Nobels in the Attic

Of Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck wrote, “He never sent anyone running for the dictionary,” yet Hemingway won his Nobel eight years before Steinbeck. So, style doesn’t matter; diction doesn’t matter; even a Nobel doesn’t matter--until you win one.

What matters?

To read someone else’s writing is to crawl into his or her brain, and it’s a brain that will last forever, whether digitally, on a postcard, or--from a 13-year-old, doomed German girl’s attic annex in Amsterdam--on the dusty floor amid the overlooked debris of a hurried seizure and forced exit. The posthumous irony, besides that this book which said it all about oppression generally, the Nazis specifically, and adolescence existentially, is that the abduction scene was secured without noticing the girl’s simple diary--by those who were living their legacy of burning books. Her book rose out of the ashes.

They Saved Hitler’s Brain was a 1968 science fiction film, as bad as it sounds. But actually, they saved Anne Frank’s brain, her neurostylings and thoughts, written for no one but herself. A brain is a very private and isolated thing, so when it is shared for those to come, it isn’t the ghosts who haunt the living, but the living who haunt the ghosts by the simple turning of a first page.

Hemingway’s published works include seven novels, six short-story collections, and two nonfiction works. He won the Nobel Preize “for his mastery of the art of narrative, most recently demonstrated in The Old Man and the Sea, and for the influence that he has exerted on contemporary style.”

Steinbeck’s published works include 16 novels, six non-fiction books, and two collections of short stories. He won his Nobel prize “for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humour and keen social perception.” In his acceptance speech, he fretted, “We have usurped many of the powers we once ascribed to God; Fearful and unprepared, we have assumed lordship over the life or death of the whole world—of all living things. The danger and the glory and the choice rest finally in man.”

Frank’s diary was only a first draft, written in cursive. It was private, personal, unassuming, and heartfelt. It was written for her and not her oppressors, who had--for a few years--usurped many of the powers ascribed to God and assumed lordship over life and death. It was meant to go down easily and not create an obstruction in the borborygmi of history. As such, it stands as an impaction for the biliousness of oppressors.

Whether writing a first draft in cursive or a final draft constrained by the commercial sins of a publisher, if becoming a good writer is the goal, write.

Whether writing about wrathful grapes or bullfights, if becoming a great writer is the goal, open the brain and let future history crawl in so that the sensibilities of what is being said for the generations to come can alter the timeline when needed. Often, it is an emergency.