Reading as Meditation
Ask why, ask how.
Every other week, I’m writing a “seed for thought,” somewhat in keeping with the bird theme. It’s a brief kernel of what I’m thinking about. This week it’s GD Dess’s essay “On the Cult of Craftism” published on Substack and the The Millions last month.
It critiques contemporary fiction (some of which I really like, e.g., Anthony Doerr’s) for paying too much attention to style over substance. Dess also borrows some covering fire from Christian Lorentzen, who says “the dominant literary style in America is careerism,” and Stephen Marche, who blames “the MFA system and of Instagram in equal measure.” It’s a thought-out essay, but also a bit moany: O tempora, o mores. Plenty of writers are telling stories that matter. There are stories enough for every taste. And I doubt that the look on my parents’ faces when young-me said I wanted to write was “optimism for our daughter’s career prospects.” Yet the essay did lead me to Elif Batuman’s nuanced, periodically hilarious, 8,000-word book-review-cum-manifesto on how MFA programs could better serve students by incorporating a deeper historical curriculum.
Yes, obvs. Humans only live so long, and as a species, we’ve been telling stories and having experiences for a long time; understanding as much history as possible is nothing but a good thing, especially if it feeds a sense of curiosity. Which brings me to something I really struggle to remember sometimes.
Internet content is about as meditative as breathing rapidly into a paper bag, and the real pleasure—and work—is in slow curiosity. When I could finally go back to school in 2017, it was to Warren Wilson’s low-res MFA program. The semester was so much about analytical reading. From Nikolai Gogol to the Brothers Grimm to Helene Cixous to Jane Bowles to Audre Lorde, I simply followed questions and drafted a lot of extremely brief essays (2-3 pages!) on minute topics, e.g., “Parenthetical Memories in Mavis Gallant’s ‘Between Zero and One.’” That practice of close attention reminded me of how you can understand something of the nature of an owl simply by examining a single one of its soft-edged feathers.
The fluffiness of an owl feather allows it to fly silently. Silent flight means hunting; owls are predators. The mottled, muted colors also suggest camouflage; the color of the camouflage says something about the color of the environment. This isn’t a primary feather but is quite large; great horned owls are big. Etcetera.
When reading, asking nothing but “why?” and “how?” allows a text to emerge on its own terms. It doesn’t have to be a super-serious text, either—if it gives pleasure on any level, asking “why?” and “how?” opens attention to craft and admiration of the writer’s skills and sensibility. You don’t have to be a writer yourself to love a book in this way. If a storyteller’s work respects their audience, listening with curiosity is the natural reciprocity of their gift.
For example, in the Mavis Gallant story I mentioned above, her character Linnet is looking back on a WWII-era job in a misogynistic office culture, and she includes a metaphor that I really loved: “I remember … the radiators that always sound like the background to some emotional outburst, the sudden slackening at the end of the afternoon when every molecule of oxygen in the room had turned into poison.” The sentence is actually much longer, and even less grammatical, too; we feel the swirl of stale air in its over-circulated rhythm. It’s part of a dense section where Gallant is building the portrait of an era, a historical one that is nested inside the current one—just like the ideas that nest inside of ideas in the writing itself. The pace is slow for a reason, mirrored in this particularly well-placed metaphor. The words and how they’re put together support the same thing. Besides the writing, Gallant’s tight narrative control becomes a source of interest. We trust that she’s not rambling, so we pay attention.
In reading this closely, I get to think about all the ways I might use sentence structure and metaphor to reinforce what a paragraph is saying. Is this craftism? It feels more like an appreciation of something beautiful.
“Between Zero and One” is a quiet story that asks for the reader’s care and patience. So much writing (almost all storytelling?) asks this of us. It’s the sort of request that is a gift in disguise: the gift of mental quiet, of calm attention that models slower and more careful attention to our lives, communities, environment, and conscience.
I hope you find a moment to give and receive that gift from a story this week.
