{"id":1082,"date":"2012-12-05T11:03:31","date_gmt":"2012-12-05T16:03:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mattdebenham.com\/blog\/?p=1082"},"modified":"2012-12-05T11:03:31","modified_gmt":"2012-12-05T16:03:31","slug":"paul-is-dead-perfect-vs-great-known-unknowns-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mattdebenham.com\/blog\/paul-is-dead-perfect-vs-great-known-unknowns-14\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Is Dead: Perfect vs. Great (Known Unknowns #14)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"tweetbutton1082\" class=\"tw_button\" style=\"\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mattdebenham.com%2Fblog%2Fpaul-is-dead-perfect-vs-great-known-unknowns-14%2F&amp;text=Paul%20Is%20Dead%3A%20Perfect%20vs.%20Great%20%28Known%20Unknowns%20%2314%29&amp;related=&amp;lang=en&amp;count=horizontal&amp;counturl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mattdebenham.com%2Fblog%2Fpaul-is-dead-perfect-vs-great-known-unknowns-14%2F\" class=\"twitter-share-button\"  style=\"width:55px;height:22px;background:transparent url('https:\/\/www.mattdebenham.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-tweet-button\/tweetn.png') no-repeat  0 0;text-align:left;text-indent:-9999px;display:block;\">Tweet<\/a><\/div><div id=\"fb_share_1\" style=\"float: right; margin-left: 10px;\"><a name=\"fb_share\" type=\"box_count\" share_url=\"https:\/\/www.mattdebenham.com\/blog\/paul-is-dead-perfect-vs-great-known-unknowns-14\/\" href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php\">Share<\/a><\/div><div><script src=\"http:\/\/static.ak.fbcdn.net\/connect.php\/js\/FB.Share\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><\/div><p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"center\">My very smart friend <a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/heliumcell\">Brendan Haley<\/a> posted recently on Facebook that he was introducing his baby daughter to the music of Paul McCartney and Wings, but that he was going to hold off on teaching her The Beatles until her 18<sup>th<\/sup> birthday. Why? \u201cThere\u2019s nothing more stifling to progress and creativity than the Beatles.\u201d There\u2019s then a 33-part discussion in the comments, which I stayed out of but read intently. About halfway through, Brendan said this:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mattdebenham.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/brendanhaleybeatles.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-1083\" title=\"brendanhaleybeatles\" src=\"http:\/\/www.mattdebenham.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/brendanhaleybeatles-300x84.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"84\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mattdebenham.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/brendanhaleybeatles-300x84.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.mattdebenham.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/brendanhaleybeatles.jpg 492w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve always understood the importance of the Beatles, I\u2019ve appreciated them throughout my life, and I will defend to the end of my days the genius of \u201dTomorrow Never Knows.\u201d But the Beatles are also one of the last things I\u2019ll ever put on when I want to listen to music. Why? Maybe because of that \u201cperfection\u201d thing Brendan mentions. There may be such a thing as <em>too<\/em> perfect.<\/p>\n<p>I think what puts me off about the Beatles \u2013 and this is no fault of their own \u2013 is that there\u2019s no room for me in there. They don\u2019t need me. My favorite stuff is the stuff that feels like a dialogue between artist and audience. One of the reasons I still love Stephen King, after all the supposedly (and, some, truly) superior writing I\u2019ve read, is that there\u2019s always a feeling of him sitting in the seat across from you, knee bouncing, as he tells you his latest story. When I talk to my students about what makes writing truly good, I talk about two things you really can\u2019t teach in a workshop: narrative authority and reader involvement. Stephen King is a master of both.<\/p>\n<p>By narrative authority (a phrase I borrow from Richard Bausch, one of our living masters of fiction), I mean the art of being in control of your story, your characters, your authorial voice. Stephen King has this in spades, and it makes up for a lot of what he lacks, particularly in his early stuff. It\u2019s the feeling of \u201csomeone is driving this bus, and they sure as hell know where they\u2019re going.\u201d It\u2019s not bravado or hubris, though an awful lot of writers seem to make this mistake. It\u2019s a feeling that this writer has both totally committed to her story\/characters\/tone <em>and<\/em> is completely in charge. Fitzgerald\u2019s first novel, <em>This Side of Paradise<\/em>, thinks it has Narrative Authority. What it has is a shitload of hubris, and it\u2019s a ton of fun, but it&#8217;s not super-masterful in any way. The Great Gatsby <em>really<\/em> has Narrative Authority. It\u2019s that thing where the reader feels, Wow, this writer is completely in charge here. (This is what I think people mean when they talk about &#8220;vision.