Craft Notes
A Rambling On and An Appreciation of Good Stories
I have been thinking lately about traditional storytelling, experimental writing, narrative and anti-narratives. In a few threads here and on other sites, I’ve seen discussions alluding to narrative fatigue—a weariness for stories containing traditional elements like plot, exposition, linearity, etc. Experimentation is a vital thing so this is not a condemnation of experimentation but rather, a bit of appreciation for the traditional story.
My favorite story (though I enjoy all kinds of writing) is told simply and without artifice, one where I turn the page and can’t wait to see what happens next, where the characters are interesting and well-developed and where I am invested emotionally. I love reading something so great that I want to find everything that person has ever written immediately.
I was reminded of my love for a good story when I read Scott McClanahan’s Stories II, a collection of short stories completely stripped of any bullshit. From front to back, the author’s voice was clear, charming and genuine and it was one of the most refreshing, satisfying books I’ve read in recent memory. As I put the book down I thought, “That’s how it’s done.”
A lot of writing confuses me. It is difficult to talk about this confusion for fear of seeming unintelligent or unsophisticated or intellectually lazy. When I see the phrase “narrative fatigue” I worry that I’m “doing it wrong” so to speak because I am energized by narrative. I crave it. When other people genuinely appreciate writing I find absolutely bewildering I tend to assume I am the problem because statistically speaking, if 99 people love something and one person doesn’t, that one outlier probably has issues. I am the outlier. I have issues.
The term “challenging” is often applied to experimental or avant garde writing and when I see this designation, I confess I think, “antagonistic,” because any writing that willfully (to my mind) obscures meaning does, on some level, have a beef with readers. If writing makes me think, “What the fuck is going on here,” in a this is nonsense on the page way, I feel like the writer hates me and everyone I know or maybe they just don’t give a damn about audience. This writing often takes the form of anti-narratives and intensely language-y work and I find such work simply overwhelming. Sometimes I feel like the hick at a fancy ball because the writing many people fawn over may as well be written in a foreign language to me. Does not compute. Lost, send help. (And speaking of LOST… WTF?)
When I was a kid, I read voraciously because I was only allowed to watch one hour of (wholesome) television a week. I needed some way to fill my time. My favorite books were the Little House on the Prairie books. The stories were captivating–I loved the descriptions of the prairie and the challenges of life in an inhospitable, unsettled place and how through it all the Ingalls’ loved each other and were happy and lived interesting, intimate lives. Nothing has influenced my writing more profoundly than those books. It has been nearly thirty years since I first started reading those books and I have never forgotten them.
I remember how Pa would take Laura and her sisters outside to pour maple syrup into the snow for a winter treat and how Almanzo Wilder picked Laura up from the rural school where she taught every single weekend to bring her home to see her family because she was so lonely and miserable sleeping on a narrow cot in the back room of the district superintendent’s house. I remember how Laura and Almanzo planted a grove of trees when they got their own homestead and how Laura would set out a blanket for herself and their baby Rose to watch “Manny” work and how when the Ingalls family lived in town, they kept themselves warm around the wood stove in the kitchen. I remember these details vividly, without having picked the books up in recent memory.
That’s what’s remarkable about a good story, plainly told. With nothing else in the way, the story and everything about it becomes memorable. I can barely remember what I read two days ago sometimes but I still remember that Mr. Edwards, from Tennessee, helped Pa build the Ingalls’s house and was a little rough around the edges but a very good man.
Writing and the appreciation thereof is an intensely subjective thing. What’s memorable for me will differ from what’s memorable for everyone reading this. When I think of anti-narratives and a lot of experimental writing, I wonder if it will or can be memorable. In fifty years or a hundred years I’m pretty certain people will still be appreciating the charms of Laura Ingalls Wilder (or any number of writers). Can the same be said for experimental writing?
