Christopher’s Comments (group member since Mar 05, 2009)

Christopher’s comments from the fiction files redux group.

Just finished The Scarecrow by Michael Connelly and Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. Two very different books.

The Scarecrow is a murder story--or murder stories. One is the traditional serial-killer plot, with an L.A. Times crime reporter, Jack McEvoy (from Connelly's earlier novel The Poet) as protagonist. The other story is the slow dying of the L.A. Times and the newspaper industry as a whole. Both were pretty compelling--not groundbreaking stuff, but a notch above your average beach read. Connelly is a solid writer.

Into Thin Air is about a doomed set of expeditions to the top of Mount Everest in May, 1996. Krakauer does a good job of describing the allure of Everest and the dangers and excruciating difficulty of climbing the mountain. He also ratchets up the tension as the tragedy unfolds--you know what is going to happen, and who dies, from the flyleaf, let alone the opening chapter, but you are still gripped by the story.

I'm with you, Keith. I also think that for years, "plot" was a four-letter word in creative writing circles. Poorly-written books constantly get on the bestseller list. Why? Because they focus primarily on plot--conflict, tension, climax and resolution. And readers like plot. I like plot. But I find that writing a nice passage is easier than constructing a good, solid story. My wife--my best and most honest editor--says it's because I'm organizationally challenge. But beyond organization, I struggle with plot.

My favorite books tend to be well-written novels with memorable characters engaged in a compelling plot. I don't care if it's a spy thriller or a crime novel or a who-will-she-marry story or a hobbit story. A good story married to a good prose style is what I like and what I want to write.

I have to say that I struggled with "Lolita" precisely because the language was so beautiful and because I had a hard time reconciling the story material with the prose style. I'm no prude, but I resisted Nabokov's game. My loss, probably.

As a graduate of some creative writing programs, I think that a premium is placed on crafting language as opposed to shaping story. That's true in my experience, at any rate. And I've found it true of my own writing--"great description, Chris, but what's the story?"

I think a strong prose style is very difficult to achieve. But I think less attention is being paid to story in contemporary fiction. There are, of course, several examples of great stories in contemporary fiction--I'm just suggesting that people who go through the academy get taught a lot about how to write well as opposed to how to tell stories well.

Ondaatje is, I think, primarily a poet. As such, I think his focus is on language as opposed to story. I remember reading "The English Patient" and loving individual lines but finding the story somewhat lost.

It also depends on how the language is used. Tone isn't quite the right term to describe what I'm talking about. I'm thinking about Dickens here (just finished "Bleak House" so I'm on a Dickens kick). For him, sometimes, writing is clearly a game played between the author and the reader. You could argue this is true of any kind of writing, especially story-telling, but I'm talking about an author doing this openly. There is a kind of delight a reader can take away from a kind of writing that seems to wink at you and say, "I'm going to say all sorts of outrageous things which you will find amusing and, perhaps later on reflection, you will also come to see as true."

That said, there are also many examples of prose that, as Matt says, is so obvious that it pulls you out of the story without inviting you back in. Language that is too self-conscious or self-important, too show-offy ("look, Ma, no hands!"), or that is inconsistently applied within a novel, can all be bad.

Shel wrote: "Happy Acceptance of Everything... starts with accepting your name, I think...

Wing F. Fing... wow.

That can't be a real name, can it?"

I hope not. Otherwise his (her?) parents should be charged with child negligence.

As for "Hole in Juan," I can picture the cover: a pristine golf putting green, blue sky, ocean in the distance, and in the foreground, face down near the hole, a dead man in white linen pants, red golf shirt, and a white Panama hat knocked to the side. If you want to be really unsubtle, imagine the flag from the hole planted into his back. "Like Death had planted his flag in him, the poor bastard, thought the lieutenant, who switched the well-chewed toothpick from one corner of his mouth to the other."

(This is what happens when I have fifteen minutes to kill waiting to pick up my son from sports camp.)

