Cite for Sore Eyes
Friday 20 June 2014
There are 10 types of people in this world: those who
understand binary, and those who don’t.
I regurgitate this old gag because I’ve just wasted the last
five hours trying to track down the source of a quote that quantifies plots in
a similar fashion: “All great literature
is one of two stories: a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town.”
I liked the original quote. I thought it would sit well at
the start of a paper I’m currently writing. And so I started to dig. The first
online search, a Goodreads link, suggested Tolstoy was the source. A few others
support this claim. I was pleased with this. Tolstoy’s name has gravitas and so
I set about trying to find a citable reference.
Except, I can’t find any record of Tolstoy having made the
remark.
Tolstoy lived from 1828 to 1910. The majority of his work is
available through public domain sites like Project Gutenberg and the Internet
Archive. You can read a lot of Tolstoy for free online. But it seems unlikely
you’ll read a passage where he says, “All
great literature is one of two stories: a man goes on a journey or a stranger
comes to town.” The reason why you’re unlikely to find such a passage is
because Tolstoy never said the damned words.
Admittedly there’s a book on Amazon entitled ‘Leo Tolstoy - The First Distiller, A Comedy:
"All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a
stranger comes to town."’ But there is no explanation as to why this
copy of that play has that subtitle. Reading the text of The First Distiller, I can’t find that particular quote in the text.
So I broadened my search and discovered the following
revelations.
Dostoevsky didn’t say it. There’s even an anti-helpful reference
on Dostoevsky’s wikiquotes page explaining that they’re sure he didn’t say it
and they’d like an email from anyone who can prove that he did.
Thanks for that wikiquotes.
Mary Morris, editor of The
Illustrated Virago Book of Women Travellers, attributes the quote to spy
novelist* John Gardner. Many others mention John Gardner as a likely source and
given that Gardner wrote prolifically on the subject of writing (The Art of Fiction, On Moral Fiction, On
Becoming a Novelist), he does seem a likely candidate. However, none of his
titles specifically contain this quote.
A New York Times article attributes the quote to historical
fiction novelist Max Byrd.
Byrd is another prolific writer who reviews books and writes
fiction. However, the only online reference to Byrd mentioning this idea comes
in a 2010 book review for Michael O’Brien’s Mrs
Adams in Winter. Even then, Byrd couches the quote in language that
suggests the idea is axiomatic amongst writers rather than his own original
observation:
“Novelists sometimes
insist that there are really only two possible plots in literature: somebody
goes on a journey, or a stranger comes to town.”
However, even though Byrd doesn’t use the quote with
authority, I figured I could attribute him as an original source. After
trimming the first four words from the quote it read like my memory of the
original and Byrd’s reputation does give the comment some substance.
And yet, when I placed it at the top of the paper I was
writing, it didn’t seem like quite the right way to begin. Given that the piece
is about the disparate number of potential plots in fiction, I thought it might
be better to start with a joke:
There are 10 types of people in this world:
those who understand binary, and those who don’t.
If only I could find out who originally said that.
* Thank you to Andrew Moore for pointing out my error in confusing American novelist John Gardner with British novelist John Gardner. It's much appreciated.
* Thank you to Andrew Moore for pointing out my error in confusing American novelist John Gardner with British novelist John Gardner. It's much appreciated.