I’ve been reading William Styron again. For reasons that I can only claim have nothing to do with personal origins (at least, not entirely ??? honest), I have long wanted to read his short treatise on depression, Darkness Visible.
One exemplary passage:
“What I had begun to discover is that, mysteriously and in ways that are totally remote from normal experience, the gray drizzle of horror induced by depression takes on the quality of physical pain. But it is not an immediately identifiable pain, like that of a broken limb. It may be more accurate to say that despair, owing to some evil trick played upon the sick brain by the inhabiting psyche, comes to resemble the diabolical discomfort of being imprisoned in a fiercely overheated room. And because no breeze stirs this caldron, because there is no escape from this smothering confinement, it is entirely natural that the victim begins to think ceaselessly of oblivion.”
For me, this prose jumps off the page. First, there’s the journey: the rhythm of Styron’s paragraph takes you from a point of wonder and inquiry ??? what is this “gray drizzle of horror,” and to what is it owed? ??? to the victim’s inevitable conclusion of oblivion. Then there’s the sensory immersion: “pain” becomes “diabolical discomfort,” then a “caldron.” And finally ??? rather, all the while ??? there’s the narrative. Styron is satisfying the suspense he has built from the beginning of his mini-memoir, and simultaneously raising the stakes: this is the point to which he has unfortunately arrived, but will he overcome this ceaseless fixation with ending his life?
I work onscreen during the day and offscreen before and after the working day, and I have been increasingly noting the nature of how prose feels across each platform ??? but not even the prose, exactly; rather, the thoughtfulness behind its composition.
Now it’s certainly possible to find prose like Styron’s onscreen (apart from the one you’re presently gazing upon), and in many places. But I would submit that such prose is still by and large composed, if not offscreen, then in applications that do not traditionally invite hyperlinking.
Before I go too far, let me say that I’m not trying to add a footnote to this particular argument, made many months ago, that computers in general ??? and my employer in particular ??? are lowering our intelligence. I just used a handy widget dictionary, and I can now confidently assert that such arguments are “facile.” Yes, the technology of hyperlinking transforms how we think and how we write; which is to say, how we create. This is not a new conclusion. But it is only an initial conclusion, and we have much territory to explore.
What interest me ??? and what will have to wait until my next post ??? are the ways that hyperlinking works or doesn’t work in yesterday’s literature and tomorrow’s. Namely, how some prose, such as Styron’s personal description of madness, could not possibly be hyperlinked in any beneficial way; but perhaps other instances of literature easily could. And what does “could” have to do with “should,” either in the literature of centuries past or hence?
More next week.