In The Words of Walter
Walter Mosley made an appearance in The Washington Post Book World on Sunday in the form of an article instead of a book review. He talked about how, when he started writing, well-established writers gave him two pieces of advice: keep politics out of fiction and remember poetry is an inaccessible form of writing. In other words, stay away from both.
Mosley disagrees. He says:
The advice I was given by all those well-meaning people made sense if my goals as a writer were to develop a large audience and make great gobs of money. There are many writers who have those goals.
But the truth is: If you want to make money, go into real estate. The most successful writer’s income is nothing compared to the wealth of a modern-day land baron. One office building in Soho could buy the careers of at half-a-dozen successful writers.
The acquisition of wealth should not be our primary goal. nor should greater and greater numbers of readers. The foremost goal on our minds should be to create a story that is true to its own world view.
Words, sentence, paragraphs - these are our basic tools and ultimate means of gratification. Metaphors, similes, rhyme and meter, symbols and line-breaks, even the elusive epiphany - these are the instruments of a writer’s success. And of a poet’s.
I’m a huge Mosely fan. Have been for a long time. His words flow in the article as they do in his books - smooth and natural, with a subtle cadence that hypnotizes. He’s gifted. But, I have to wonder if this is the kind of statement that’s easy for a writer of his stature to make and difficult for others to sell. He’s experienced financial success and critical acclaim for his work. Maybe it’s “easy” for him to talk about the need to write for something other than money because he’s earned a substantial living from his writing.
His points about the role of a writer go like this:
The job of the writer is to take a close and uncomfortable look at the world they inhabit, the world we all inhabit, and the job of the novel is to make the corpse stink. If writing was always only a good adventure with a teary or cherry ending, books would not be worth the effort to read or to write.
It comes down to this: Writing novels requires an obsession with our truths. Those truths are not put into novels for witnesses but for co-conspirators. The good novelist knows that Truth is always accompanied by its silent partner: Guilt. She knows that our humanity makes us responsible for events that transpire in this world. She knows, too, that we’re not willing to accept the blame. We don’t see our culpability even though it’s our dollars being spent, our God we prefer above all others, our own image in that silvered mirror that becomes our standard for beauty and innocence. The novelist has the potential to shine light on these blind sides. But, she must do it deftly, with a sharp beam. Blindside a reader, and you forfeit everything.