This brings me to two books I’ve read recently, one more traditional and one more experimental, both of which are undoubtedly memorable for me. The first is Normal People Don’t Live Like This by Dylan Landis. I heard many great things about this collection of interconnected stories and was really pleasantly surprised to discover a new (to me) writer. There are many things that make this book remarkable, but first and foremost for me is the complexity of the stories being told tempered by a plainness of language that only enhances the beauty of the writing. The other strength of the collection is the way in which Landis writes women. Most of the stories are about teenage girls and Landis makes their inner lives so damn interesting and I was particularly moved by the ways in which she showed these young women to be both worldly and sheltered at the same time.
Storytelling is an art. To tell a good story, you have to understand pace; you have to know when to tell your audience what and you have to find a way to keep your audience interested and wanting to know more. In each of the stories in Normal People Don’t Live Like This, I felt like every single sentence was a masterful story unto itself and as a whole, this book felt like a beautiful, richly layered thing with stories within stories within stories. In the opening story, “Jazz,” the first sentence states, “It is not true that if a girl squeezes her legs together, she cannot be raped.” There’s so much going on in that sentence and each subsequent sentence fulfills and often exceeds the intrigue and promise of that which precedes it. In “Jazz,” Rainey, a well-endowed thirteen year-old is making out with her father’s friend and she doesn’t know how she feels about what’s happening. The entire story details her thoughts during this encounter. It is a simple story and it’s not. It’s a story about a moment and at the same time, a story about this girl’s entire world.
Another standout story in a collection of standout stories is, “Underwater,” about Leah, a teenage girl who figures prominently in many of the stories, and her bad girl friend Angeline Yost, pregnant and in need of money for an abortion. At the climax of the story, Angeline miscarries in a school bathroom and it is up to Leah to inspect the miscarriage to make sure the fetus is no more. The scene is painful and a little horrifying and still, the story is told in such a beautiful, measured manner that I was moved. At the end of the story, Leah, a curious girl in every sense of the word, puts the miscarried fetus in her backpack. “She hoists her backpack and feels the mer-man throb. His heart glows darkly, a small red sun, and she is not afraid.” This is a grotesque moment and yet Landis has made it beautiful and otherworldly and unexpected.
Dear Everybody by Michael Kimball–more experimental in nature–made me cry countless times. I am not normally prone to tears but Dear Everybody was one of the finest, most heartbreaking books I’ve ever read and I was an emotional mess as I read the book. Kimball writes his characters with a tenderness that moves me profoundly. The novel tells the story of Jonathon Bender, a troubled man who takes is own life after suffering with severe depression for years. It is the story of all the people who failed him and didn’t know how to love him and never really knew him. It is a story with a clear narrative arc but it is not told in a straightforward manner. Instead, we learn about Jonathon’s life through a series of clippings and letters he has written to the people and places in his life. As with Normal People Don’t Live Like This, there are stories within stories within stories in this novel. The complexity in Dear Everybody builds subtly, but by the end of the book the immensity of the story that has been told is staggering. What also surprised me about this book is knowing how it would end before the story began. In the hands of a lesser writer, the knowledge of an inevitable end would be difficult to overcome but Kimball made me forget what I knew from the very beginning. He immerses the reader completely within the lives of the Bender family and even in the despicable moments there is beauty. By the end of the novel, Kimball has told the stories of all the people culpable in Jonathon’s downfall with such evenness that I felt sympathy for all involved instead of judgment. That was also unexpected.
Landis and Kimball have more in common than I could have imagined prior to reading their books. They are both great storytellers; they demonstrate a real empathy for their characters; they demonstrate real caring for their audience because of the beauty and power with which they have infused their work.
Earlier I referred to Normal People Don’t Live Like This as traditional and Dear Everybody as experimental but really, what do those terms mean? Traditional implies something established, customary, expected. Experimental implies trying something new, innovative, unknown. Both books are challenging in their own ways but they’re not combatively so. I cannot help but feel they are both traditional and experimental. These stories meet my expectations of a good story but they also exceed those expectations and demonstrate really interesting, unique narrative approaches. I have no doubt these books will be as memorable for me as the Little House on the Prairie books and what I will remember is the stories themselves, more than how they were told.
I also asked whether or not experimental writing can be memorable, but upon further reflection, that is not the right question.
