Dramatic Simplicity (from 2011

I think I would define the best writing as I would the best music: a piece of music is great if it stops you short, makes you abruptly stop doing something, makes you listen to it, and a writing piece is great if it stops you short, makes you read it with great attention.

 

There seems to be a simplicity in beauty, more a dramatic simplicity in beauty.

 

Barber's Adagio for Strings does this. Bach is sacred and beautiful, but if you straighten out his complicated Baroque beauty you seem to find a simple, dramatic, Romantic line. The best Romantic's show this kind of simplification of Bach.

 

Writer's who do this sort of thing do their work for the reader, simplifying, clearing up, illuminating, with strong, beautiful, dramatic simplicity.

 

Perhaps all culture does this, including philosophy and religion.