The Magic of Writing

Writing has sometimes been compared to magic, most famously by Borges in his essay "Narrative Art and Magic." At the danger of simplifying this author, who does not need my assistance (the essay should be allowed to speak for itself), Borges argues that the logic of narrative is similar to magical thinking, in that we as readers and writers allow ourselves to make connections between images and ideas, connections that have no real basis in real logic or rationality. Writing represents a "reordering of the real," and good fiction makes sense the way dreams often make sense. 

The writing act itself also has parallels to what magicians do, in making the reader pay attention to certain things while ignoring others. The magician "reorders reality" through the power of suggestion and distraction, keeping the viewer's focus where he wants it to be. Of course, as Tennessee Williams suggests through his character Tom in The Glass Menagerie, whereas magic attempts to trick and entertain people, by presenting illusion disguised as truth, writing gives you "truth disguised as illusion."* We're speaking here, of course, of the truth as immortalized by Keats. Writers must be "truthful," but they do so by making up stories and fictionalizing reality to get at the underlying truth.

When I think of writing and magic, though, and all this business about the nature of illusion and trickery, I think of the difference in feeling in writing prose and poetry. For me, writing stories and other prose often feels like it involves the magical logic described by Borges. In writing poetry, though, it often feels as if the work transcends these ideas. Poems, at their best, feel not like an act of magic as we usually think of it, the magic of top hats and performance art, but real magic. Poetry is like word sorcery, making words do the impossible and, in doing so, changing the nature of reality.

*Play performances seem similar to magical performances as well. They entertain and enthrall us, and, if done well, make us forget that what we're viewing is an illusion. And the best magicians also know that magic is performance art; it must be dramatic, funny, and mysterious. I think it's also interesting that some magicians of the past were called "Professors," as if they are teaching the audience something.

**Neil Gaiman has some excellent stories and comments about magic in his collection Smoke and Mirrors. As he points out, magic is compelling in part because it makes us question the nature of reality, as do stories.