The Catholic Writers Guild

(“Or, a consideration of the meaning of ‘nature’ in which Joe uses many quotation marks and funny words”)

Toward the end of his autobiographical Surprised by Joy, C. S. Lewis writes about meeting lifelong friend A. K. Hamilton Jenkin:

“…Jenkin seemed to be able to enjoy everything; even ugliness. I learned from him that we should attempt a total surrender to whatever atmosphere was offering itself at the moment; in a squalid town to seek out those very places where its squalor rose to grimness and almost grandeur, on a dismal day to find the most dismal and dripping wood, on a windy day to seek the windiest ridge. There was… a serious, yet gleeful, determination to rub one’s nose in the very quiddity of each thing, to rejoice in its being (so magnificently) what it was.”

I love that word – quiddity. It’s not only a lot of fun to say (try it!) but carries some important and practical philosophy. It’s a word any serious student should know – and writers must be serious students, if only, at a particular moment, of their own character and story.

The definition of quiddity is often given as “the nature of a thing”, but that word “nature” is a funny thing. When we say “nature” today, I suspect we usually mean trees and flowers, and the wild animals roaming through them. We mean green and moist and bright, or stormy and dark, or dangerous. We mean crisp air or rising sun or fresh herbs. When we get “back to nature”, it’s to a collection of wonderful adjectives. It’s how these things look and feel right now – and how they make us feel.

But that isn’t the “nature” meant by “quiddity”.

If you want a slightly more odd but much more literal definition, look at the root of the word. “Quiddity” comes from the Latin “quid” or “what” and “-itas”, which is equivalent to “-ity” in English, so we have “what-ity” or “whatness”. Quiddity is the whatness of a thing. It is what it is.*

Why else call all those lovely and dark and deep things around us “nature”?  They are what they are, made by Him who is what He is. (Ex 3:14)

The natural world is. It exists, not made by human hands – the only thing around us that isn’t manipulated in some way by us. I think that’s why artists love nature so much, either to work on it or with it or in it. There is a connection back to the Creator. Painters, sculptors, writers, and other artists attempt to grasp the reality of their subject matter. They hope to capture not just its look but its nature – its quiddity – on canvas or paper, or in marble or clay.

Painters and sculptors study all of these wonderful adjectives – all of the outward qualities of a person or a scene. They study deeply each curve and line, each color and shade, and through some mysterious process, they get to know more than just those outward appearances. They get to really know the nature of their subject. In a way that’s hard to put into words, Monet knew water lilies. Picasso knew the horrors of Guernica. Michelangelo knew King David.

Writers, too, study adjectives. They aim to show rather than tell the world around them (or the world in their imagination). In studying each line and curve of the world, or the tree, or the person, they somehow come to know it. That’s the real reason to study anything – to know what it is, not what it’s made of. That’s the reason to paint or sculpt or write. That’s the reason to be married. That’s the reason to be Christian (I repeat myself).

When you write a setting or a character deeply and repeatedly, something happens. You go in some way beyond what they’re made of and come to know what they are.

If you take that time, you can know every hair and every thought. You can, as Lewis put it, rub your nose in the very quiddity of each thing, to rejoice in its being so magnificently what it is. What a gift to get to know anything or anyone so well.

You can know your character just as we are known – by the master that painted the landscape we’re walking in, by the sculptor that formed us, by the author that is writing our every line to the last. (Jer 1:5, Ps 139:13, cf Mt 10:30)

30,000 words for Christ… 30,000 steps toward Him. And, thank God, an infinity more to go.

* It’s also my theory as to why anglophile J. K. Rowling named “quidditch” what she did. Don’t try to understand the logic of the game. It just is what it is.