A Book is a Work of Art

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Writing is art. Book writing is complex art. If an essay is a drawing, a good book is the Sistine Chapel. 

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It’s complex. A bad book is unruly, but a good book is elegant and brings to mind other art forms. 

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A book is architecture. We don’t just write them, we plan them and build them. You start with a foundation (core message). You build a frame (an outline). You construct the rooms (chapters and sections). You think about the flow of the structure. How is the reader going to move through this house you wrote? 

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Bad books are piles of materials, thrown together. Good books are elegantly constructed spaces. They are organized and have an organizing effect on your brain. A reader can inhabit that kind of book. She can live in it for a while. 

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A book is music. It’s got rhythm. And not the wild music of the 20th century, but Baroque, Classic, or, if you must, Romantic music. A composer of books knows how to make a line sing. She understands refrains and verses. He knows what a crescendo is for and how to leave dynamic markings in the “score.” She understands the power of silence. The melody of the lines, the form of the paragraphs, and necessity of the movements don’t have to be discerned, but will always be felt. 

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Some writers obsess about meaning and forget about the sound of a book, so they make noise, or monochromatic, boring books.

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A book is a sculpture. An idea is a block of marble. A rough draft is a rough sculpture. David, not yet defined. David, just the figure of a human, but not the beautiful archetype he will be on the 4th draft. Excess is cut away and all that is not David is removed. Shape is refined. The draft is made into art, not by adding, but by taking away. 

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The hardest and most soul-crushing task is to add something to a nearly finished book. It almost never makes it better. But removing stuff is where the art happens.

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A book is a ballet. It’s not written, it’s choreographed. On the stage a ballet looks effortless, but toes are being crushed, muscles are straining, exhaustion is near. The audience knows nothing about that. They take in grace. They are carried along by the seemingly endless energy from the stage. Underneath that display of grace and strength and balance is years of obsession from someone who lives for one thing. The greater the effort, the more effortless a book seems to the reader. 

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In a ballet, the movement is precisely planned and executed. No dancer meanders on the stage. If a writer meanders on the page, the reader is forced to meander too. This is a sin. 

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The greatest work of art was by the greatest Artist. And it was the Incarnation. If art represents, the Incarnation represents on earth the most beautiful subject in such a way as to be that subject. God allows no graven image of Himself, because He had it covered in the Lamb Slain since the Foundation of the World. His Son. 

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But is it right to say He was His creation? Actually, no. “He was begotten not made.” 

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What would it feel like to beget, not make a book? Perhaps it is impossible, but it’s worth considering that the Second Person of the Trinity always was. He always existed and was always of one essence with the Father. 

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Here, I will risk blaspheme for the sake of the thought exercise: Is there a book in you that is of your essence? Could you think of begetting it, rather than creating it? If so, how? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. 

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Blessings.

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