Christine Schutt on the NYFA Chalkboard
What a happy thing to stumble upon! Christine Schutt–NOON editor, 2009 Pulitzer prize finalist, all-around badass–has written a short essay for the New York Foundation for the Arts website, about her work as a creative writing teacher at the Nightingale-Bamford school for girls. It’s a great piece about teaching, but there’s also a highly informative craft essay tucked inside it.
I’m in complete agreement with Christine on this. I think reading one’s own work aloud is an essential part of the writing process. When something has been through enough drafts, I print it out and do an edit by ear, while listening to myself. The rule is: if I can’t say it in the world the way I’m hearing it said in my head, then it’s not done being written yet. And as a teaching tool, it’s incredibly useful for any kind of writing. Last semester, about mid-way through the course, I started encouraging my 101 students at Rutgers start reading their comp papers aloud to themselves, and the ones that did it improved measurably in areas like grammar, syntax, and overall coherence. What happened, I think, was that they heard with their ears what they couldn’t hear with their eyes. Once they saw the spread between what they thought they’d written and what they’d actually produced, they were in a position to start working on how to close the gap. Plus, that work to re-write sonorously forced them to do another whole revision. I think next semester everyone will be forced to do it from the get-go. But enough about me. Go read Christine’s essay.
Tags: Christine Schutt, NYFA
Huh. I usually agree with your opinions here, Justin, but I must say that I don’t at all here. While I don’t have trouble believing that this kind of exercise can help a 101 english student, I definitely think that, when it comes to more advanced–meaning personal and unique–levels of writing, there is a break that often (not always–I’m also totally willing to believe that for some writers the method you suggest makes sense) occurs between spoken and written language. A written “voice” is not simply an approximation of a spoken voice, and it shouldn’t, or at least in my case it doesn’t, succeed or fail based on how well it “performs” in a spoken arena. Basically, it comes down to the fact that, for me, writing isn’t “heard in my head.” It exists in a non-auditory frame that sometimes bear similarity at times with hearing–especially when there is play to be had with expectations of the audible–but does not always, or even most of the time.
(There’s also of course all manner of things that can be achieved visually on the page that simply don’t translate when spoken aloud, but I’m not even extending the debate to that.)
Huh. I usually agree with your opinions here, Justin, but I must say that I don’t at all here. While I don’t have trouble believing that this kind of exercise can help a 101 english student, I definitely think that, when it comes to more advanced–meaning personal and unique–levels of writing, there is a break that often (not always–I’m also totally willing to believe that for some writers the method you suggest makes sense) occurs between spoken and written language. A written “voice” is not simply an approximation of a spoken voice, and it shouldn’t, or at least in my case it doesn’t, succeed or fail based on how well it “performs” in a spoken arena. Basically, it comes down to the fact that, for me, writing isn’t “heard in my head.” It exists in a non-auditory frame that sometimes bear similarity at times with hearing–especially when there is play to be had with expectations of the audible–but does not always, or even most of the time.
(There’s also of course all manner of things that can be achieved visually on the page that simply don’t translate when spoken aloud, but I’m not even extending the debate to that.)
i agree with shya. i don’t think schutt is even saying necessarily it’s a steadfast rule, just that’s her personal experience with her writing, not an essential part of the writing process necessarily. i don’t think all writing ought to be spoke, or that that’s its end all be all. nonspokeable writing can have textual atmospheres of nonspokeables.
i agree with shya. i don’t think schutt is even saying necessarily it’s a steadfast rule, just that’s her personal experience with her writing, not an essential part of the writing process necessarily. i don’t think all writing ought to be spoke, or that that’s its end all be all. nonspokeable writing can have textual atmospheres of nonspokeables.
Well let’s leave aside image-text writing, because that’s a whole other thing. I don’t expect Derek White to be able to sound out his collages or ee cummings his grashopper poem.
But as far as what Schutt is saying, did you guys read the rest of the essay? She’s arguing that writing itself is based on the relationship between the acoustical qualities of words, and that sentences are created through the manipulation of and experimenting with those relationships, developing interlocking chains of meaning and sound. This is, of course, a platform plank in the Gordon Lish school, of which Schutt is a star alum. The method she’s describing is essentially the same one Gary Lutz describes at length in his Believer essay, “The Sentence is a Lonely Place.”
No doubt Schutt has tailored the method/theory to fit her own particular needs, as has Lutz, as have I, though never having been myself a student of Lish (just an enthusiast) my own version is twice bastardized. But still.
Well let’s leave aside image-text writing, because that’s a whole other thing. I don’t expect Derek White to be able to sound out his collages or ee cummings his grashopper poem.
