Book Review: Devotion is a book written by an artist. Patti Smith exists as an artist. A musician, poet, photographer, memoirist, reviewer, Patti Smith is all of those, none of those, more than those; she's an artist. All is art to her, and as such, she is both more and less known than she might be. Devotion is made in three parts, but more than three parts. This tiny book holds so much: two brief memoirs, a short story, two short transitional pieces, two poems.
She begins with a brief poetic prologue on inspiration. The first section is memoir, called "How the Mind Works." Much as she did in M Train, Smith describes a trip to Paris and Ashford in England (where she visited the grave of Simone Weil; she includes a poem written there). But more than memoir, she is showing the reader what it is to be an artist. She shows how creativity works, how her short story "Devotion" (the next section of the book) came to be written. Smith shows herself open to experience, willing to be uncomfortable, lost, caught in the rain, cold, up too early, up too late. Exploring. She sees things when we're not used to looking at them, where we're not used to seeing them. Her mind is open to seeing things new, free of distractions (no cell phones here). She sees everything fresh, her senses are open, her mind uncluttered but ready to be filled with imagination and inspiration. Her emotions are open, but immature emotion is not enough. Emotion is insufficient without an awareness of art. Smith shows how she relates what she sees to what she knows: music, poetry, painting, sculpture, books, films ... artists. But the artist must have read enough poems, seen enough films, devoured enough books, viewed enough paintings and sculptures to be aware of, to make these connections. A seamless whole. There may be coincidences, there may be synchronicity: at the last minute she chose a book by Simone Weil for her trip; while there a journalist gifts her a book by Weil; her niece is named Simone. Food is intimately described. She takes pictures, but very few, and each with a singular purpose. Smith sees the world as filled with emotion and dream, she relates her dreams and her dreams are not much different than how Smith views the world; I'm not sure how she keeps them straight (the last section of the book is titled "A Dream Is Not a Dream"). Everything she sees relates to something else, but is also filled with its own life that Smith sees and hears. She walks randomly, seeking out new experiences. She walks with purpose, seeking out a grave, a statue, a garden, a street. Paris is filled with memories of when she visited with her sister decades before. When the moment of inspiration hits, she writes feverishly, ecstatically, on the train all the way from Sete to Paris. Smith shows the reader all this, while just telling the story of her trip to Paris as you might tell your family when you get back home. She tells it simply, without cleverness or ego. Reading this first section I love Patti Smith all the more. The first section of this book blew me away. As good as all of M Train (saying that, I better re-read it).
The second section of Devotion is a short story. Not brilliant. Not great. She tries too hard to be clever. Perhaps it works better as parable, allegory, example, or as Smith says, "perhaps a metaphor." About creativity, inspiration, writing. What does work is seeing the elements of Smith's journey to Paris and Sete replicated in the story. In the first section of Devotion Smith demonstrated the meaning of "show don't tell." In the story, titled "Devotion," she demonstrates the meaning of "write what you know." The story reverberates with a dozen details from her trip, the reader recognizes how she's worked disparate pieces into her story, none of them as they happened, but all incidents she observed, that she now shares, in new clothes, with the reader. The author takes real elements, real pieces of life, and puts them where they need to be to make the story real, ring true, so the reader can see what the writer sees. The story "Devotion" is followed by a poem (as written by the protagonist in the story).
The final section, after another brief transition, is the point of the book. In less than six pages. Since Devotion is part of the "Why I Write" series, the Windham-Campbell Lectures, Smith begins by asking "Why is one compelled to write?" She then describes an invitation to visit the home of Albert Camus, and while there reading the original of Camus' final manuscript, that he was carrying when he died. While reading the manuscript of the old absurdist master, she answers her question, and appropriately, the existential question as well. The power of great art is to inspire art. It's a "call to action." Smith asks, "What is the task" for the artist? Smith answers, "To compose a work that communicates on several levels, as in a parable, devoid of cleverness." Then Smith asks and answers both the original and the existential question: "Why do we write? A chorus erupts. Because we cannot simply live." [4½★]
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