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

Christopher’s comments from the fiction files redux group.

I've only read Gogol's "The Overcoat" but thought it was a masterful piece of fiction--odd, startling at times, insightful, and wickedly funny at the same time as it's melancholic. Is the rest of his fiction as good?

Okay, sorry for the delay, folks...bad storms swept through the Atlanta area and knocked out my Internet access for a few hours.

What I really love about this novel is Chandler's use of language. The imagery and the narrative voice run the novel. Lots of readers think Chandler's plots are convoluted, purposefully so because then we, the readers, are in Marlowe's head, getting the information the same way he does, non-linearly. Marlowe's job--and the detective's job in this sort of fiction, in general--is to reassure us that there is some explanation for what's going on, no matter how confusing it gets. (Fictional detectives do all sorts of other things, too, but I'll get into that later.)

Having said, that, I read Dan's post above, where he writes that "the emphasis on plot" made the book a quick read. Which leads me to this question: is it the plot that makes the book seem quick, or the emphasis on action, on things always happening, even in descriptions? Is this what keeps the dialogue and the descriptions fresh, even though in other hands they might come out as stilted or distractingly stylized?

For instance, I really like Marlowe's line to Harry Jones: "Shake your business up and pour it. I haven't got all day." (I initially wrote that as "Shake up your business and pour it," then frowned, because that didn't seem as good as I'd remembered it, so I checked and saw that I'd gotten it wrong. A single shift of one word makes a big difference.) It would be hard to pull that line off, but it seems perfect for Marlowe. Or am I simply besotted with Chandler while some of you found the writing distracting or too artificial?

Love that poem, Shel...I like teaching it to my students who think poetry is all about butterflies and love.

This will be our forum for group discussion of Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep. Thanks to everyone who is reading the book and is willing to let me lead you into Chandler's version of 1930s LA...looking forward to hearing your thoughts. I'll kick off discussion this Monday if that works--even if you haven't finished reading, we should have enough read to start talking about it.

And some homework: keep track of your favorite lines from the novel and share at least one starting Monday.

I'm happy to lead a discussion on The Big Sleep...should we set a date for everyone who wants in to have finished the book?

Sheik Ishmai has been compared to Steinbeck, Camus, Proust, Borges, Hemingway, Faulkner, Beckett, Disciple John, and Brown with the sparse, elegant language of Zerna Addis Sharp.

Yes, because Ishmai's novel is reminiscent of that lost Hemingway classic, "To Take and Despoil".

Ben wrote: "Chris wrote: "Which is a way of saying, the greatest limerick in the world doesn't mean a whole lot compared to a Shakespeare play or a Bergman film."

i don't know, swanny... ever read a winter's tale? that play can suck something from nantucket... and is certainly less memorable...."

Yeah, the "statue" coming to life at the end...I'm with you. Although isn't this the play with the famous stage direction "Exit, pursued by a bear"?

Lauren wrote: "But does a writer really have to HAVE a purpose in mind, besides merely enjoying writing and wanting to share the story that's in his/her brain? Does the writer need to have a point, persay?

I don't mean a point made in the work. I mean a point in writing the work"

Good questions, Lauren...I don't mean that a writer has something as cold-blooded in mind as "I am going to write a novel about persistence in the face of evil" or "I shall construct a sestina about my fascination with elves." And I'm not talking about reading all art through some sort of biographical lens ("what does this cryptic poem tell us about Emily Dickinson?"). I mean that art usually sets up its own standards by which to be judged, either due to form or tradition or something else. If someone is writing a limerick, it fails if that someone can't write in the rhyme pattern reserved for limericks...unless that person is being all post-modern ironic-like and writing an anti-limerick. (I've read some deconstructed Shakespeare sonnets that are pretty funny: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? / You're nicer. And better.")

Jcamilo wrote: "Religions are not about doubts, are about a given explanation. They are logical."

I need to introduce you to some of my Episcopalian brethren. We live in doubt and question everything, albeit cheerfully.

JE: check out "The Bear"--the whole, long story/novella--and you may change your tune about Faulkner. It's long enough to capture his strengths and short enough to not overwhelm you with the suspicion that he's just creating verbiage for the sake of sounding important.

(Can't remember where I read this advice, but somewhere I read that American would-be authors should read as much Faulkner at once as they can take, and then follow that with a concentrated dose of Hemingway. Too much of either one tends to make me cranky--I start to think Faulkner is an obsessive bore about the South, and I begin to see Hem as whiny and sentimental. But in the right doses, both are excellent.)

