There's nothing new here (even if that quote is still fun, very evocative in sort of an Alfred Hitchcock manner), but then Barefoot makes a point of turning the showing into an actual show, a performance, which makes a writer's introspection valuable after all:advocates a “tell, don’t show” model of writing.
"Show, don’t tell” is, in my estimation, the number one rule of writing. As Mark Twain put it, “don’t say the old lady screamed…bring her on and let her scream.”
In this context, don’t say “I went out walking and felt sad”, say “I went out walking and saw a crazy lady” and let your description of her demonstrate your sadness. There are few ways of writing the former, but infinite ways of writing the latter.
Let your description of the old lady demonstrate your sadness, he says, and that, I think, is what I'm after in Ditlev Jensen who somehow seems eager not to demonstrate an attitude except, perhaps, from that of a radically open mind.
5 comments:
This probably being the wrong place to comment, I would, however, like to suggest you to watch Mikael Bertelsen's latest programme, Den 11. time. Although he is not a writer, which is what you focus on, he is still very much a persona who makes use of the first person singular - in speech. And he does it with a twist, pretending to be a neutral, objective person (his infamous poker-face proves this), but always disclosing "facts" about himself (perhaps fictive, the same way that Morten Sabroe's "facts" about his own persona could probably be constructed).
On the premiere night (Monday this week), the programme focused on how Mikael Bertelsen had prepared for the show by visiting therapists galore, in order to get rid of his Angst, his fear of performing.
Then yesterday night, Bertelsen had the King of Radio Small Talk, Danish radio host Jørn Hjorting in the studio, because he wanted help from someone who knew how to talk to people. He ended up talking to a guy who requested the show's pianist (trad. jazz bar pianist) to play Joy Division, which lead Bertelsen to not do any smalltalk, but instead he kept talking about his own experiences with the 80s band Joy Division, and how the lead singer had committed suicide. Very faux-pas on national TV. Who is actually the protagonist?
What he did was, in my eyes, to show (and not tell!) how TV hosts can seem very self-centered when performing, although they show a (pro-forma) interest in other people, and what he invests in telling this story is himself, or at least a fictive self, a persona called Mikael Bertelsen. This is done with subtlety and finesse.
My television literacy is very low - so thanks for your very specific challenge! I do recognize Mikael Bertelsen as a public character of the spectacularly personal kind and thus: up my alley! And, well...
First of all, I appreciate the way the hesitant designing of the programme becomes the main issue; the meta-level is all-dominant and not just sporadically hinted at for effect!
But actually I didn't get to the Joy Division part (not yet anyway), and I must say that I'm not a great fan of Bertelsen's poker face. If, for instance, the therapist, the acupuncturist that Bertelsen is consulting at some length, is being ridiculed in his programme, well, then only the viewers can be blamed for that - or what? It seems to me that all visitors in the programme - including Jørn Hjorting and Danish minister of culture Brian Mikkelsen who makes a celebratory opening speech in the first programme - are victims of some very unstable irony. They decide to appear on Bertelsen's show, because they feel certain that his popularity will somehow guarantee their safety. They can just hope that they'll be considered cool too, but they can't be sure. It's all very subtle as you say.
But as you point out too, Bertelsen adopts a similar role himself, as if exposing himself unwittingly, and it all may serve to point out how we're all on our own, vulnerable and confused victims unstable irony, but - his deadpan attitude still offends me. As I suppose it's supposed to... mrrh.
PS: Like I said - or almost said :-) - I haven't watched Bertelsen's previous programmes (his 'News of No Current Interest'), so perhaps I lack some background information to trust his good intentions (?), but it seems to me that to parody the way the media take "a (pro-forma) interest in other people" is a tricky enterprise indeed.
Putting the Bertelsen discussion on hold for a while (I shall return with more reflections, I'm sure!), did you read Kristian Ditlev's article on the tailor trade yesterday? One should think he had read your thoughts on his use of first person singular, because he kept writing about that other persona of his - the writer persona - in the third person! As if Kristian Ditlev the writer had been there in the morning to tell the tailor what suit he wanted, and then later Kristian Ditlev the tailor had arrived to spend the day with the tailor.
Interesting as it could be, I did, however, find this way of writing rather confusing and perhaps a bit schizoid.
Yes, I did read it and found the introduction of the third person Ditlev Jensen confusing too--it seemed like a sudden affected excuse for saying "I" in the first place.
I'm beginning to see the point of his focus on trade as such though, enjoying to get a sense of surfaces, texture, functions and objects of value in a given field. Certainly his aesthetic focus seems more appropriate in a visit to a Danish tailor's workshop than in the Nicaraguan high land coffee field.
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