Ethan Canin at UCSF

Lately I've been determined to take more advantage of the cultural opportunities at the UCSF campus than I ever do, reasoning that the work will always be there and I'll always get it done.  Last week I attended two musical events I'd never attended before: Music in the Library (yes--it takes place in the very building where I work!); and the Chancellor's Concert Series (which required me to actually walk across the street.)   Both of these events were great--the jaunty music of Austin Willacy in the Library, followed by a marvelous classical musical performance at Cole Hale the next day.

But I am a writer in my soul, and so today's cultural activity had the most meaning for me.  Ethan Canin, the well respected author and faculty member at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, came to campus to give a lecture about how he left medicine to become an artist.   This talk occurred at one of the world's premiere health sciences universities.  

Canin read from a prepared text; there was no Power Point, which was exhilaratingly refreshing.  His piece chronicled his transformation from an engineering to English major at Stanford; his rather lackluster MFA output while a student at Iowa in the early 80s; his decision to switch gears again and go to Harvard for medical school (where he quickly discovered that he only wanted to write); and the winding path that led him to complete his residency at UCSF more than a decade after he started medical school.  By 1998 he was in Iowa, writing and teaching full time.

There was much good humor along the way, with none of the artificial brooding that can compromise literacy events.  But there was sadness too, as Canin recounted the diagnostic mistakes he made as a resident.  The overall sense was of a very real person standing before you, who just happens to be a great writer.

Canin discussed how medical terminology ("dysthemia" instead of "sadness"; "upper extremity" instead of "arm") alienates doctors from patients.  I'd never thought about it this way, but maybe the entire Medical Subject Heading vocabulary (MeSH) is one big exercise in obfuscation.  Plain language is generally better, even if medical language is more precise. 

That said, MeSH isn't going anywhere, and it is the very backbone of PubMed.  Librarians aren't responsible for making health professionals speak plainly, but we should be aware of the potential ramifications of "medspeak."

A related point was that every word in a novel--every single word--should draw the reader in.  Any time a reader has to pause and backpedal is a sign that a sentence or paragraph could have been better.  This is an impossibly high standard, of course, but it is one to strive for nonetheless.

At Northwesten I took two classes in the same quarter that improved my writing, because each class reinforced the other.  One was Advanced Composition; the other a course in which we read every novel by Virginia Woolf.   Both classes required several short papers (by design in Advanced Composition, by my choice for Woolf.)   So I had to compact a great deal of content in a small space, and trim the fat as much as possible.   This is much harder than it seems.  Canin's talk today covered almost 20 years of his life, but for me no part seemed superfluous. 

Comments

[T Scott]

I remember reading Canin when his first book of stories came out and loving it. He's right about making every word count. That's why so much blog writing is so lousy -- people are focused on their ideas, not on the words that they use to get those ideas across.

Reminds me of my very favorite quote from any of the Paris Review interviews of great writers. Hemingway was asked what the most difficult part of writing was. He answered, "Getting the words right."