All Talk - Dec 3 2020

 

All Talk

Dec 3 2020

The whole story

was told in dialogue.

All talk,

as if nothing ever happens

to the taciturn

or those of few words.

Amazing how entire worlds

can be evoked in conversation;

as if what we say is so,

and if it's not spoken or shared

might as well not exist.

Although I miss the voice of God

narrating the action;

as if someone somewhere

is keeping track

of my insignificant life,

every inner thought

and chance at posterity.

And, of course, how you talk is everything,

thoughtfully measuring your words

attending to your tone.

Not coming off

as a rude and vulgar quipster

or slow, shallow, dim,

but rather quick, clever, glib

with drollery and wit.

And never in verse,

like every futile poet

trying to be heard.

So you must parse her body language

whisper in her ear,

carefully read her lips

and usher her graciously in.

It's either speak, or disappear.

Your incessant inner monologue

will never be heard,

because the silent are invisible

while the garrulous rule the world.

I turned to the latest short story in this week's New Yorker, and saw most of it was written in dialogue. I'm not a story teller. I don't do narrative. And most of all, I'm lousy at dialogue. So as someone who also writes, this really struck me: what utterly diametric skill sets the author and I have. (Not to mention that Paul Theroux is being published in the New Yorker, while I most definitely am not!)

It seems to me that without the omniscient narrator, there is can be no illusion of an objective reality. Hearing only talk, there are only each character's version of truth, world view, narrow aperture. Which is really how we should encounter people: acknowledging that there very well be multiple “truths”, and that only by inhabiting someone's idiosyncratic point of view can we gain empathy and understanding.

I wrote It's what you say, not what you do; which is said somewhat ironically, and is, of course, the opposite of wise counsel. Nevertheless, for the glib and unscrupulous, it often applies. I never ceased to be amazed how a grifter and huckster and snake oil salesman like Donald Trump can keep fooling so many people, constructing a false reality with his words while somehow keeping his loyal followers blind to his actions.

Abstract thought is impossible without language. We would simply be sensory creatures, reacting to physical stimulus and operating by instinct. So really, we are constructed of dialogue: if it isn't shared, it isn't real. And if it isn't contained in our inner monologue, it can't be processed or understood. The fact that a story can be told purely through dialogue tells us how language is the clay out of which we create the world.