&#8221;) It\u2019s also that thing where you realize you\u2019re going to follow this story wherever it wants to go. The Beatles, it should be said, have tons of narrative authority. They\u2019re never not in control of their material, you never question who\u2019s driving this bus, and even though there are four singers and three songwriters, it always sounds like the Beatles.<\/p>\n<p>This brings us to the second piece of truly good writing: reader involvement. By this I mean that a piece of fiction, whether you like it or not, only works when there\u2019s a communion between writer and reader. I think this is where the Beatles leave me out, though I have listened to them with fascination and awe since I was ten. (I still have my dad\u2019s vinyl copy of <em>Sgt. Pepper<\/em>.)<\/p>\n<p>I have a separate post planned about this idea of communion, but at its core, it means there\u2019s a give-and-take. It can\u2019t be any other way. It works like this:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>As a writer, I think of characters and a situation in my head.<\/li>\n<li>I translate these as best I can into words.<\/li>\n<li>You then read the words \u2013 maybe later that day, maybe decades from now (if I\u2019m lucky) \u2013 and retranslate the ideas into <em>your<\/em> head.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Now: Does your version look and feel exactly like the version in my head? It doesn\u2019t, and it can\u2019t, because this is not Wonkavision. Our only means of transmission is the words. On the face of this, it would seem that writing and reading prose is like using a telegraph in the age of Skype. (Note: William S. Burroughs once said a movie script isn\u2019t the same as prose fiction because a script is a set of instructions. I\u2019d argue that, in the end, that is what they both are.)<\/p>\n<p>But when you\u2019re in control of your narrative \u2013 bingbingbing! Narrative authority! &#8212; you can maximize this relationship with the reader. Any writer can write something and make that idea appear in a reader\u2019s head. They\u2019re words; string them together in a coherent fashion, and they\u2019ll do that work all by themselves, for better or for worse. But great writing makes explosions of images, senses, and experiences in a reader\u2019s head. And these explosions can permanently alter the way <em>both<\/em> writer and reader understand or perceive things. Between you and me, we are creating special new worlds, we are making lives happen. We need each other to do this.<\/p>\n<p>But then there\u2019s this idea of Perfection. I think a lot of what gets called Important Fiction falls into this trap. They\u2019re too much like well-crafted adaptations of great fiction. This is surely gonna kill Jonathan Franzen\u2019s entire career, but while <em>The Corrections<\/em> is a really good novel, it has a serious humanity problem. When Franzen writes, he does so beautifully and deeply, and he absolutely includes lots of <em>insight<\/em> into the problems of personhood. But he also does so at a weird distance. With Franzen, it\u2019s like a \u201850s sci-fi alien writing about \u201cthese things we call hu-mans.\u201d It\u2019s a limited version of communion, in that I\u2019m in there alongside Franzen, watching these characters. But I\u2019m never <em>in<\/em> the characters. Franzen, like a realtor, never lets me out of his sight.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s also the pursuit of The Perfect Sentence, which can become all too apparent as an end of itself. Richard Ford\u2019s <em>Independence Day<\/em>\u00a0is full of perfect sentences, yet not one holds a candle to Denis Johnson\u2019s line about \u201cthe water of inlets winking in the sincere light of day, under a sky as blue and brainless as the love of God.\u201d Why? Because, to put it doubly crudely, you can hear Richard Ford working like a motherfucker to get himself off. (Or to impress John Updike.) I\u2019m under no illusion that Johnson\u2019s line came to him spontaneously, but it sure feels like it did. And those are the best moments in fiction, aren\u2019t they? Where you feel a sense of discovery along with the writer? It\u2019s like jazz, where you can hear the players suddenly click into an idea, and you can almost see them smiling to each other, like: \u201cYes, THAT.\u201d And maybe they hit that same idea in rehearsal and liked it then \u2013 but now, with an audience present, and with an audience reacting, the idea becomes a shared excitement. That\u2019s also reader involvement. That\u2019s communion.<\/p>\n<p>Also, let\u2019s not undersell Denis Johnson\u2019s narrative authority: That line is beautifully crafted and has a shitload of <em>personality<\/em>. I like the person who comes up with that line. I want more of that, and boy does he deliver.