On the music of words

On the music of words

On one of my long rides I listened to a lecture on Nabokov’s Lolita and Nabokov’s work in general.  Nabokov said that he saw language and words in color.  This resonated with me because I think this is where writing crosses the line between being an act and being art.

I can tell when I’m reading if the writer is painting with words, with language or simply conferring content in a structured manner.  That always bothered me about journalism.  The fact that they, the professors, the immortals, professed purity in writing was to remove the art.

On further contemplation I don’t think they meant to remove the art. I think they meant to remove artifice, the fat from the prose.  Nabokov would make a frustrating journalist for an editor or copywriter with his limitless vocabulary and wandering, beautiful, multi-hued and multi-layered tapestries.

The great journalist find a way to strip their writing down, but then sneak the sparse art back in.  It’s like they create great art from a limited palette of primary colors.

When I’m writing and I’m in ‘the zone’ I don’t see the words or the language, I hear them.  For me words are notes, sentences are cadences and paragraphs are riffs in a melody of sorts.  That’s the only way I can describe it.  When the words flow it is like music for me and the song of writing writes itself.

When I’m disinterested and the language doesn’t flow it turns to a metallic drumming, mindless buzz.  Then the artifice and the workmanship fill the gap and one brick is laid on top of another until the heartless piece is finished.

What is most galling is that most people don’t know the difference.  They can’t hear the melody.  They are tone deaf to the song of the written word.  For them I am truly sorry.

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