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Hotly in Pursuit of the Real: Notes Toward a Memoir
In Hotly in Pursuit of the Real, the beloved bestselling novelist Ron Hansen opens the doors of his writing studio to share with us his passions for history, scandal, theology, Jesuits, the American West, and golf (which he plays even in bad weather). If Hansen's novels explore people very different from himself--from a stigmatic nun to a Victorian poet to Billy the Kid, and even Hitler's niece--the meditations in this book do the opposite, allowing us to glimpse the wellsprings of his imagination, the places and traditions and books that drive him to create made-up worlds. In that sense, the reflections in these pages truly serve as notes toward a memoir. As each section unfolds, we gain a clearer sense of Hansen's aesthetic, the parallels he sees between writing and the sacraments, between literature's capacity to make history present to us and the Church's rich array of traditions, including the Jesuit charism that has inspired great writers, such as Gerard Manley Hopkins (and himself). Equally adept at telling a hilarious anecdote and guiding us through a complex, ambiguous episode in history, Hansen's language remains fresh and invigorating. Hotly in Pursuit of the Real takes you inside one writer's imagination, only to send you back out into the wide world with new eyes.
- GenresMemoir
198 pages, Hardcover
Published January 15, 2020
6 people are currently reading
33 people want to read
About the author
Ron Hansen
63 books269 followersRon Hansen is the author of two story collections, two volumes of essays, and nine novels, including most recently The Kid, as well as The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, which was made into an Oscar-nominated film. His novel Atticus was a finalist for the National Book Award. He teaches at Santa Clara University.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 22, 2021
Ron Hansen is one of my favorite novelists/short story writers, when he’s writing novels or short stories. Here, I was left a little flat.
This is not really an autobiography or a memoir per se — it’s as he says a collection of “Notes Toward a Memoir.” We get glimpses of his childhood, of his motivations, of his faith and Catholic practice, and something of his regard for other writers.
Hansen speaks of his own childhood predilection to enhance what he experienced, read, or was told, to extend backwards and forwards, to make a story out of whatever he was given. That seems to have been a lifelong trait, almost like something he couldn’t have stopped himself from doing. To his great credit, even with some early misfirings, he corralled and tamed that predilection into skilled, creative talent.
Hansen’s Catholic faith is certainly central to his writing, even when the subject matter is far afield from that faith. You see it, certainly in novels like Mariette in Ecstasy or in Exiles, but, having read his own thoughts on how his faith pervades his life, you see it even in the western novels — Desperadoes, The Kid, or the Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. It’s his way of seeing inside life, of seeing through events and qualities to meaning.
And his discussion of the job of the historical and biographical novelist is interesting. “The biographical novelist tells the truth about the events but also gives the reader a sense of what the glimpsed human beings must have been like and how they were nudged and determined by the circumstances around them.” When you read A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion, his novel about the true events behind the movie (and novel) Double Indemnity, you can see Hansen’s strategy at work. By contrast with the movie and the original novel, he doesn’t change the facts, he infuses them with meaning and context, making them bigger but still real.
That’s all good stuff. As I was reading, sometimes I wished he had spent more time writing about those things. I would kind of trudge through the accounts of Gerard Manley Hopkins or Edwin O’Connor, hoping to get to more of what I was looking for. Maybe I looked past it and just didn't see it.
I can say I will read Hansen's novels a little differently, but I didn't learn as much about what motivates him as a writer as I would have liked. He tells us a great deal about his devotion to Catholicism and about the contexts in which he wrote some of my favorites of his novels, but there's still something missing, at least in my reading. Something more about the why -- why he was drawn to his beliefs, why the historical events he has recreated in his novels grabbed him enough to devote the kind of time and attention he gives them.
This feels ironic since I’ve always admired Hansen’s ability to paint a character in the depth I was missing here.
If you’re a fan of Hansen’s writing, as I am, you will appreciate what’s here. But it doesn’t go farther than that. It doesn’t transcend to some greater value in itself as an account of a life in writing.
This is not really an autobiography or a memoir per se — it’s as he says a collection of “Notes Toward a Memoir.” We get glimpses of his childhood, of his motivations, of his faith and Catholic practice, and something of his regard for other writers.
Hansen speaks of his own childhood predilection to enhance what he experienced, read, or was told, to extend backwards and forwards, to make a story out of whatever he was given. That seems to have been a lifelong trait, almost like something he couldn’t have stopped himself from doing. To his great credit, even with some early misfirings, he corralled and tamed that predilection into skilled, creative talent.
Hansen’s Catholic faith is certainly central to his writing, even when the subject matter is far afield from that faith. You see it, certainly in novels like Mariette in Ecstasy or in Exiles, but, having read his own thoughts on how his faith pervades his life, you see it even in the western novels — Desperadoes, The Kid, or the Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. It’s his way of seeing inside life, of seeing through events and qualities to meaning.
And his discussion of the job of the historical and biographical novelist is interesting. “The biographical novelist tells the truth about the events but also gives the reader a sense of what the glimpsed human beings must have been like and how they were nudged and determined by the circumstances around them.” When you read A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion, his novel about the true events behind the movie (and novel) Double Indemnity, you can see Hansen’s strategy at work. By contrast with the movie and the original novel, he doesn’t change the facts, he infuses them with meaning and context, making them bigger but still real.
That’s all good stuff. As I was reading, sometimes I wished he had spent more time writing about those things. I would kind of trudge through the accounts of Gerard Manley Hopkins or Edwin O’Connor, hoping to get to more of what I was looking for. Maybe I looked past it and just didn't see it.
I can say I will read Hansen's novels a little differently, but I didn't learn as much about what motivates him as a writer as I would have liked. He tells us a great deal about his devotion to Catholicism and about the contexts in which he wrote some of my favorites of his novels, but there's still something missing, at least in my reading. Something more about the why -- why he was drawn to his beliefs, why the historical events he has recreated in his novels grabbed him enough to devote the kind of time and attention he gives them.
This feels ironic since I’ve always admired Hansen’s ability to paint a character in the depth I was missing here.
If you’re a fan of Hansen’s writing, as I am, you will appreciate what’s here. But it doesn’t go farther than that. It doesn’t transcend to some greater value in itself as an account of a life in writing.
Displaying 1 of 1 review