Lauren wrote: "I've started Lolita. As good as it is, I'm finding it a slow go. Kinda like only having one bite of dessert because its so rich?"

Great way to describe the novel...at least my reaction to it when I read it.

Just for fun, let me throw in this "lit test" (as in, a test for literary quotient) I got out of a poetry book that I've used before, Laurence Perrine's Sound and Sense. In it Perrine argues that all art, including poetry, is attempting to communicate an experience--he offers this as a ground rule. Then, talking about what separates bad from good lit, and good lit from great lit, he offers these three questions:

1. What is the experience this poem is attempting to convey--what is its purpose?

2. How successfully does the poem convey/achieve its purpose?

3. How significant is the experience the poem is trying to convey?

Now, to some this sounds a bit like that scene in Dead Poets Society where Robin Williams has Robert Sean Leonard read aloud from the intro to their lit book, an intro that proposes how one can graph a poem and thereby determine its literary quality. (Williams then has his students rip the intro out of their textbooks.) But the questions are good places to start from. #1: what is the point of this poem--can we understand what it is saying? If not, it's either because a.) the presentation is flawed, or b.) we aren't reading it well enough. It's about identifying purpose. If we read a limerick, for example, we know the rules for a limerick and we know what the intended outcome typically is. Same for a sonnet. So #2 asks: is it a good limerick or a bad limerick? Then #3 is asking: how significant is this achievement? Which is a way of saying, the greatest limerick in the world doesn't mean a whole lot compared to a Shakespeare play or a Bergman film.

All of this is terribly subjective, of course, but all art is. So these three questions aren't "rules" as much as a way to provide a starting point for comparison and judgment.

As for Harry Potter, I think several critics have stumbled over that first question--what's Rowling up to? The answer isn't simply a massive PR campaign for a fantasy series--she's writing a bildungsroman, a modern myth, a comment on prejudice and class in modern British public school culture, and a family drama, all couched in some clever fantasy/magic drapery that becomes integral to the story without completely dominating the characters. Dumbledore is a strong character not just because he can kick some magic ass; he's wise and kind to Harry and troubled by what's going on in the world and works actively, at great cost, against what he sees correctly as evil.

Matt wrote: FYI: All About Lulu qualifies as a bestselling airport read these days so you may want to rethink your terminology there.

Oops. Busted. By "airport novel" I usually mean something you can start and finish on a plane ride, something quick and simple and usually forgettable. All of which "All About Lulu" definitely isn't. (Well, it's "quick" in terms of its pace in most places, but not quick like a half-hour sitcom.)

I have to say I saw a copy of "All About Lulu" in a bookstore in the Atlanta airport when I was heading out for spring break...I made sure to turn it so its cover was out and on view.

I'd add that pop fiction is well and good--most of us like to read a "trashy" book or an "airport novel" or whatever you want to call it from time to time. (I realize this is a pretty loaded or biased description.) But people aren't going to be studying Tom Clancy novels a hundred years from now, or ten years from now, except perhaps as popular fiction that reflects certain cultural attitudes from their era. I also think pop fiction can lead people to more literary fiction...Harry Potter and the "Twilight" novels have probably lead their readers to try other books.

First off, Ry, welcome to what my wife refers to as "the noble profession"--we teachers get lots of intangible rewards as opposed to hard currency. It's worth it, most days.

That concept of literature "resonating" seems to sum up a lot of qualities of literary fiction as opposed to pop fiction. I'm on a Raymond Chandler kick right now and just reread his essay "The Simple Art of Murder" which addresses, via detective fiction, this very issue of pop fiction versus literary fiction. (Check it out here.)

It seems that pop fiction focuses mostly on formula and pushing the reader towards certain pre-determined responses. Literary fiction typically has a greater emphasis on fresh and precise use of language, and, as Martyn pointed out, often experiments with form, but beyond that literary fiction seems to explore character over plot--or, more precisely, the study of character leads organically to the plot, or at least seems to.

Take Chandler's novels for example--they are set in a familiar and very popular genre, the detective novel, which has its own conventions and plot requirements. And yet what sticks with readers is the narration of the protagonist, Philip Marlowe, his insights and wry witticisms and startling descriptions. Contrast this with something like Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, which has a thrilling plot (if you suspend your disbelief pretty generously) but contains characters who bear little resemblance to people in real life, who remind you of stock characters in popular films (like The Da Vinci Code...).

