"When Writers Speak" Arthur Krystal

As I read Arthur Krystal’s essay “When Writer’s Speak” I at first was taken aback by how clear the image of Vladimir Nabovac came to be.  I have never heard of Nabovac before but from what I can tell he must have been a brilliant writer.  The man I pictured sitting in the interview chair was a nerdy looking middle-aged man who spoke with a heavy accent according to Krystal.  I was not exactly sure what this essay would be about from the title alone.  But as a began to read I was surprised at how it started out by saying how bad brilliant writers are a being brilliant speaker.

However, I was in no way surprised by this.  Krystal does not seem surprised in any way either.  He relates to this in a similar way to myself.  I think of my own writing and how much extra time I have to sit and think up profound thoughts while in normal conversation I do not have the luxury to take extended pauses to think.  I like how Krystal uses humor in his essay to get his own unproven theories out on the table.

For instance, he claims that if there was an MRI done of his head while he is writing his brain would be more active than if he was simple talking.  This of course is not fact but it does make sense.  When I think of my own writing process I access memories and facts stored in my brain that I probably could not think up on the spot.  Krystal uses an example of musical instrument to demonstrate his point.   He says that one would think differently when playing the violin then when playing the piano.  This makes sense since the violin uses drastically different finger movement and notes. 

“When Writers Speak” really made me think about how I differ from sitting on a couch writing a paper to when I am having a conversation with my mom on the phone.  It is as if it is two totally different people I cannot formulate pristine sentences over the phone like I could if I thought about what exactly I wanted to say on paper.  I believe though that it should be a different process.  Would writing really be interesting if we all talked like we wrote?  I truly doubt it.  It was also be hard to have a conversation with another writer if both parties constantly had amazingly intelligent perfectly constructed sentences.

The essay was ended with a joke that I found enjoyable.  When Krystal told the story of Alexander von Humbolt asking his doctor friend if he could meet a real lunatic.  While sitting at the dinner table Humbolt is in between one shy well-mannered man and one crazy dressed talkative man.   Naturally, because of the Humbolt perceived the two men he assumed that the talkative man was the lunatic when truly it was the shy man.  This story only reiderates the fact that one’s intelligience cannot be judged by conversation alone.