The Vulgar Writer©
George
G. Epp
vulgar, [Fr. vulgaire, from L. vulgaris from
vulgus, the common people, the crowd.] Pertaining to the
common people or the multitude; plebian; common; ordinary; vernacular
(the vulgar tongue); pertaining to the lower class of people;
hence, somewhat coarse; rude; boorish; low. 1
I’m reluctant to put to paper words and scenarios that my family
would find offensive. Similarly, I don’t think I could bring myself
to walk into my sister’s house in only my underwear, or wearing a ring
in my nose, or with Sadie the Shady Lady on my arm.
And while I know technically about the hazards to mental health of
keeping vices hidden away, stomped down in the basement of my
subconscious with a horse blanket thrown over, I tend to feel that
that hell has to be preferable to the look of disappointment on my
departed mother’s face as she looks down from above to see me
typing, “g** d*** you, you rotten s** of a b****.” (I’m hoping
even now that she never learned to appreciate the asterisk
convention.)
Had I been caught by her writing like that when first I ventured into
the mine field of fiction, I might have thrown up the standard
defense: a writer must be true to his characters; “this is not me
talking, it’s my character, and he’s a foul mouthed bas .
. . er, lout.” Her response would no doubt have been: “Why don’t
you write stories about nice people?” And then I might have
explained to her that the world is full of vulgar people, that we
meet them everyday and there’s no point having them say, ‘gee
whiz”, or ‘shoot’ when they appear in stories – as they must
– because that would be false. I fear this argument would have been
lost on her, particularly as she would be looking right at me and the
paper in the typewriter on which I and no one else had just
finished typing an offensive passage.
And as she finished making my bed and hanging up my clothes, she
would probably have issued the coup de grace: “You can make
your characters say whatever you want, can’t you, son? Just don’t
forget who you are and where you come from.” Had she been a
Bible-quoting Mama – which she never was – she might have added:
“Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which
cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man. (Matthew 15:11)2
So when Salman Rushdie says, “It’s not about opera seats and
five star dinners; to write you need to wade in life as it is,”3
it’s clear he hasn’t grown up in my family. On the other hand, he
did write The Satanic Verses and in so doing, brought down on
his own head a fatwa, a decree that he should be killed as a
blasphemer against Islam. I guess he knows – and has some
legitimate credentials for making utterances on – the process of
writing from a firm plant in the real world. At least he does now.
Canadian author Rudy Wiebe was castigated by his church after
publishing Peace Shall Destroy Many, a novel in which he
allowed his characters to be as avaricious, as hypocritical and as
lustful as people “in the real world” often are.
"I guess it was a kind of bombshell because it was the first realistic
novel ever written about Mennonites in western Canada. A lot of
people had no clue how to read it. They got angry. I was talking from
the inside and exposing things that shouldn't be exposed."4
Wiebe is a Mennonite and his characters are Mennonites, and his
particular branch of the Mennonites didn’t so much criticize him
for blaspheming their religion (there was no Mennonite fatwa
issued) as for washing their collective linen in public.
A school principal I got to know casually in Manitoba had to move to
another town and start his life over when his first (and, I think,
last) novel was published. Townspeople identified characters and
events in the novel as being far too close to home to be
coincidental, and would probably have sued him for libel if the
overwhelming majority had not voted to skin him alive, tar him and
run him out of town on a handcar instead.
Is it any wonder if some writers eschew the vulgar, the “real
world,” in favour of the exotic and far-from-home?
Many said of Salman Rushdie that his writing of The Satanic Verses
showed great courage. Some said that Rudy Wiebe had been
instrumental in bringing the Mennonite Church out of the dark ages
and into the light of honest and open dialogue. Vulgar writings
certainly get their authors’ asses behinds kicked
often enough, but they occasionally come out smelling like heroes,
given enough time for the world to catch up with them.
Maybe the trick is to do one of two things – or both – if you’re
going to write a no-holds-barred novel. Either write it under a
pseudonym and hope no one figures it out (in which case you will also
have to forego acknowledging any praise your work might elicit), or
move to a mining village somewhere in Siberia as soon as your
manuscript goes to final print, and don’t come out until the jeers
have turned to cheers.
