Sincerity and Sarcasm in Lorrie Moore and Sherman Alexie

Introduction: Writing Honestly

"Write what you know." There is probably no more common adage in the world of creative writing, whether in fiction, journalism, or any other genre that forces the imagination to produce words and meanings in new and hopefully startling ways. In fiction and poetry, this does not, of course, mean to write only the truth — or at least not the concrete, objective kind of truth that we still try to convince ourselves exists — but rather to write from a perspective that is sincere in conveying true ideas. Tim O'Brien summed it up when talking about true war stories: some of the most true are about things that never could have happened, and recounting events that really did occur does not guarantee a true story. Writing what you know does not mean writing about experiences, but rather from experience. It means writing honestly.

There are, of course, as many ways to accomplish this as there are authors, and probably many more. Honesty and sincerity can look quite different depending on whose version of an honest tale one is reading. Certain perspectives and voices suggest levels of distance and detachment that can make a reader question the sincerity of the author, narrator, or speaker. In the hands of a truly skilled author, however, even the most blithe and superficial statement can be rendered meaningful and revelatory, leading the reader to a deeper connection with the story and its characters despite an evident cynicism or perceived nonchalance in the text — a purposeful and deliberate disconnect between the intellectual and emotional trajectories of the story.

Strategic Detachment and the Limits of Language

Two authors who make excellent use of this dichotomy are Lorrie Moore and Sherman Alexie. Both write from remarkably raw and willingly exposed emotional centers, yet both possess such obvious and irrepressible wit that the emotional content of their stories is often couched in phrases and situations that may seem callous to the casual reader. A patient and open reading of the text, however, reveals the hidden insecurities and what are possibly the most tender emotional subjects and observations of the narrators and characters in each work. Comedy is, of course, a common defense mechanism, but the use of humor by these authors is neither a clichéd way of dealing with emotion nor a clever attempt at avoiding it altogether. Rather, it is used as a way of exposing the basic inadequacies of straightforward language in expressing emotional content.

Zits and the Sarcastic Aside in Flight

Flight follows the odd, time-shifting trials of Zits, a fifteen-year-old half-American-Indian boy who has been shunted from foster home to foster home since the age of six and who grapples with severe self-doubt, self-hatred, and thoughts of violence. He already describes himself as a drunk despite barely being in high school, and has no friends and no place in the world that he can see. Flight sees him inhabiting the bodies of various people in different periods of history who grapple with issues similar — though more explicitly rendered — to his own as he searches for understanding and identity. Moore's short story "How to Become a Writer" involves a different search for identity; the narrator addresses the reader in the second person, describing how "you" would become a writer — presumably if you followed a path that matched the narrator's, and likely the author's.

Both of these characters — Zits and "you" — share biographical details with their authors, and yet despite this intimacy (or likely because of it) there is also a conscious creation of distance and detachment in the language of the texts. In the third chapter of Flight, Zits describes who is perhaps "the only real friend of [his] life" as a "pretty white boy" who "doesn't even like or respect Jesus — or Allah or Buddha or LeBron James or any other God" (Alexie 24). In what is otherwise a very poignant passage — where Zits explains his near-instant love for this boy he meets in jail — the mention of LeBron James alongside various prophets and deities is a not-so-subtle, cynical undercut of what could be an intensely emotional scene. The reference is not elaborated upon, and this type of occurrence does not appear again in the passage, but there is a sense of slight self-mocking throughout due to remarks like these.

Self-Mockery and Second Person in Moore's Story

The self-mocking is anything but slight in Moore's "How to Become a Writer." The speaker opens by telling you to try to be something else and to fail at it quickly: "Early critical disillusionment is necessary so that at fifteen you can write long haiku sequences about thwarted desire" (Moore, par. 1). Despite the possible — and probable — veracity of this sentence, there is an obvious tongue-in-cheek quality to it. The speaker is mocking herself, or "you" technically, for wanting to be a writer in the first place, because it only means having been a failure at something else first. This is not the same kind of deep-seated self-hatred that Zits experiences in Flight; there is far more conscious irony and developed cynicism than a believable fifteen-year-old could embody. Yet there is still an obvious self-disdain that becomes almost explicit here, as if the archness of the expression were a substitute for true emotional content.

That is, in fact, exactly what Moore manages to accomplish with this tone, just as Alexie's more subtle yet equally sarcastic interjections reveal the true depth of the sincerity with which Zits speaks to the reader. The use of second-person narration is another element that on the surface creates detachment but whose overall effect is to make the story all the more personal. This is not exactly because it makes the reader the subject, but rather because the intimacy of the details reveals the true first-person nature of the narration and offers it as an experience of shared humanity.

Conclusion: Vulnerability Through Guard

Both of these stories manage to convey a sense of closeness and intimacy through the technique of strategic detachment and humor. It is as though any perceived disconnect between the text and the emotional content of the story invites the reader's intervention, and the increased engagement that results amplifies the power of the language. The true mastery shown by these authors lies in their ability to make unique stories seem universal and personally meaningful through the selective use of standard human defense mechanisms. There is nothing that appears so vulnerable as someone who is constantly on guard, and both Moore and Alexie exploit that fact beautifully.

Works Cited

Alexie, Sherman. Flight. New York: Grove Press, 2007.

Moore, Lorrie. "How to Become a Writer." In Self-Help. New York: Grand Central Publishing, 1995.