Understanding

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Abstract

h wasted their time if mental darkness is the only result of their separate efforts. And — this is the very ethics of writing — the reader’s part of the effort must never become a strain.”</p><p id="2d7a">“One writes for everyone,” says George Sand, “for all those who need to be initiated. If one’s not understood, one resigns oneself to it and tries again. That’s the whole secret of our unremitting labors and our love of art. What is art without the hearts and minds into which we pour it? A sun that radiates no light and gives life to nothing.”</p><p id="ad69">Frances Wilson makes a wonderful, and familiar, observation: “We have all felt that a book knew us better than we knew ourselves, that the book was, in fact, writing us.”</p><p id="ca97">Such (miraculous) books are written by writers who were very much at home with humanity. Who were great observers, great empathizers, and great communicators.</p><p id="bd45">In other words, who were great writers.</p><p id="0d9c">© Wolfstuff</p><div id="75cb" class="link-block"> <a href="http://wolfstuff.com"> <div> <div> <h2>Wolfstuff</h2> <div><h3>So, who am I? Really really. I could tell you that I was born in northern Sweden during a snow storm, and subsequently…</h3></div> <div><p>wolfstuff.com</p></div> </div>

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    </div><p id="df63">More Elements of Fiction here:</p><div id="ec01" class="link-block">
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An Element of Fiction

(Image by Author)

The element of understanding goes hand in hand with communication for understanding really is the purpose of writing and communication to begin with.

Possibly the greatest author quote on understanding I have come across is from Arundhati Roy who brilliantly puts it: “The writer is the midwife of understanding.” Sentences (and understandings) like that give me chills.

And while we’re on the subject of Arundhati Roy, I believe that “The God of Small Things” is one of the best novels ever written, period.

John Gardner then lifts the veil a little as to how a writer can come to understand his characters when he says, “The writer must not only be capable of understanding people different from himself but must be fascinated by such people.”

Jacques Barzun delves a little deeper: “His [the writer’s] perpetual question is: do these words, does this paragraph, does this entire piece, suit my present purpose? The purpose at large is always the same: it is to be understood aright [my italics]. Reader and writer have both wasted their time if mental darkness is the only result of their separate efforts. And — this is the very ethics of writing — the reader’s part of the effort must never become a strain.”

“One writes for everyone,” says George Sand, “for all those who need to be initiated. If one’s not understood, one resigns oneself to it and tries again. That’s the whole secret of our unremitting labors and our love of art. What is art without the hearts and minds into which we pour it? A sun that radiates no light and gives life to nothing.”

Frances Wilson makes a wonderful, and familiar, observation: “We have all felt that a book knew us better than we knew ourselves, that the book was, in fact, writing us.”

Such (miraculous) books are written by writers who were very much at home with humanity. Who were great observers, great empathizers, and great communicators.

In other words, who were great writers.

More Elements of Fiction here:

More Wolf Stuff here: