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

Shel’s comments from the fiction files redux group.

I was poking around The New Yorker website looking for this eulogy to John Updike, a story that almost made me want to pick up and actually finish Run, Rabbit, Run - I thought I might post it to the Author's section.

What I found instead was a review of a volume of his short stories (among a few other things, such as tributes written by Eugenides, Cheever and Saunders). I thought it was an interesting article about the short story itself, and surprise surprise, it made me want to pick up the book.

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003...

I love the opening about golf. I feel the exact same way about the sport and that's why I've never played a whole round.

Here are some of the more interesting bits, I'll try to keep it brief...:

Short stories are the same. A short story is not as restrictive as a sonnet, but, of all the literary forms, it is possibly the most single-minded. Its aim, as it was identified by the modern genre’s first theorist, Edgar Allan Poe, is to create “an effect”—by which Poe meant something almost physical, like a sensation or (the term is appropriate, since Poe’s reputation was always greater in France than in his own country) a frisson. Every word in a story, Poe said, is in the service of this effect. It’s all about (and after this we will bury the analogy) getting the ball in the hole with the fewest strokes possible. Sometimes the fewest can be a lot, but at the end there has to be the literary equivalent of the magician’s puff of smoke, an outcome that is both startling and anticipated. The reader of a story expects an effect, and expects to be surprised by it, too. If you try to name the sensations that stories deliver, you find yourself with the sort of terms that (if you were a college teacher) you would write “vague” or “ugh” next to when you saw them in a paper: a pang, a shiver, a mental click, or what you might call (if you were a college student) a general sense of “Whoa.” Whoa is not exactly a term of art. You know it when you feel it, though.

The difficulty of putting into words the effect a story produces is part of the point. The story is words; the effect is wordless, or, at best, whoa. James Joyce called the effect an “epiphany,” a term whose theological connotations have led, over the years, to a lot of critical misunderstanding. What Joyce meant by an epiphany was, he said, just “a revelation of the whatness of a thing”—a sudden apprehension of the way the world unmediatedly is. Language being one of the principal means by which the world is mediated, the epiphany is an experience beyond (or after, or without) words. “Snow was general all over Ireland.” The sentence is as banal and literal as a weather report. (In fact, in the story it is a weather report.) But if “The Dead” works, then that sentence, when it comes, triggers the exact shiver of recognition that Joyce wants you to have.

...

Shortness, as it happens, is a salient feature of the short story. You do not lose yourself in a story the way you can in a novel; it’s too short to put down and pick up later. It is therefore a field in which virtuosity can flourish, since attention to the writing is never far from the experience of reading. There is something beyond language, the story seems to say, but only language, only this language, can disclose it. Updike is a virtuoso, and “The Early Stories” is in one respect an enormous showroom of Updike sentences, with their lovely curves and shiny details. Updike doesn’t describe only things; he is a brilliant describer of sound, too. Virtuosity can seem a distraction—as when you find that you are thinking about how great the musician is instead of listening to the music. In stories, though, this is never a problem. The whole idea is to make language perform its own little supernatural act, which is to turn marks on a page into an emotion, an effect, an apparition of something that is not there, a ghost. You could say that the complexity of the machinery used to produce this is hidden beneath the surface of the writing, except that the writing is the machinery, just as sex is only bodies. The satisfaction comes from the creation of a feeling where there was no feeling, only words, or flesh, or golf balls. People like Updike, or Tiger Woods, make you aware, by what they do, that this satisfaction is possible in life, and that it can be as supreme a satisfaction as there is. They almost turn to us when it’s done, as if to say, “That’s it.”

Here's where the story is, Brian's public area. Open the Shel's Short Story Thread folder and it's the only file in there. For some reason I can't grab a direct link:

http://public.me.com/brian_doucet

I would, but keeping up here is keeping me... well... relatively sane. :-) Thanks for the support.

OK, normally I'm not the manana type and I am pathological about being on time, but I just got home from two days of exhausting furniture shopping, moving and assembly.

I am sitting here staring at my copy of The Shawl, then looking over at my pathetic 8 year old printer/scanner that appears to have amnesia about how to do its job, and realizing I will have to scan it at the office tomorrow. I have no energy to crack this printer open tonight, and inanimate objects are making me insane right now... I cannot disassemble and reassemble another thing.

Story should be posted by noon. Let's start discussion Wednesday? This story is a doozy, takes a while to sink in.

You are so gonna love that movie...! I just bought my son the phaser yesterday and I SO wanted to get myself the toy tricorder...

And Happy Birthday to Michael, albeit belatedly!

