I
recently listened to the wonderful audiobook of Thornton Wilder’s The
Bridge of San Luis Rey,
a novella that won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1928. The book takes place in
Peru in the early 1700s. Now, why would an author like Thornton
Wilder, who spent
his early years in Madison, Wisconsin, be writing about life in Lima two
hundred years before his time?
 |
| Thornton Wilder (1897–1975) |
New
writers are often admonished to “write what you know.” Basically this means
that authors are supposed to work best when personally familiar with the type
of setting and characters they’re depicting. Not only that, but today critics
and other writers often accuse authors of appropriation if they write about
cultures, characters, and/or histories other than the ones from their own
backgrounds and ancestry.
One
difficulty with “write what you know” is that writing is always an act of the
imagination. Even an autobiography involves huge leaps of the mind to recreate
scenes and dialogue from the past. Why limit our compassion and
insight to only ourselves? Isn’t literature all about extending our empathy beyond
our own little circle?
Yes,
there is a grave danger of misusing, exploiting, or distorting the stories and
experiences of people from other cultures. That type of writing can be deeply hurtful
to members of the appropriated group. But I do believe that danger can be swerved
around in the right hands. If writer are sufficiently empathetic and aware,
and if they have something important and vital to say, writing about another culture or
history can be extremely effective.
In
the case of Thornton Wilder, there were kinds of human interactions that he
could portray better in 18th century Lima than he could in Madison, Wisconsin, in
the 1920s. This was possibly because the culture and society he grew up in was not a
place that nourished certain personality traits that moved him, such as the character
of a great actress who dazzled an audience that knew the
classics of Spanish theater.
In
The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Thornton
Wilder not only creates a world of dimensional and sympathetic characters in 18th
century South America, he does it with extraordinary perceptiveness. How is it
possible, I asked myself as I listened to one incredible revelation after
another in this book, that Wilder knows so much about the little kindnesses and
jealousies that individuals show one another in this world? Had he spent a
great deal of time in Peru? He was just over 30 when the novel was published.
When
I investigated the background of the novel, I discovered to my astonishment that
Wilder had never visited Peru or anywhere else in South America when he wrote The Bridge of San Luis Rey. And yet he
could describe in excruciating detail the experience of attending the theater
in Lima in the early 1700s:
“She
[the Marquesa de Montemayor] decided to go to the Comedia where the Perichole
was playing Doña Leonor in Moreto’s Trampa
Adelante.…The Marquesa sat in her box gazing with flagging attention at the
brilliant stage. Between the acts it was the Perichole’s custom to lay aside
the courtly role and appear before the curtain to sing a few topical songs. The
malicious actress had seen the Marquesa arrive and presently began improvising
couplets alluding to her appearance, her avarice, her drunkenness, and even to
her daughter’s flight from her…”
Whether
it is historically accurate that actors did this on stage in Lima in 1714 is
not the point here. What’s important is that this scene is highly emotional.
We, the readers, know that the Marquesa is a deep soul and a great writer, who
is being wrung out in public by a superficial but sparkling person. In a dramatic
turn of events, that actress later begs the Marquesa's forgiveness when she
comes to know the generosity of the other woman’s heart.
Without
the distance of writing about 18th century Peru, I doubt that
Thornton Wilder could have created the moments of indelible pathos and insight in
The Bridge of San Luis Rey. Here are two
of my favorites.
Writing
about the artist’s constant striving for perfection, even after the audience
thinks the work is good enough: “The public for which masterpieces are intended
is not on this earth.”
“The
whole purport of literature...is the notation of the heart. Style is but the
faintly contemptible vessel in which the bitter liquid is recommended to the
world.”
Yes,
write about what you know, but never forget that knowledge can be an electric vehicle, charged by the imagination.
Zack’s most recent book of poems, Irreverent Litanies
Zack’s most recent translation, Bérénice 1934–44: An Actress in Occupied Paris by Isabelle Stibbe
Other recent posts on writing topics:
How to Get Published
Getting the Most from Your Writing Workshop
How Not to Become a Literary Dropout
Putting Together a Book Manuscript
Working with a Writing Mentor
How to Deliver Your Message
Does the Muse Have a Cell Phone?
Why Write Poetry?
Poetic Forms: Introduction; The Sonnet, The Sestina, The Ghazal, The Tanka, The Villanelle
Praise and Lament
How to Be an American Writer
Writers and Collaboration
Types of Closure in Poetry