sorts would be an understatement.

Another aspect to great literature is style. Great writers have their own style. It's like what singer/songwriter Sting said to Charlie Rose in an interview about great singers, "They have their own sound. One doesn't have to like it, so long as when they hear it, they know who it is." This is true with great writers. They have their own style/voice. When one reads a sentence or a paragraph constructed by Kafka or Barthelme or Beckett, he/she knows almost right away who the writer is, just like when one hears The Police on the radio.

To bear witness to this phenomenon, one should consider the following paragraph from Barthelme's short story, "Indian Uprising."

"The girls of my quarter wore long blue mufflers that reached to their knees. Sometimes the girls hid Comanches in their rooms, the blue mufflers together in a room creating a great blue fog. Block opened the door. He was carrying weapons, flowers, loaves of bread. And he was friendly, kind, enthusiastic, so I related a little of the history of torture, reviewing the technical literature quoting the best modern sources, French, German, and American, and point out the flies which had gathered in anticipation of some new, cool color."

This is a very discursive paragraph that makes little sense when removed from the context of the larger narrative. However, it is vintage Barthelme. There is a frenzied quality to this paragraph that is entertaining. There is a sudden rush from one subject, the girls and their mufflers, to the next, the man named "Block."

As one reads it though as a self-contained piece, the paragraph exhibits the humor and contradictory feel that characterizes Barthelme's prose. A man named "Block" opens the door. That's funny because of the obvious contradiction between the words "block and open." He brings with him both weapons and flowers. That's also very funny because of the creative juxtaposition of symbols of both love and war. And, of course, the fact that the narrator shares with Block a little of the history of torture, undoubtedly a disgusting subject, but one that is made humorous by Barthelme's choice to point out that the narrator reviewed "technical literature and the best modern sources" to instruct Block about torture. In this way, Bartheleme de-emphasizes the serious nature of the subject and creates a more playful and humorous tone and style.

Then, at the end of the paragraph he ties it all together with the comment about the flies waiting for "some new, cool color." Color, if one will recall, was used at the beginning to remark on the color of the girls' mufflers. The point is only Bartheleme could have written that paragraph. It has all the elements of his style, humor, contradiction, play on words, discursiveness, a frenzied pace, esotericism. Like all great writers Bartheleme has his own voice, his own style.