VARDIS FISHER: A WRITER ON WRITING

--Vardis Fisher, GOD OR CAESAR? p. 78

Vardis Fisher (1895-1968) is one of my favorite authors. Unfortunately, GOD OR CAESAR?, quoted above, like most of Fisher�s 35-plus books, is out of print. Most recently, the University of Idaho Press republished MOUNTAIN MAN, one of Fisher�s last novels (and the only one to be made into a movie, �Jeremiah Johnson� starring Robert Redford). I hope that the Idaho Press will also publish TALE OF VALOR, Fisher�s fictional but thoroughly-researched account of the Lewis and Clark expedition, before the 200th anniversary of that great adventure, but at this point I doubt they will.

There is much to be admired in all of Fisher�s works, but it is probably fair to say that some of his works were far greater than others. At least one writer, Frederick Manfred, declared, years after Fisher�s death, that he was one of the greatest novelists of the century. An incredulous interviewer asked Manfred whether he would stand Fisher beside the likes of Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway was a great writer, Manfred allowed, but he was never able to write a book as good as Fisher�s DARK BRIDWELL. Having read BRIDWELL, I understand what he meant. Like Hemingway, Fisher was a realist, but he also appreciated the interior lives of all of his characters including his female characters. But DARK BRIDWELL is far more than an early twentieth century novel that treats both its female and male characters sympathetically and as fully-rounded people. It is also a powerful story about the struggle to eke a living out of the wilderness, though the reader learns as much about the characters� conflicts with themselves and other people as about their conflicts with nature. Fisher also recognizes that nature is quite indifferent to people, and yet his characters impose their own judgments on nature, anthropomorphizing and projecting onto it their own affections and revulsions for themselves and their fellow human beings. Fisher never passes judgment on this tendency because he understands that it is a necessary part of being human. (It is also part of being a writer!) Ultimately, there is something affirming about the book even though no one lives happily ever after. It is a book about unglamorous human beings who are nevertheless admirable in their persistence and sympathetic in their aspirations even where these are misguided.

Most of Fisher�s early novels were either autobiographical or retold stories he had heard from his elders in rural Idaho where he grew up. (Despite severe poverty, Fisher's parents saw to it that their children were well educated.) Later, Fisher successfully tackled larger historical novels from the journey of Lewis and Clark (TALES OF VALOR) to the history of the Mormon Church (CHILDREN OF GOD). His major project was a series of historical novels called THE TESTAMENT OF MAN, which mined human history insearch of the sources of our modern problems. I am gradually reading these novels and like them so far, but they are well-enough researched (by the standards of their time, at least--although, arguably, much of Fisher's thinking about anthropology and paleontology was already outdated even in the 1940s) that they tend to explode rather than pander to the myths people believe about the past--especially the scenarios of the Judeo-Christian religious tradition. This realism earned Fisher some of his worst book reviews and brought him to the point where even the publisher who had been loyal to him for more than a decade did not want to publish this series anymore. Fisher found another publisher for the rest of his series, but the low sales of his books never allowed him to make much of a living as an author. He finally returned to rural Idaho and farmed while continuing to write. He not only wrote books under such discouraging conditions, but became a newspaper columnist, issuing curmudgeonly opinions that nevertheless seem as right in hindsight as they must have seemed outrageous at the time. (Though generally an instinctive, libertarian-leaning conservative, Fisher had come out against the war in Vietnam by 1963--far earlier than any other conservative and earlier than most liberals.) His determination to write is an inspiration. He championed the idea that while making a living at it is important, ultimately we write because we love writing and need to express ourselves, not just to make money.

Fisher�s novels are easier to read than his essays because he was quite learned and would quote others extensively. (He had a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.) He taught English for several years, including a stint at New York University where he shared office space (and after-work drinks) with fellow novelist, Thomas Wolf.

There is a definite tension in Fisher's work between his backwoods roots and his high education. In one of his several autobiographical novels, his protagonist derides himself for being a naive �hillbilly� and sometimes does behave like a know-nothing. At one point, Fisher�s alter ego is asked the meaning of the word �suspirant.� �Don�t know,� he replies and explains that when he tried to memorize the dictionary, he only got as far as the Ls. The real Vardis Fisher would have looked up the word at his next opportunity (It means �sighing,� by the way), and, as a novelist, he could have made his alter ego look good by having him know the meaning of the word off the top of his head. But he did not do that. (At that point, late in his career when he was becoming a curmudgeon, he probably wondered whether many of his readers would look up the word themselves!) In REDISCOVERING VARDIS FISHER, edited by Joseph M. Flora, one of its most negative essays is Marilyn Trent Grunkemeyer's review of THE TESTAMENT OF MAN series. She seems actually to mistake Fisher's self-criticism for her own and is led to misconstrue Fisher's arch parodies of male chauvinism for the thing itself. I almost suspect that Fisher, himself, might have been amused.

Here are a few more quotes from Fisher on issues relevant to being a writer:

On Style

It [your style] must inevitably draw attention to itself if your purpose is irony, as in [James Branch] Cabell or Anatole France, or whimsy and fantasy, as in Robert Nathan.[*] It has been said that in fiction the best style mirrors the substance. Let us say, then, that in a bad style, as in an imperfect mirror, the substance is distorted. It is also true that what is sometimes called style is mere mannerism: it clouds and obscures the substance or fixes attention on its idiosyncrasies. Different substances require different styles. In an effort to reveal the subconscious processes one might not choose Joyce�s style but certainly one would not choose the style of Swift or Sinclair Lewis or Elizabeth Roberts. On the other hand, a Nathan story would perish utterly in Joyce�s style, a Cabell story in Hemingway�s.

--GOD OR CAESAR? p. 134

*Author of THE BISHOP�S WIFE, most recently adapted to film as �The Preacher�s Wife.�

We must on the one hand applaud the daring experimenters on the frontiers; but on the other we need not imagine that a thing is art merely because it calls forth a body of solemn commentators. You can go back through the journals and find literary critics applauding new writers who have been revealed as the pretenders they were.

--ibid, p. 136

The effort to put the evanescent, delicate and elusive things of life into prose or poetry is much like trying to take the color of the sea into our homes in a pailful of water.

--ibid, p. 137

On Critics

Here Fisher adds his own comments [in brackets] to a lengthy quotation from the 19th-century British critic Matthew Arnold:

�The mass of mankind [I hope you will mark this well] will never have any ardent zeal for seeing things as they are; [Sometimes uncommon people refuse�.] very inadequate ideas will always satisfy them. On these inadequate ideas reposes, and must repose, the general practice of the world. That is as much as saying that whoever sets himself to see things as they are will find himself one of a very small circle; but it is only by this small circle resolutely doing its own work that adequate ideas will ever get current at all. � "The critic has many temptations to go with the stream, to make one of the party movement, one of these terrae filii; it seems ungracious to refuse to be a terrae filius when so many excellent people are; but the critic's duty is to refuse, or, if resistance is vain, at least to cry with Obermann: Perissons en resistant!�

[Such admonitions are worth more today than when Arnold wrote them because we today are in much greater need of them. In his time the terrae filius had not come to believe that Providence had designed the uncommon people solely to serve him; or, to put it another way, the uncommon people, who alone can produce art, had not debased art to the cultural level of the common man�s �inadequate ideas.�]

--ibid, pp. 153-154

Keeping your sense of irony in good repair is better than tears. If you are foolish enough to try to prepossess your judges [critics] in your favor you will find yourself out in the cold. I am speaking to those who are writing for God, by which I mean according to the best in their conscience and talent. If you are writing for Caesar there are some things you can do to cultivate your fame and fortune, and these will be considered in a later chapter.

--ibid, p. 167

Shocked and angered she [a first-time author] sent one of the reviews to me. It was typical of a certain percentage of book reviews in this country--emotionally immature, childishly irrepressible in its malicious glee, arrogant in its assumption of erudition. It was written, mind you, by a professor in a western university, and it appeared in a journal that lays claim to academic prestige. The professor pounced with joy on a grammatical error, and himself committed one twice as vile; rebuked her for lack of precision in her use of words, and was in his own prose anything but precise; and all in all laid about him with such a vigor that the nature or value of the book was completely obscured while a wonderfully clear portrait of himself emerged.

--ibid, pp. 170-171

If you are not on the side of Caesar, never thank a reviewer unless special circumstances have put you in his debt. If you are writing for Caesar by all means thank him, if you can be sufficiently tactful and gracious. But be dead sure that you know how to write such notes. Reviewers who like and even expect to receive them may be terribly sensitive in their honor�. [I]n my opinion, friendship, or even correspondence, between writer and critic is likely to be bad for both�. Artists and critics who take their professions seriously can hardly afford to risk the adulterants that inevitably come from personal relationships of any kind.

