The Writer's Voice (Norton Lecture) [Hardcover]

A. Alvarez (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 2004 | ISBN-10: 039305795X | ISBN-13: 978-0393057959

FOR A WRITER, voice is the problem that never lets you go. For a reader, voice is a profound mystery. What is it? How does it develop and why should it even matter? How does the reader hear and respond to an authentic voice, and what happens when the cult of personality threatens to subvert it? These are some of the slippery questions "The Writer's Voice addresses with confidence and clarity. Aspiring young writers often confuse voice with stylishness, but the voice that matters has the whole weight of a life, however young, behind it. In this compelling book, renowned poet, author, and critic A. Alvarez defines "voice" as the vehicle by which a writer expresses his aliveness, hooks his readers, and keeps them listening. These powerful reflections from a lifetime's experience belong alongside John Gardner's "The Art of fiction, E.M. Forster's "Aspects of the Novel, and William Zinsser's "On Writing Well.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Based primarily on lectures given at the New York Public Library in October 2002, this slim, erudite guide is intended to help aspiring writers achieve an authentic voice and readers to recognize it. Veteran author Alvarez (The Savage God: A Study of Suicide, etc.) adopts the preachy tone of a learned sage discussing the rigors of style, the role of literary infatuation and the merits of literary emulation. In the first chapter, Alvarez cites Sylvia Plath as an example of a poet who found her authentic voice only in the last months of her life. He goes on to discuss how to avoid mannered rhetoric and cliché, and to outline the difference between writers who "carve" their work with extensive revision and those who "model" it (a distinction he borrows from Auden). The second chapter concerns the writer's (and reader's) ear and sense of rhythm, with examples from John Donne, Andrew Marvell and Shakespeare. The final chapter centers on how the reader places a writer in his or her historical context and on combating fads and trends in criticism. Here Alvarez rails against the anti-intellectualism of the beat generation, the rise of theory and the present day's "terror of elitism." Alas, Alvarez overcompensates, to the point where his own voice seems old-fashioned: full of truisms, predictable in its tastes and advice, and rather patronizing.
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From Booklist

How does a writer create his or her literary voice? How does an attentive reader hear that voice? What developments in modern culture often stifle that voice and stop up the reader's ears to its resonance? Alvarez ponders these questions as he probes, for instance, the imaginative magic through which Sylvia Plath discovered her powerfully disquieting voice in her final works. He then addresses these vexing perplexities from a different angle as he enacts the kind of careful reading that distinguishes between Marvell's polished but superficial verse translation of Seneca and Wyatt's rough but genuinely poetic translation. Too often, Alvarez complains, both writers and readers mistake mere style for voice. Worse, in a culture debauched by the resurgent Romantic Cult of the Artist, readers pay more attention to the writer's psychopathologies--often deliberately self-inflicted--than to his or her works. By probing enduring cultural issues in language mercifully free from jargon and shibboleths, Alvarez invites general readers into a serious critical dialogue too long monopolized by theoretically blinkered specialists. Bryce Christensen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (December 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 039305795X
• ISBN-13: 978-0393057959
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,581,341 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Power of Voice, December 14, 2004

By 

Michelle Pettit - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Writer's Voice (Norton Lecture) (Hardcover)

This slim little book is interesting and energizing if you take it for what it is -- a discussion on Writer's Voice -- and what Voice means to a work. Alvarez proposes (and I agree) that a reader can "hear" when a voice is real -- and a real voice has power. There need to be good readers in order for good writers to be appreciated. Alvarez proposes that the best work survives and the superficial and/or fashionable-for-the-time work gets buried by history. He also takes issue with the denegration of "Old White Men" writers -- as it seems political correctness has killed off formal appreciation of writers who were great but can't be liked because they were old white men. I don't dig Alvarez too much when he goes on about this -- but that's not to say I think he's wrong...just that he should get over it. The pendelum swings and those forgotten get included -- and then it swings back. I'm not worried about losing quality. I think the great works survive -- but maybe I'm an optimist. At any rate he doesn't go on about this for too long. And the five stars are for the fact that Alvarez is great when he is enthusiastic about the power of voice -- whether that voice be a woman's or a man's -- he is invigorated by works that have voice. And what is Voice? It seems it has to be worked for but brought in with ease. That may seem contradictory, but true as voice is elusive and necessary; voice is something moving between the lines -- voice conveys something without saying it (why be obvious when it is strangely more powerful to never be obvious) Voice is in the things which are conveyed but not said -- a tone which is identifiable -- a communication between writer and reader which is intimate and knowing and true. Five stars for Alvarez's love and enthusiasm. It is a long hard path to be a writer of integrity - a writer who feels he/she MUST get it right to do justice to the work - and ultimately you must always fail as words can't express it all -- however once you begin on this particular path you can't leave it.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, April 7, 2007

