Al Alvarez’s slim volume The Writer’s Voice is a book I’d highly recommend to anyone who’s ever spent any time thinking about writing as a craft. In it he considers the nature of an artistic “voice??? which he distinguishes, correctly in my view, from “style???. Style is often artificial and brittle, and can easily degenerate into mannerism. Too much wit gets tedious and cloying, like (and I don’t know who I’m quoting here, but I know the line isn’t one of my own) drinking Crème De Menthe by the pint. Voice on the other hand is something more substantial and lasting. One could almost say that voice is what remains when false style has been shrugged off. I think voice is what I look for in art above all else. The artist’s voice can express a lot of things, but ultimately it expresses the artist’s self. That self may not be the same as the artist’s personality, in fact it may be radically different, but the voice nonetheless has it’s own truth. It is the voice that allows you to say not nearly, but exactly what you want to say. The thrill that comes with finding that voice is as deep as it is elusive. In a page of writing there may be only one or two sentences that find the right tone, when suddenly your voice rings like a bell, and you can clearly say, “this is how it was”. Then it’s gone again. Getting to that spot requires a mixture of tightness and looseness, trying as hard as you can while also not trying at all. A musician would understand this perfectly, hence the metaphor of voice, but so I think would a sportsman. Who can deny that a great footballer (Ronaldinho let’s say, or Thierry Henry) does not sometimes slip, unbidden, into a moment of greatness, one that does more than simply create a shot at goal, but somehow speaks of who he is as a player? That’s why people sometimes attribute genius to great sportsmen, and the label is deserved even where the player may be unimpressive in all other areas of life.
Interesting voices abound on blogs, tending to be found more often amongst those who like to write long posts. An accumulation of short posts will give a good idea to the reader of who the blogger is, and what world-view they have, but the voice emerges at length, often in ways the author might only subliminally have noticed. A long post by Copernicus on book shops is about his voice as profoundly as it is about books. I disagree with auds on almost everything, but what keeps me coming back to her blog is a voice which I find deeply sympathetic, regardless of subject matter. Maybe it has something to do with our shared taste in music.
I am not a man with a strong view of the world which I wish to push down the throats of others. Nor do I burst, Ancient Mariner-like, with a tale that must be told. I write, mostly, because I can. (Or in truth, I write because I can’t sing). I use my voice in an effort to get it closer to that perfect pitch. Success I suppose, will be when I can get my voice to do what I want it to do for more than an occasional fragmentary moment. In the meantime, you people have to put up with my attempts.
7 Comments
Very flattered to have been mentioned, Fergal. I totally agree with everything you’ve said (except your self-deprecating points – I note of course that you don’t say you don’t have strong opinions, merely that you don’t want to shove them down our throats. Shove away say I).
The warming up metaphor to achieve a kind of sporting looseness is an excellent one. I did a two part post on Fustar about fairies and freemasons and while the tone of part one felt kind of clunky to me, in spite of revisions, I felt like a bit of a surfer on part 2 (NB, pt 2 was full of revisions too).
I seem to have what I call a kind of “ho’ brow” (high/low brow) voice where I juxtapose phrases like “antiquarian repository” with “sitting on me hole”. Must be why I like hip hop.
Ah, surfing. Not a sport I’m familiar with, but I appreciate the justness of the metaphor.
I once read Greil Marcus writing about Bob Dylan and the Band playing in 1966, saying that the music reached a level where it was so perfect that it seemed as if a single mis-step could cause the whole thing to collapse – except that, such was the perfection, you knew that this mis-step would never happen. Not only a fine piece of music criticism, but a fine description of how it feels when everything just works.
Gosh, I’m shocked to be mentioned at all.
My voice is not something I think about so it must the music, Fergal!
Deep post (deep, man, deep) and I must pick up that book.
I notice that the link I provide to the Alvarez book is for an American edition with an ugly cover. The paperback edition available here is far nicer, and only about a tenner. Also, the Publishers Weekly review on the amazon referral page is bollocks. Just so you know.
Ah, my apologies to Fergal for the less than flattering cover on the Amazon US site. I link to the book pages because they give the ISBN numbers. As I’ve said before, with an ISBN number and a local library, you can have any book you like for free. Use your libraries, readers of the world.
And that Reed Elsevier review is drivel. It’s clearly written by a teenager. It even starts a sentence with ‘Alas’.
An uplifting post in many ways. I’m rather self-conscious about my writing and have oft considered employing the help of a style-book (or whatever they call them); this post assures me there is little that can be done, since it’s all voice anyway. I suppose a voice develops though, taking on an air of grandeur or wisdom or that wonder sort of lethargy or patience or whatever it is that McGahern had. One can only hope anyway.
* … taking on with age …