It must be admitted that if both author and critic are persons of sensitive honor a correspondence between them might be profitable to both. There are instances of this in the past. But in this most commercial of all nations the risks are great. It would be a rare critic who did not tip the scales in favor of his friend, or who, sensible of that danger, did not tip them against him. It would be a rare artist who remained unaffected by so obvious an obligation. � Should you write to the reviewer who obviously is malicious and unfair? I have twice done so but I should say the answer is no. Learn to take what you get without feeling sorry for yourself. � Book editors and reviewers occupy, so far as you are concerned, positions of great power. If they abuse their power, that is one of the things you will have to get used to. They can�t destroy your talent or your courage, or adulterate, if you do not allow it, the quality of your work, nor affect by one iota the position which will eventually be assigned to you. The most they can do is to discredit you with their less enlightened readers.

On the other hand, if one can manage it, take their point of view. Most of them do not fancy themselves as literary critics. They know that they are only people employed in a trade, doing on the whole the best they can, and watching some whom they have assisted rise to wealth and eminence, while they remain obscure and underpaid.

--ibid, pp. 175-176

Was Vardis Fisher a Feminist?

Whether Vardis Fisher was a feminist assumes an answer to the question of whether or not a man can truly be a feminist. While I am not quite as reluctant to call a man a feminist as some might be, I am stingy about granting the title to any Johnny-come-lately who adopts it to himself. (As far as that goes, Fisher did not call himself a �feminist� in any book that I have thus far read.) I do, however, think that if a man expressed strongly feminist views long before Betty Friedan wrote THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE he ought to be granted the label �feminist.� For example, John Stuart Mill wrote THE SUBJECTION OF WOMEN well over 125 years ago. That short book is an attack on the pervasive sexism of Victorian society. Though written in what now seems stilted prose, it took on feminist issues including the denial of women�s property rights and even spousal abuse.

Fisher, too, thought that women have been shamefully abused. He died in 1968, just as the latest wave of feminism was about to come into full swing, but he had expressed feminist opinions for much of his life. In GOD OR CAESAR? (1953) he declared that �The way men degraded women in ancient times and later under the Christians constitutes the most revolting chapter in human history.� A few pages later, while pleading for a more enlightened attitude toward sexuality, Fisher said, ��much of what we now have in the cinema and in popular advertising is vulgar exhibitionism that shamefully degrades women. �we may suppose that the degradation of women is merely taking new and more disguised forms, now that wife-beating is no longer legal and the lord of the manor no longer has the firstfruits of the peasant brides.�

In his 1956 novel, JESUS CAME AGAIN, Fisher took on sexism in the ancient world in a way that sounds quite modern. Here is a speech made by Sirina, the most feminist character in the novel:

�Answer me? Have you ever known a philosopher who liked women? � What a pity it is that you men can�t be born without us! How wonderful if every one of you were an hermaphrodite so that you could beget your image without assistance! � In the holy books of the Jews there�s a story. It says that man was happy and godlike until woman seduced him into sin. It�s a vile and stupid and contemptible story and it was a vile and stupid and contemptible man who invented it! It�s a man�s story! What would the story have been if a woman had written it? �

�I�ll tell you. Woman would have been happy, devoted to her children and their welfare. But man made a whore of her. Men put her in their temples to mate with men, so her shameful earnings could support a priesthood--of men! Men took her as his woman, concubine, slave, property, chattel; mated with her as he pleased; cast her off when he pleased. � Today on Delos, in Rome, in Antioch, in a thousand places men sell women into whoredom. And you have the incredible gall to say we brought sin into the world!�we, the mothers, nurses, slaves! �Buddha! What a nasty creature he must have been! Plato! What a prodigious fraud! Even Socrates, Euripides, Aristophanes, Aeschylus--they have all left the record of their contempt! � You men have no answer but the brothel. You�ll go on with your damned contempt and abuse, degrading us, trying to shame us, making us the playthings of your lust, making us ashamed to be mothers, ashamed to conceive our children in joy, while you have your gods born of virgins; you go on listening to your queer half-man philosophers until we women get enough of it. Then we will hate you and O God how we will hate you for having done these things to us, your wives and mothers, your cooks and nurses and your only tenderness. If only I could be alive when that time comes! If only I could help destroy you as you are destroying us! If only we could find a way to have children without you! And we will, God help us, we will!