Reading 37

The following passage is adapted from an article that originally appeared in the New York Times (© 2009 by Arthur Krystal).

1. That’s Vladimir Nabokov on my
2. computer screen, looking both
3. dapper and disheveled. He’s
4. wearing a suit and a
5. multibuttoned vest that
6. scrunches the top of his tie.
7. Large, lumpish, delicate and
8. black-spectacled, he’s perched
9. on a couch alongside the sleeker
10. Lionel Trilling. Both men are
11. fielding questions from a suave
12. interlocutor with a B-movie
13. mustache. The men are
14. discussing Nabokov’s writing.
15. “I do not . . . wish to touch
16. hearts,” Nabokov says. “I don’t
17. even want to affect minds very
18. much. What I really want to
19. produce is that little sob in
20. the spine of the artist-reader.”
21. Not bad, I think. In fact, a
22. pretty good line to come up
23. with off the cuff. But wait!
24. What’s that Nabokov’s doing
25. with his hands? He’s turning
26. over index cards. He’s
27. glancing at notes. He’s
28. reading. Fluent in three
29. languages, he relies on
30. prefabricated responses to
31. talk about his work. Am I
32. disappointed? I am at first,
33. but then I think: writers
34. don’t have to be brilliant
35. conversationalists; it’s not
36. their job to be smart except,
37. of course, when they write.
38. Hazlitt remarked that he
39. did not see why an author
40. “is bound to talk, any more
41. than he is bound to dance or
42. ride better than other people.
43. Reading, study, silence,
44. thought are a bad
45. introduction to loquacity.”
46. Sounds right to me. Like
47. most writers, I seem to be
48. smarter in print than in
49. person. In fact, I am smarter
50. when I’m writing. I don’t
51. claim this merely because
52. there is usually no one
53. around to observe the false
54. starts and groan-inducing
55. sentences that make a
56. mockery of my presumed
57. intelligence, but because
58. when the work is going well,
59. I’m expressing opinions that
60. I’ve never uttered in
61. conversation and that
62. otherwise might never occur
63. to me. Nor am I the first to
64. have this thought, which,
65. naturally, occurred to me
66. while composing. According
67. to Edgar Allan Poe, “Some
68. Frenchman says: ‘People talk
69. about thinking, but for my
70. part I never think except
71. when I sit down to write.” I
72. agree with the thought,
73. whoever might have formed
74. it. And it’s not because writing
75. helps me to organize my ideas,
76. but because it actually creates
77. thought or, at least supplies a
78. Petri dish for its genesis.
79. The Harvard psychologist
80. Steven Pinker, however, isn’t
81. so sure. Pinker sensibly points
82. out that thinking precedes
83. writing and that the reason
84. we sound smarter when
85. writing is because we
86. deliberately set out to be clear
87. and precise, a luxury not usually
88. afforded us in conversation.
89. When people who write for a
90. living sit down to earn their
91. pay they make demands on
92. themselves that require a higher
93. degree of skill than that
94. summoned by conversation.
95. Pinker likens this to
96. mathematicians thinking
97. differently when proving
98. theorems than when counting
99. change, or to quarterbacks
100. throwing a pass during a game
101. as opposed to tossing a ball
102. around in their backyards.
103. He does concede, however,
104. that since writing allows time
105. for reveries and ruminations,
106. it probably engages larger
107. swaths of the brain.
108. Along these lines, it seems
109. composers sometimes pick up
110. different instruments when
111. trying to solve musical
112. problems. It’s not that a violin
113. offers up secrets the piano
114. withholds, but that the mind
115. starts thinking differently
116. when we play different
117. instruments. Or maybe it’s
118. just that the flow of thought
119. alters when we write, which,
120. in turn, releases sentences
121. hidden along the banks of
122. consciousness. There seems
123. to be a rhythm to writing that
124. catches notes that ordinarily
125. stay out of earshot. At some
126. point between formulating a
127. thought and writing it down
128. falls a nanosecond when the
129. thought becomes a sentence
130. that would, in all likelihood,
131. have a different shape if we
132. were to speak it. This rhythm,
133. not so much heard as felt,
134. occurs only when one is
135. composing; it can’t be
136. simulated in speech, since
137. speaking takes place in real
138. time and depends in part on
139. the person or persons we’re
140. speaking to. Wonderful
141. writers might therefore turn
142. out to be only so-so
143. conversationalists, and people
144. capable of telling great stories
145. waddle like ducks out of water
146. when they attempt to write.
147. So the next time you hear a
148. writer on the radio or catch him
149. on the tube or watch him on
150. the monitor or find yourself
151. sitting next to him at dinner,
152. remember he isn’t the author
153. of the books you admire; he’s
154. just someone visiting the world
155. outside his study or office or
156. wherever he writes. Don’t
157. expect him to know the customs
158. of the country, and try to forgive
159. his trespasses when they occur.