“There’s a law of diminishing returns on preaching”. So said author Kate Grenville in a thought provoking lecture, ‘Writers in a Time of Change’, in 2009*. Yet everyday, in thousands of blog posts and columns all over the world, preaching is exactly what many very earnest writers do. I do it myself – often. There is lots that’s wrong in our world and writers, particularly non-fiction writers, feel obliged to point these things out.

Serious points, we believe, require serious treatment. The better writing avoids the rant. It constructs argument with a frame of well researched numbers. It adds colour with a carefully chosen analogy or anecdote – perhaps even sprinkling of humour. It might provide a more interesting read by the editing out of cliché. But no matter which approaches are used, all this intense writing ultimately relies on the rationality of the audience for its point to be made.

And here’s the rub: rationality, as any observer of the climate change argument will tell you, doesn’t tend to get us very far. It might reinforce existing views – on both sides of the argument – but it has  limited ability to smash through those views and profoundly change a perspective.

Grenville’s argument was that fiction writers, along with artists, have at their disposal a much more powerful tool for doing this: emotion. She quoted Kafka: “A book is an axe for the frozen sea within us”. Art, she said, has the ability to flip the switch over to some new kind of thinking.

Up in the Air, the already much lauded new film by Jason Reitman (Juno, Thank You for Smoking) illustrates Grenville’s point beautifully.

I have written often of our screwed up priorities when it comes to work. You know the drill: “We only get one chance at this.” “No one ever died wishing they had worked more.” “It’s relationships, not possessions, that give us happiness.” All that stuff.

But I have never made these points with the emotional connection or entertainment value of Up in the Air. The film is at once hilariously funny and piercingly insightful. Its characters, perfectly cast, are as real as any you will see on screen. Everyone who has worked in an office has worked with a young upstart like Natalie (Anna Kendrick, of Twilight fame). We’ve all listened to (and some of us have been) the smooth conference presenter/mile high wanker of Ryan Bingham (George Clooney – a heartthrob who can actually act). Alex (Vera Famiga) is perhaps a bit unrealistically easy-going early on, but she redeems herself by turning out to be two-faced in the end.

What really makes Up in the Air so memorable, in the end, isn’t the underlying messages. They are hardly original. And it certainly isn’t cinematic fireworks – no CGI or 3D here, thanks. No, it’s essential strength comes from a good story really well told.

To quote Grenville again: “The most powerful art comes from somewhere other than a conscious desire to persuade”. Through a great story, rather than direct persuasion, Reitman surreptitiously opens our minds to the real way many of us live our lives. He forces us to question why we labour as we do and whether we give our relationships the dedication they deserve.

As an added benefit, he also has us confront one of the great delusions of our time: the ludicrous status attached to a gold card and entry to an ‘exclusive’ airport lounge.

Before seeing Up in the Air I was wondering how so much fuss could be made about a film based on a bloke who sacks people for a living. Now I know, and the fuss is well justified.

*An edited version of the lecture is available in Edition 26 of The Griffith Review. It can be read online here.

A deaf bloke with dubious personal hygiene. A complete nutter who died nearly 200 years ago. And a modern day inspiration for artists and business people alike. All in the same person. Who’d have thunk it? But Beethoven was, and is, all of those things.

In Search of Beethoven is an engrossing new feature length documentary by Phil Grabsky. As a movie alone it is a winner. If the enthusiasm of the interviewees doesn’t wash away any reticence you may have about classical music, the music itself will break the strongest emotional levee. And it is stunningly shot to boot.

Then there is the story – and the inspiration.

It is easy to forget that those artists we now see as icons in their fields struggled, in their day, with all the same issues modern artists, and indeed business owners, struggle with today. Beethoven’s livelihood came from writing music, and there were times when there wasn’t much livelihood to be had. But he was also competitive, and a strong believer in what he was doing, and these things not only kept him going but prevented him from being just another run-of-the-mill composer.

Beethoven was driven to excel by a determination to place himself above Mozart, Joseph Haydn and other composers in the Viennese pecking order. He wrote music which was astonishingly hard to play – in some cases which, at the time, only he could play – to break the order of things.

He wasn’t afraid to break the rules. As the experts in the movie explain, he repeatedly eschewed convention in the structure of his pieces, in the complexity of the playing required and even in the length of the concerts he was prepared to put on. Rather than ‘soften’ his tone to suit the pianos of the day, he had piano makers make stronger and louder instruments.

Creativity was Beethoven’s most cherished skill. In the letters quoted in the film, he repeatedly refers to his ‘art’ being the thing that urges him on. He comes across as having an incredibly focused purpose – something which probably drove those who knew him up the wall, but which was ultimately behind his prolificacy.

Perhaps Beethoven’s greatest strength was his ability to work against adversity. For the greater part of his career he was hampered by various health issues, most notably tinnitus and increasing, then total, deafness. By 1811 he could no longer perform in public and the resulting angst very nearly led him to take his own life.

Thankfully he didn’t, because he subsequently gave us a lot more music including the awe inspiring Ninth Symphony. That this symphony was composed while Beethoven was totally deaf – he never heard a note of the final composition – is remarkable enough. But even with that constraint he still challenged convention: the Ninth was the first symphony to include voice in the score.

