Sarraute on Writing Beautifully

"The writer, she says, must renounce 'all desire to write "beautifully" for the pleasure of doing so, to give aesthetic enjoyment to himself or to his readers.' Style is 'capable of beauty in the sense that any athlete's gesture is beautiful; the better it is adapted to its purpose, the greater the beauty.' The purpose, remember, is the recording of the writer's unique apprehension of an unknown reality. But there is absolutely no reason to equate "aesthetic enjoyment.' which every work of art is by definition designed to supply, with the notion of a frivolous, decorative, merely "beautiful" style...."

Against Interpretation
by Susan Sontag