Rule of Law
I was waiting at a stoplight the other day, watching
pedestrians ignore the Don't Walk signal and was reminded of
how residents of the Pacific Northwest are often sneered at
for their alleged propensity for obeying such signals even early
in the a.m. when the streets are deserted: no cars that could
possibly run them down, no cops that could cite them for jaywalking.
“What a bunch of pious rubes,” the sneering sophisticates
think, “Just cross the street, wimps.” Now I've lived
in Seattle, and I can confirm that I have seen this law-abiding
behavior the rest of the country laughs at. I have even engaged
in it myself. And though I don't think abiding by the law should
require a defense, let me make one anyway. To all of you who
deem such behavior ridiculous, let me ask this question: how
often do you run a red light while driving your automobile?
Never? What about at 3 a.m., at an intersection that is clearly
deserted? My guess is that most Americans patiently wait at
every stoplight they encounter regardless of time of day or
density of traffic. Why? What's the difference? If a pedestrian
supposedly has the option of jaywalking if conditions seem favorable,
why shouldn't drivers have the same choice? Why aren't we laughing
at those folks who sit alone at an intersection in the early
morning hours waiting for the light to change? I suspect it's
because we all realize, if only unconsciously, that if we let
this type of relativism creep into our driving habits, eventually
we'd have chaos and lots more car wrecks. As soon as it's o.k.
for each individual driver to decide when traffic lights need
to be obeyed and when they can be ignored, it wouldn't be long
before no one could be sure when it would be safe to move and
when it wouldn't. A red light would no longer be an absolute
sign that one must stop, and no one would know whether an approaching
driver would heed it. So, to prevent such a scenario, we get
in the habit of stopping for red lights, regardless. Regardless
of time of day and regardless of traffic density. Sure, sometimes
it feels stupid sitting at a red light with no one in sight,
but we do it to reinforce a very important habit: when the light
is red, we stop. When the light is green, we go. And we assume
that everyone else has internalized the same habit, thus making
it simpler to make driving decisions. If everyone had their
own idea of how to interpret a stoplight, just imagine how nerve-wracking
it would be every time you approached an intersection. Just
as we expect other drivers to have the same interpretation of
traffic laws as we do, we expect pedestrians to do the same.
When the signal says Don't Walk, we expect pedestrians to stay
on the curb so that we don't have to be worried about running
them over. In other words, we expect them to obey the law. Laws
always involve absolutes. There are no exceptions for jaywalking
just as there are no exceptions for robbing banks. According
to the law, it is always wrong, regardless of circumstances.
So, when people sneer at Seattlites for waiting for the walk
signal, the message is: “C'mon, break the law, you pantywaists.
A curious message from folk who live in a country supposedly
so righteously concerned with the rule of law.
What does this have to do with Spineless Books?
Recently, I was recruited to be a first reader for the newly
established Fitzpatrick-O'Dinn
Award for the Best Book Length Work of Constrained Literature.
I am excited about this opportunity for a couple of reasons.
One, I like weird books and this contest is almost guaranteed
to make several examples available to me. Two, it got me thinking
about what kind of constraint I would adopt had I the time to
write such a work myself. I soon discovered that choosing a
constraint would be quite difficult, since I would prefer to
use one that had never been done before. For instance, lipograms
are cool, certainly, but geez, they're almost old hat by now;
authors have been lipogramming for hundreds of years. So, not
wanting to practice some time-worn constraint, exactly what
would I prevent myself from doing? In other words, what laws
would I enact to control my behavior while writing? Then I realized
something else. Let's face it: all literature is governed by
constraints. If you follow capitalization and punctuation rules,
you're following a constraint. If you limit yourself to your
native language, you're following a constraint. And so forth.
Thus, when we claim that there is some category called “constrained
literature” what we're really saying is that some authors
decide to abide by laws (laws they legislate themselves for
themselves) that normally aren't in effect, that they've gone
beyond the conventional, widely-accepted constraints, and piled
on some more. It is as if a pedestrian in Seattle decides she
will not only always obey a Don't Walk signal but will stand
on one leg while doing so, the right leg when going downtown,
the left leg when going uptown. Writers of constrained literature,
then, are simply extremely law-abiding writers, so law-abiding
they decide they need more laws to abide by. And like Seattlites,
they are often seen as ridiculous.
Suddenly, it occurs to me, given that constraints
are everywhere in literature, some with long and respectable
pedigrees, how will Spineless decide which constraints meet
the contest criteria? For example, say someone sent in a book
length sonnet sequence in which each sonnet scrupulously followed
the traditional rules (iambic pentameter, 14 lines, etc.)--would
that be allowed? Certainly, the sonnet form is constraining,
no doubt about that, but does it still qualify as “constrained
literature,” given its long history and its unqualified
acceptance by the literary establishment? I'll have to ask the
founder of Spineless that question next time we're sitting in
my car waiting for the light to change.
—Dirk Stratton
The Editor Responds
Traditional sonnets certainly qualify as constrained
literature. And arguably all literature is constrained in some
respect, by grammar, by the alphabet, or by meaning. The trick
here is articulating what the constraints are. As the rules
of the Fitzpatrick-O'Dinn Award
emphasize “elegance, innovation, and rigor,” a sonnet
as pure form might seem to be at a disadvantage. Nevertheless
I encourage the submission of books written in traditional forms,
as the quality of the writing will be at least as importance
as the method of its execution.
—William Gillespie
