John Gardner (My favorite books on writing)

[Before we begin, let me make it clear that this is not the John Gardner who wrote the James Bond books after Ian Fleming died.]

John Gardner. The Art of Fiction and On Becoming a Novelist.

When the chemist Lavoisier was beheaded during the Reign of Terror following the French Revolution, the mathematician LaGrange (of the L5 point beloved of science-fiction writers) said, “It took them only an instant to cut off that head, but France may not produce another like it in a century.”

John Gardner died in a motorcycle accident before he was fifty. He left behind a long line of marvelous novels. Critical opinion (and, more important, my opinion) is unanimous that his novella Grendel—which is Beowulf told from the monster’s point of view—is a masterpiece. Opinions are more divided on his other novels; his earlier works, such as The Sunlight Dialogues and Nickel Mountain, were widely praised and have a cult following, but I admire his later October Light and especially Mickelsson’s Ghosts (which the critics generally scorned).

Had his head not been (metaphorically) cut off, I think it would now stand up there next to writers like Bellow and Mailer—not perfect, and far from uncontroversial, but one of the major figures of twentieth-century literature. The fact that he got on the wrong side of the critical establishment by attacking Pynchon and Barth and a few other darlings as being “frigid” writers without a sense of moral duty in that highest of all callings, writing fiction, didn’t help him much. (I rather like Pynchon and Barth, as it happens, but I don’t find that the critical politics of the situation are terribly interesting: these are novels, not football teams.) I’m hoping Gardner will be resurrected in the 21st century the way forgotten Melville was in the 20th.

Nonetheless, Gardner made his mark on literature in other ways than his fiction. He was a master teacher, and fostered a number of important (if sometimes tragic) writers, notably Raymond Carver. And he also penned two of the most influential books—at least in the US—on writing. They need to be read as a pair; they really ought to be one book.

Gardner’s books on writing are frustrating. They are meandering, ranting, illuminating, digressive. The books are like having a brilliant, half-mad professor deliver a lecture with you trapped in the classroom: at moments, you want to argue, at other moments you wonder if he’s lost his mind, and then he hits you with a lightening bolt and you say, my god, this man is pure genius.


There are things no one has ever dealt with as well as Gardner: Psychic distance. Levels of diction. Genre (in the grander sense of tale, epic, etc.). Rhythm and prosody. And when you go to look up what you remember he said, you find that what you recalled as a chapter is in fact two pages at most.

But, beware. Gardner thinks fiction is a high calling, and that reaching out to strangers who may read your work carries a heavy moral burden. He reminds us that the reader who picks up your book may be dying of a terminal illness, or that the reader may be someone wronged who is teetering on the edge of forgiveness or vengeance, or that the reader may be bereaved or contemplating suicide or abortion or even just getting divorced or quitting a job. And here you come with your novel, portraying life through a particular lens, messing with their emotions…

On second thought, don’t read Gardner’s books on writing. The insights are marvelous, but they aren’t worth the guilt he loads on your back. Every time I write anything, I feel like I’m failing Father John.

I’d really recommend Grendel, though.