Tags: Dylan Landis, Little House on the Prairie, michael kimball
Just re: the outlier thing, it’s worth remembering that you’re an outlier only within a very specific and relatively small number of (generally intellectual, literary or writing-based) communities.
Most people who read fiction now read novels, and are not interested in experimental fiction. Generally, they’re not even interested in short stories. Based on my necessarily limited experience of talking to such people, a common reason offered for these predilections is that they want, as you say, a ‘good story’. To them, that means a story with a plot, probably a linear narrative, and characters who, even if they don’t necessarily develop massively over the course of the book, extend throughout it, and in whom they can become (emotionally) invested.
A common complaint — again, in my limited experience — is that short stories either don’t give them enough time to become invested in the characters, or seem to have been cut short just as they’ve become invested and are wanting to hear more about them.
Still, the impression I receive is that characters alone are not enough to hold most people’s attention. They wouldn’t just be interested in some sort of experimental character study, as a rule. This is where plot and narrative come in: these people are reading primarily, I think, to learn about the interesting things which happen to the characters.
I don’t think that experimentation automatically turns these people off a book. Used in moderation, you can get away with it — narratives, for example, do not necessarily have to proceed in strictly chronological order. If, however, the experimentation is too in-your-face, too ‘combative’, or worse, if it’s explicitly stated (in the blurb, say), many people will not be interested in the book. I think that this is because they associate experimentation with intellectualism. Some people find that threatening, worrying that they will not be able to comprehend the book; others merely find it uninteresting, citing the usual (and, I think, spurious) argument: “I’ve had a hard day at work. I don’t want to be challenged or to have to think about the book. I just want to enjoy it.”
The sample I’m referring to here primarily includes working, middle-class females, aged between 30 and 70, or around there, and particularly in the 40-60 age group — in other words, the primary consumers of fiction (though perhaps not what you would consider ‘good’ fiction).
On a tangent from that last paragraph, just to back up that bit about ‘primary consumers of fiction’: I attended a talk recently, delivered by some financial theorist/analyst (I forget his name) who’d spent a year studying big publishers like Penguin and Random House, and he said that statistics show that the majority of men, if they read, prefer to read non-fiction.
Just re: the outlier thing, it’s worth remembering that you’re an outlier only within a very specific and relatively small number of (generally intellectual, literary or writing-based) communities.
Most people who read fiction now read novels, and are not interested in experimental fiction. Generally, they’re not even interested in short stories. Based on my necessarily limited experience of talking to such people, a common reason offered for these predilections is that they want, as you say, a ‘good story’. To them, that means a story with a plot, probably a linear narrative, and characters who, even if they don’t necessarily develop massively over the course of the book, extend throughout it, and in whom they can become (emotionally) invested.
A common complaint — again, in my limited experience — is that short stories either don’t give them enough time to become invested in the characters, or seem to have been cut short just as they’ve become invested and are wanting to hear more about them.
Still, the impression I receive is that characters alone are not enough to hold most people’s attention. They wouldn’t just be interested in some sort of experimental character study, as a rule. This is where plot and narrative come in: these people are reading primarily, I think, to learn about the interesting things which happen to the characters.
I don’t think that experimentation automatically turns these people off a book. Used in moderation, you can get away with it — narratives, for example, do not necessarily have to proceed in strictly chronological order. If, however, the experimentation is too in-your-face, too ‘combative’, or worse, if it’s explicitly stated (in the blurb, say), many people will not be interested in the book. I think that this is because they associate experimentation with intellectualism. Some people find that threatening, worrying that they will not be able to comprehend the book; others merely find it uninteresting, citing the usual (and, I think, spurious) argument: “I’ve had a hard day at work. I don’t want to be challenged or to have to think about the book. I just want to enjoy it.”
The sample I’m referring to here primarily includes working, middle-class females, aged between 30 and 70, or around there, and particularly in the 40-60 age group — in other words, the primary consumers of fiction (though perhaps not what you would consider ‘good’ fiction).
On a tangent from that last paragraph, just to back up that bit about ‘primary consumers of fiction’: I attended a talk recently, delivered by some financial theorist/analyst (I forget his name) who’d spent a year studying big publishers like Penguin and Random House, and he said that statistics show that the majority of men, if they read, prefer to read non-fiction.
