Something greater

Books are writers' way of becoming something else, something more, something greater.

Anna Quindlen, By the Book, edited by Pamela Paul

Anna Quindlen

The above comment by Anna Quindlen comes in response to a question about which writer, living or dead, she would most like to meet. Like the question of what books we would most like to have with us on our proverbial desert island, this is something serious readers may sometimes like to ponder. Others may fantasize about a dinner with Hollywood stars, famous singers or their political or military heroes, but for some of us our fantasies are more likely to revolve around literary heroes. Wouldn't we love to have a face-to-face chat with Mark Twain, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson or some other great writer?

But Quindlen recognizes the risk in this. What if, as would most likely be the case, the person did not measure up to the work? What if Twain were in one of his dark moods or the reclusive Dickinson declined to utter a single word in response to our questions or Shakespeare turned out to have an unpleasant personality? Would we gain more from this experience than we would lose?

Don't most of us view our work as our way of "becoming something else, something more, something greater"? Whether we build birdhouses, bake cakes, sing arias, program computers, sell cars or write novels, we want the result of our labor to make us seem better than we are. Our work may have imperfections, but they are probably not as obvious as the imperfections in ourselves. Quindlen suggests focusing on the written work, not those who wrote it.

If meeting Dickens or Austen is something we can only imagine, reading the biographies of these and other writers is something we can all do. To follow Quindlen's logic, it is something we should avoid, however. The writers we read about may not measure up to their work either. I have read numerous literary biographies and I know this to be true. Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and Pauline Kael, to cite just three examples, were not as admirable as their writing. This could prejudice us against their work, but should it? Would you cease to admire the beauty and workmanship of your own home if you discovered the architect or builder was a despicable human being?

Making oneself into a better person is difficult, and we may settle for "becoming something else, something more, something greater" in the work we do.