Genius vs. Talent

version

Well-known member
I recently stumbled across an interview with Martin Amis where he went off on Joyce for having plenty of aspiration and not enough anxiety, the mixture of which he claimed made up writing. He then went on to say that he thought you could divide what a writer had to offer into "genius" and "talent" - genius being "the God-given altitude of perception and expressiveness" and talent being "knowing what goes where, how to make, how to modulate, how to draw the reader in" - and that Joyce was all genius and no talent.

He admitted himself that it was a bit "woolly" as a framework and I dunno about his take on Joyce in particular, but I've definitely come across people who are absolutely brilliant yet incapable of the basics of whatever it is they're doing. An example being someone who makes incredible music, but who can't structure and arrange it to save their life so you're left with these incredible ideas which never really hang together.

How much weight do you think the idea holds, if any, and do any examples spring to mind?
 

blissblogger

Well-known member
that sounds a bit like a remix of the old idea "1% inspiration, 99% perspiration"

certainly genius perceptions, sparkling flashes of languages, etc etc are only half of the deal with any creative form - an ability to put it across, to make it consumable or understandable, structure it -that is the other half

as is an ability to hustle

Oscar Wilde was a hustler, a self-publicist - he wouldn't have had 1/100th of the impact he did if he did not know how to make waves
 

blissblogger

Well-known member
interestingly though i have read Amis use the word "Talent" in a quite different sense - not as craftmanship - but to mean something much closer to what he calls "genius" in the statement you referenced

Talent (he has argued) is the inexplicable X-factor, the gift, the flair - sheer ability - without which, no amount of graft or craft can make up for

something like what - in other contexts - we might call musicality, star quality, charisma,

something almost indefinable (you know it when you see it, hear it, read it) and unfairly bestowed

profoundly inegalitarian

what separates the first-rate from the second-rate in aesthetic endeavour

(the name of one of his protagonists, Keith Talent, is meant to be bitterly ironic)
 

pattycakes_

Can turn naughty
Genius tends to be uncontrollable/unpredictable/unforceable

Talent can totally be controlled and bettered with hard work

Prince was driven to the point where his talent was genius level but god damn did he work for it at least 12 hours a day. Sly stone on the other hand just couldn't help himself and you never knew which way that ship was gonna sail until the sadly predictable end which is where many if not most geniouses end up. Syd Barrett, Brian Jones etc etc. It's mental illness really that sets them apart. Gives them those magical powers to shine light on things most of us don't see. And the world just isn't built to nurture them in a healthy way. But idk if that matters so much when there's no real genii left anyway. None that dare show their shit in public at least.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I'm a fan of Amis as a critic but as a novelist he isn't fit to lick Joyce's boots, frankly.

I guess that doesn't mean he can't criticise Joyce. Undoubtedly Joyce is difficult. But that was what he was doing. He did it, from what I've read it, superlatively.
 
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