In a manifesto (er, “ideas piece”) about the importance of the workplace in writing, Alain de Botton calls on contemporary writers to write about work. “If a proverbial alien landed on earth,” he says, “and tried to figure out what human beings did with their time simply on the evidence of the literature sections of a typical bookstore, he or she would come away thinking that we devote ourselves almost exclusively to leading complex relationships, squabbling with our parents, and occasionally murdering people.” Yet work, according to de Botton, is at the core of who we are. So why don’t we write about it?
De Botton points to non-disclosure agreements, young writers’ lack of experience in the workplace and a misguided belief that there aren’t any interesting stories to be written about a cubicle-filled existence. Maybe. I’d guess that many writers don’t write about work because it’s not where there passion lies, because it’s not at the core of who they are, because they live for being able to go home and conjure up stories about things that actually interest them, not for getting yelled at over the phone by spoiled, entitled customers while plugging data no one will ever use into a computer. Why would we want to urge writers to write about something that bores them? That, I think, would lead to stories with a passionless voice, which to me, at least, is the very definition of “bad literature.”
I might be bringing my own shit to this.
7 responses
Yes – but the point is in certain respects valid! One reason I love Muriel Spark is because she is the anomalous novelist of SMALL GROUPS – not couples, not families, but groups of 5-8 people engaged in various sorts of communities. I spent NONE of my time in a marriage and NONE of my time raising children – most of the time I spend with other people is spent in a classroom – much of the time I spend by myself I am running or swimming or reading a book – I like it when I read a book that has actual classroom scenes, or scenes of people reading and thinking about ideas – they are unfairly neglected in favor of scenes of marital tension!
Two points, at odds with each other:
-It would be to everyone’s benefit if good books kept coming out that, collectively, covered every single aspect of human existence.
-Getting writers to write about things they don’t want to write about is no way to get good books.
So:
It’s all up to luck. We’re just going to have to hope that, for every situation, there’s some good writer somewhere who’s interested in that situation.
That’s a good point.
I agree that both Jenny and Zak have great points. Jenny, I think I was more focused on unrewarding jobs — the kind you take because you have to until you can get to a point where you are doing what you love, the kind that involves data entry and cubicles, and not the kind you do because you love what you’re doing, like teaching. I am all for writing about jobs you love or hate or feel something about one way or another! But that didn’t seem to be the kind of job de Botton was getting at.
It may be worth noting here:
The David Foster Wallace’s unfinished final novel looked–from what’s been released so far–like it was going to be a book largely about the daily grind.
(Fucking typos. Sorry.)
i think it’s tough to write about what you do (even if you love your day job, as i do…most of the time), because you’re far too close to it. i can’t even explain what i like about my job to most people, because “i’m learning a lot…” isn’t very exciting.
i recently read “oranges,” by john mcphee. i learned a lot about the process of orange growing and the people who own the groves and those who work in the groves and juice processing plants, etc…it was fascinating, because the author was fascinated by all of it. if someone should ever be so intrigued with my job as to write about it, i’m sure it would make an excellent (er, well, maybe midlist) book.
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