"Making a book is a craft, like making a clock; it needs more than native wit to be an author"
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Romantic myths about genius don’t survive contact with the workshop. La Bruyere’s comparison of bookmaking to clockmaking is a pointed demotion: authorship isn’t a sacred eruption of “native wit,” it’s disciplined labor governed by standards you can fail. A clock is intricate, fussy, and judged by whether it keeps time; a book, in his framing, should be judged by whether it works - structurally, stylistically, morally - not by the author’s self-image. The metaphor also smuggles in an ethic: craft implies responsibility to the reader and to the form, a willingness to revise, calibrate, and discard vanity.
The subtext is aimed at the salon culture and courtly literary scene of 17th-century France, where reputation could be purchased with charm, connections, and glittering epigrams. La Bruyere, a moralist with an eye for social pretension, is taking a swipe at the clever talker who assumes verbal sparkle equals literature. “Native wit” becomes suspect: an inherited or effortless cleverness that flatters the speaker more than it serves the work.
Clockmaking also signals modernity. In an age increasingly fascinated by measurement, order, and mechanism, he aligns writing with precision rather than inspiration. That’s not anti-art; it’s anti-sloppiness. He’s arguing that literature earns its authority the hard way: through technique, patience, and the quiet humility of doing the job until it tells the right time.
The subtext is aimed at the salon culture and courtly literary scene of 17th-century France, where reputation could be purchased with charm, connections, and glittering epigrams. La Bruyere, a moralist with an eye for social pretension, is taking a swipe at the clever talker who assumes verbal sparkle equals literature. “Native wit” becomes suspect: an inherited or effortless cleverness that flatters the speaker more than it serves the work.
Clockmaking also signals modernity. In an age increasingly fascinated by measurement, order, and mechanism, he aligns writing with precision rather than inspiration. That’s not anti-art; it’s anti-sloppiness. He’s arguing that literature earns its authority the hard way: through technique, patience, and the quiet humility of doing the job until it tells the right time.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
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