The Non-War Between Heart and Style
by Paul Chuks
In a recent debate at a workshop on craft, it was brought to the fore: which was more important to a writer, heart or style. Heart being the emotional nerve of the story. Style being the aesthetic identity of the writer’s palate. Some who were in favour of heart presumed that given literature’s primary mission to “fill up the reader who has come to the page empty,” heart is more important. I lost the battle on style as my other partners jumped ship.
Literature has been touted as many things, entertainment, escape route, educator, empathy breeder, bridge burner, name it. And many of these things it is. But its value is not contingent on the dichotomy of these features. It does not have to be heart versus style. A good book has both. And a good writer, while he is able to make his story pound the heart and wet the cheeks of his readers, makes his prose unforgettable.
Say I am camped at a writing retreat and on the second day, the chairperson chooses a subject matter for all writers to explore in a 4,000-word short story. And the subject is on colonialism, religion or any other one capable of inducing emotions–say politically inflammable stories. It is my opinion that the most impressive work of the day would be the one whose plot has a long glint of dewy brilliance, in the sense that while others write a short story cataloguing their (justified) righteous anger, that one writer who places past and present against a mirror, with the characters reflecting, wins the vote of the best story. I am reminded of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses that brought the hornet’s nest of the Islamic extremists down his neck. The book consisted of a frame narrative using magical realism. Other satirical books have been written in their own tantalizing manner towards religion and colonialism, but Rushdie’s book stood out because of the style employed in writing it.
Frame narratives are stories and plots with internal pocket-sized stories and subplots that meet at the nerving point of narrative. Satanic Verses was a story about two movie stars of Muslim background who had survived a plane crash on their way to England then morphed into two different deities. Farishta as an Archangel Gibreel (Gabriel) and Chamcha as the devil. Chamcha, taking umbrage with Farishta for having abandoned him after their magical fall from the plane, lied to him about his lover, Allie, seeing someone else. Farishta destroys the relationship without further confirmation. The pocket-sized stories consisted of dream sequences that left readers with multiple interpretations, one of which saw the firebrand Islamist in full fury: he fictionalized narration of the life Muhammad called Mahound, the messenger in the novel set in Mecca called Jahila. At its core is the scene of the so-called Satanic Verses in which the prophet proclaims a revelation requiring the adoption of three of the old polytheistic deities after which he renounces on grounds that the devil might have inspired it. The second sequence tells the story of Ayesha, an Indian peasant who claims to be receiving revelations from Angel Gabriel. She entices all her village community to embark on a foot pilgrimage to Mecca, claiming that they will be able to walk across the Arabian Sea. The pilgrimage ends in a catastrophic climax as the believers all walk into the water and disappear, amid disturbingly conflicting testimonies from observers about whether they simply drowned or were in fact miraculously able to cross the sea. The third sequence presents the figure of a fantastic expatriate religious leader, the “Imam” in a late 20th century setting in Paris. The Imam forces Farishta, who has assumed the form of the angel Gibreel, to do a supernatural battle with the Imam’s bitter enemy, his exiled homeland’s Empress Ayesha. The majority of the critics who read the book lauded it as an “aesthetic masterpiece.” Harold Bloom called it “Rushdie’s greatest aesthetic achievement.” If Rushdie’s chief focus were heart, in this case appealing to the emotions of readers, it would have just been another book about colonialism, religion and migration. It would have been a trite tract of emotional ragebait steering affected readers on the path of anger, without care for creativity. With the language, Rushdie came to show his mastery of literary devices and how much boundaries that can be pushed with language without provoking the wrath of the English. It was quietly tickling at times, flamboyant some other times. The best part of his use of language was Rushdie’s ability to know when to be tingling and when to come out in all colours. Like when an artist balances out all hues in a picture to make for a fluff tapestry.
Style is what separates readers, normal literate people, from a creative writer. A normal person with a proper education and eloquent diction can strew words together and tell a story with a fairly good plot and characterization, which predictably, would be emotional–kitschy. A writer, after having learnt to be extraordinary with their emotional plots, must go on to forge their own style because it is where ingenuity resides. Style can turn an ordinary story into an extraordinary one. Given that writing is a type of art that carries an unspoken psychological appetite, style is what helps the readers taste the story. Style is the dress code of a good story. And writers are the fashion directors of letters.
In the first chapter of Stephen Hawkins’ A Brief History of Time, he started by pleading the forgiveness of his readers to let him eke out his points with little to no style in his delivery. He eventually wrote well and drove his points home with little fault to his writing. But his apology showed that even a writer has to do more than just write. So should it be for a writer. It wouldn’t be forgivable for a writer to start their book with an apology as Hawkins did. It is expected of them to write their own way, with their own authority. Years of practice is the mother that gives birth to authority and she in turn gives birth to style.
Heart and style are the Siamese twins of a good story.
