I have a taste, a craving, a positive jones for generalization. Through words, generalizations give patterns to experience. Such patterns are not only necessary if you want to make any sense out of the world at all; they are inherently pleasing things, or at least to me they are. Making generalizations is, after all, one of the things writers do.
The other day I began Casanova’s History of My Life, which begins very promisingly, with the old 18th-century roue pronouncing: “Happy or unhappy, life is the only treasure which man possesses, and they who do not love it do not deserve it.” That has a nice beat; you can practically dance to it.
I tend to favor generalizations that, along with having a high truth quotient, have a fine rhythm. The danger is that the rhythm can overwhelm the truth. One of my favorite generalizations in which this occurs is one that compares women and translations. It was composed by that prolific hack Anonymous, writing this time in French: “Si elles sont fideles elles ne sont pas belles; si elles sont belles elles ne sont pas fideles.” (“If they are faithful, they aren’t beautiful; if they are beautiful, they aren’t faithful.”) Brilliant, but, in my experience, truer of translations than of women. A shame; this generalization’s thoroughly sexist sentiment only adds a touch of piquancy.
I am also partial to generalizations of nearly insane specificity. At the close of his little book Berlin, Jules Laforgue notes: “All Germans — all — have rings.” Laforgue is writing about Germany in 1881, and so it is a bit difficult to check him out on this. Still, that second “all” — zing, right between the dashes — nails it.
The riskier the generalization, the more enticing. The British novelist Anthony Powell is the master here. In his novels he regularly uses generalization as part of his descriptions. He writes, for two examples, of ” the fumes of unambitious cooking” and of the desire of neurotics “to try to make things as bad for others” as for themselves. Does unambitious cooking give off different fumes than ambitious cooking? Of course. You can smell the disappointment in the food before you eat it. Do neurotics wish to bring us down to their deep valley of unhappiness? Do bears eschew finger bowls?
Only two tests for a generalization: experience and logic. Yet some of the best generalizations seem to defy logic. Anyone — well, almost anyone — can be logical, but to seem illogical and at the same time still be right, now that takes skill. Once again I cite Anthony Powell, who says of a character in one of his novels that he speaks a number of foreign languages with facility, and, as with all people who speak foreign languages so easily, he is fundamentally untrustworthy. Quite nuts, don’t you agree? I do, too, except that that statement is true of all the people I have ever met who are able to acquire speaking knowledge of a foreign language quickly. Go figure.
A generalization that fizzles brings its own quiet disappointment. “What a surprise the weather always is when one is drunk,” writes John Banville in his new novel The Untouchable. I have thought long about this, but find it just doesn’t make it, at least not for me. “Americans love singularity,” writes Charles Baxter, in one of the essays in Burning Down the House, his book on modern fiction. I like the ambitiousness of that: all Americans! But do Americans really love singularity more than, say, Lithuanians or Laplanders? Can’t, finally, be ascertained. The ping, the little jolt of recognition, isn’t there.
I continue to search for handsome generalizations for my own writing. Whenever possible, I like to make my own pings. I recently came up with this: “The talented can be charming, but there is a firm kernel of selfishness at the core — perhaps it is the core — of most people with talent.” Now that I reread it, I think: Not bad. Nice try. Needs a slight tune-up. Bring it back when it has the grandeur and concision of Paul Valery’s “Life is the sum of habits disturbed by a few thoughts.”
The other day I hit upon an observation that perhaps will make grist for a decent generalization. Why is it that Major League Baseball, unlike the National Basketball Association or the National Football League, seems to have no players with Muslim names? I haven’t yet checked all the major-league rosters, but thus far every serious baseball fan I’ve queried can’t come up with any exceptions. If this holds up, mightn’t all sorts of interesting generalizations about the sociology of American sports derive from it? At a minimum, it may allow me to change my old sports simile from “rarer than a Jew in the front four” to “rarer than a third-baseman named Ahmad.” Still, as generalizations go, at this stage no cigar. Which is too bad, because all cigar smokers love generalizations.
JOSEPH EPSTEIN
