I’ve often pondered the problem of presenting genius in fiction, since I’m not a genius myself. If I write about a great writer, how can I prove to you that he or she is great without sharing some of that writing, which will inevitably disappoint you, since it can only be as good as my own writing, and therefore not great?

I’ve come to believe that art can only portray great artists when done in forms which don’t match up.

That is, I can write a story about a great opera singer, and pull it off, because you’ll never get to hear the song. Whereas in a movie, I’d have to show it. Same thing for painting, or acting. I can get away with describing, with telling rather than showing, and make claims I’ll never have to live up to, because, good or bad, there’s no way to present those forms in print. So you’re stuck with trusting me.

This is one reason why Ayn Rand’s claims that Howard Roark is a revolutionary architect can work in the original book version of The Fountainhead, but not in the movie—in the book, she can get away with telling us how great Roark is, and we can believe it, but in a visual medium, we have to be shown, and once we’re shown, we laugh at the supposed greatness. (At least I laughed.)

Trust Tom Disch to come up with one way to solve this problem. Per this excerpt from John Crowley’s appreciation of Tom in the August 2008 issue of Locus:

“I’ve spoken elsewhere about Tom’s generative suggestions as I was thinking of The Translator—indeed he put the idea in my mind by saying that a book could be written about a great poet even if the writer wasn’t himself a great poet—simply present the poet as great in another language, and give only the translations!”

An elegant solution, one only Tom, a great poet himself, could have thought of. Yet one more reason to miss him.