Style and Substance

I am guilty of overwriting. It is no coincidence that readers of The End of Reason have assumed the work was old and the author long deceased. Yet I feel the style in which I wrote that book was wholly appropriate to the subject matter. So, to what extent was this style an affectation? And can that style be divorced from the subject? The classical period of Persian literature (roughly from the 11th century C.E. to the 15th century C.E.) provides the context in which my book can be understood—in terms of both style and theme. But I was also aware of the danger of overwriting and struggled to avoid inflating my prose or affecting a style that might become an obstacle to my message rather than a conveyance for it. Consequently, I engaged in frequent editing and re-editing of the material in an attempt to streamline the style without depriving it of potency.

Is my writing style naturally inflated? And if so, did that style dictate, at an unconscious level, what I would choose to read and to write? Or did the subject matter itself dictate that I should develop a writing style appropriate to it? I don't know which came first. I would like to think that the style in which I wrote The End of Reason was not an affectation. I would like to think that I was simply following the advice of E.B. White who cautioned, in The Elements of Style, to avoid overwriting or, if this is not possible "to compensate for it by a show of vigor, and by writing something as meritorious as the Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s.” I have been vain enough to imagine that I accomplished this “compensation” in The End of Reason. But can I honestly take credit for the result on this basis?

When I was a college freshman (nearly twenty years ago), I began writing my first book. The title was The Lord of the Dawn House and the subject was the life and ministry and death of Ce Acatl Topiltzin, a prince in ancient Mexico who is remembered as Quetzalcoatl. The writing style of this work, like The End of Reason, was somewhat inflated, thanks again to the subject matter. At the time, however, I was reading a lot of Nietzsche, particularly Thus Spoke Zarathustra which I took, in terms of style but certainly not in terms of content, as my model. In one part of the book, I introduce three shamans who counsel Quetzalcoatl during his self-imposed exile. These three were Ivareotl, Tzesinech, and Tzelao (Voltaire, Nietzsche, and Lao Tsu respectively). I purposely mimicked their styles. I’ve excerpted a portion of the book in which Tzesinech (Nietzsche) speaks:

Tzesinech said, “One day a young man said to me, ‘People too afraid of the truth find their solace in simple lies.’ But I replied, ‘Simple? They are satisfied only with the most complex lies.’

“Behold them, the kingdoms of the superfluous, the empires of the all-too-many. When still you had your commanding will you were king of them, the herd animals of Tollan and Cholula. They longed for the mellifluous incomprehensible talk of the Herdsman, grasping out to serve his higher commands; commands so mighty, immutable, unfathomable that they called the commands ‘Commandments’ and the Herdsman they called ‘God.’

“But you were all together too simple for them. You were too just and quiet and thus they secretly despised you who had become their bad conscience. Like ravens they came in black clouds, plucking at your ears and face, wanting a taste of the blood of your virtue, for they were bloodless and hungered for that which they lacked. They worshipped you your blood and stole droplets away while you slept.

“Run from their blood-thirsty idolatry! They destroy what they adore!

“Run from the mud and filth and the sweet stench of their human sacrifices!

“Run into solitude, far from unworthy vermin!

“Do your ears not sting from the noise and the cawing of these sickly birds? Then run into the wilderness for here there is silence that respects silence.

“But the ravens of the cities rant and ramble and think that they are sweet-throated song-birds. Why do they chatter when they should be listening? Don’t they know? Aimless talk is the bastard of thinking. They caw and their cawing poisons you, their thirsty tongues pierce your heart, lapping up droplets of your blood. But you bear it and forgive them and suppress your crying out. Dignified are you, but still the victim of their hunger. Dignified are you, but they bite harder for your dignity.”

The speech goes on longer, but I only wanted to give a taste of it. In English translation, this is what Nietzsche sounds like, good or bad. He himself is guilty of overwriting; few would argue otherwise. But in the same book I also spoke with the voice of Lao Tsu. Here’s an excerpt from a passage in which Tzelao speaks:

“Inexhaustible is the source and the forthgoing.
The source is God. The forthgoing is virtue.
These endure forever.
But that which deviates from the source and the forthgoing,
Dries up,
Is exhausted.
That which conforms to the source and the forthgoing,
Never dies,
But has life eternal.”

Elsewhere, Quetzalcoatl himself speaks in the same voice:

“The sun is not a spark.
Though it came from but the spark.
The sea is not a single drop.
But first came the single drop.
The man is more than seed and egg.
But he came from the seed and egg.
All great things have modest beginnings.
So is great virtue attained by little acts.”

The sentiment is a little off, but the style closely conforms to the English language translations of Lao Tsu’s The Way of Life.

I think the answer for me lies somewhere in between these conjectures. My writing style has never solely dictated the subject matter on which I chose to write. Nor did the subject matter every solely prescribe the writing style. These two worked in collaboration with one another, feeding upon one another to become something better than either were before. I think The End of Reason is the logical and predictable outcome of this process. I may know now where the process is taking me, and how, despite my many shortcomings as a writer, I may yet accomplish something remarkable, not as a writer, but as a human being.