Arundhati Roy says she can read a piece of writing and know within "three paragraphs" whether the writer is serious or not. In my case, she would not even need three paragraphs to make that judgment. A couple of lines should tell anyone reasonably discerning that I am by disposition desultory.
But then I am not a writer by any measure. I am merely someone who strings a few words together in the faint hope that they might make some sense to someone, somewhere. More often than not I do not even think it necessary for a piece of writing to make sense as long as it is readable.
Roy believes that as a writer you have to be part of a cause."You are not somebody on the outside, commenting," she told Sophie Elmhirst of New Statesman which has published a long profile of the writer-activist. Roy wants to be on the inside and believes it is expected of writers to be on the inside.
“In her view, writers should be part of the struggle. Roy deplores what she describes as a "terrible shift" that has occurred in the perception of both the purpose of writing and the position of a writer in society - how the writer is presumed to be a fringe player, a mere observer,” Elmhirst writes.
Somewhere hidden in those words is the implication that she herself meets the high standards that she has set for any writer to be a serious writer. Reading Roy’s comment that she can tell within three paragraphs how serious the writer is, I was reminded of something V S Naipaul said recently. He said he can read a piece of writing and tell "within a paragraph or two” whether it is by a woman or not. Of course, Naipaul’s main point was that there is no woman writer whom he considers his literary match or equal. It is no surprise that he does not think of any woman writer rising to that exalted position.
If there is any similarity between what Naipaul and Roy have said, it is in their ability to decide within three paragraphs at most the strength and character of a writer. I do not for a moment think that I would ever rise to a level where serious journalists would feel compelled to profile me and ask what I think of this, that and the other. I would tell them that I do not consider life so consequential as to examine it in such fine detail.
Note: Today’s post is an example of my comment at the top that I am desultory by disposition.
