Of Reconditeness

I read a rather fascinating piece from a Swedish author today.

It was an excerpt from a recently published book of poetry, a sort of proletarian view on social criticism - or so the review that was read beforehand wanted to say. The book, in any case, was a rather gruesome view on what was defined as "society's weakest" - retarded, aged, or otherwise handicapped people. The author himself had spent some time working at various retirement homes, and his poetry was a gritty reflection upon those years.

That, however, was not the message at hand.

What struck me as something other than the depressive, horrible collection (horrible in the sense of the content, not the format) of supposedly verisimilitudar pieces (a-hah (you really can't say that, can you...)) was the few texts of self-insight that served as a rather welcome break. While I only quickly looked through some pages, the formatting appeared to change rather drastically between; some were tables, others were pure dialogue, and a select few appeared to be pure prose. Well, prose is a bad word; rather, a self-reflective paragraph, by far more dense than the rest.

And these were the worst. I expect there is no worse social criticism than the one that doesn't speak at all. The writer maxim "show, don't tell" came to its climax right there - he never spoke out, he merely said how it was. And it was so grueling that I could not keep my mind off it for the rest of that week, let alone the single day.

I was reading my book on literary theory the other day, and early on, the author felt compelled to recount the basics of his contemporary English education. They were divided into a set of nine rules, each building on the basis of its predecessor. One of the earlier ones stated that literature had a purpose to share a timeless ideal, an independent narrative enshrouded in the story itself. The underlying message was not to be easily revealed, as is the point of "show, don't tell". And what the Swedish author had written, in his vision of society's weakest, wasn't even based on the underlying message - there, the narrative served as the foundation for it's moral.

It was extremely powerful when I read it. And I'll be on the lookout for clever examples of the same. I expect it's hard to find in mainstream literature, but if there would be just another one of those occasions, I'm game. (And obviously, if you happen to know a piece that fits in this description, I'll be much disappointed if you do not leave me a comment)

It strikes me thus that often when I clarify the idea that drives my characters forward, I do it in the wrong direction. Instead of making it clearer, as in describing the thoughts, the reflections, and the ideas of my protagonist, it appears one should make it more obscure, so as to reveal the message through it's own mundane shroud.