Richard Ford’s recent story collection, A Multitude of Sins, features some finely drawn lawyer characters who aren’t completely happy with their choice of profession. In “Calling,” one of them says:
“[T]he law is a calling which teaches you that most of life is about adjustments, the seatings and reseatings we perform to accommodate events occurring outside our control and over which we might not have sought control in the first place.”
A rough translation might be as follows: what the law teaches is that all the world is Humpty Dumpty, and it's not easy putting it back together again, not even for lawyers. At the climax of the story, this is all the lawyer-character has to say about “the law,” and it rings false. In “Puppy,” another lawyer-character says, “The law is an odd calling.” Oh, and he’s bored with his life too.
My territorial instincts cause me to wonder why fiction writers--even those as skillful as Ford--should be allowed to channel lawyers. He’s not a lawyer. How can he possibly understand? Now, I realize this position betrays my own arrogance. It also leaves out that Ford did attend some law school and clearly admires lawyers.
Still, I stand by the criticism. In Ford’s fiction, characters are defined and hedged in by their choice of profession. Ford’s lawyer characters seem the most hedged in of all. But to someone who wants to pay the money and serve the time to get the degree--what better profession is there? A world of possibilities and options are available to lawyers. Only the unimaginative are cut off by their embrace of the “calling of law.” Maybe Ford’s lawyer characters are all unimaginative, but if so, he’s painting a second unfair picture of lawyers.
If you’re going to read Richard Ford (not to be missed despite the lawyers), read him for his take on marriage and adultery. On these themes he has few equals.
I hope to all things good and true that writers like Ford can understand. I need them to be able to understand. If not, then writing, to be true, must be insular. It becomes only true when written of one's self, and then read by one's self (for how can a reader understand what a writer means? he's not that writer!).
Writers - good writers - must be capable of making us believe that they can dive into the minds and lives of others and bring to the surface a semblance of those lives.
Posted by: TPB, Esq. | February 11, 2004 at 11:16 AM
At the climax of the story, this all the lawyer-character has to say about “the law"
Surely that should be "this *is* all" or the equivalent...
Posted by: Sarah Trombley | February 11, 2004 at 02:24 PM
Sarah: How could I leave out an entire word? That's where you come in, I guess. I'll send you an e-mail.
Meanwhile, I want to respond to TPB of unbillable hours (who posted a comment here and something on his blawg) and Sherry of Stay of Execution (who also continued the discussion on her blawg). Don't know when--sometime soon I hope.
Posted by: Evan | February 11, 2004 at 04:49 PM
Why should fiction writers be allowed to channel anyone?
I'm a sailmaker. If a fiction writer should put words in the mouth of a sailmaker about sailmaking, why should I think that has anything to do with me?
Your translation is way off. Relax. Inhale.
Posted by: win | February 11, 2004 at 07:19 PM
Welcome, Win. I know who you are. The blogosphere needs more sailmakers. (Though I'm getting tired of that word "blogosphere." As I see it -- ah, forget it ... More inhaling ... More relaxing.)
Posted by: Evan | February 11, 2004 at 08:47 PM