This expressed some ideas I haven't been able to grasp yet - thank you. I write immorally. And that's why I always stopped writing projects 'before they are done.' Because they were wrong, but I didn't know how they were wrong, so I didn't know how to do them differently. Now i have a clue. Thanks.
Adore you, Brandon, but isn’t it odd to cite DH as measure of moral fiction (that avoids distorting predilection) when his is a fiction shaped by the transparent ideological aim of mythologizing het-masculinist supremacy? Perhaps art worthy of the name holds up a mirror that destabilizes both reader’s & writer’s comforting myths/perceptions, including our illusions that we are ever able to fully lift thumb from the scale?
Brandon, this essay has edified how I think about writing fiction (an avocation I’ve painfully struggled with committing to fully for reasons this essay helps me understand more clearly). I’ve come back to it every time I read my work and feel my fingers tipping the scales. Thank you for giving me such a powerful image and framework, it’s a gift I will appreciate for the rest of my life.
Whatever else he was, Lawrence was truly also the person able to write those two short paragraphs about Van Gogh and the sunflower. And the so moving "Deerslayer seems to have been born under a hemlock tree out of a pinecone. . ." Able to articulate so many startling, hard to know, hard to hear coming from him, apt, perfect, good-out-of-context moral, historical, and aesthetic insights. There will always be some of us esteeming him for shorter or longer periods at certain junctures in our reading lives.
But more to the point, thank you for this fine and really useful essay!
Excellent piece. As a writer, I feel both liberated and challenged by the directive to take my thumb off the scale. Sometimes it's because I am afraid to find out what I *really* believe and value, as revealed by my characters. (The Christian wife to transgender witch pipeline; thanks a lot, first novel.) On the other hand, as a reader and editor, I do judge books negatively for the kind of "bad representation" that perpetuates harmful stereotypes, e.g. disfigurement or fatness as a visual marker of villainy. Which, usually, is different from what I think you are talking about here -- your freedom to write Black and queer characters (for example) who aren't merely symbols of trauma and inspiration.
I will fight anyone for Hawthorne -- I've always read him as deeply ambivalent about moralizing in fiction, such that his allegories often undermine themselves by making the supposedly virtuous character somehow unlikeable or untrustworthy.
Thank you for this, but I wish you hadn't led with Lawrence as a proponent of 'moral fiction', since he often failed to not put his thumb on the scales in his fictional universe, which leaned heavily towards his predilection as a man.
Love this. Writing morally in this sense is so hard. Getting out of the way of your ego? Risking the judgment and the possible self-indictment? That's asking a lot. Thanks for this.
Leave Hawthorne out of this! He was a weirdo and his fiction reflects it! (O/w excellent and v stimulating post.)
This expressed some ideas I haven't been able to grasp yet - thank you. I write immorally. And that's why I always stopped writing projects 'before they are done.' Because they were wrong, but I didn't know how they were wrong, so I didn't know how to do them differently. Now i have a clue. Thanks.
Wow...brilliant. Thank you.
Adore you, Brandon, but isn’t it odd to cite DH as measure of moral fiction (that avoids distorting predilection) when his is a fiction shaped by the transparent ideological aim of mythologizing het-masculinist supremacy? Perhaps art worthy of the name holds up a mirror that destabilizes both reader’s & writer’s comforting myths/perceptions, including our illusions that we are ever able to fully lift thumb from the scale?
Brandon, this essay has edified how I think about writing fiction (an avocation I’ve painfully struggled with committing to fully for reasons this essay helps me understand more clearly). I’ve come back to it every time I read my work and feel my fingers tipping the scales. Thank you for giving me such a powerful image and framework, it’s a gift I will appreciate for the rest of my life.
this is extraordinary
Whatever else he was, Lawrence was truly also the person able to write those two short paragraphs about Van Gogh and the sunflower. And the so moving "Deerslayer seems to have been born under a hemlock tree out of a pinecone. . ." Able to articulate so many startling, hard to know, hard to hear coming from him, apt, perfect, good-out-of-context moral, historical, and aesthetic insights. There will always be some of us esteeming him for shorter or longer periods at certain junctures in our reading lives.
But more to the point, thank you for this fine and really useful essay!
Excellent piece. As a writer, I feel both liberated and challenged by the directive to take my thumb off the scale. Sometimes it's because I am afraid to find out what I *really* believe and value, as revealed by my characters. (The Christian wife to transgender witch pipeline; thanks a lot, first novel.) On the other hand, as a reader and editor, I do judge books negatively for the kind of "bad representation" that perpetuates harmful stereotypes, e.g. disfigurement or fatness as a visual marker of villainy. Which, usually, is different from what I think you are talking about here -- your freedom to write Black and queer characters (for example) who aren't merely symbols of trauma and inspiration.
I will fight anyone for Hawthorne -- I've always read him as deeply ambivalent about moralizing in fiction, such that his allegories often undermine themselves by making the supposedly virtuous character somehow unlikeable or untrustworthy.
Best day on the internet is your newsletter day. Hope the move goes smoothly.
Thank you for this, but I wish you hadn't led with Lawrence as a proponent of 'moral fiction', since he often failed to not put his thumb on the scales in his fictional universe, which leaned heavily towards his predilection as a man.
Excellent reflection on the art of writing. Brilliant.
Yes.
You and Angela Carter have both convinced me to read D.H. Lawrence. I hope you are proud of yourself.
This is definitely eye-opening in the best, most uncomfortable way and I need to challenge myself more on how to view art.
Love this. Writing morally in this sense is so hard. Getting out of the way of your ego? Risking the judgment and the possible self-indictment? That's asking a lot. Thanks for this.