Bill James at Slate.com wonders "why are we so good at developing athletes and so lousy at developing writers?"
James makes some good points, but mixes in one truly aweful one and ignores another somewhat easy explanation.
The easy explanation is that writing, at all but its top-most performance, is very subjective, while baseball isn't.
Sure, Shakespeare is universally regarded (and maybe because of that gets undue regard). Outside of him and a handful of others, "good" writing is subjective. Romance, legal thrillers, etc etc etc. Is Grisham good, or a mere hack? He's certainly good at what he does, but does "what he does" constitute hackery? Stephen King sells millions, but is he merely rewriting the same 5 or so stories? Is he formuliac? Is he verbose? Does it matter? The Invisible Man by Ellison (the one about race, not Sci Fi) is considered a classic. It is one of probably one or two books I've ever started that I couldn't finish. It was like reading by rubbing my eye against broken glass.
On the other hand, a guy who hits .300 is pretty good hitter regadless. You can nick-pick whether he gets on base enough, or whether he has sufficient power for this position or that, but honestly, .300 is good. James wonders if some of it is because we already have Shakespeare and Dickens, but we "need" new baseball games every day. It sounds good on first inspection. But we also "need" new books every day. And despite James' contention that we would could and would fill any expansion of baseball teams with new talent of equal character (James suggests even 5,000 [5,000!] teams could be filled with quality talent!), I just don't think its true. In its formative days writing had Dickens and Shakespeare; baseball had Aaron and Ruth. Today, a watered-down and mass produced writing has King and Grisham, while a watered-down and mass produced baseball has all those .240 hitters and come-this-year, gone-the-next relief pitchers with whose names I won't bore you.
James cites baseball's payment-on-potential nature. In other words, baseball pays a young high schooler based on potential, but a writer must toil for years before finding any type of success. True. But a young hurler can have a big impact quickly, and that impact can be predicted with some measure of consistency. Absent injury, a guy consistently pitching 8 innings of 1.25 WHIP ball is likely to be a productive player. A person consistently writing a novel a year, even completely readable, well-written novels, isn't necassarily ever going to turn out a great novel, let alone a profitable one.
So I put it to you: Which is easier... hitting .250 (a mediocre average that would make you an iffy prospect) or writing a half-way decent novel?
I don't know if the two can be compared. I don't really think they should be either, and honestly, I find James' article rather ridiculous, mostly because (as you pointed out) we do still need new books. If we didn't, people would have stopped writing. And they haven't (aside from temporary writer's block).
ReplyDeleteHis main point (when he eventually gets around to it, or back to it) seems to be that we should focus as much attention on breeding good authors as we do good baseball players (correct me if I'm wrong). Which seems a harder thing to do since talent, as you point out, is a virtue of taste, not fact, in the writing world. But most of the article didn't really seem to focus on this point. Maybe I missed something?
Overall I found his article (and I only read it quickly in a skimming fashion) to be unfocused. Much like this response is turning out...
In response to his opening bit about London, he seems to forget that there were less entertainments to focus on being famous at, if you wanted to be famous you went to London (Not many people flock to Topeka to be famous, eh?), and he really should look at percentage in population density in a location that is comparable instead of looking at a place with the same size population.
The article has a "I need a column/copy inches" feel in that wanders around quite a bit. On that, you are spot on.
ReplyDeleteI think they can be compared, to some extent, though. James did it. I did it. You did it, to some extent. He wasn't comparing the ease of doing each, like I did, which makes his comparison easier. Still, I think you can compare the relative ease of each.
I think your reading of the column (giving more attention to authors) is correct, and I think your criticism is correct, as well. You think you went astray because the column wanders, and because the issue is much deeper than James allows. This is probably a multi-part column, if he truly wants to address the issue.
Yesterday we had Shakespeare, today we have Mark Zuckerberg, so a straight population comparison seems weak, as you point out.
Turns out this reply could have been two words: I agree.
Music to my ears.
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