Writing With “Sprezz.” On the Art of Saying Just Enough

You might have heard about sprezzatura. Baldassare Castiglione, in The Book of the Courtier, defined it as “a certain nonchalance that shall conceal design and show that what is done and said is done without effort and almost without thought.” That was 1528. You might have read about it more recently in the New Yorker, where Roger Angell, paraphrasing George Frazier, defines sprezzatura as “spirit and nonchalance: cool.” Sprezzatura is superficial, surface, costume. Yet it comes from a deep awareness of the tragic. In my novel, “The Lady Waiting,” the characters use the term “sprezz,” a sprezzier version of sprezzatura, spun for the 21st century, less refined, and less defined. My characters ballpark it as follows: “Anything well planned that looks accidental is sprezzy…Gowns with tennis shoes or dress shoes at the gym are sprezzy… Neckties with robes. Girls in boyfriends’ shirts… Reciting Lu Xun in the original to your Chinese friends without having mentioned you speak Chinese.” Sprezz is effortlessness with hidden effort. Sprezz is never quoting from your own novel. High heels on a hike—unsprezzy. Heels on a bike—maybe sprezzy, if you’re on your way to work. Heels in the rubble of blitzed London, per the famous WWII photograph—sprezzy. We should try to live with sprezz. If we must live and write, it follows we should write with sprezz. I’ve collected a few loose principles for writing with sprezz. Don’t take them too seriously. Sprezz can never be rigorously or officially codified. Sprezz is never voted on by committees. Sometimes the heartrending must be concealed, appearing only for a glimpse. Effortlessness of feeling is feeling. In Paolo Sorrentino’s film The Great Beauty, Jep Gambardella and his date are shopping for a funeral. As she tries on a dress in a luxury store, he unveils his rule for funerals—“You must never forget that at a funeral you are appearing on stage.” There’s a perfect line to deliver, he claims, a perfect dress to wear. One rule should never be broken: when attending a funeral of a friend, one must never cry, in order not to distract […]

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