I’m about 20 pages from finishing a book called "Money and Class in America" by Lewis Lapham. The title explains itself. I’ll leave the opining to the opinionated—what interested me was the mechanics of Lapham’s writing. He is an impressive writer. These impressions struck a train of thought that comes around from time to time.

My reading has leaned toward contemporary nonfiction lately. I seem to feel the need to decipher the inanities of this generation. With that duly comes the malaise from having read too much inane writing. I won’t call myself a connoisseur, or anything else. Nor will I say my literary taste is exquisite. I’ll say that it is sensitive, though. I’ve been very careful throughout my life to pick only those literary works that do not offend it.

Writers of all calibers and pay grades have developed the knack for what was explained to me in high school as “brevity and clarity.” We can add sensualism, or egocentrism, perhaps. I’m uneasy with the imprecision of my word choice. But to the extent that the modern writer succeeds in being brief and clear, or whatever, in selling an idea and making money, he might find his work lacking substance, cohesion, even intelligence.

Well then, what is good writing to me? It doesn’t exist to me, simply because “good” is for the salesman. Exemplary art does not co-exist with commodities and services, so it fits poorly in a commoditized culture. Incidentally, I think one point Lapham makes is worth noting here:

“By assigning to money the powers that properly belong to the human intellect and imagination, the devotees thwart or suppress their attempts at love, compassion, art and thought.”

This is out of context, but it reinforces a general idea. I’m not here to argue the nation’s values or why its art is—or has always been—ridiculous; I would tire myself far too quickly to compete in that arena.

I’ve implied that artful writing is irreducible to a sane analysis and much less to a respectable theory. Often there’s an element of recklessness from authors, yet in doing so they manage to complement rather than destabilize the cohesion of the structure and the pacing of the narrative. This last element should not be overlooked—all writing has the narrative element, for even if the subject is static, the words themselves are not. They always move, always with a direction, and they always build upon one another—be it like an Egyptian pyramid or a trash heap.

These writers are also full of life, to be crude, and most importantly manifest this liveliness in their work. They suggest the subtleties, the complexities, the disorder that make existence worth writing about to begin with. On the other hand, the standard contemporary writer, at any given point in history, will betray the inadequacies of his mind with the simplicities of his prose. His attempts to comprehend everything, to create a taxonomy for each and every impulse or impression, to create a "theory of everything," become pitiful at the outset.

I can finally say that I always learn from the writers that I appreciate. A challenge to my consciousness inevitably lies within their work. I don’t read to amuse myself with trifles. I read for this challenge, and for the reassurance that my mind remains decrepit.

Reach Miles Winston here.