But the Oedipus Tyrannus poured out black smoke, mephitic and angry . . .

But the Oedipus Tyrannus poured out black smoke, mephitic and angry, from her one enormous funnel; its broad shadow slanted blackly along the sea to the horizon; it was the one smudge on all that grand serenity (from Ultramarine, 1933, by Malcolm Lowry).

I enjoy writing by shapes and line. I enjoy writing that draws out lines and shapes. I like a good draughtsman, and Malcolm Lowry is that. He understands that shapes need a good filling, some colouring, shading, even if the colour is black. Lowry is drawing in charcoal here; he is smudging words with his fingers. The enormous funnel of the filthy ship, Oedipus Tryannus — angry Oedipus, tyrannical Oedipus, Oedipus in a foul mood — gives shape to the entire sentence which reads like a charcoal painting. Lowry reminds me that good writing is shape-making, a visual composition built around lines. It is the funnel which centres the piece and provides the first layer, the central outline around which all other effects emerge. The funnel is the main event and its ‘broad shadow which ‘slant[s] blackly’ is the effect of that event moving out to sea. The central action is the pouring out of smoke which is ‘mephitic and angry.’

Naturally ‘mephitic’ drew my attention. It means ‘foul smelling, pestilent, a noxious odour.’ The black smoke trailing from the funnel is in a foul mood, and all this combines with the effect of ‘angry Oedipus,’ Oedipus Tyrannus, the ship that pulls us towards the horizon. I first thought ‘mephitic’ must be related to Mephistopheles, the German devil of Faust’s legend, in which case we would have a foul smelling devil. I suppose we do in a sense. Personification enlivens my imagination. I sink deeper into the sentence because I start to see a figure emerge. I also have my visual sense working with my olfactory.

Of course the ship is its own figure, at least the enormous funnel is; that’s what I watch. Writing is also a visual event, like cinema, and we watch events unfold. Lowry, whose work must have been influenced by Joseph Conrad, obviously knows this. Conrad understood cinema and cinematic effects before cinema understood itself. A narrative is a visual event unfolding in space and time; we all need shapes and figures to watch, and this is what we do when we go down to the sea. We start to look for outlines, protuberances, something to interrupt the vast horizon.

Shapes and outlines, lines moving across an expanse, an event horizon, this is the basic unit of narrative. But I mean to be more practical. Theories of writing have never helped me write, only good examples of the craft. I have been writing recently through outline. My next book is a study of how the visual arts and writing relate; I am sure they relate intimately, as does music, which produces the rhythm, the orality. But lines or rather outlines are essential for us to focus or find our subject. We live in a graphic age; we are visually led. And so my character, Major Fortescue, who I have borrowed partly from life (there was a retired Major in my hometown) merges with the reading I did as a child - Agatha Christie’s mysteries and The Secret Garden - and then with more mature texts and paintings and illustrations, my memory bank of graphic imagery. I decided I only needed one major shape: Major Fortescue lying slumped on the bed after he receives some bad news (the news is implied, not spelled out; I wanted the body-life, the outlines to do the work). And so I outline the edge of the bed, the crisp sheets, and then the shape above him — the blades of a fan turning slowly. The entire scene emerges from a dynamic interaction between sheets, bed, body on bed and fan blades. But really it is the bed and the corners of the bed and then the sharp edges of the fan that do the composing work for me. Those shapes are etched into my mind and I watch them and follow them. I trace them with my finger if you like.

Writers train us to see in certain ways, to see certain things. In the passage before the Major is seen lying on his bed the speaker observes him practising his parade in the local wood. We watch the Major trying to walk in straight lines through a space throttled by weeds. It is difficult, so he carries a stick to whack the weeds - another visual event, another line.

All writers need a leading language. Lowry gives us the language of smoke and black smudges, of foul smelling smoke; he provides us with that enormous funnel, and like an abstract expressionist he understands that we only need one main shape to begin our own replication of shapes; to begin to move the shapes and lines about. To begin to engage with the mood and atmosphere emerging from that slanting black shadow. Smoke and shadow disappear; they evaporate, which is what is implied in that final phrase ‘grand serenity.’ In the end it is the watery horizon that dominates the view, that broad expanse of seemingly infinite space; but it is the black smudge we watch and smell.

For Laetitia.