In Della’s class we were discussing the subject of “voice” in a novel.
The topic centred on the author’s writing voice, not the characters’ dialogue
idiom. We spent some time on what was meant by writer’s voice. My own definition
of voice is quite simply put: it is the
way of writing which identifies that writer with his/her work. Other people
have their own definitions and it’s worth studying them.
Had we been discussing art we would have had little difficulty in
understanding the concept of recognising the way different artists portray the
world, each in his or her own unique styles. We can all recognise an L S Lowry
when we see it. He painted in oils like thousands of other artists, but he had
a very distinctive painting voice.
By the same token, there is something inherently distinctive in the
writing voice of (say) Dashiell Hammett. Had The Maltese Falcon been written by Agatha Christie it would have
taken on a very different voice, a very different way of putting the story
across. And yet both authors wrote crime novels, so it’s not a matter of genre.
It’s a matter of voice.
I suspect that a writer’s voice, especially a good strong voice, comes
from deep within the psyche. People who have studied Hammett’s work think he
saw his own face in Sam Spade, even though he could never have lived up to
Spade’s behaviour. Spade was a strong character. Hammett was bedevilled by
heavy drinking and debt as well as poor health. Was Spade the alter ego Hammett
would like to have been? It seems likely. If so it was an alter ego that
captured the attention of the reading public. And Spade helped Hammett develop a
very strong writing voice.
No comments:
Post a Comment