By JoAnne Tompkins
In our last class Amanda broached the topic of negativity in writing. Do we always have to be “nice” as writers? Can there be value in exposing negative aspects of people or places even if some are hurt or offended? I don’t have any answers but I did find a couple of examples of “going negative” by a master writer.
In “The Great Zucchini,” an essay by Gene Weingarten, he profiles Eric Knaus, “Washington’s preeminent pre-school entertainer.” Weingarten attends The Great Zucchini’s performances, hangs out with him on guys’ nights out, picks him up for a court appearance and ends up with him in Atlantic City where The Great Zucchini pulls an all-nighter playing craps. In his piece, Weingarten exposes a man he has befriended—a man who makes his living entertaining small children—as a disgusting slob, a gambling addict and a man prone to minor scraps with the law. Yet, he also captures his subject’s deep rapport with kids, his strange innocence and his ability to consistently send kids “into hysterics.” In The Fiddler in the Subway, in which this piece appears, Weingarten adds a postscript:
Eric Knaus feared this story would end his career. It didn’t. He had underestimated the willingness of parents to forgive the personal flaws of a man who loved their children, and whom their children loved. The Great Zucchini has more business than ever.
In “The Armpit of America” Weingarten takes on Battle Mountain, Nevada, a town Weingarten and The Washington Post conclude is “the One True Armpit” of America, a place that announces its presence with the giant letters BM on a hill at the edge of town. Not surprisingly, some in town resisted the armpit label. The piece is no hatchet job but it doesn’t pull punches either: “You don’t need to be an economist, or a sociologist, or an architect or a land-use planner, to understand that this place is in trouble. It’s got almost nothing going for it.” Again Weingarten adds a postscript:
First came the billboards on Interstate 80, bragging about the town’s new axillary distinction. One read
BATTLE MOUNTAIN—VOTED THE ARMPIT OF AMERICA BY THE WASHINGTON POST. MAKE US YOUR PIT STOP!
Next came the Festival of the Pit, an annual town fair and carnival, sponsored by Old Spice, that drew visitors from all over the state.
Eventually, the financial anxiety caused by the recession of 2008 turned Battle Mountain’s gold mines into . . . gold mines. Property values soared, jobs flowered and the New York Times gave the Armpit a shave, declaring it, at least for the moment, America’s boomtown.
Weingarten may not be telling us of other pieces where the exposure of his subject’s dark side resulted in destroyed lives or relationships. But these two examples suggest that if the writer succeeds in making the subject flawed yet understandable, a bit vulnerable, readers, townsfolk, employers and perhaps even the subject may be more forgiving than we’d ever expect.
In my work as architecture critic I go negative pretty often. Have to—there's a lot of uninspired, dreary, and even oppressive stuff out there. Same when before this I wrote music criticism.
ReplyDeleteThe few pieces I regret, and would take back if I could, are those where I crossed the line into personal attack.
Almost thirty years ago I wrote a review of an aging opera star's performance that I still recall with such vivid pain that I can quote it verbatim without looking it up. It began:
Soprano xxxx xxxxx crooned and mooned her way through a recital program last night that was so queasy and unsteady it sent waves of seasickness rolling through the Music Hall.
This was an honest reaction and musically accurate. She was indeed queasy and unsteady and should have had the good sense to retire before her voice reached this point. But it was unforgivably cruel. I still feel badly about it. But I began learning from that mistake (plus more than a few others) to wield critical opinion with something better than brute force.
When we're going negative, a deft wit and an eye for the devastatingly incisive observation are good tools. Meanness and anger aren't. They'll turn readers against us. And then we're all alone.