Haha -- good one. There are a thousand variations of this now (it started as one of those emails people would forward back in the 90s), but I like this one at Stanford.
What a fun read Josh. Hearing your analysis of writing styles to find one's voice...and including U2 (one of my favorite groups) is a treat this morning ;-)
Hopefully kids these days still listen to a little U2. In fact, I think it's likely that many do. There are waves of soundtracks, like for the KPoP film my kids love, that add some new artists and tunes, and of course the big names like Taylor Swift. But social media has made a lot of oldies live forever, too, including this song. I love it and always want a little of it in my soul.
You're right about voice. I never even tried teaching it to my college students. I always said, you need to read more to find out how you want to sound. Pick and author you like and think about why you like them. I believe one's voice mostly comes from mimicking (either purposefully or unintentionally) the voice of others. For me, I can tell that my fiction writing voice is similar to the novels of Chuck Palahniuk and Nick Hornby because I was reading a lot of their work in college (Fight Club and High Fidelity, especially). My scholarly writing tends to sound more like Thomas Sowell (because that's whose academic work I read the most in my free time) and my literary theory mentors Paul Cantor and Stephen Cox. All of whom are accomplished scholars but avoid writing in academese--opting for straightforward, often humorous, even sarcastic, prose in texts written not just for fellow scholars but for the general public. Over many years, both my fiction and academic writing became more my own, but those are the authors that taught me how I wanted to sound. You almost always start out trying to be someone else, but with enough practice, to paraphrase David Foster Wallace, you end up becoming yourself.
Smart discourse, especially the Wallace at the end. Neuroscientists and dev. psychologists call this kind of mimicry "canonical babble" in children. We learn language by imitation, sometimes just rhythm and sound without meaning before we graduate to our true voices. So it's no wonder the same applies to advanced writing.
Tobias Wolff takes this to the extreme in "Old School" -- his protagonist takes to typing out Hemingway stories just to get the feel of them, and then ends up turning in one of those typescripts as his own.
I was not conscious of any stylistic influences in my scholarly writing, but I did learn from my mentor that you could write with panache and precision even in literary criticism. And I'd like to think that some of my later peer-reviewed essays show some distinction in voice. I'm glad to see the pendulum swinging back toward public intellectuals and trade books. I hope that trend continues, because there was a lot of ink wasted trying to sound like Foucault.
Joshua — Chicken/road jokes as told by different authors should be a fun game. If I come up with one, I will be back.
Okay. Not good but to kick it off. Dylan Thomas was asked why the chicken crossed the road and answered: so it could sing in its chains like the sea.
And — a great essay, but I hope that goes without saying.
Haha -- good one. There are a thousand variations of this now (it started as one of those emails people would forward back in the 90s), but I like this one at Stanford.
https://www.physics.harvard.edu/undergrad/humor
Also, Bill Clinton: "I did not cross the road with that chicken."
Just picked this up the other day😃
Only you, Nigel!
What a fun read Josh. Hearing your analysis of writing styles to find one's voice...and including U2 (one of my favorite groups) is a treat this morning ;-)
Hopefully kids these days still listen to a little U2. In fact, I think it's likely that many do. There are waves of soundtracks, like for the KPoP film my kids love, that add some new artists and tunes, and of course the big names like Taylor Swift. But social media has made a lot of oldies live forever, too, including this song. I love it and always want a little of it in my soul.
You're right about voice. I never even tried teaching it to my college students. I always said, you need to read more to find out how you want to sound. Pick and author you like and think about why you like them. I believe one's voice mostly comes from mimicking (either purposefully or unintentionally) the voice of others. For me, I can tell that my fiction writing voice is similar to the novels of Chuck Palahniuk and Nick Hornby because I was reading a lot of their work in college (Fight Club and High Fidelity, especially). My scholarly writing tends to sound more like Thomas Sowell (because that's whose academic work I read the most in my free time) and my literary theory mentors Paul Cantor and Stephen Cox. All of whom are accomplished scholars but avoid writing in academese--opting for straightforward, often humorous, even sarcastic, prose in texts written not just for fellow scholars but for the general public. Over many years, both my fiction and academic writing became more my own, but those are the authors that taught me how I wanted to sound. You almost always start out trying to be someone else, but with enough practice, to paraphrase David Foster Wallace, you end up becoming yourself.
Smart discourse, especially the Wallace at the end. Neuroscientists and dev. psychologists call this kind of mimicry "canonical babble" in children. We learn language by imitation, sometimes just rhythm and sound without meaning before we graduate to our true voices. So it's no wonder the same applies to advanced writing.
Tobias Wolff takes this to the extreme in "Old School" -- his protagonist takes to typing out Hemingway stories just to get the feel of them, and then ends up turning in one of those typescripts as his own.
I was not conscious of any stylistic influences in my scholarly writing, but I did learn from my mentor that you could write with panache and precision even in literary criticism. And I'd like to think that some of my later peer-reviewed essays show some distinction in voice. I'm glad to see the pendulum swinging back toward public intellectuals and trade books. I hope that trend continues, because there was a lot of ink wasted trying to sound like Foucault.
"...there was a lot of ink wasted trying to sound like Foucault." So true, and so sad.