But what does all this have to say to me, who can barely type the
letter “f” without blushing? Rudy Wiebe once told me in a short
story class he was giving – and I was taking – that my writing
was “repressed.” I wasn’t sure what he meant. Were my
characters repressed? (in which case it might have been a compliment
regarding my ability to render repression) or was I, the writer,
revealing my personal repression in my characters, plot and style?
Unhappily, I concluded it was the latter, and chose to be deeply
offended, although I said nothing about it to him or anyone else. I
repress, you see.
He was, unfortunately, correct. When I write, I prefer that my
characters control their emotions (especially sexual; I don’t know
how to write . . . that), that they have some redeeming feature (I
refuse to create human degenerates, or dignify them with a single
line of prose) and that the world the characters inhabit is a hopeful
place, if not nirvana itself. Also, they may not swear using words
that refer to genitalia (especially female), bodily functions (except
eating and digesting, up to, but excluding, the large intestine),
God, Christ or the saints, and if they are heroes, they must be
left-leaning, and if villains, must be rich, conservative hypocrites,
or offspring of same. My characters must generally be relatively
bright; I want nothing to do with the pooling of ignorance.
Furthermore, they must be healthy since I’m a bit of a
hypochondriac and researching diseases always gives me symptoms I
don’t need; I prefer that my characters die accidentally.
I really am a “repressed writer.”
And maybe that’s where the real issue lies. It’s not about the
ongoing evolution of the lexicon of words and activities one may now
put into print; it’s more about how completely a writer is willing
to give him or herself to the art of writing. Jesus ate with sinners
and the Pharisees condemned him for it, but I guess he knew that
without wading into humanity as he found it, his message made no
sense. (I doubt that he corrected their Aramaic, or tut-tutted when
they let the “sh**” word slip out.) Rushdie is probably correct:
a writer of fiction who refuses to descend into and understand the
world of the unwashed also embarks on a project that makes no sense,
except to some small audience of people who themselves never venture
outside their familiar suburbias.
If I could change the way I write, it would be to “unrepress.” I
believe there’s truth in the idea that good writing is
extraordinary, and that it can’t be extraordinary without
sacrificing some conventions, including where a story can and can’t
go, what a character can and can’t say, whose sensibilities must or
must not be catered for. And if readers can’t distinguish between
the actions and opinions of the narrator and the characters, they
should never have been let loose in the library in the first place.
Sorry, Mother, wherever you are.
But on the other hand, last night James Gandolfini received the Emmy
for outstanding lead actor in a dramatic series for his role in The
Sopranos. What I’ve seen of it appalls me; the Sopranos are a
fictional family fathered by a man (Tony Soprano/James Gandolfini)
who attends church, raises children in an upscale neighbourhood, and
kills people who interfere in his illegal “business” ventures. At
the same time, The Osbournes begins a new season with huge
audiences. I watched two thirds of an episode to see what that was
all about. The camera follows the family of rock singer Ozzie
Osbourne in yet another manifestation of “reality TV,” the
current media fad. As role models, the Osbournes are a pattern for
families aspiring to shallow thought, self-indulgent living and an
inability to string speech together without the “f***ing”, “f*** you” and “what the f***” connectives. (I rewrote this last
sentence several times; I may rewrite it again.)
I don’t think I’ll ever be unrepressed enough to appreciate the
gratuitous situational and verbal vulgarity offered up by these two
milestones in the evolution of Western television. Like so much of TV
“literature”, these shows are about ratings and the consequent
ability to draw advertising dollars to the networks, and unremitting
vulgarity seems to be a big draw these days.
So to modify my earlier assertions somewhat: as one who writes
(engraves words conveying images, opinions, impressions, etc. on
paper in a manner which may be mass-disseminated and preserved) I
would like to unrepress, while remaining mindful of and appreciating
the difference between The Sopranos and Bleak House.
I’d like to find that infernal balance point that’s so hard to
locate, and yet so necessary: Aristotle’s Golden Mean, the tennis
player’s “sweet spot.” I would like to shed my apprehensions
about going into unfamiliar and sometimes frightening places while
remembering (OK Mom, you win on this one) who I am and where I come
from.
With that in mind, let anyone say I’m being vulgar. I may take it
as a compliment.
1
The New Webster Encyclopedic Dictionary of the English Language,
Consolidated Book Publishers: Chicago, 1980
3
Loosely quoted from an interview with Vicki Gabereau in a CTV
rebroadcast on September 11, 2003