Whoa-oh-oh, it's Magic - Johnson and Style

T.R. Johnson defines style, in “Ancient and Contemporary Compositions That 'Come Alive': Clarity as Pleasure, Sound as Magic,” as a bridge of contact between the writer and the author; a contact that “registers in the text as the absence of ‘micro-fidgets [uncomfortable distractions] in our syntax and diction.’  In short, it registers as highly disciplined style. Indeed, stylistic techniques provide the conduit between self and other. They create and sustain the moment of contact, of connection, of ‘clarity,’ in which the remarks of the author are renewed, made to ‘come alive’ once again for the reader (355-356).” Johnson’s approach to the pleasures of the craft is highly sensual, appealing to the emotions and sensitivities of his writers and readers.

Johnson perceives style as a magical connection between both sides of the writer-reader duality, an ornamentation of communication that creates “dissolution of the boundaries between them (356).”  His list of ornaments is complex and intimidating to beginning writers, but through them a writer could create a rhythmic pulse to text that engages both the writer in progress and his or her eventual reader. Johnson advocates writing processes that dive deep into the “feel” of writing, so that as the writer adds personally significant elements of style, the text conveys not only the literal meaning of the words, but the emotional sound of them. Good writing feels right to writer and reader, according to Johnson, deep down in the experiential core of both beings.

I am torn about many of Johnson’s elements of style. To me, they seemed rather contrived – particularly his penchant for syncresis and its cousin chiasmus. The process of coming up with them would be an intriguing pre-writing process, but as he admitted, early writers plunked them randomly into their texts, diffusing their effectiveness both as a tool of generation and clarity in a text. In fact much of what he proposed sounded ostentatious to me, and I would guess most young writers would have fun playing but be confused about actual implementation of the tools. I found his passion for the mystical feelings of creative process intriguing, but part of me saw classrooms of high school sophomores rolling their eyes. Magic and muse are wondrous concepts, but I remain an application skeptic. I just cannot imagine most high school writers feeling “the generative magic by which words beget more words. Their pleasure…is a residue of the ecstasy of the ancient rhapsodes (359).” I would have been intrigued to see more from his list of thirty terms, which might be useful in a writing class as an “exercise of the day” - just as others use vocabulary “words of the day” so that writers could stretch their stylistic wings. 

Of all the very lyrical methods he proposes, I think the ones I would find most useful in not only my classroom but my own writing are the ones he calls, “focus,” “flow,” “story,” and “rhythmic emphasis.” They made concrete sense to me rather than so much of the rest of his technique, which read to me like a cross between philosophy and alchemy. I know that as an ancient and life-long writer, I already carry a muse and a primitive “double” within me, but I’m not sure how I could convey those concepts to high school students without getting laughed out of the room.