Matt’s Comments (group member since Mar 06, 2009)

Matt’s comments from the fiction files redux group.

is this a gender specific thing? most of the people that I've encountered who feel this way were men. I myself have even gone through phases where I just didnt feel like reading fiction

this is a person who is not going to be moved by the hoary old Emersonian chestnut that fiction reveals truths that reality obscures (or any one of half a dozen other similar sentiments you can find in Bartlett's)

so my first impulse is why are you bothering with such a twit?
,
but if you must know back in the day when I did a bit of handselling I would go fishing into said twit's preferences

if for instance this was a guy who liked civil war histories or was a lincoln buff I might suggest Vidal's Lincoln which I would characterize as a heavily researched reimagining of Lincoln's era that manages through the power of imagination and empathy to bring the great man to life on the page as a person in a way that nonfiction is just not capable of doing (because of it's limitations, which are many - I might elaborate on those as well)

and now I realize the OP was about the found poetry of the bookshelf

also just dug through some Yeats and What Work Is by Philip Levine

revisiting Elizabeth Bishop's collected after reading an essay by Wayne Koestenbaum where her poem The Bight features heavily

Dan wrote: "..As I was thinking about this this morning E-Monk's travel writings popped into my head. We need to get him in here to start sharing them again or at least get him a publisher so we can all read them. "



just noticed this Dan - thanks and no but very nice of you to say

also while Im thinking of it Guy Davenport is pretty great

that said maybe I should have asked this first, what kind?

Didion, Sontag - good places to start

Chris wrote: "Poetry and narrative are not mutually exclusive, by any means, but writing lyrical poetry and writing narrative require somewhat different skill sets.

Look at Michael Ondaatje and The English Pa..."

it's like a cartesian graph situation where one axis represents language manipulation and the other represents structural engineering such that a stephen king might rate a median score on the language axis and a high score on the structural axis

(whereas Shakespeare would score low on both axial ranges... all those O!s and Lo!s and Thees and Thous? pfft, that mess is tired)

Robert wrote: "Jim wrote: "Matt wrote: "so you mean like Shakespeare?"

Total hack who re-wrote other people's stories and took the credit for himself..."

Uh, everybody did that during the Elizabethan age. orig..."

uh... I hesitate here to decide whether it is worth the effort... no, it is not...

yes, well

to me the interesting question in the OP isnt about the quality of the work but the perception of the audience(so we are both right - you have your perceptions and I have mine - no wrong answers! how about that?)

there is no question that any of the people you mention worked in the various forms you say, nor that some accomplished something lasting in those forms but how are they perceived in the world?

because the question 'did so and so write a poem and a novel' is uninteresting and the answer brief and obvious - either yes or no - we can make lists

but when we want to become taxinomic and start saying this one is this and that one that well then you have to drill down to define what the terms mean

is a poet someone who writes a poem? ok and a novelist? same thing? and in any case ultimately is this a meaningless pursuit? sure, but fun for thinking about I suppose

(I'm reminded of the bit in Zoolander where Fabio wins the slashie award and tells the audience that he is so grateful because they have recognized him as
'the best actor slash model and not the other way around')

now as to some particulars

as far as Borges goes perhaps it's the quality of the translation (i'm almost certain of this) but his prose in english is much superior to his verse - and afterall when one thinks of him what comes to mind? Garden of Forking Paths or The Moment?

Similarly is there any poem or book of poems by Emily Bronte that comes as readily to mind as Wuthering Heights? And I think that might be her only novel but even so that's the work that has captured the popular imagination

and PS vis Dario et al prose poems are still poems, that's a wholly different conversation

first is not necessarilly best nor doing a thing the same as being good at it - many of those you name were most well known for a specific practice with only the merest liminal nod towards 'oh you do that other thing too, how nice for you'

as far as Borges goes while he most definitely fits that antique model of 'man of letters' and was first known as a poet and essayist his accomplishment in short fiction far overshadows his work in either of the other fields - so on the one hand Borges might be considered a something of equal parts (at least seen from the POV of Borges (and of course, Borges)) in what I take is the spirit of Patty's OP he is a fictor

but that's just me

Poe and Wilde are the most cross-overy of the second list - most of the others have an established field and dabble on the other side of the fence

that said there once upon a time this idea of being a man (or woman) of letters, in other words a professional dabbler playing in any and all fields as fancy takes him (or her)

no worries patty - but I was pretty amused on the plane today when I came across the pajamagram ad in harpers

Patty wrote: "mmmm. well, to be honest, i was really just trying to rationalize away the offesiveness (to me) of the list by chosing to believe that the artice was not intended for actual intelletuals. if you ar..."

Harpers Feb 2013 issue - page 37 ad: "'Spoil Her' send her a pajamagram"; page 86 ad: "athena pheromones can increase attractiveness"

meanwhile is esquire intended for intellectuals? no of course not - but it isnt just quite maxim either

Patty Im surprised to hear you hating on esquire as if it's playboy

esquire has morphed over the last couple decades into sort of a straight guys version of GQ

the ads are all of the 'husky well put together man glowering at the camera in some fabulous european port of call' mold, and they devote many many more pages to a well chosen scarf or accessory or the proper way to char a steak than they do to the female form (if any, it really is minimal to non existent now)

and there's usually a couple great articles per issue, as well as some regular short columns from writers like Chuck Klosterman or AJ Jacobs

btw in the current issue they list 5 upcoming must-read collections of short fiction including ones by Karen Russell and Jess Walter (and they loved Beautiful Ruins)

and he'd probably be writing for tv these days as goes the old saw

he was some kind of upstart crow motherf-er

so you mean like Shakespeare?