My eldest daughter and I both left this movie abuzz. She found inspiration to practice harder on her flute. I found inspiration to write more, better and no matter what. A five star classic.

To judge from the gender balance in the audience, there aren’t a lot of blokes lining up to see The September Issue, the new documentary feature that gives us a peek inside the walls of Vogue magazine in New York. Which is a pity, because the film has a lot to offer anyone – male or female – with an interest in creativity or innovation.

If we are to believe what we are fed by the media, all conflict and disagreement – especially between those on the ‘same side’ – is bad. Daily newspapers magnify any difference in opinion between two politicians of the same party. The sports pages hone in on the smallest sign of disagreement between a coach and a player. And of course the tabloid press couches every tiff between celebrity partners as a sign of impending separation.

So things should not be good at American Vogue. As portrayed in the documentary, editor-in-chief Anna Wintour and creative director Grace Coddington rarely agree. Grace organises spellbinding shoots, only to have Anna curtly discard her work without discussion. There are moments of silence between the two in which we can almost feel the temperature dropping.

Yet something works at Vogue. Anna and Grace have both worked together at the magazine for over 20 years. And the magazine retains a circulation of over a million copies a month despite increasing competition from other magazines, the rise of online and the recession.

Why? Because despite the media intimation, there is nothing wrong with conflicting opinion. In fact the opposite is generally true. Getting the best result, whether in creative pursuits, business decisions or politics, requires a level of disagreement. That’s how creativity works.

It isn’t always easy. Most of us can remember the sinking feeling after a teacher points out a mistake. When I workshop my writing, it is hard – sometimes very hard – to cordially accept the suggestions of others. There are times in The September Issue when Grace looks ready to throw it all in.

But deep down we understand that as long as criticism is not personal, it is probably valuable.

Conflict does go too far occasionally, of course: just ask Noel and Liam Gallagher of perpetually disbanding band Oasis. But this is rare – far more rare than the gossip mags would have us believe. Certainly the faint threat of this happening shouldn’t cause us to shy away from seeking – or giving – our opinion.

The September Issue allows us the luxury of watching a powerful creative partnership from a safe distance. Watch it, and enjoy the tension.

A review of ‘The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work’ by Alain de Botton; ISBN 9780241143537

Ever had that sinking feeling of seeing something that you invented in your mind becoming a huge commercial success … for someone else? As a writer, that’s the same feeling I had when I read The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work. In many ways this is a book I wish I’d written.

Most of us spend a healthy slice of our lives working. We spend additional time thinking about work, but these thoughts are generally focused on the job at hand. We think through an upcoming meeting, worry about a deadline or scheme about our next job change.

Much less often do we think about the wider connection of our work to our community. Rarely, if ever, do we think about the extent to which others’ work impacts on, and is essential to, our way of life.

As is so often the case, it takes someone like modern philosopher Alain de Botton, who as far as I can tell has never had a ‘normal’ job, to expose us to the real goings on under the coat of our existence. In The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, he turns that coat – this time a fluorescent orange safety model – inside out and gives it a damn good shake.

de Botton’s trademark method is to immerse himself in his area of study and to entertainingly share with us his deep insights along the way. In this book we follow a tuna from its capture on a fishing vessel in the Maldives to an eight-year-old’s dinner plate in Bristol in under three days. We spend time immersed in the invention of a new biscuit. We sit in the broom-cupboard of a career counsellor and spy on a counselling session. And we tramp over field and dale following electricity pylons from go to whoa in the grey English countryside.

de Botton’s definition of work is deliberately broad. Apart from accountants and manufacturing managers he also visits an obsessive artist, a number of misguided entrepreneurs and a group of earnest, white-coated rocket scientists launching a Japanese satellite from French Guiana.

A central theme is what de Botton perceives as an increasing disconnection.

“We are now as imaginatively disconnected from the manufacture and distribution of our goods as we are practically in reach of them, a process of alienation which has stripped us of myriad opportunities for wonder, gratitude and guilt.” and later “How ignorant we are … surrounded by machines and processes of which we have only the loosest grasp.”

A similar disconnection occurs within our work, where the increasing specialisation of work leads to greater and greater separation of those doing the job from the goods they ‘produce’.

“It is surely significant that the adults who feature in children’s books are rarely, if ever, Regional Sales Managers or Building Services Engineers. They are shopkeepers, builders, cooks or farmers – people whose labour can easily be linked to the visible betterment of human life.”

The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work does have some flaws. There are times when de Botton drifts a fair way from his theme with occasionally disingenuous observations of ‘ordinary’ workers. And the structure is a bit ad hoc at times, with no real effort to bring it all together in the end. On the whole, though, I found the book an engrossing and thought provoking look at both work and modern life as a whole. An accompanying collection of stark black and white photos by Richard Baker beautifully reinforces de Botton’s messages. You won’t look at your work in the quite the same way again.

We recommend BookDepository.co.uk who provide free shipping worldwide. To buy from Amazon.com, click here. Australian buyers might like to check booko.com.au for comparative online pricing. The book is widely available in bookstores.