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

Matt’s comments from the fiction files redux group.

is there a category for overrated hack?

two years later I would revise what I said about the indies - they're going to be ok - what we are witnessing is the death of corporate bookselling and that's pretty ok - large corporations can get better ROI by putting their money in the bank and despite the fact that they spent the last 40 years shitting all over the industry by redifining customer expectations and devaluing the product I foresee a time where bookselling goes back to the way it was before the 70s - people doing it because they love it, making just enough to keep going

I hate you - just kidding (envy is a bitch) - welcome on board

Patty wrote: "I like the way you put it, yeah, for some reason, I really am interested in "the whole notional nominal territory of how we identify the individual in question and whether such distinctions are eve...

Where would we put Alice Walker, for instance? Does it matter? Her subject matter and style are very similar in her prose and poetry. Her poems are confessional, and her prose is purple, and those two qualities seem very close to one another, in terms of the response they elicit from their readership. I think that the fact that she writes poetry also tends to give her, as an author, an aura of literary high-mindedness that perhaps she would not have garnered had she never written poetry."

So, my first response to the question of Alice Walker would be sort of pedestrian, how did I first encounter her? novelist. In the wider sphere, what is she best known for, what has she been lauded for doing (pulitzer, nba et al)? fiction.

But does that mean she has been dilettantish in her pursuit of poetic excellence? Or can you serve more than one master so to speak? Though writing poetry and writing fiction are in essence manipulations of language the pursuits are different in many ways and require different strategies and skills (or do they?).

I guess what needs to be defined is whether we're talking a dibble here, a dabble there or whether we're talking about someone who is programmatically approaching and pursuing excellence in both forms

if the prior then, yeah, if I see some writer throw a couple of stanzas of doggerel into the middle of one of his chapters I am quickly inclined to hit the skip button but if the latter you really start getting into the whole notional nominal territory of how we identify the individual in question and whether such distinctions are even meaningful

as for being more forgiving of fiction, probably true - reading poetry requires a certain level of heightened attention which isnt really appropriate to bring to bear upon a work of fiction and in fact might make enjoying the work of fiction more difficult

in fact when fiction becomes more 'poetic' at least in terms of prose stylistics I am amongst the first to start rolling my eyes (and Im not thinking of thees and thous here but rather the kind of show-offy pyrotechics you see with a Cormac McCarthy in his more purple modes)

a thesis in response to the first sentence in the OP: word for word poetry is harder and requires more craft to achieve therefore an accomplished poet is in an advantageous position when she turns to write fiction whereas a fictor (I like it, consider it grounded) is sort of fighting up in class when he attempts a poem

now of course there are a lot of differences in strategy and approach in the two forms (or is it 3? some poets write novels, while others attempt short stories) and I find that on the macro level of plotting and story telling poets often fall short - I couldnt get through The Enormous Room for instance - so in other words while a poet can put a fine sentence together he may fall well short of crafting a bunch of sentences together into something entirely compelling

there is all manner of crazy dripping off that frame

meh

yo

due to recent news provocations I just checked out myspace and logged back in for the first time in ever and after clearing out the cobwebs and throwing the sheets off the furniture I noticed that at least according to myspace today is Martin's birthday and tomorrow is the birthday of our fearless leader - if true cheers to you both

Ben interviewed:

http://www.fantasy-matters.com/2012/0...

"Writing is complete freedom... and then it becomes work. After that first burst is over, then the hard part sets in, where you have to figure everything out and make sense of it all, and make all the pieces fit together. And that part's fun, too, but is the opposite of being free. It's like doing archaeology or something-- dusting off bones and photographing and cataloging and examining and thinking and turning and trying and sweating and getting hot and angry and pissed off in the sun... but at the end of the day, you get a great sense of satisfaction (if you manage to figure it all out), and, also-- if you do it right-- you always learn something you didn't know about yourself."

well - is this finally Dylan's year?

Im not sure I take Roth's story completely at face value - I could totally see him taking one element of Broyard's life story and merging it with Tumin's ordeal - doesnt make the wiki people right and it's probably more complex than we could allow here but

a) he doth protest a lot, and does it strike anyone else that his description of his relation to broyard sounds like a guilty guy working himself up to a confession? I didnt even know the guy, well except to nod at we never even had drinks except for that one time where we did but that was only for like 10 minutes and we only did that occasionally, you know and that was about it, well except for that one time we hung out at the beach but that was about it, well except...

and isnt it odd that he can cite such certainties as "and this was the one and only time that I ever spoke to Broyard on the phone" or "and that brought to 30 minutes..."

b) there is something disingenuous about a novelist asking questions like did Silk die of cancer like Broyard did? was Broyard in the navy like Silk was in the book?

c) in the letter itself Roth admits to having been told about Broyard's mixed race back-ground way back in the late 50s, saying:
"Before I left the beach that day, someone told me that Broyard was rumored to be an “octoroon.” I didn’t pay much attention or, back in 1958, lend much credence to the attribution"

because yeah, that kind of accusation would have no shock value in the 50s... and he certainly remembers the accusation to this day so i guess it's just one of those meaningless pieces of trivia you hear in passing, dont lend much credence to and can still recall verbatim 54 years later, you know, like you do

I would like to introduce the idea that Roth could be fucking with us

and anyway he can be both right and wrong, could be the the case that he based most of the character of silk on Tumin but used this one detail that he remembered about Broyard to create a little more depth to the central conflict

or further the Broyard detail (which he does admit he knew) could have bubbled up out of his subconscience without proper attribution or effort at establishing
provenance - the author mid-sentence: "now where did I hear that before?"

also overlooked in all this is the fact that When Kafka was the Rage was a really lovely book

I've read Anxiety, I dont think writers practice Bloomian misprision intentionally (if at all)

and further feel that the idea that there is a 'proper' reading to swerve from in the first place is a bloomian misapprehension

In fact I think Bloom is an old scold and largely off base in his theory

However I would be interested in seeing if any of the authors amongst us have felt a need to swerve from or react against the work of a past master

I kind of liked Youngblood Hawke

wryly uplifting? wryly uplifting!? screw the Tampa Bay Times Review, how dare they....

totally agree with Hugh - pitch perfect thriller with great pacing

pffft - where is Scott when you need him? this place is Yawnsville...

Robert wrote: "I suppose offering a dissent to an aspect of a comment here and following up with civil response is worthy of getting abuse. I'll keep my comments to those who know constructive disagreement."

what is worthy of abuse would be your officiousness and pedantry in advising me on what has occurred in this thread (I can read, and it's you who seems to be missing the point in any event) and what might be a more appropriate forum for my posts (seriously? I dont deserve to tell you to go get stuffed for that? what a lovely narcissism you must enjoy)

and even so I think I could have been much more harsh and have no regrets

thanks for the suggestion Robert - I appreciate you steering me straight on the whole consensus thing and the proper use of these forums - in return may I suggest to you that you go ahead and get stuffed?

as for the current state of the publishing industry I probably have greater insight into that than you do and while I dont disagree that there are inequities I maintain that Weiner has an axe to grind all her own and if you've read any of her other commentary on this subject this is all too obvious