By 

Julie Jordan Scott "Writer, Life Coach - Owne... (Bakersfield, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Writer's Voice (Norton Lecture) (Hardcover)

I frequently pick up books about writing since I figure there is always more to learn and explore. I loved the title of this book and in one of my writing classes we focus, briefly, on voice.

I tumbled into deep admiration for A. Alvarez from the first few pages as he was obviously writing a subject he knew intimately from first hand experience.

This title started as a series of lectures and grew into a lively word-discussion for the reader. Alvarez uses plentiful examples from poetry, prose and the lifestories of the famous authors he gleans from throughout the text.

From Cole Porter to Sylvia Plath to Shakespeare to T.E. Hulme, I felt like a guest at a literary party. The most entertaining chapter was #3 - The Cult of Personality and the Myth of the Artist", which dives headlong into Romanticism, Criticism and the impact of Eastern European writers and cold war politics.

I will write differently because of this book - I will hear the voice of A. Alvarez beside me as my pencil scratches the page.

5.0 out of 5 stars An education! Writing aspirations not required., October 18, 2007

By 

J Kragt (Fort Washington, Maryland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Writer's Voice (Hardcover)

Do you value a writer's presence?--The kind of presence that is one with subject and genre--yet unique? Do you feel you've come to know closely the authors of your favorite books--and not through their biographies? If so, you'll probably enjoy exploring why with A. Alvarez in the Writer's Voice.

When a writer is not ashamed of being a human being with a unique history and reality, fully alive in relation to subject and reader, a book sings! So Alvarez approaches words on a page in terms of music, sound, rhythm, pace. When immersed in music or deep conversation, we lose ourselves yet are wholly present. The reader need not be consciously aware of an effective author's voice. Nevertheless, awareness can increase pleasure.

What Alvarez and other literary critics call "voice" is not primarily the words; it is beyond the words. His examples come mostly from the classics, but voice can enrich any type of writing. Einstein is used as an example of someone who realized the best thought comes without words first, through a more intuitive physical awareness. To me voice is the difference between an Einstein and an ordinary scientist who can't get beyond thinking that being human is an obstacle to his/her work.

Freud, though usually taken at his "word" to be a conventional scientist, reveals himself in his writings as deeply immersed in the imaginal world, hence his works endure. Paradoxically, words are secondary, and must not be allowed to get in the way of one's writing, one's awareness, one's communication. Simply put: trash words that don't work, no matter how perfect they seem. '

According to Alvarez, a writer's voice is not the same as style; style often smothers voice. The student who excels in her field must finally break out of all the perfect cages of knowledge and skill to discover new territory or be a dead mouthpiece for the past. Sylvia Plat is the sad but meaningful example of this when she wrote perfectly but without an authentic voice until just before her suicide. (Joyce Carol Oates is an example of the perfect student of literature who goes on develop her own strong voice and presence--and to live!)

This book is evocative and thought provoking, an exploration in human consciousness. My book's cover pictures a writer staring at the back of his head in a mirror--rather than his face. A writer avoiding his own presence and voice?

If you feel the pull of both your right and your left brain, this book is perfect for you. Even if you don't read much in the classics, Alvarez' examples are interesting and enjoyable in themselves. And you'll feel you've taken a personal tutorial from a highly sensitive and talented writer, teacher, and human being.