"What happens to order?
It is restored,
Alternatively, in what does the meeting break up?
Disorder.
What does the meeting do in disorder?
Breaks up,
In the what direction does the meeting break in disorder?
Up!
In what direction should I shut?
Up!"
(Myles Na gCopaleen Catechism of Cliché)
Can cliche be avoided? Can we speak in words that that are ever truly our own or are we interminably trapped by the linguistic programming that inundates us from birth? Would we be better writers if we never read anything?
I fancy myself as a bit of a writer (don't we all?). One whose writings are largely confined to online posting, witty emails to friends and angsty journal entries that usually start 'Gosh I haven't written in ages...' As an ecrivain extraordinaire I'm continually frustrated with my thorough lack of originality and inability to escape the cliche. I realise that Shakespeare didn't pen a single original tale so it's not subject matter I'm worried about. He did have a unique turn of phrase however, one that means we still force his words down the throats of impressionable teenagers in every school in the English-speaking world. I would like (if nothing more) to write something that someone else would like to say, out loud, to someone else even once. To somehow put some words together in a new pattern that would both, sound nice and, maybe, give comfort, inspiration, hope....oh christ I'm a walking cliche. Help!
Scrap that. What I want is to express in words those moments in life (however few) when one really experiences beauty, truth, happiness. I know it's possible to do this--I've read Robert Frost! and William Goldman and Paul Auster and Harper Lee and Kurt Vonnegut! It can be done. And yet, whenever I sit down to write, my words turn into a song and dance of toeing the line, failing to grab the bull by the horns and that's only the tip of the iceberg! I sound like my mother for chrissakes...
I'm beginning to think that the only way of freeing oneself from the baggage of cliche is to write in a foreign language. Beckett did that and some of his stuff was ....um....interesting. You'd live forever outside of the comfort zone, never knowing if you're truly saying what you think you're saying but you really would be plowing your own furrow (oh God will I never be free?!). Forgive the following but I see it as stepping off the 'beaten path'. The beaten path is smooth, can be trusted to bring you to a location that many people have gone to before and won't have any hidden surprises. Leaving this path is hard work - every step is uncertain, the path is uneven and more likely to trip you up, and you can be guaranteed there will be lots that is unexpected along the way. It's 100% your path but you will curse it often.
I guess my question is - is it worth it? Or is cliche maybe not the demonic enemy I've made it out to be?
Answers on a postcard....
3 comments:
Long time reader - first time comment
Just to say that cliche's are only cliches because they are true. Which is itself a cliche. Which if you consider it long enough, will have you in a irrevocable paradox of cliche.
Which usually results in needing some alcohol. Which brings me to my point. Great party at the weekend.
T'was a class party
As a literary device- Why not use the english language as spoken in your part(s) of Ireland? Taking the michael out of the regional dialect was a big part of Flann O Brien's modus operandi. Just a suggestion.
Oh, and it's 'ploughing' not 'plowing'.Call yourself an English teacher- pah!
plow also plough (plou) Pronunciation Key
n.
A farm implement consisting of a heavy blade at the end of a beam, usually hitched to a draft team or motor vehicle and used for breaking up soil and cutting furrows in preparation for sowing.
An implement of similar function, such as a snowplow.
v. plowed also ploughed, plow·ing also plough·ing, plows also ploughs
v. tr.
To break and turn over (earth) with a plow.
To form (a furrow, for example) with a plow.
To form furrows in with or as if with a plow: plow a field.
To make or form with driving force: I plowed my way through the crowd.
To cut through (water): plow the high seas.
I was actually trying to avoid the cliche of the Queen's English I'll have you know.
You can spell Shakespeare 15 different ways too.
So there.
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