Matt Schiavenza

Some months ago a young writer named Thomas Talhelm  single-handedly blamed Peter Hessler, the author of River Town, for ruining his China experience. Any time Talhelm felt like recording an observation, he realized that Hessler had written about it already; only better. Truly, he wondered, is there anything new left to say about China?

Hessler himself replied, apologizing and saying that his own experience in China was also ruined; this time by Mark Saltzman, the guy who wrote Iron & Silk. He then goes on to make a very wise point about the art of writing:

Fuling wasn’t an important place. Many foreigners spoke the language better than I did, and many people had a deeper knowledge of the culture. But I thought of myself as a writer, not a China expert. My training was more along those lines; before going to China I had worked as an ethnographer in southeastern Missouri, and I had thought a lot about the social sciences and theories of observation. In college I took a lot of courses in fiction and nonfiction writing. I had very few ideas about China, but I had strong ideas about voice, structure, set pieces, story structures. People often don’t realize how technical writing is. It’s a lot harder than learning Chinese or learning about China, that’s for sure. By the time I left Fuling, I had spent only two years engaged seriously with China, but thirteen years engaged seriously with writing. If the ratio had been the opposite thirteen years in China, and two years thinking about how to write that book would not have happened. I might have known a lot, but I wouldn’t have known how to express it, and how to structure it. In any case, that book is more about a learning process; it’s about how language, people, and culture came into focus for me. It’s not about “China” in the strictest sense.

Exactly. As a person who has been writing about China for five years, both as an amateur and professional, I believe Hessler’s point is spot on.

Writing is hard. Deceptively so. At first glance, River Town seems to be a fairly mundane rendition of one man’s life in a small Chinese town. Few of Hessler’s observations were that extraordinary and ring true with virtually anyone who has spent time in the country. Many of us have had experiences that were very similar to Hessler’s, in fact. Many of us have tried to write about it. But there’s only one River Town.

River Town brings to mind one of my theories about writing. To me, good writing comes in two main forms. First is the type in which the author’s talent simply leaps off the page, in which the prose is so dazzling there’s little a reader can do but admire it. Vladimir Nabokhov springs to mind. So does Marquez.

The second type of good writing is more subtle. This is writing that appears quotidian and average on the surface and gives the reader a distinct sense that he too could have written it. He probably could have. But he didn’t. A classic example is the  writer Bill Bryson, who has made a killing from writing travel books in an easy, conversational style. I am certain many people who have read Bryson have sat down and tried to match his feats. But they can’t. It may not seem like it, but Bryson’s damn good at what he does.

I’d place Peter Hessler into the second category. As ordinary as his observations might seem, as conventional his prose style might be, River Town is nonetheless an extremely well-written book. So is Oracle Bones, which Hessler wrote after River Town was published. I understand Hessler has just published a third book, and I am reasonably certain that it will be well written, too.

We’re lucky to have Hessler around, but there are countless ways in which others could, and will, describe China in the printed word. Without a doubt, this remains a beguiling country, one rich in possibility, and full of humor, tragedy, and joy.

Who knows, perhaps down the line someone will write a blog post lamenting how Thomas Talhelm- or even Matt Schiavenza- ruined their China experience. Stranger things have happened.