But as far as what Schutt is saying, did you guys read the rest of the essay? She’s arguing that writing itself is based on the relationship between the acoustical qualities of words, and that sentences are created through the manipulation of and experimenting with those relationships, developing interlocking chains of meaning and sound. This is, of course, a platform plank in the Gordon Lish school, of which Schutt is a star alum. The method she’s describing is essentially the same one Gary Lutz describes at length in his Believer essay, “The Sentence is a Lonely Place.”
No doubt Schutt has tailored the method/theory to fit her own particular needs, as has Lutz, as have I, though never having been myself a student of Lish (just an enthusiast) my own version is twice bastardized. But still.
Lish is one of those people whose advice, when used well, creates great fiction, but which can be just as detrimental as it can be helpful. In other words, someone who takes this idea of “interlocking meaning and sound” to heart can come up with a line full of asinine alliteration, just as someone dead-set on plot can come up with a stupid engine of words. Neither school raises the good writer to the great.
I’m a fan of many Lish-influenced writers, but the those I appreciate the most (Carver, Delillo, Evenson, Hempel) met his influence without a little opposing force, personality, and vision–some with un-secret literary squabbles as evidence (Carver, Hempel, Williams). Lutz will last, for instance, but not as long as Carver and Delillo. And it’s because these later authors did not succumb to a literary method so wrapped up in its own criteria that it fails to account for progression or flaw.
Lish is one of those people whose advice, when used well, creates great fiction, but which can be just as detrimental as it can be helpful. In other words, someone who takes this idea of “interlocking meaning and sound” to heart can come up with a line full of asinine alliteration, just as someone dead-set on plot can come up with a stupid engine of words. Neither school raises the good writer to the great.
I’m a fan of many Lish-influenced writers, but the those I appreciate the most (Carver, Delillo, Evenson, Hempel) met his influence without a little opposing force, personality, and vision–some with un-secret literary squabbles as evidence (Carver, Hempel, Williams). Lutz will last, for instance, but not as long as Carver and Delillo. And it’s because these later authors did not succumb to a literary method so wrapped up in its own criteria that it fails to account for progression or flaw.
Yeah sure, a little or a lot of opposing force, of course. But maybe what you’re calling opposition is what I’m calling “tailored to fit own needs.” A mediocre writer has no force to draw on, and the analog here (which wil make me sound like a major-league asshole, but whatever) is to say in the terms I’ve designated- they have no particular needs. They’re not good enough to need anything. They’re just in school, and their only desire is to turn the exam in and get a grade. Well, they’ll get one.
If anything, I think your Carver/DeLillo example is key, because it exemplifies in microcosm just how versatile and expansive the Lish method of composition is. It’s emphatically not a formula for generating one kind of sound; it’s a highly focused form of literary attention, designed to lead the writer further and deeper down her/his own trail, not back again down Gordon L’s. Anyway, open any DeLillo novel (at least since White Noise) at random and start reading aloud. That shit jam likes a jazz band, and it didn’t get that way by accident. DeLillo’s totally obsessed with sound. Think of the *title* of White Noise (originally supposed to be called “Panasonic”), the “Bill Lawton” section of Falling Man, and basically ALL of Cosmopolis, which is so rhythmic it’s practically metrical, and anyway is for my money the best long poem this young century’s seen so far.
Yeah sure, a little or a lot of opposing force, of course. But maybe what you’re calling opposition is what I’m calling “tailored to fit own needs.” A mediocre writer has no force to draw on, and the analog here (which wil make me sound like a major-league asshole, but whatever) is to say in the terms I’ve designated- they have no particular needs. They’re not good enough to need anything. They’re just in school, and their only desire is to turn the exam in and get a grade. Well, they’ll get one.
If anything, I think your Carver/DeLillo example is key, because it exemplifies in microcosm just how versatile and expansive the Lish method of composition is. It’s emphatically not a formula for generating one kind of sound; it’s a highly focused form of literary attention, designed to lead the writer further and deeper down her/his own trail, not back again down Gordon L’s. Anyway, open any DeLillo novel (at least since White Noise) at random and start reading aloud. That shit jam likes a jazz band, and it didn’t get that way by accident. DeLillo’s totally obsessed with sound. Think of the *title* of White Noise (originally supposed to be called “Panasonic”), the “Bill Lawton” section of Falling Man, and basically ALL of Cosmopolis, which is so rhythmic it’s practically metrical, and anyway is for my money the best long poem this young century’s seen so far.
Oh, maybe it was YOU whose interest in Cosmopolis I’d been thinking of recently. I haven’t read it–maybe because of a specific frame of mine, maybe because of all the bad reviews it got–but someone recently spoke very highly of it, and I’ve been thinking about giving it a chance. I must say, my most recent Delillo encounter was not being able to finish the ostensibly mature Mao II after loving his second novel, End Zone, because basically I felt like he’d succumbed, in Mao, to something akin to self-interest, while his earlier work seemed positively bristling with potential and artifice (in a good way). Anyway, that a film is now being made about it is interesting.
