Great writing

When I have just finished reading a portion of writing and found myself paused for a moment, thinking, ‘that was great writing,’ what I realize is that I wouldn't have wanted my mind to be anywhere else but reading those words in those moments.

Reading is a lot like everything else. We go through life, doing normal things, multiple things at once, not paying particular attention, and then at some point we pause and realize, ‘this is a really great beer,’ for example, and everything else recedes a little and we focus on our sensations and our appreciation of greatness.

Wendell Berry is my usual example of a great writer. He combines the ability to craft words and phrases so that they carry me nearly effortlessly, but with elegance and clarity - with grace - through what he is trying to say. And he says things that interest me. At first, I suppose I was surprised by what he was saying. Now that I know his writing better, he still holds my interest because I still care deeply about his themes. Truly, what he says matters more to me than how he says it, but it matters that he says it so well.

This is not complicated really, but we easily lose track of what we mean by greatness because of the subjective nature of these things. What I bring to the experience in question does matters a lot, but I am also willing to flirt with the idea that greatness exists outside of myself and my  perception.

Maybe I believe a little in Platonic ideals. The notion of roundness is easier to define than the idea of greatness, but it simplifies my thinking to imagine that there is something outside of me and also outside of everyone else’s thinking, an ideal that real things can be measured against.

But as is usual with these discussions, there are so many ways of saying these things that we trip ourselves up in our words. We break things down, suggest discrete definitions for all the aspects we find, and then we start to trot out examples. But then we quickly start finding contradictions in our definitions and counter-examples. It turns into a muddle.

What’s more satisfying is to say, ‘that was a great book,’ and have your friend say, ‘yes, that was a great book,’ and then finding ourselves with nothing more to say, we sit in silence, staring off into the night sky, sipping on a really good beer.