<\/p>\n<p>None of this is a new idea. \u201cPerfect is the enemy of the good\u201d is a phrase that appeared on many a fortune-cookie message in 1772. So here\u2019s what I\u2019m saying about perfection&#8211; as a practitioner, as a teacher, as a reader:<\/p>\n<p>Worry about perfection only in the pursuit of transmitting that thing in your head. Get it so that it stops being like watching something happen and starts being an experience. But in the big picture, please don\u2019t try to be perfect. Try to be great. Be a little messy. Be a little weird. Let it be a push-and-pull between writer and reader: <em>Here\u2019s what this means, isn\u2019t that crazy? Are you liking this much as I am? No? You\u2019re gonna love this next part. <\/em>Make no mistake: The writer is the driver of the bus. But a) a bus needs passengers; and b) you have an obligation in all situations to be a good host.<\/p>\n<p>More: Be personal in your work, even if the work itself isn\u2019t (on its surface) about you. Make sure, in fact, that it <em>is<\/em> personal. We can tell the difference, and we can feel you not caring. Similarly (but separately) be personable. I want to like your characters, but I also want to like <em>you<\/em>. People who read Martin Amis or Virginia Woolf or Junot Diaz read them because they like that voice, the person on the other end of the telegraph line. Again: Stephen King.<\/p>\n<p>Listen to McCartney\u2019s songs on <em>Sgt. Pepper<\/em> and <em>Abbey Road<\/em>, and then listen to his early solo work, including Wings, and tell me he hadn\u2019t come to these same conclusions. If there\u2019s one thing post-Beatles McCartney doesn\u2019t get enough credit for, it\u2019s his looseness. There\u2019s the feeling that he knew what he\u2019d done with the Beatles, he knew he\u2019d helped build the Egyptian pyramids of popular music, and now he was going to start making music for the fun of it. This McCartney is still an obsessive and an innovator, but you actually can hear him enjoying himself again. (This is often categorized as \u201ctossed off,\u201d exhibit A being the world\u2019s most hated Christmas song, \u201cWonderful Christmas Time.\u201d Please be my guest and try and write something as catchy as that song. I\u2019ll wait.) If you think about it, Paul <em>did<\/em> die, though not in the way believed by the conspiracy theorists, and not in the way Lennon meant in \u201cHow Do You Sleep?\u201d For all the difficulties Lennon clearly had with being a Beatle \u2013 and after, with <em>having been<\/em> a Beatle &#8212; I think McCartney shed it with surprising ease.<\/p>\n<p>The difference between these modes of pursuit \u2013 the perfect and the great &#8212; is ultimately the difference between essential and vital. Essential is something you <em>must<\/em> hear and know in order to be properly informed. The canon, in other words. And you can love essential things, and sometimes they can even love you back. Vital, though, also implies necessity &#8212; but with an urgency about it, a liveliness: Holy shit, you\u2019ve got to experience this thing <em>now<\/em>. The Beatles are essential. McCartney\u2019s <em>Ram<\/em> is vital. (Queen, Bowie, and Sly &amp; the Family Stone are both.)<\/p>\n<p>Guys (and it\u2019s always guys) who aspire to be Great American Writers are aspiring to be essential. A million times over, I\u2019d be far happier to achieve vital.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div id=\"tweetbutton1082\" class=\"tw_button\" style=\"\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mattdebenham.com%2Fblog%2Fpaul-is-dead-perfect-vs-great-known-unknowns-14%2F&amp;text=Paul%20Is%20Dead%3A%20Perfect%20vs.%20Great%20%28Known%20Unknowns%20%2314%29&amp;related=&amp;lang=en&amp;count=horizontal&amp;counturl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mattdebenham.com%2Fblog%2Fpaul-is-dead-perfect-vs-great-known-unknowns-14%2F\" class=\"twitter-share-button\"  style=\"width:55px;height:22px;background:transparent url('https:\/\/www.mattdebenham.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-tweet-button\/tweetn.png') no-repeat  0 0;text-align:left;text-indent:-9999px;display:block;\">Tweet<\/a><\/div><p>Did Paul McCartney die while in the Beatles, only to be replaced by a lookalike? Um, no, of course not. But he did seem to have a rebirth AFTER the Beatles. What does this have to do with fiction writing? Kind of a lot, if you squint hard enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing-is-hard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mattdebenham.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mattdebenham.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mattdebenham.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mattdebenham.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mattdebenham.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1082"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.mattdebenham.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1088,"href":"https:\/\/www.mattdebenham.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1082\/revisions\/1088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mattdebenham.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mattdebenham.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mattdebenham.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}