And, also anyway, fine, I can maybe say that it goes without saying that any good advice can be taken poorly by someone who can’t learn, but I think that’s an unfairly broad generalization. I think at some point we’re going to have to admit that some, if not many, of Lish’s students were basically harmed by his tutelage. We’ll never know, because it’s impossible to determine what they would have become without his influence, but with an impact so obvious as his, it’s interesting that I encounter so little that questions the distinction between raw talent in his students and the virtue of his oversight.
All of which is not to dispel the notion that Schutt is a good writer–even a great writer. But what would she have been without Gordon Lish? Would her sprawling, imperfect 500 page novel be worse than the diamond-tight, wondrous but nearly asphyxiated prose of her 250 pager?
Oh, maybe it was YOU whose interest in Cosmopolis I’d been thinking of recently. I haven’t read it–maybe because of a specific frame of mine, maybe because of all the bad reviews it got–but someone recently spoke very highly of it, and I’ve been thinking about giving it a chance. I must say, my most recent Delillo encounter was not being able to finish the ostensibly mature Mao II after loving his second novel, End Zone, because basically I felt like he’d succumbed, in Mao, to something akin to self-interest, while his earlier work seemed positively bristling with potential and artifice (in a good way). Anyway, that a film is now being made about it is interesting.
And, also anyway, fine, I can maybe say that it goes without saying that any good advice can be taken poorly by someone who can’t learn, but I think that’s an unfairly broad generalization. I think at some point we’re going to have to admit that some, if not many, of Lish’s students were basically harmed by his tutelage. We’ll never know, because it’s impossible to determine what they would have become without his influence, but with an impact so obvious as his, it’s interesting that I encounter so little that questions the distinction between raw talent in his students and the virtue of his oversight.
All of which is not to dispel the notion that Schutt is a good writer–even a great writer. But what would she have been without Gordon Lish? Would her sprawling, imperfect 500 page novel be worse than the diamond-tight, wondrous but nearly asphyxiated prose of her 250 pager?
There’s no way to answer those kind of what-if questions, other than to say that the best students find the teachers they need and then take what they need from them– seldom the other way round.
I think maybe we’re coming up on some irreconcilable differences of taste here. I don’t think of Schutt’s prose as asphyxiated in any sense at all. That’s me. I also would warn against reducing any one author to any one person’s influence, even a monumental one such as GL’s. Schutt’s version of compaction owes a lot to Emily Dickinson, and poetry in general.
As far as Mao II- I found that book utterly compelling. For me, it’s prime DeLillo. It can hardly be considered coincidental that this book of all his books is the one DeLillo dedicated to Gordon Lish.
There’s no way to answer those kind of what-if questions, other than to say that the best students find the teachers they need and then take what they need from them– seldom the other way round.
I think maybe we’re coming up on some irreconcilable differences of taste here. I don’t think of Schutt’s prose as asphyxiated in any sense at all. That’s me. I also would warn against reducing any one author to any one person’s influence, even a monumental one such as GL’s. Schutt’s version of compaction owes a lot to Emily Dickinson, and poetry in general.
As far as Mao II- I found that book utterly compelling. For me, it’s prime DeLillo. It can hardly be considered coincidental that this book of all his books is the one DeLillo dedicated to Gordon Lish.
Actually, I’m playing devil’s advocate a little. The truth is, our tastes overlap quite a bit from what I know of yours. Neither would I consider Schutt’s prose asphyxiated. But someone probably does. Likewise, surely there are people who really do think Lish had a toxic effect on late 20th century American letters, people who think he gutted and destroyed Carver’s early work, before the author shrugged him off and left in the denouements. And with all the praise he’s been given–by my generation at least–there’s sure to be a backlash.
So that’s where my head was last night: wondering if anyone like that was reading, and kind of trying to provoke them.
Actually, I’m playing devil’s advocate a little. The truth is, our tastes overlap quite a bit from what I know of yours. Neither would I consider Schutt’s prose asphyxiated. But someone probably does. Likewise, surely there are people who really do think Lish had a toxic effect on late 20th century American letters, people who think he gutted and destroyed Carver’s early work, before the author shrugged him off and left in the denouements. And with all the praise he’s been given–by my generation at least–there’s sure to be a backlash.
So that’s where my head was last night: wondering if anyone like that was reading, and kind of trying to provoke them.
