Can we start with a conversation?

 Many writers have said it: Writing is a conversation with readers.

It seems to me that a student — a relatively new reader of literature — would do well to start with diaries, letters and memoirs. He or she could tackle poetry and fiction later.

The advantage in starting with the straightforward stuff is that it’s obvious that the personalities of the writer and reader play a role in whether they can have a conversation.

I can read Thoreau’s journals by the hour. Fifteen minutes with Queen Victoria’s diary is more than enough. The consequential difference is not in the craft or the artistry of the writing. It’s in the type of people Thoreau and Queen Victoria were, the kind of thoughts they thought, the kind of interests they had.

That’s so obvious it wouldn’t be worth noting — except that the matter of compatibility tends to get lost when we’re talking about poetry or fiction, the kind of literature that can be called art.

Had Queen Victoria written a great work of fiction, I’d have trouble reading it for the same reasons I have trouble reading her diary. It’s not a question of art or artistry. Even if she were the master of the art of the novel, she’d still be Queen Victoria and I’d still be me.

We could exchange polite pleasantries perhaps, but that’s not a conversation.