Style is to genius what genre is to scenius
Style is a relative inflexibility, a patterning, a degree of predictability – the habits of a mind, a unconscious (or willed) decrease in variety and freedom
Style is invariance, self-conformity
When you read a new piece by a writer whose style is familiar to you and who you enjoy
your pleasure is basically saying “that’s exactly what X would think, exactly how X would say it - and they did”
The naturalness of style is an illusion that occurs when the will involved in writing doesn’t make itself felt, otherwise style becomes “mannered”, tries too hard –
Style feels effortless
Arriving at style is the onset of the ability to be parodied
Any artist or performer who has achieved distinction is one who becomes amenable to parody
Same applies to genre – the sign that a genre has achieved definition is when it is capable of being parodied or pastiched
Versatility and eclecticism are the enemies of style
Equally, the problem for any artist or performer is to achieve style but not become penned in by it - -a style that retains the capacity for growth, for being stretched, while still being itself
Same goes for genres
Truth is that most artists, and most genres, only have so much room in them before they must repeat themselves –
Either that or it starts doing other things - and ceases to be itself.
Style is to genius, what genre is to scenius – it is identity, personality, a set of characteristics
Like a person, a style or a genre can only be X, Y, and Z, if it precludes for itself A,B, and C
It can’t be all values, all attributes, to all people
Indeed the more it takes on and encompasses, the more it risks falling into indistinctness, lack of a defining essence, a core
The more varied, eclectic, adaptable, flexible, versatile – the more you merge into the undifferentiated array of other stuff around – jack of all trades, master of none – you are providing services that others provide, rather than the unique function
The more rule-bound the genre, the more it establishes itself – it also thereby sets up a pathway, a trajectory of evolution
The pathway is to slough away residues of earlier or other styles, it's a process of becoming ever more like itself, intensifying its own strictures
Eventually this collapses into exhaustion
(Possible example to counter this argument - David Bowie. Who kept restlessly changing, absorbing, greedily eating up new influences and ideas... But always remained "David Bowie". Then again, the face, and the voice... this becomes the thread of consistency. You can push the voice quite far - the ugliness of the vocals on much of the Scary Monsters album - but it's still one person's voice, their signature)