Jamie Bennett
Patrick Warner in Literary Review of Canada: Writers are those naïfs among us who believe that language can be used to take the measure of experience. Readers demonstrate faith in them when they commit to a book or short story. The reader-writer relationship is a contract of sorts. But because the terms are not written down, there is much room in that contract for misinterpretation. What is at stake is not small: it is a shared picture of reality. Nor is it static. With each new publication or rereading, the reader-writer contract is up for review. What could go wrong?
In every closely examined work of creativity, no matter how successful, there is a frightening degree of illusion. Once, in an art gallery, I was taken with a work of Flemish realism depicting a man who wore the most dazzling lace collar. I moved closer and closer, until I could see that the fine textile was simply a series of crude white dots joined together by off-white and grey dashes. I walked backwards, away from the painting, while keeping my eyes fixed on it. Suddenly the lace collar miraculously and convincingly reappeared. For art lovers, such a thing is a marvel. For those looking for a simplified truth, it can be deeply distressing. Artifice is problematic for those who insist that all sleights of hand are meant to deceive, most likely for nefarious purposes. Is it any wonder that artists and writers in this age of mass media have looked to pull back the curtain on their practice?
What can one say in defence of writing? Because words can have multiple meanings, they are inherently ambiguous. The problem is compounded by sentences, paragraphs, chapters, whole works. Finding clarity of meaning often seems to require superhuman effort. So why bother, when all human endeavours fall short in one way or another, usually sooner rather than later? As someone famous once famously said, “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
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