CHAPTER 26

Saying Something

I’ve seen some good movies lately: the Australian movie Somersault, the Spanish movie Nobody’s Life, the American movie Winter Passing, and the German movie Head On, by the Turkish-German director Fatih Akin. In each, the director chose “difficult material” to explore and was willing to say what was on his or her mind. They had opinions; they were not neutral; their first objective was not to sell at all costs. I am currently working with a well-known documentary filmmaker on her first feature film and we, too, are in this territory: the territory of trying to really say something.

Consider the following. It is a few years ago. One Saturday morning in Paris I step out from the apartment building where I am staying onto the rue Saint Gilles. Across the street is “some-thing”— now, how shall I describe that something? I could say “on the other side of the street a father and his three children are approaching.” How little that description would capture of what I feel to be true about those figures! If I wrote such a phrase and left the matter at that, it would only be because I wanted to keep vague what these people signify to me. I would be playing it safe. It would also bore you to tears. “On the other side of the street a father and his three children are approaching.” How nothing! How nothing on purpose.

What if I was willing to add my real thoughts? I know, for instance, that this man is an Orthodox Jew and that he and his children are returning from temple. I know this because I grew up as a non-observant Jew in Brooklyn and because I know every nuance of what “going to temple” and what “coming home from temple” looks like. I know, for instance, that they are coming back from temple and not going, though I don’t know how I know that. Is it because of the time of day, something in their look, something in their attitude? I couldn’t tell you—but I know.

What about the important person who is not there—his wife and their mother? I could leave her out of my description and hope that you noticed her absence—but would you notice? I certainly want you to notice. I want to make sure that you don’t miss the fact that she is absent, since I want to provoke you into thinking what her absence might mean. Of course, it might mean anything. She and her husband might be divorced. She might be shopping. She might be preparing lunch. But it also might mean—and this is the thought I want you to entertain—that she isn’t all that welcome at temple.

Then there is the matter of how they are approaching. They are hurrying, and “hurrying” is its own kind of loaded word. Children sometimes hurry to school or to catch a bus but their natural way is not to hurry. They only hurry when they feel compelled to hurry. Therefore to say that they are hurrying after their father is to suggest that they are under some compulsion. I would hope that by my identifying their passage as “hurrying,” you sense that their Sabbath is not a joy but marching orders. That’s what I’d like you to get if I describe them as hurrying.

I can leave things out; I can put things in; but in every instance I am saying something. Once you realize that there is no such thing as innocent describing, you will begin to feel liberated. There may be real trees in nature but there are no real trees appearing in artists’ drawings, paintings, sculptures, or photographs. An artist can photograph a forest when a cloud is passing and make it sinister. He can wait for the cloud to blow by and present us with a happy little forest. The very attempt at artistic neutrality is itself a blatant position. Try describing the bombing of Hiroshima as an interesting example of atomic physics and see if you aren’t making a statement! There is no artistic neutrality—forget about it.

I am suggesting that you make bolder, more honest choices. There is no such thing as neutrality: say what you intend to say. If you wanted to write a history of Paris, for instance, would you feel compelled to start at the beginning? That is no more the truth of the matter than starting yesterday. All historical records are subjective, pointed constructions. Ninety-nine percent must be left out and whatever is left in is not the truth but a point of view. The question is not “What is the real history of Paris?” but rather “What is your intention?”

You could start with the Parisii, those Celtic folk, settling by the Seine on the Ile de la Cité in 300 B.C. and starting a little fishing village; or with Caesar invading Gaul in 52 B.C., renaming the fishing village Lutetia, and watching it overflow onto the Left Bank; or with King Clovis and his Frankish followers, who defeat the Romans in 486 and rename Lutetia Paris; or with Charlemagne; or with the Black Death; or with the Hundred Years’ War. Is any one of these the “true” starting place?

What about its intellectual history? The University of Paris is established in 1215 and the Sorbonne in 1253 but it takes another 500 years before we see the movement to establish the supremacy of the individual known as the Enlightenment. Claude Helvé-tius writes the free-thinking Essays on the Mind, it is condemned as godless by the Pope and the Parlement of Paris and publicly burned, and it becomes the most widely read book of its time. Diderot continues the project of compiling a comprehensive alphabetical treatment of human knowledge, the encyclopedia. Which part of this is the truth about Paris?

Fast-forward 200 years to the Paris of the structuralists and the postmodernists. Wielding the sharp sword of deconstruction, they make projects such as those of Diderot and the Encyclope-dists seem ridiculous. In a mere two centuries we have moved from “the possibility of knowing everything” to “the impossibility of knowing anything.” That is a fascinating historical thread— but no more true or false than the thread of Parisian massacres highlighted, for instance, by St. Bartholomew’s Day, 1572, when Catherine de Médicis ordered 3,000 Protestants executed.

Writing is interpretation. You are obliged to offer yours. If you want to say nothing, offend no one, tell a happy little tale, and otherwise act the innocent, that choice is available to you. Just remember that even then you are saying something and that we are watching.

LESSON 26

You can play it safe or you can speak your mind. Why venture into the public space of readers and audiences if your goal is to keep your real thoughts private? If you are bothering to write, say what you mean.

To Do

1. Make a list of the issues you are willing to shed some blood over. Read your list over. Are you writing about any of these? If not, why not?

2. Get a soapbox and set it up in the middle of your living room. See what it feels like to stand on a soapbox and say what’s on your mind. Does it feel dangerous? Do you feel ridiculous? Acknowledge your feelings but do not stop speaking.

3. Put that soapbox in a public place. Do that literally; or do it by saying something in writing.

4. Say what you mean. The long silence will come soon enough.