Oh, gosh, I get it. I can do it, too. My worst offence is an old Tolkien story, Rose Riddle, whose every line is loaded with allusions or puns or something, right down to the poor, innocent-looking bats and salamanders. Usually I try to keep a lid on it, because too much Cleverness gets in the way of Story, like too many nuts in a muffin gets in the way of chewing. But as a reader and a writer, I see every fractal and feel every tug of every little connecting thread. Every inconsistent metaphor. :P In undergrad English classes I was a close reading superstar, and later when profs started saying, "You picked it apart; that's very nice. SO WHAT?" I was quite taken aback. So now I'm always looking for the so what, and I can't write a story until I have one, which is annoying, because I have way more clever sentences than plots to put them in
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Oh, I'd like to read that some day (Rose Riddle, I mean).
I do think that cleverness can get in the way of a story. But I think that sometimes the point of a story is the story, and sometimes the point of a story is the writing. I'm in the middle of Saul Bellow's Mr. Sammler's Planet right now, and it seems to me the point is absolutely what the author has to say and how it's said. It's not about the plot, which is barely there
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I'm not sure how to reply to this, because I'm actually very insecure about my own intelligence. I know that intelligent people would probably not speak to me the way they do if they thought I was not, and they should know, yes? And I have been told I am smart. Or is it clever? But I don't do any of those things you say; I don't do the things you like about my writing, though I love reading what you have to say. I don't feel very good at reading, either, and my brain skims over important things like they're all just ladders to the next piece of plot or character development.
And I am so very sensitive about that that I find it difficult to talk about, even though I think this post is beautiful and I loved reading it and love you more for writing it and for allowing me the privilege of your company and watching you work in conversation. And you don't make me feel stupid, but sometimes I feel so very certain that any illusion I had of being smart at all is a sham.
FWIW, I think you're super smart. You don't make me feel stupid either, but does it make you feel any better at all that I feel pretty ineffectual in comparison to you regarding any communications that are not long, ramblely, written contemplations of how clever I am? Seriously, I can go on and on about how smart I am, but ask me a question aloud, and I am helpless, ask me to be concise, and I fail, ask me to quickly grasp a complex concept . . . and I'll get back to you in a couple days.
I don't do any of those things you say
Does this make you feel less intelligent? Because I don't think the fact that I do those things is evidence of my intelligence, just evidence of the way I think, or look at the world, or the way my brain analyzes the world. How well I do those things is perhaps evidence of my intelligence, but I do believe very firmly intelligence is a singular thing. I sound sarcastic when I say I am a snowflake, but I sound that way only because I want to point out how special I am while at the same time fending off the
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I don't feel very good at reading, either,I think "good at reading" means different things too. For instance, I'm great at bringing my own meaning to things. I'm terrible at imposing other schools of thought on what I read. ...Those essays I was talking about for classes, whenever I was supposed to give a "feminist" reading of a text, or a reading according to any school of critique, I was such complete and other fail. Part of it was I just didn't care enough about other schools of thought besides my own (that's my arrogance at work). Part of it was that's just not the way I read, and try hard as I might I don't see those things
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I do think that cleverness can get in the way of a story. But I think that sometimes the point of a story is the story, and sometimes the point of a story is the writing. I'm in the middle of Saul Bellow's Mr. Sammler's Planet right now, and it seems to me the point is absolutely what the author has to say and how it's said. It's not about the plot, which is barely there ( ... )
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And I am so very sensitive about that that I find it difficult to talk about, even though I think this post is beautiful and I loved reading it and love you more for writing it and for allowing me the privilege of your company and watching you work in conversation. And you don't make me feel stupid, but sometimes I feel so very certain that any illusion I had of being smart at all is a sham.
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I don't do any of those things you say
Does this make you feel less intelligent? Because I don't think the fact that I do those things is evidence of my intelligence, just evidence of the way I think, or look at the world, or the way my brain analyzes the world. How well I do those things is perhaps evidence of my intelligence, but I do believe very firmly intelligence is a singular thing. I sound sarcastic when I say I am a snowflake, but I sound that way only because I want to point out how special I am while at the same time fending off the ( ... )
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