For so long now have I felt that a writer reveals himself best in his shorter non-fiction that it has remained an illogical and unexamined ‘fact’. There is, of course, a rational part of me which suspects this is not true. You only have to read the autobiographies or collected essays of some of our imaginative writers to understand this. Muriel Spark, an original if there was one, wrote a memoir that was as staid as her novels were sparkling; Philip Roth is more readily found in his fiction than elsewhere.
My bias was reinforced by a recent statement by Arundhati Roy who said she would argue about her essays, but would never defend what she wrote in her novel.
Writers of fiction often look down upon their non-fiction, seeing it as hack writing for a quick buck or a way of marking time between novels. Technique and professionalism are not always good substitutes for imagination and verve.
“It has often been said,” writes Martin Amis in his recent collection (The Rub of Time), that when writers of fiction turn to discursive prose, they “write left-handed”. In other words, think pieces, reportage, travelogues, lectures, and memoirs are in some sense strained, inauthentic, ventriloquial.”
He may be right, but it is difficult to dislodge the prejudices of youth. I still prefer to come to a writer through his essays; through an examination of his world view unfiltered by the habits of story-telling and cutting to fit. Usually, this means I retain a fondness for both categories of a writer’s work. Umberto Eco, Cyril Connolly, David Lodge, David Foster Wallace, Julian Barnes were first checked out in shorter pieces before their novels were tackled.
There are, of course, novelists who appear right-handed in their discursive writing too. Amis considers Saul Bellow “ambidextrous”. George Orwell, I imagine, would fall into the same category. Being an all-rounder is not easy, in literature as in cricket.
“Discursive prose,” writes Amis, “cannot be cleansed of the ego.” Perhaps that is its attraction. The ego consciously kept in check in creative writing cannot hide itself with the same artifice in opinion pieces. The novelist becomes his characters — as Naipaul said, he should have the knack of splitting himself into many characters. The essayist writes from a single perspective.
It is a perspective that suits the writer of another recent collection, Zadie Smith (Feel Free). “Essays about one person’s affective experience have, by their very nature, not a leg to stand on,” she says while explaining the anxiety of writing since she has no “real qualification”, not being a philosopher or sociologist. All the essays have, she concludes, is their freedom. She hopes the reader understands this freedom and realises that “reading involves all the same liberties and exigencies as writing.”
If Amis gives us the view from the supply side, Smith’s is from the demand side of reading. Different kinds of novelists, different kinds of essayists, but united at a deeper level by a nuanced insight into their craft.
(Suresh Menon is Contributing Editor, The Hindu)