How to Write a Masterpiece
Toni Morrison’s Beloved is among my ten favourite novels. In this marvellous fictional dream Morrison transported me into a world that was completely unfamiliar, yet I was utterly convinced that every detail was accurate, every nuance correct. I never had a moment of doubt that the characters, the events, the tragedy were misconceived in any way. It was quite perfect. You will understand then, why I take Morrison’s wisdom to heart.
There is a stock piece of advice dispensed to new
writers: write about what you know. But a writer who
has completed her apprenticeship and who is now
approaching her masterpiece must take Morrison’s
counsel: imagine what is not the self. It
sounds so simple, but in this hyper-narcissistic age
who among us routinely reveals an empathetic
spirit—even if he possesses one? The mavens of
Hollywood, Nashville, Washington or Wall Street?
Hardly. True empathy requires self-effacement,
humility, a belief that other people deserve to be
heard—or better—understood. Artistic empathy
makes even greater demands: to create convincing,
imagined worlds that are beyond the self. This is the
“artistic space” where new discoveries are made.
To familiarize the strange. I do love this
invocation, this challenge to bring a new dimension
into words so powerful that the reader feels it in
her bones. In my new work-in-progress, Exit from
America, I’ve being toying with the experience
of meditation, trying to figure out how to make
this “strange experience” (since many people have
never meditated) seem familiar. After
acknowledging that the task is impossible, I
decided to try a narrative simulation, to break
the experience of meditating into a sequence that
leads to “empty consciousness,” that fullness of
being that is no-thing located no-where in
no-time. The best I can hope for, it seems, is an
engaging experiment.
To mystify the familiar. Brushing your
teeth, sniffing a whiff of smoke in the air,
penciling the last word into the daily crossword.
James Joyce built empires from daily experiences like
these and tied the simplest rites of passage to
centuries-old myths. Who can read Anaïs Nin without
learning something new about lust and sexual passion?
Or read Hemingway’s fishing stories without touching
the pulse of nature? These writers have discovered
the mysteries in life—and miracle of miracles—they
have revealed them in their work.
This, certainly, is the test of their power.