Writer 1879: Solitary Journey in France

Chapter 494 The Writer's Arrogance!
The fire crackled in the fireplace, its flames and bewildered expressions dancing on everyone's faces.
Maupassant frowned. "Iceberg? Of course I know. You just told me the story of the iceberg on the ship to America—why are you asking about this?"

Lionel's voice was calm: "I read a geography book that described a phenomenon—"

Icebergs are magnificent because only one-eighth of them is above the water.

Émile Zola, as the standard-bearer and culmination of naturalism, differed the most from this writing style and had the most inner turmoil.

He couldn't help but lean forward: "What are you trying to say, Leon?"

Lionel continued, “That’s how icebergs are, and that’s how I tried to write in my novel, The Sun Also Rises.”

If a writer is well aware of what he wants to write, he can omit what he already knows.

Readers, if the writer's writing is realistic enough, will strongly feel the omitted parts, as if the author had already written them out.

Yusman exhaled a puff of smoke and joked, "Omitted? What do you mean? Are you making excuses for being lazy?"

Lionel shook his head: "It's not laziness, it's trust."

Chekhov asked softly, "Trust whom?"

Lionel turned to him: “Trust the reader. You see the beginning of *The Sun Also Rises*, I wrote, ‘At four o’clock in the afternoon, Jacques de Barnes awoke.’”

And then? I didn't describe what his room was like, what color the sheets were, or how he felt when he woke up. Why?

Maupassant snorted: "Because you're lazy."

Lionel didn't care: "Because it's unnecessary. Readers know what it means for someone to wake up at four in the afternoon, readers know what it means for a room to smell of leftovers, readers know what it means to touch a wine bottle..."

I don't need to write 'he felt empty' or 'he felt pain'; those words are too light, too light to support anything substantial.

Émile Zola stared at him: "So you deliberately didn't write about their inner thoughts?"

Lionel shook his head: "The nature of psychological activity is indescribable; all psychological descriptions are the author's conjecture or creation."

If I'm writing about characters 'fictional' based on the principles of realism or romanticism, then writing about their inner thoughts is acceptable.

But as I said, this novel is dedicated to you, and it's written about you—”

He looked at Maupassant and Huysmann: "I will not speculate on your thoughts; I will only describe your actions and words."

As for your thoughts? Those will be filled in by the readers' experiences.

A quiet stillness fell before the fireplace. Edmond Goncourt put down his wine glass, lost in thought.

Alphonse Daudet spoke up: "What about the setting? The scenes in your novels are always very vague."

The 'Double' café has appeared so many times, yet you've never once described what it looks like.

Lionel laughed: “Because there’s no need. Parisian readers are very familiar with ‘The Double,’ just like everyone here, who hasn’t spent time there?”

We all know how the tables are set up, what the waiters wear, and even which window the sunlight will come through at four in the afternoon. I don't need to write it down.

Daudet pressed further: "And what about readers outside of Paris?"

Lionel shrugged: “Readers outside of Paris can think of it as any café they’ve ever been to; there’s no difference.”

One coffee shop is essentially no different from another—they all have tables, chairs, many kinds of coffee and several kinds of alcohol, and customers.

Those differences don't affect the novel's theme; what the author didn't write is filled in by the reader's experience.

Huysman simply stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray: "Absurd! According to you, writers don't need to observe life at all? Readers will just imagine it themselves anyway."

Lionel refuted this inference: "No, it is precisely because I have observed that I know what can be omitted."

I know what the light is like at 4 pm at 'Double', how the waiters serve coffee, and where the regulars sit...

I know all of this, so I can judge—what's redundant to include, and what's more powerful to leave out.

He paused for a moment: "Realist writers evoke the reader's visual senses, while romantic writers evoke the reader's emotions."

What I draw upon is the reader's experience. This allows the reader to feel, to the greatest extent possible—that such people are right beside me.

Maupassant stood up, took two steps in front of the fireplace, and then turned back.

His voice was a little hurried: "And what about your characters? Jacques, Berthe, Cohen—they talk, drink, go from one place to another."

But who are they? Where did they come from? Why did they become like this? You've given almost nothing!

Lionel said calmly, "I confessed. Through their words and deeds—"

Jacques always woke up in the afternoon, and always reached for the wine bottle first; Berthe was always talking about last night's ball, always ordering champagne; Cohen always wanted to write a novel, but could never get anything done; Saint-Falgo was always running away from something—

This is the explanation!

Maupassant practically shouted: "Not enough! The readers need to know why!"

Lionel's voice remained calm: "The reason lies in the reader's experience, just like you, Guy, you also participated in the war."

Look at Jacques, look at the way he sits in the café, look at the way he drinks, look at his attitude towards women—

Do you need me to write 'He was wounded in the war and lost his sexual ability, so he feels nothing for everything'? No.

"You see his actions, you hear his silence, and you understand it yourself; the reader understands too." Maupassant was stunned.

