Tact

There are certain writers whose style, intially carved out of nothing or against the grain of received modes of expression, has hardened into a kind of template or repertoire of riffs and formulas which they can now comfortably call on. And their thoughts, having initially struggled their way into the most appropriate form, now serve as a hoarded stockpile of private intellectual capital. Such writers are in effect tyrannised by the reified products of their former creative living self. It is as though, having invested their former energies in real thinking, they are now content to live off the interest.



Anyway, for some reason was thinking today about I talk I attended by John Berger some years ago at he Institute of Contemporary Arts. I have nothing momentous to report, other than, firstly, the visibility with which he thinks right infront of you - he wears thought on his face without disguise. Thinks, that is, as opposed to delivering polished phrases and prepared quips. To anyone who has attented a Berger talk this pained, halting delivery can be almost embarassing - great silences in which he seems to be racking his brains and the heavens itself for an answer. But if it's embarassing, its also a revelation to see someone of his age and eminence who has managed not to let his mind ossify into settled and comfortable formulas, who has nothing, absolutely nothing, of the robotic polish of those who have come to rely on their own impressive stock of finished forms.

Now, the other thing was a word that Berger hit upon in trying to think about the activity of writing: tact. Tact as in touch, tactility; but also, tact as in discretion, or not touching - knowing when to a steer clear. But, crucially, both these at once: the only way for a writer to come really close, to lay his finger on something, is to exercise a certain necessary discretion or holding back. To lay rude hands on a thing is not to touch it at all.

n.b. Berger's new book, Here Is Where We Meet seems now to be in the shops. At least, I saw it in Foyles, Charing X road.