Quotes and Ideas - DeLillo's The Names

"In this century the writer has carried on a conversation with madness. We might almost say of the twentieth-century writer that be aspires to madness. Some have made it, of course, and they hold special places in our regard. To a writer, madness is a final distillation of self, a final editing down. It's the drowning out of false voices" (DeLillo).

Two names immediately come to mind--Joyce, Woolf--though there are others. The irony of writing about madness and mimicing madness is that it demands from the writer a crytaline sanity and clarity of style. Only the most sane stylists are thus able to achieve this "final distillation of self."

The conclusion I come to with these two positions is this: if you question your sanity or mastery of your style, if you question whether you even have a style, don't write about madness or try to distill yourself. Be watery.