A Bias Worth Having

Whenever a piece of writing gets criticized, an easy way to take comfort is to accuse the reader in question of having such a system, of being "biased." But then aren't all readers biased in some way? Do we really want an unbiased reader? After all, there's no one so objective as a robot, except for a corpse. The question isn't of bias, but whether the bias of a given reader is worth having.

One bias I have as a reader is an overly-sensitive bullshit meter. If a writer goes to great pains to impress with grandiose rhetoric, my internal radar goes off. "Did you think of that phrase yourself or are you just parroting some received wisdom because you think it makes you look smart?" "Are you using those words because you like the sound of them even though you haven't thought about what they mean?" "Did you choose those words because you observed something in life that made you think of them, or because you just couldn't think of anything better?" If forced to decide between prose that's too modest or too overblown and purple, I'll take modesty any day. The decision isn't simply a matter of taste like a preference for chocolate or vanilla. These choices reflect a larger vision of the purpose of writing.

Consider the following two passages by Saul Bellow:

#1 "If they didn't breathe the most difficult air of effort and nobility, then she wished for them the commonplace death in the gas cloud of settled existence, office bondage, quiet, store-festering, unrecognized despair of marriage without hope, or the commonness of resentment that grows unknown boils in one's heart or bulbs of snarling flowers."

#2 "It came into his head that he was like a man in a mine who could smell smoke and feel heat but never see the flames. And then the cramp and the enigmatic opportunity ended together. His legs quivered as he worked his feet back and forth on the carpet. He walked over to the window and he heard the loud crack of the wind. It was pumping the trees in the small wedge of the park six stories below, tearing at the wires on rooftops, fanning the smoke out under the clouds, scattering it like soot on paraffin."#1 is from The Adventures of Augie March, a novel generally held to be superior to the source of #2, a novel called The Victim. Each quote is a good example of why critics prefer #1 to #2 and why I think just the opposite.

Various writers and critics have looked at The Victim and nodded approvingly. They applaud the small, correct word choices that carefully evoke the object being described. They find the quality of the prose solid, yet uninspired, maybe even a bit pinched, passionless.

But when Augie March comes along, these same readers get really excited. Now there we have narrative exuberance, excitement, whirling turns of phrase with surprises like "snarling flowers," grand sociological pronouncements like "the gas cloud of settled existence," the chance to sneer at bourgeois values, adventure, risk-taking. What a lark! What a plunge! Almost as fun as a ride at Coney Island!

I understand this point of view. Maybe it is the correct one to have. But I can't agree with it. Take another look at the language in the quote from Augie March. Notice how vague and inflated it is: "difficult air of effort and nobility" "commonplace death" "settled existence" "unrecognized despair of marriage without hope" "the commonness of resentment." (Notice too the sloppy repetition of "common.") The only tangible objects in this litany are the boils and "snarling flowers," though I'm not sure why a flower would ever snarl or why it should. I suppose it sounds catchy and makes for a cute metaphor about seemingly nice things that are actually mean and angry. But couldn't Bellow have done a bit more homework here and found an actual object in life that has these qualities, like the lovely but poisonous rhododendron, which can be found in so many suburban lawns?

More importantly, what do these vague language choices really refer to? They're meant to satirize the stultifying effects of puritanical American suburban middle-class values, like putting the nose to the grindstone in some nine to five job while neglecting to feed the soul. The problem is that the grandiose rhetoric Bellow uses to malign these values is the same kind of empty discourse that's too often used to glorify them, for example in a politician's stump speech. Bellow's passage could very readily be re-written as follows:

"the commonplace life in the airy cloud of settled existence, the liberation of work, quiet, store-blossoming, unrecognized joy of marriage without disruption, or the commonness of contentment that bubbles up unknown in one's heart or in bulbs of laughing flowers."

The passage from The Victim, however, demands to be read as written because of its wondrous specificity. The concrete language dramatically re-enacts the same kind of despair of modern life that's only described in Augie March. The passage begins with a far more intriguing metaphor than "snarling flowers," because a man in a mine who smells smoke but doesn't see fire makes literal as well as metaphorical sense. It has a meaning that can be worked out and isn't just there to startle us with its sound or vague poetry. As the passage goes on, Bellow makes us feel the physical effects of the narrator's despair. We experience the emotional turbulence directly through the pain in his body and then indirectly, through the raging weather outside his window which almost seems to have been affected by his mood. After we feel the emotion, we gradually realize its significance, unconsciously at first, and then after some thought, consciously. To me, that's a miracle far greater than simply spelling out your point to readers like a priest preaching his Sunday sermon to an amen corner in church.

In a way, my preference for earned effects instead of purple prose makes me a bit homespun, guilty of the same middle class crimes Bellow indicts in Augie March. I want language to do its job instead of meandering aimlessly to Mexico on a road trip. But the alternative strikes me as too easy, and more than a bit fake. It's like watching a blindfolded cowboy wildly swinging a lasso in a rodeo, in hopes of roping a steer. If he's successful, good for him. But I don't feel like waiting around for it to happen. And I certainly wouldn't advocate his method as a model for young cowboys in training to emulate.