For those of you who like this sort of thing, there are two film versions of The Trial (which I really enjoyed reading, perhaps more than The Metamorphosis) that I'm aware of. The first, from 1962, is by Orson Welles and stars Anthony Perkins as Josef K. I've only seen clips, but it looks visually disturbing and disorienting...I've read that Welles told Perkins to think of the script as a black comedy. Here's a "preview" of sorts for this film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqYXwb...

The second is from 1993 and stars Kyle MacLachlan as Josef K. and Anthony Hopkins as the priest in the "Before the Law" segment. This version is more faithful to Kafka's storyline than Welles' version, but while I like the 1993 version, parts of it seem curiously stiff, while Welles' is (as far as I can tell from what little I've seen) a set of brilliant fragments put together in odd and sometimes jarring sequences. (Though that seems about par for the course when looking at Welles films like Chimes at Midnight.)

My plan might actually be to read...less.

I know, sounds crazy. But here's why.

I like writing. Except that, well, it's hard. And to get any writing done, I need to be alone somewhere. Which, in the summer, tends to be home, when both boys are at daycare or one of various summer camps. And when I settle in to my chair in front of my laptop, ready for the magic to begin, there it is.

A book.

Sitting on a shelf not ten feet away.

It might be an old, worn favorite, or a crisp new uncracked spine. All that matters is that it's a book. And it's full of words. Words I suddenly want, have to read. My own words can wait for just a little while, right? Plus, they couldn't possibly be as good as the ones between those covers.

Or, maybe they could be. Maybe my own words are as good as the ones in that book. Maybe (and I almost have to whisper this to myself), maybe they're better. So I should read that book first, you know, to get my spirits up, so I can then say, "Well, that was good...but not as good as what I'm about to write."

And so I read a book. It might be Ernest Hemingway or Raymond Chandler or Emily Giffin. Doesn't matter. It's a book, dammit. And I need to read it.

And then there go at least two good writing days. Gone. Poof.

A long time ago I read a book called Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande, and she was writing about how to live as a writer. One suggestion: stop reading. Soon your own words will burst forth. I tried it, and it was true for me.

I'll never stop reading. But maybe I'll read a little less this summer so I can write a little more.

I explain this kind of thing to some of my students, and some of my fellow teachers...getting one of your academic papers savaged by a teacher is one thing, but getting a creative work criticized (even constructively) is another. Papers are largely intellectual exercises, and while I've had students get angry about the grade they earned, they don't tend to storm out of class, unless there's something else going on. It's a whole different emotional ballgame with creative writing. Most people who are serious about writing--even if, like the vast majority of us, their initial attempts aren't any good--pour their blood and sweat into their writing, and so getting it critiqued can feel a bit like having a conference with your child's lower school teachers who all seem to be saying your child is an idiot. They may, in fact, be saying that your kid is very bright but has a problem with staying on task or listening to direction. What you may hear is that the teacher just said your child is mentally impaired.

I think Faulkner said "Kill your darlings"--your most favorite passages, your most prized descriptions, might need to go on the revision chopping block. I realized I had to do this with some passages from my novel--at one point, a whole subplot and several chapters had to go. Initially I felt resentful about having to do it. I gave it time, went back to look at them with a (hopefully) more objective eye, and realized that the story would be better without them. My wife Kathy reminded me that I could always use that material in another book.

It takes time to get used to people not liking something about your writing. And it takes time to get used to the idea that someone who suggests that you cut out or revise something actually DOES like your writing, and that their suggestions are intended to make your writing even better. It also takes time finding those readers whose opinions you trust, but that's another topic.

Developing a thick skin helps. I had one agent call me at home to tell me she really liked my writing and that I should definitely continue, but that she couldn't accept my novel because 1) she just didn't have the time to take on more clients right now, and 2) because part of my novel is set in Ireland and, well, she hates Ireland. Honestly--everything about Ireland just really bugs her. I had to laugh, and the agent did, too, and I took the complements and listened to her advice and chalked up the Ireland thing as her problem (which she fully admitted), not mine. It doesn't mean I didn't have fleeting thoughts about drastically revising my novel, but they were fleeting.

Showed my AP students the PFL quotes. They immediately whipped open their laptops to search online for the book. Lots of amusing reactions from them about the cover, the prose ("Your stinky threat" and "uncertain staircase" were their immediate favorites), and the author's website and blog. One of them even found one of the soft porn descriptions of the nurse's love for what's-his-name and read it aloud, although she couldn't keep herself from giggling halfway through.

Lauren wrote: "I think its great how if you say a word over and over again, it ceases to have meaning for that brief time and sounds completely fascinating.
"

Exactly. Like "the." I mean, look at it. THE. It looks like the name of some snide shoe salesman from ancient Greece.