Yes, I know there is no URL yet. I have just gotten a copy of the story today, and will be scanning and posting to Brian's shared document area, providing a URL on Sunday at some point. Hey, I'm moving, cut me some slack.

Incidentally, I picked up a copy at my local library, and staring down the shelf at Cynthia was a copy of The Futurist...!

Hugh wrote: "God, I'm hoping this doesn't come across as pimping... but I can't figure out how to send an email to all friends from the Fiction Files... Apologies who are wondering WTF....

I've got a blog at: ..."

Frankly I would have shamelessly promoted the whole thing sooner, if it were me.

(I can't blame you for posting here -- unless Margaret had mentioned how to send a group email I wouldn't have known I could do it, and I'm supposed to be some kind of GUI-knowledgeable person.)

I think you should come to the Dork and screen the film. In fact I think we should all bang our forks for Mo's lasagna, Jonathan's favorite beer, Hugh's film, and Brian and Ben's stage adaptation of Prescription for Love.

Maybe not all at the same time, that would be sensory overload.

Did you know that there are people who believe Roddenberry came from the future to plant the seeds of change and give us ideas for new technology? (This kind of flies in the face of the fact that he stole ideas from other writers, but oh well.)

Phasers. Communicators (cell phones, anyone?). Beam transporters. Use of sub-space frequencies. Dilithium. Red matter. And social change... lots and lots of social change... that included eugenics, btw...

I like this:

Patrick Stewart once said in an interview on Michael Parkinson's TV program that a reporter talked to Roddenberry about the choice of Stewart for the captain's role; the reporter said, "Look, it doesn't make sense. You got a bald actor playing this part. Surely, by the 24th century, they have found the cure for baldness." Roddenberry replied, "By the 24th century, no one will care."

Billy and I have been going at it for years, ever since I met him in Connecticut in '98 at Priceline. He picks me up in his private jet and we go to really classy hotels in Michigan (yeah, I did actually meet him, and Adam West, too).

Picard could totally do Eleanor Rigby, but I don't know about the Bilbo Baggins thing.

I like the song that Shatner did with Henry Rollins. It has lyrics like this one:

ROLLINS: Lifetime guarantee?
BILL: Whose lifetime? Not mine! I haven't that much time left. Let's make it yours. Everybody's got a longer life than me!
BILL: The leaf blowers, is there anything more
futile?
ROLLINS: Car alarms.
BILL: Clap off.
ROLLINS: Clap on.
BILL: Spam.
ROLLINS: Size matters.
BILL: No, it doesn't!
ROLLINS: Yes, it does!
BILL: No, it doesn't.
ROLLINS: Yes, it does!
...

Dude, Zooey Deschanel has to be Lulu.

Or Chloe Sevigny.

Robert Downey Jr has to be the grown up Will. Wait, he may be too old.

OK, lemme stop.

So great for you, JE, and deserved.

Can't wait to get my hands on a copy, I'll even buy hard cover. ;-)

That review is glowing on emerging writers, btw. Kick ass.

From what I have been able to gather from Tolstoy's life, it seems as though he went through several sort of... pendulum swings in what he believed, and worked a lot of it out - expressed his ideas - in his work.

In later years, he would refer to Anna K as something along the lines of irrelevant, even though it's considered one of the greatest works of Russian literature (of literature period), ever written.

I haven't read any of his other stuff (yeah I know, I suck) - was he more politically engaged earlier in his career, and then perhaps moved into a less 'worldly' perspective, a more... stripped down, essential, humanistic set of beliefs...?

The small amount I've read about this religious conversion in his life... I confess I don't know a whole lot about the whole Eastern Orthodox church or its reforms, after the Great Schism. (I don't even know if what I'm calling the Great Schism is what I'm thinking - the split between Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy).

I mean, we had the Catholic Church. Then we had the Protestant reforms, the Church of England - and a lot of what he seems to be saying in terms of leaving behind doctrine, about that close relationship with God, even in this story leaving behind those rote ritual prayers, is in keeping with Luther, at least to some extent.

Obviously Tolstoy would have known and read about the protestant reformation and settling of the new world having happened hundreds of years before his birth.

I'm just wondering how his beliefs might be different from what I've read about "pure" protestantism. (yeah, that's what i'm wondering. Glad I finally got that one out.)

Maybe I should read that book of his, What I Believe - that would probably clear this right up.

I'm sorry if I'm making Ben blush, but did anyone scroll down and read that review?

While Dietz and Evison gave hilarious, flawless readings from their past work, it was Loory's storied poems which made my jaw nearly drop to the floor. Reading "Toward the Earth," "The Greatest Thief in the World," "Towers, Cathedrals and Spiers," and lastly, "Parables of the Pebbles." So eloquently written and spoken... I think you could hear a pin drop.

