James Kilpatrick | Posted: Saturday, December 22, 2007 10:00 pm
It's the eternal question: For whom does a writer write? The lofty answer, of course, is "I write for me." A better answer must always be, it depends. Let us lucubrate together.
Today's column is prompted by a question from Chris Crawford of Jacksonville. He asks: "To what extent do writers have a responsibility to edify their readers with the occasional use of an uncommon word whose meaning is ideal for the task at hand? For example, I occasionally use the word 'feckless' even though 'impotent' does the job just as well.
"Our language is blessed with a cornucopia of delightful but obscure words. Some of my personal favorites, such as 'daktylodeiktous' and 'bathukolpian,' are a bit too far into the wild blue yonder to be foisted upon civilians, but I wonder where a writer should draw the line. Do the dictates of good writing make clarity the goal of the writer, to the exclusion of these secondary considerations?"
One is bound to respect a question from any reader whose favorite word calls to mind the duck-billed dactyl. It is a species not much seen in English poetry since the 17th century, but it can contribute to a delightful ragout. Turning to the serious question at hand: Is clarity the sole goal of a writer?
The easy answer, of course, is that simple clarity can often be the sole goal of a writer. It is surely the goal if one's aim is only to provide directions for shelling a black-eyed pea. It is surely not a goal for those who write free verse and sell it to The New Yorker. Otherwise, whether we write for a living, as I do, or write for the pure pleasure of self-expression, it is just as the apostle said: If we have not clarity, we are nothing. Clarity never fails. If our composition is no more than a letter to Aunt Emma, we must write in words that Aunt Emma understands. Else why write?
Be clear, be clear, be clear! Ah, but good writers will follow Spenser's Faerie Queene: Often it is better not to be too clear. If one is writing for the Golfer's Gazette, it is not necessary to define a putter. We write for an assumed audience, and we trim our vocabularies to the prevailing wind. Thus the rule is to be clear to our presumed readers.
Who are these specters, these critical phantoms on whose pleasure we depend? Long ago I pictured my readers: They read a daily newspaper. They buy a dozen books a year, mostly biographies and whodunits. They read not only the Reader's Digest but also a wide variety of professional magazines. Killing time in a doctor's waiting room, they will settle down with National Geographic and Popular Science.
Thus, I would write for high school graduates in their most perceptive moments. Without "writing down," I would trim my writing vocabulary of most foreign phrases. I would make certain assumptions, e.g., that it would not be really necessary to distinguish Victor Hugo the writer from Victor Borge the entertainer.
Simple clarity, to repeat, cannot be the only goal of a writer. There is obligation to expand a reader's knowledge, to inform, to arouse, to entertain. And as Dr. Johnson eloquently phrased it, only a blockhead ever writes except for money. A professional writer writes to make a living. Even so, we have to live with our elastic consciences, and we owe it to ourselves to enjoy what we do.
Thus I cheerfully forgive reader Crawford for his dactyldoody. I began today's homily with a suggestion that readers and writers should lucubrate together. You could look it up. It's what we do to a rusty wheel.
Questions can be sent to James J. Kilpatrick at kilpatjj@aol.com.