Chekhov's Mistress
William Gass on the Power of the Sentence
Of all the fabulous articles in the new Bookforum that fell out of my mailbox today, William Gass’s “The Sentence Seeks Its Form” leapt over the others and demanded my attention. The article, subtitled, “What can we do to find out how writing is written?” is from his forthcoming collection, A Temple of Texts, due from Knopf in February (this Bookforum is the December/January issue already!).
Gass eloquently argues for style as the central force of fiction, drawing examples from Henry James, Faulkner, Dickens, Melville and Alexander Theroux (for the sake of a living example) to illustrate the use of diction and the musical qualities of sentences and the the creation of symbols that occasionally (in the right hands – as he says – “we shouldn’t try this kind of Melvillean mind leap at home. You will break things that don’t belong to you)” allow prose to make that metaphoric transcendence that is normally left to poetry.
Now I’m the type that carries books around, and given a spare moment will sit and read and re-read a great sentence or paragraph for fun. I’d rather read a great sentence 100 times in a row than read a great story with no great sentences, once. So, you could say, Mr. Gass, as convincing as he is, might as well have been telling a mother her child is beautiful.
But, that – to just say I prefer reading well crafted sentences – would be missing the point. Gass puts the function back in form by showing the power of the sentence to make characters live and to color the worlds of stories and give meaning to ideas. He also does it with characteristic richness.
The only thing I found curious is why he left most of his examples with the dead masters? I wouldn’t argue for a second that his examples aren’t exemplary, but surely he could have made the same point with the words of his contemporaries.
The article isn’t on-line, so you can either run out for Bookforum at the risk of some cousin using it as a lap-plate on Turkey day, or you can wait until February and buy the book – or both.
The sentence, through you, seeks its form, and its form is the endeavoring of a desire, the outline of a feeling, the description of a perception, the construction of a concept, the dreaming of an image.
– William H. Gass
[WG links at Center for Book Culture]
comments
Just from this quote it sounds to be an excellent read. I’m looking forward to its February availability. Thanks for the point-to.
– susan (11/22 at 12:19 PM)
Sounds like a fascinating article. I’ll take language over character and plot, though as you point out these three are interrelated. I’m curious, though, which contemporary authors you would have had him chose as exemplars. Rick Moody comes to mind (in an interview with Terry Gross, he has said that it’s “love of language” that motivates him to write, and it shows when he is at his best), Don DeLillo. I’m looking for recommendations 
– Robert Ellis (11/22 at 10:51 PM)
Well, I admit it’s hard to beat Melville and James and Faulkner, but contemporary examples would probably include William Gaddis, John Barth, Pynchon and maybe Barthelme.
– Bud Parr (11/23 at 09:36 AM)
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About this Post
- Posted by: Bud Parr
- Date: November 21, 2005
- Filed Under:
Wise Men Fish Here: Literature
- Comments:3
- Links to this Post: Technorati