For now I'm ignoring the pearl necklace and pretending it is actually a reference to some gorgeous portrait done during the renaissance or some lost Vermeer masterpiece.

I've started that movie about 50 times but for some reason never finished it. Also, it is really hard for me to see Sellers as anyone but Inspector Clouseau, because I grew up loving those old Pink Panther movies, and while I adore Steve Martin, the newer ones are a travesty, not even a shadow on the wall of the cave compared to the old ones.

So, does anyone have any insights into Tolstoy, read a lot of him, have anything to say about the style of this story - I know Dan read Anna Karenina recently...

In his bio on Wikipedia, it's mentioned that Tolstoy's realism is among the characteristics of his work that make everyone love him so much. I could see, in this story, that as he described certain things I did feel as though I were standing on the boat - but the story itself is allegorical.

This got me thinking about some of the other work I've read over the years that was about religion or God in some way, and the use of allegory in that work.

Why is it used so often? Is it because of the way the Bible 'teaches' -- while it talks about specific people, is really about everyman, so that we can all draw something from the stories? Like Job... or Paul...? And other religious texts like the The Bhagavad Gita, or even philosophical texts like Plato's Allegory of the Cave - tell a story, but in a way we can all relate to or draw something from it?

Is it the case that it's the most effective way to teach someone a religious or philosophical principal? I'm just wondering, really.

Shel pushed away from Kirk in an incomprehensible rage. What right had he to grab her vibrating waist in such an illicit manner! Shel went weeek in the knees and felt as though her spine might collapse on itself. She was so conflicted, it was as if life itself were making fun of her.

"No!" she said, violet eyes flashing, curly hair vibrating like spun silk in a tractor beam. "I must go ride my horse on the holodeck's beach! If you can find me there you may make sweet, alien love to me as long as you have a rattan mat so that I don't get sand in my gills!"

(It's almost like we're in our own musical, isn't it?)

Well, who doesn't love Kirk's impetuous, female-alien-grabbing, styrofoam rock-chucking, front-hair curl tossing-ness. The wry smile, the devil-may-care attitude, and what he did with those Tribbles just gives me goosebumps!

But Picard. No, really. The thinking woman's Enterprise captain. Kirk could never fight off the Borg. All those holodeck characters? Clearly, the man had range.

"Engage."

I am so glad I have such smart people in my thread!

Thank you for this, Bonita.

I'm in love with Spock. Not sure how it happened. But he's like my biggest movie character crush now.

I have always had a thing for Picard (was it the Earl Grey? The Shakespeare? The shiny head?), but I agree with you, Spock has a new appeal... I think I dig the intensity.

(Although I've never been a big fan of that tupperware haircut.)

Hey, congrats on school! - that first year is a doozy, and I hope you have some fun this summer - I worked all summer, every summer through college and it made me a dull girl indeed.

I remember coming home and my mom expecting me to go straight back to an 11 pm curfew... and coming home at 2 am from a nightclub to a furious mother who blasted me for leaving a message on the answering machine about not waiting up instead of coming home and writing a note for her about not waiting up. Yeah, that was weird. It was also the last time I lived at home (and in about 30 seconds my mom will be sending me an email reminding me that she kicked me out of the house for being an insolent brat that same summer...).

I sure hope so. That's all I could find, anyway, and the end of the page seemed like it was the end of the story...

Let me first confess that I was not raised with a whole lot of religion in my life, so my thoughts on this story will not share some great amount of knowledge, or moving amount of faith, the way other people might. I've read and discussed a fair amount but that's not the same, really.

I read this story as a parable about the power of fewer words, the depth of simplicity and the belief that God already knows what you need -- about these three men, who have turned away from society to save their souls, learning from the Bishop who will now show them the proper way to pray, and instead showing the bishop that even the simplest of prayers is -good enough?- for the holiest of men.

I am sure that the professions of the people on the boat have meaning - a tradesmen, a fisherman, pilgrims. I'm equally sure that the Bishop not being able to see the island at first is meaningful but I'm not sure precisely why, and the length of the journey for the Bishop also has meaning I can't quite grasp.

I liked the way one of the hermits put it, at the end of the story - as thought the loss of one word, like a piece of yarn unraveling from a sweater, inevitably makes the prayer itself fall apart - and then where are you?

As long as we kept repeating it we remembered, but when we stopped saying it for a time, a word dropped out, and now it has all gone to pieces. We can remember nothing of it. Teach us again.

So yeah, like I said, I'm not all that well-trained... and just medium-read.