Caught in the act of greatness

[sartorias]

As always, when you get a bunch of writers together, conversation caromed speedily, often hard to follow as conversations split off--both equally interesting--then recombined again. We talked a bit about "cutting edge" and who might be considered "cutting edge" currently writing in the genre now, and something someone said led to my asking, "How

Comments

[oursin]

Striving consciously for greatness seems to me to be analogous to striving for happiness - both are things unsuited to the head-on approach, if only because if you are striving, you're too often checking in 'Am I great/happy yet?', and this is counter-productive.

[asakiyume]

That's a good point--greatness and happiness should be a by-product rather than a goal.

[sartorias]

I don't think there's any should be, I think that that's just an observation about human behavior--that the constant focus on happiness, for example, causes that faint sense of anxiety that one is missing something, not doing something, that precludes happiness. So if that's true, then a constant focus on writing greatness could lead to an enxious preoccupation with self that shuts out any getting outside oneself.

[jonquil]

God, yes. I'm trying to be mindful on my 2x-daily bicycle ride: trees, grass, wind, birds -- but thinking of nothing but the moment actually makes me more anxious. Perhaps I should try giving it up and seeing what happens.

[frumiousb]

It's an interesting question that deserves a considered response. Which I'm not going to provide. But, will note that I'm currently reading a biography of Alexander of Macedon (wonderful biography, actually) and have an immediate response that at least someone set out for greatness, and succeeded.

[sartorias]

...but then that raises the question: is military conquering greatness. (A question I've been noodling about elsewhere.) Some beg the question by pointing to the library at Alexandria, but then I ask, then why isn't he known as Alexander the Librarian?

If greatness is is defined by the charisma that leads men to follow, then Hitler was great. Stalin was great.

[frumiousb]

See, this is the part that needs consideration.

I'd argue that greatness is at least partly a matter of self-definition-- as it relates to the goal. Alexander wanted more than anything to be the conquering Homeric hero, and so he was. There's a different set of questions about what value greatness has by itself (if any) but in his context and in his time and with his goals, I'd tend to say that he really was Great.

Or maybe I'm just distracted by the lovely biography...

[sartorias]

I'd say he's famous, but by our standards. Because you're right--according to his definition of greatness, the Homeric hero, he really did achieve greatness.

So...that's another topic, how 'greatness' is defined as our civilization evolves...

[asakiyume]

Oh what fun to meet and talk with people about all these ideas in real life It must have been a great day.

Funny nihilistic_kid should have mentioned a hand and a woodchipper though... when I went to drop off my car to get the parking break fixed, the guy in there was telling the mechanic about just such a disaster.... awful.

You need a very powerful or strong vision to write something great, I think. Like you said, it doesn't have to involve continents and nations, but I think your vision, your sense of what you want to say, has to be really strong. Like the ancient mariner, you have to want to collar people and tell them your story.

[sartorias]

...or you tell such a story that collars people all on its own, and it becomes their story.

[jonquil]

Many writers, like Anthony Hope Hawkins and Baroness Orczy, reach greatness through creating an archetype, not through great writing. I doubt nihilistic_kid would give much time to them or to Conan Doyle as writers; as creators, however, they put new characters into the shared mythos.

Like Superman, Sherlock Holmes seems always to have been there; of course, there were ancestors (and would be descendants), but the coalescence of traits and character was new. "What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed."

However, I think the greatness that you and I are talking about is not the greatness of literary immortality; it's pop-culture immortality. Which is equally hard to pursue, I think; you don't *know* what idea will be seized on by the Zeitgeist. Consider Beau Geste, which led to who-knows-how-many movies and is now irrelevant, so much so as to be mocked in The Last Remake of Beau Geste. Remember also the sad fate of Lady Audley's Secret.

My rationalization has always been "Write the thing you have to write and let the greatness come

[sartorias]

Good points, yes.

[oursin]

I am having thoughts which refuse to become properly articulate and coherent about the importance of playfulness and how too grim a determination to be great undercuts that. Though playful doesn't exclude seriousness: Cold Comfort Farm is not just funny, it's a critique of tired literary tropes and assumptions about life.

[sartorias]

Yes--and Austen in Northanger Abbey on novels and historical writing, and in Persuasion on men and women (and whose hand holds the pen) are brilliant and insightful 200 years later, but she was clearly having fun.

[jamesenge]

My feeling is that when people set out for Greatness they are not really intent on producing great work--they are intent on becoming Great Writers. ("Looka me! Looka me! I'm a Great Writer!") The more writers focuses on their respective egos, the less likely they are to succeed in the task at hand (writing something worth reading).

Sorry if this sounds a little ill-tempered: the cult-of-the-writer stuff that nihilistic_kid delights in usually rubs me the wrong way.

[edited for splleing]

[onyxhawke]

I like reading NK because he's evocative as hell. I don't always agree with him, but know the type well enough to parse what they are saying into something more concise and less bombastic.

[sartorias]

I regard his postings as provocative more than evocative, myself--and that gets discussion going!

[onyxhawke]

Eh. I'm possibly a bit too jaded to call much provocative anymore. This is probably why I don't keep my political blog updated.