Another recent interesting article on the Lish and Carver “controversy”:
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article6731684.ece
Another recent interesting article on the Lish and Carver “controversy”:
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article6731684.ece
I don’t see a controversy. I see two men who worked profitably together for a long time, until they didn’t anymore. The ins and outs of that editorial relationship are of course fascinating, but that victim/bully stuff makes me crazy every time I encounter it. It’s sewing circle bullshit. I love how the article acknowledges in passing the intellectual bankruptcy of its position (they tell us that “Stull and Carroll…are more discreet about subsequent communications, which have been published elsewhere, which retreat from its positions”) but then chugs right along anyway, as if this sentence fragment passed for some kind of counterpoint. Also, the assertion that Carver’s un-edited stories tended to get “prolix” is the understatement of the year- “Neighbors” is 8000 words long and fucking unendurable. There’s not a journal or magazine on the face of the planet that would have published that story at the time, and if it showed up in any editor’s mailbox tomorrow credited to anyone but RC himself, it wouldn’t be published now.
I don’t see a controversy. I see two men who worked profitably together for a long time, until they didn’t anymore. The ins and outs of that editorial relationship are of course fascinating, but that victim/bully stuff makes me crazy every time I encounter it. It’s sewing circle bullshit. I love how the article acknowledges in passing the intellectual bankruptcy of its position (they tell us that “Stull and Carroll…are more discreet about subsequent communications, which have been published elsewhere, which retreat from its positions”) but then chugs right along anyway, as if this sentence fragment passed for some kind of counterpoint. Also, the assertion that Carver’s un-edited stories tended to get “prolix” is the understatement of the year- “Neighbors” is 8000 words long and fucking unendurable. There’s not a journal or magazine on the face of the planet that would have published that story at the time, and if it showed up in any editor’s mailbox tomorrow credited to anyone but RC himself, it wouldn’t be published now.
Per the TLS article: “Not all of Lish’s interventions resulted in improvements. In some cases, he cut out the back story” — holy fuck, somebody form a UN high commission! First they came for the gypsies! Then the Jews! Now back stories? I have a back story!
Why does Lish want to destroy my back story? I had a dog once, you know? And I was good to it? So good to that dog.
Per the TLS article: “Not all of Lish’s interventions resulted in improvements. In some cases, he cut out the back story” — holy fuck, somebody form a UN high commission! First they came for the gypsies! Then the Jews! Now back stories? I have a back story!
Why does Lish want to destroy my back story? I had a dog once, you know? And I was good to it? So good to that dog.
Yeah, exactly. God forfuckingbid we be denied the ORIGIN STORY of how the guy having the yard sale in “Why don’t You Dance?” first met his wife when they were in high school.
Yeah, exactly. God forfuckingbid we be denied the ORIGIN STORY of how the guy having the yard sale in “Why don’t You Dance?” first met his wife when they were in high school.
I agree with lots of what you say Justin- that editorial relationships are interesting and complicted- like marriages, band mates and so on- and they rarely last happily forever, and that Lish and Carver worked well together for a long time. But Neighbors was good no? Am I mixing it up with another one? (I might be). I love 8000 word stories. I understand that at the time he needed to cut it for it to be published, but what a treasure to now have it in full…
Also, there are bullies, and there are “victims” (that word is a little harder to take here but I can’t think of another one). Bullies in the classroom, in the publishering industry, in the line at the bakery. Some people have serious problems with control. I wish I could find the article about Lish written by a man who edited a book of his and how Lish did not let him have ONE say in the matter. He wasn’t judging it – but it was notable and very intense. I don’t like gurus….so I can’t say I am a fan of Lish. I’ve met too many of his former students who don’t really treat him as a teacher, but as some God-like figure. It’s creepy. That said, I do know a few writers who have come out of studying him better for it- but it’s as if they were better for it because they survived it. And they would have been good writers anyway….
I agree with lots of what you say Justin- that editorial relationships are interesting and complicted- like marriages, band mates and so on- and they rarely last happily forever, and that Lish and Carver worked well together for a long time. But Neighbors was good no? Am I mixing it up with another one? (I might be). I love 8000 word stories. I understand that at the time he needed to cut it for it to be published, but what a treasure to now have it in full…
Also, there are bullies, and there are “victims” (that word is a little harder to take here but I can’t think of another one). Bullies in the classroom, in the publishering industry, in the line at the bakery. Some people have serious problems with control. I wish I could find the article about Lish written by a man who edited a book of his and how Lish did not let him have ONE say in the matter. He wasn’t judging it – but it was notable and very intense. I don’t like gurus….so I can’t say I am a fan of Lish. I’ve met too many of his former students who don’t really treat him as a teacher, but as some God-like figure. It’s creepy. That said, I do know a few writers who have come out of studying him better for it- but it’s as if they were better for it because they survived it. And they would have been good writers anyway….
That is definitely a pretty goofy statement.
That is definitely a pretty goofy statement.
[…] had the neat opportunity to take a workshop from her at Sewanee. Her way of talking about language (about which Justin has already posted) and how she applied her careful sensibilities to a few of my own stories really helped me become […]