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You Shall Know Them by Their Music
- University of Georgia Press
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88 You Shall Know Them by Their Music My friend Rory, a university administrator and a poet, is so insistent that writing can’t be judged that he uses it as an excuse not to teach: “I wouldn’t know what to say to a class,”he says, proud of his freedom from the trap of standards. Naturally, he also argues there are neither good nor bad college teachers—only thinking makes it so—and to suggest otherwise is mere advertisement for self. “Maybe it’s my PhD training,” he says, “but I see everything as relative.” Privately, of course, he condemns a book as mere “magazine writing,” revises his own writing, and, yes, teaches occasionally. It’s nice to be seen as nice, and Chekhov, that saintliest of writers, works passivity into his view of polite society: “Cultured people must . . . respect human personality, and for this reason they are always kind, gentle, and ready to give in to others.” One imagines him nodding gently as the other Moscow doctors who all want to be writers talk him into tubercular coughing fits at dinner parties. (Gorky says,“In [Chekhov’s] sad and gentle smile one felt the subtle skepticism of the man who knows the value of words and dreams.”) But in a series of letters to his brother Alex, who wasn’t writing to his potential, Anton cracks open like a honeydew: “Not a single sensible word; nothing but sentimentality....Respect yourself , for heaven’s sake and don’t let your hand grow slack when your brain grows lazy. . . . Another great authority, Souvorin, writes to me, ‘When one writes a great deal, not everything comes out equally good.’ . . . I write this you shall know them by their music 89 to you as a reader having a definite taste....Better poor criticism than none at all. Is it not so?” (Garnett translation) We can’t choose to be free of our individual standards; the question is whether or not we’ll discuss them. Unfortunately, I can’t retire to my white dacha in Yalta, where I might get the distance to develop a sad and gentle smile. Because I teach I must try to explain myself daily. To do otherwise is a con that some use to buy time to write (or not), taking the pay but not teaching because it’s a hassle or because they disdain students. “I wouldn’t do it that way,honey,but you go right ahead,”Faulkner is said to have told a writing student under his tutelage.But none of that has to do with the ability to judge good or bad writing. Discussing one’s own techniques and tastes is not dictating them.Indeed, the best teachers I’ve known could do it while explaining other traditions and encouraging students to situate themselves in the history of ideas. They were not among the massive middle class of American letters that is essentially anti-intellectual. (There is confusion over the term “intellectual” in writing, e.g., the critic who says Hemingway is a “closet intellectual.” I mean only, “Given to study, reflection, and speculation.”) What’s begun to interest me lately is how quickly an experienced reader can often judge writing. Of course the entire piece must be read, as occasionally even tripe can be skillfully woven, and good work bound in sloppy phrases. (Ever read Dreiser’s American Tragedy?) But when Rory privately admits he can read the first paragraph of an essay that’s come in to the lit journal that he reads for,and know if the rest is worth reading,I don’t doubt him.Why,though? It’s an important question,since its answers might offer hope for improvement for us all. “Why” wanders off in every possible direction. Writers who can’t or don’t care to choose among “to/two/too” don’t fill me with confidence, for instance. Sometimes worn-out images, language, or devices are tipoffs ; other times it’s bombastic diction or confused sentences that stagger around leaking meaning. The reasons may be infinite and depend on the sort of writing attempted, but bad writing does have a look, smell, taste, feel, or sound. Michael Henry Heim, translator of Kundera, Brecht, Grass, et al., says, in the essay “Translating Chekhov’s Plays”: “Flaubert once said that the [35.153.106.141] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 16:49 GMT) 90 you shall know them by their music rhythm of a sentence often came...