The quest for perfection

Iris Murdoch

"Every book is the wreck of a perfect idea," novelist Iris Murdoch said.

William Faulkner said something similar: "All of us failed to match our dream of perfection." Faulkner's thought can be expanded to include not just writers but everyone else. None of us quite achieve our dreams, not all of them anyway. Perfection is impossible in a universe where Murphy's Law seems to rule. Our dreams are one thing. Reality is another.

I once heard another novelist, Ann Patchett, say something along this same line, although I don't remember her exact words. The story she writes is never quite the story she imagined in her mind, she suggested. And this from someone who, like Murdoch and Faulkner, has written wonderful books.

Is this failure to achieve perfection as unfortunate as it seems? In Christian thought, imperfection when it is recognized — or repentance, if you will — is what opens the door to grace. It also inspires Christians to strive always to do better.

Faulkner saw it similarly for writers. "That's why he keeps on working, trying again; he believes each time that this time he will do it, bring it off," he said. "Of course he won't, which is why this condition is healthy. Once he did it, once he matched the work to the image, the dream, nothing would remain but to cut his throat, jump off the short side of that pinnacle of perfection into suicide."

Early success can spoil writers, just as it can spoil those in other pursuits. And success isn't even perfection. Actual perfection could destroy us. We all need struggle — and grace.