The standard advice given to aspiring writers of fiction is that they should concentrate on describing as best they can the characters, the settings, and the events, but should allow their readers to draw for themselves inferences about what this all means. Long before Roland Barthes pronounced la mort de l’auteur, teachers of good style had made clear that the novelist should not try to make explicit the significance of their books, but should trust their audience to join the dots, in their own time and in their own way, to complete the picture. The obligation of the novel, wrote Javier Cercas, more recently, is not to answer the question it poses but to formulate it in the most complex way possible.
As with most good advice, the injunction “show, don’t tell” has been ignored by some of the greatest of writers, who were determined that their locutionary utterances should be unambiguous in their intent. Why rely on the reader to work out in thought what could be made plain in prose? Not only the greatest of writers, but many second-rate writers too, have found it necessary to set out what their productions are all about, so that readers and viewers are assured, without delay or doubt, that they have understood what was intended. Bad literature – and other art forms – can be packaged to be swallowed whole and easily consumed.
The most popular genre of books and tv drama is crime fiction. Mostly, these stories are told from the viewpoint of the detective, whose role is to solve the riddle of the crime, to identify the guilty party, and see that they are brought to justice. Whether the detective is a cerebral eccentric, an old lady with a tendency to pry, a dandy with a foreign accent, a violent and hard-drinking police inspector, or a woman scientist who works in a laboratory – my stereotypes are drawn from British books and tv; each country has its own versions – there is always a moment, towards the end of each story, when the protagonist explains how the crime has been solved. This staged moment that allows the audience to hear “the tell” might be a report to a superior officer, the giving of testimony in court, a chat in the pub with a colleague, or – best of all – the gathering, in formal dinner wear, of all the extended members of a feuding family in the drawing room of their large Edwardian mansion, so that the detective can describe how the mystery crime was committed and point the finger at the perpetrator, sitting among them, to the huge surprise of all the other characters.
These scenes – in which all is explained, step by step, slowly and surely, so that even the most unobservant reader or viewer can now see how a variety of apparently disconnected incidents in fact adds up to a credible explanation for why the crime was committed, and how the mystery has now been solved – are not restricted to crime drama, but have become a fixture of other books, programmes and films. Whether it is the five character traits of incredibly successful business people, the inside story of how special forces tracked down and killed a most wanted terrorist, or the back stage account of how a pop star learned a dance routine while wearing high-heels and a wig, in each case the narrative structure of this form of entertainment is built around the instant of revelation: listen up, be amazed, this is how we did it!
My favourite example is the moment in every James Bond film, in which the heinous villain, having captured Bond, and just before sending him away, in the custody of a henchman, to be unceremoniously killed, decides to explain to him the precise details of his plot to destroy the world and show him the clever gadget by which the deed will imminently be put into effect. This revelation allows viewers to understand the rapidly approaching dénouement, during which Bond will escape from captivity, overpower the henchman, somehow switch off, defuse or otherwise render harmless the gadget, before overseeing the death of the villain, saving the world, and, at last, making time to kiss the girl. During these frantic final scenes, amid the bullets, explosions and fist fights, there is no need to pause to consider what is happening, for we all already know the detailed mechanics of the villain’s plot and how it can be thwarted. We have been told.
These reflections – on the temptation to make meaning explicit – came to me recently while discussing an essay by Isaiah Berlin with Peter and Viktoria. Berlin uses the ancient distinction – attributed to Archilochus, the Greek poet – between a fox, which knows many things, and a hedgehog, which knows one big thing, as the frame of reference for his discussion of Tolstoy’s theory of history, as set out in the Epilogue of War and Peace. Berlin’s argument is that Tolstoy was a fox who wanted to be a hedgehog, but he says many other interesting things along the way to this conclusion. It is a good essay and I recommend it.
For many years, I considered that War and Peace was the best novel I have ever read; and I have read it twice, once in my late teens and again in my early forties. Then, I read Anna Karenina and I was no longer so sure. Both novels are long, full of memorable characters, dramatic events and beautiful descriptions of nature, work, families, lovers and, most poignantly, of death. To be required to make a ranking or preference between them would be invidious. They are both great works of art.
Reading Tolstoy’s views on art is quite another matter. His essay, What is Art? and his other late writings on social and religious questions, are replete with dogmatic claims, weak argumentation, and a hectoring, didactic tone, which bears no relationship at all to the grace, subtlety and insightfulness of his great novels. Tolstoy is the perfect example of someone who could show – who could show better than anyone else – but who decided he would prefer to tell, even though his telling was crude and unpersuasive. He was not just a fox who wanted to be a hedgehog, but a nightingale who decided to become a parrot.
There are, for sure, many things in life that need to be explained rather than suggested. We can learn much by careful observation and intuition, but many technical and manual skills can only be taught by breaking them down into component parts, each of which must be thoroughly studied, understood, and repeatedly rehearsed until we become competent practitioners. No-one, however gifted can, without instruction and practice, play a piano sonata, devise an econometric model, repair a car engine, or make a soufflé. These tasks must be learned, for which we need to find someone to tell us what to do.
Our understanding and appreciation of the world, in both its natural and social forms, is likewise informed by good teaching. Many important intellectual skills are learned, generally by us following the example and instructions of others. What we choose to value and how we assign meaning, however, and can only come from ourselves. We can borrow or mimic the values and beliefs of others, but then they are not truly ours. Watching another person eating dark chocolate while sipping espresso might give me pleasure; but it is a different pleasure from my eating the chocolate and drinking the coffee for myself.
The best literature shows us what might be true, valuable, important, believable, and meaningful, but the hard work of interpretation, of deciding what we might learn from it, is ours alone. We have no need for a clever detective, nor for an angry old man who wants to disown his great artistic achievement.