Lionel continued, “Parisians have seen people like you more or less. In the years after the war, the streets were full of people like you—”

I only went out in the afternoon, sat in a café until late at night, drinking and talking, but my eyes were completely empty. What about readers outside of Paris?

They may not have seen Parisian libertines, but they have seen people crushed by life, people who use laughter to mask their pain, and people who wander in emptiness.

They'll recognize them!

Émile Zola spoke up: "So you think traditional novels are too 'full'? Writers always want to explain everything, describe everything?"

Lionel nodded: "In a way, yes. We're always afraid that readers won't understand and will exclude them from the creative process."

We describe every corner of the room, every fold of the clothes, and every thought in the characters' minds.

But we forgot—readers aren't stupid. Readers have eyes, experience, life experience, and, most importantly, thought.

He turned to Chekhov: "Like Anton, you've all read his 'The Death of a Government Clerk'."

Anton wrote about his sneezing, his repeated apologies, and how he eventually scared himself to death... He didn't write about 'authoritarian oppression of ordinary people' or 'bureaucrats losing their humanity'.

But the reader felt it, and felt it even more strongly than if it were written directly.

Chekhov nodded vigorously: "Yes! When I was writing, I was thinking—there's no need to spell it out. Spelling it out would just ruin the fun."

Lionel patted him on the shoulder: "Right. If you put it bluntly, it becomes preaching. And literature shouldn't be preaching."

Huysman lit another cigarette: "So you're against naturalism? We advocate detailed recording, you advocate extensive omission."

Lionel shook his head: "It's not that I'm against it; naturalism puts everything under a microscope, which is good—it's a kind of truth. But there's another kind of truth—"

Instead of placing it under a microscope, it should be placed under normal light so that readers can see it with normal vision. What should be clear should be clear, and what cannot be clear need not be examined.

That's life—we only ever see fragments, but we can try to understand the whole picture through our personal experiences.

He looked at the fire in the fireplace: "In the past, writers rejected the intervention of 'reader experience' in novels, which was very unreasonable."

As individuals, writers do not possess more real-world experience than readers as a group.

A writer may have seen only a few dozen coffee shops, but thousands upon thousands of readers may have seen thousands upon thousands of coffee shops.

Why should a writer describe a coffee shop in such meticulous detail, as if the reader's experience doesn't count?

This question left everyone speechless.

Chekhov, who had been taking notes rapidly, looked up and said, "Mr. Sorel, what about the dialogue? There's a lot of dialogue in this story, but it's all very short and simple."

Lionel laughed: "Because people don't give long speeches in cafes."

People will only say, 'Did you sleep well?' 'Not bad.' 'Where to next?' 'I don't know.'

Short, simple, sometimes abrupt, but isn't that just the norm for casual conversation?

Zola remained silent for a long time, staring at the wine glass in his hand, but did not drink a drop.

He finally spoke: "So the core of your theory is 'less is more,' using the fewest words to create the greatest space for imagination."

Lionel was surprised by his insight: "Yes. Omissions are meant to allow the reader to fill in more gaps; no explanations are meant to allow the reader to understand more deeply."

Huysman shook his head: "That's too idealistic. Readers might not be able to fill in the gaps, or they might misunderstand. What then?"

Lionel shrugged: "Then you've misunderstood. There's no right or wrong in understanding. Ten people can have ten different interpretations of the same story, which isn't scary; it's fine."

This shows that the story is alive, not dead, not a specimen in a medical school. If a living story is written down, its author should be dead!

Maupassant stood up again: "Then what about your character development? Backstory, motivations, transformations... you've omitted them all. How are readers supposed to understand the characters?"

Lionel did not answer directly, but instead asked in return: "Guy, in 'Boule de Suif,' why didn't you write about Boule de Suif's childhood, why she became a prostitute, or what she was thinking?"
Why do you only write about her actions—sharing food with everyone, enduring the assault of the Prussian officer, and hiding in a corner to cry after being abandoned by everyone—why?
A person's true nature lies not in the side they show you, but in the side they cannot show you.

Therefore, if you want to understand him, don't listen to what he says, but listen to what he doesn't say!

Maupassant was stunned; he opened his mouth but couldn't utter a word.

Lionel looked at everyone in the room: "We're always worried that our readers won't understand. But we forget—our readers may understand life better than we do."

It's arrogant of us to claim we're depicting life but not to allow readers to participate with their own life experiences!

Yusman stopped sneering and stared at the cigarette in his hand, where a long ash had accumulated.

He repeated the word: "Arrogance, yes, we are indeed arrogant. We always feel that readers need guidance, education, and explanation."

Lionel concluded: "This era has railways that can reach everywhere, telegrams that can reach everywhere, newspapers that can penetrate everywhere, and photographs that can appear everywhere..."

Readers of this era possess unprecedented insight, and *The Sun Also Rises* aims to evoke their deepest inner experiences!

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(End of this chapter)