Some bad titles I came across:

"Fart Proudly" by Benjamin Franklin
"Oh, Waiter! One Order of Crow!: Inside the Strangest Presidential Election Finish in American History" by Jeff Greenfield
"The Long Sandy Hair of Neftoon Zamora: A Novel" by Michael Nesmith
"Fuck Yes!: A Guide to the Happy Acceptance of Everything" by Wing F. Fing
"Scouts in Bondage" by Michael Bell
"The Flat-Footed Flies of Europe" by Peter J. Chandler
"Be Bold with Bananas" by Crescent Books
And my favorite murder-mystery title: "Hole in Juan."

Gautreaux's short stories are mostly from the nineties. He's written a few novels, too, which I haven't read yet. Good stories on rural Louisiana folks, a bit like Flannery O'Connor with the Southern Gothic tropes, but less harsh without being sentimental.

Patrick wrote: "Joyce Carol Oates, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? is one of the most menacing short story I ever read. "

That IS a good one, Patrick.

Anybody read Tim Gautreaux? I discovered him through STORY, a great magazine that tragically folded about ten years ago--ALL they published was fiction. Anyway, Tim Gautreaux's collection "Welding with Children" is awesome. Anything by him--the title story, or especially "Good for the Soul"--is worthwhile.

I'm so getting this. And not just so I can imagine Shel's totally inappropriate genitalia humor as I'm reading it, although I have to admit that isn't a detraction.

Just squeaking under the wire...happy, happy birthday Lara Monster. Be good or don't get caught.

After years of banging my head against the wall, I've found that rewriting can actually be more rewarding than getting the first draft down. I read over something I've written and like a line of description here, shake my head in despair at a paragraph there, and suddenly I realize how I can fix a passage or smooth out a plot issue or reveal something telling about a character. It's no walk in the park, mind you...hell, if I'd wanted to do something easy, I'd have been an investment banker.

I read A Separate Peace in high school (maybe for summer reading?). Our sixth graders are going to be reading it in class next year.

Does the YA label bother people? I used to think of it as akin to Beverly Cleary books, or novelized versions of the old ABC After-School Specials. But apparently that label is either getting redefined or very stretched.

Now Tolstoy, he's definitely for older adults (OA?). Or maybe mature adults (MA?). Or more mature adults (MMA...okay, you get the point).

Genius. I love the tags: "ShadyGroup" cracks me up. Especially as "Enron" is one of the choices, right next to the Illuminati, Opus Dei and the Knights Templar.

Yup. One of our ninth-grade teachers suggested it to me for next year (I'm the dept. chair) and I read it this weekend. It's not Melville, but it's not trying to be. YA novels are hard, I think, because there are so many stereotypes of teenagers, and even "real" portrayals of teens are becoming stereotypes. But that social pressure thing is universal.

Thanks for posting this, Matt.

Just finished Speak which our ninth graders will read next year as a lead-in to "Catcher in the Rye." Interesting narrator, covers all the normal fears of high school ramped up to the third power. Ought to be a good discussion text before they tackle "Catcher." I'll be interested to see how the freshmen compare and contrast them.

Interesting article on Poe in a recent New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics.... The author, Jill Lepore, looks at Poe's artistic ambitions in light of his desperate need for money to survive. Nothing on "Berenice" in particular, but I thought this sounded relevant.

Vagina dentata? Yikes.

Wait...Shel's waist vibrates? And her boyfriend is William Shatner? Man, I have GOT to make it to Dorkapalooza one of these years...

Picard doing "Eleanor Rigby"? Probably wouldn't be as wacky as Kirk's spoken word whatever. I teach "Paradise Lost" in tandem with Star Trek (no joke: click here) and show the "Space Seed" episode from the original series, then "Wrath of Khan." William Shatner and Ricardo Montalban on the same screen? Priceless.

I'm late to the party, but damn, JE...outstanding news. It's a little less cold out there now. I'm with Mo--2009 will be a banner year for the Evison family.