I’m a big fan of narrative in some sense. It needs to be there. There needs to be some kind of story going on. Something bigger at play. Folks who say that good writing is predicated entirely by strong sentences are only half right, and the current assumption, in more independent circles, that quality, or traditional, ‘story’ somehow destroys the possiblility of strong sentences is so ridiculous it makes me spit piss.
That being said, I’m not a giant fan of linear narrative. I’m a bigger fan of co-existing narratives much as illustrated in The Oddesy, The Decammaron, Bleak House, The Grapes of Wrath, or more recently in books like Dear Everybody and Tranquility.
The idea of purely language based fiction is aggravating to me, though I’m not entirely opposed to it. And I am a fan of more difficult works lik Ulysses and Naked Lunch.
But I like to see at least bursts of narrative in language driven stories, and at least bursts of language-driven incoherency in narrative-heavy stories.
And I don’t understand why recently there’s been such a division between the two aesthetics.
I’m a big fan of narrative in some sense. It needs to be there. There needs to be some kind of story going on. Something bigger at play. Folks who say that good writing is predicated entirely by strong sentences are only half right, and the current assumption, in more independent circles, that quality, or traditional, ‘story’ somehow destroys the possiblility of strong sentences is so ridiculous it makes me spit piss.
That being said, I’m not a giant fan of linear narrative. I’m a bigger fan of co-existing narratives much as illustrated in The Oddesy, The Decammaron, Bleak House, The Grapes of Wrath, or more recently in books like Dear Everybody and Tranquility.
The idea of purely language based fiction is aggravating to me, though I’m not entirely opposed to it. And I am a fan of more difficult works lik Ulysses and Naked Lunch.
But I like to see at least bursts of narrative in language driven stories, and at least bursts of language-driven incoherency in narrative-heavy stories.
And I don’t understand why recently there’s been such a division between the two aesthetics.
I’m a huge fan of oulipo, but to me they are games to satisfy the word nerd within. Formalistic dexterity is certainly a talent but that’s not what I come to literature for. When the experimentation is subservient to the story being told, as seems the case in Dear Everybody, then it can be just another level of appreciation. It won’t be why I say X is a great book but it will definitely add to my supporting arguments.
Jarred
I’m a huge fan of oulipo, but to me they are games to satisfy the word nerd within. Formalistic dexterity is certainly a talent but that’s not what I come to literature for. When the experimentation is subservient to the story being told, as seems the case in Dear Everybody, then it can be just another level of appreciation. It won’t be why I say X is a great book but it will definitely add to my supporting arguments.
Jarred
“When other people genuinely appreciate writing I find absolutely bewildering I tend to assume I am the problem…” You stole the words right out of my brain.
“When other people genuinely appreciate writing I find absolutely bewildering I tend to assume I am the problem…” You stole the words right out of my brain.
Every writer/reader should get their hands on “Dear Everybody”
It’s one of the finest things I’ve read. It tore me up.
Every writer/reader should get their hands on “Dear Everybody”
It’s one of the finest things I’ve read. It tore me up.
Great great post, Roxane, and great comments thus far.
“Experimental” writing can be memorable but a different kind of memorable than “traditional” writing. It can be memorable like a beautiful moment is memorable, even if, from a narrative standpoint, we can never put our finger on why.
Burroughs and Joyce are always great examples of memorable experimental writing because they capture the essence of a striving evolution. We’re all after it, whether we’re aware of it or not. But we can’t be hasty. Although we live in an accelerated age, I think it’s foolish to attempt to buck narrative, to say, “This is it. This is what it is now,” because it’s not, nor will it ever be.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of experimental work and I’m a fan of experimentation, but I recognize that it’s not the endgame. Great experimental works deserve to be revered, but for what they are–again, that striving evolution.
And it’s all a written measure of progress, but the works that stand out the most, the ones most deserving of celebration, are the works that incorporate the best in current experimentation within a coherent narrative structure, even if that structure could be defined as experimental.
It ain’t easy to strike that balance. But that’s what we’re constantly fighting for. I think. But the beast doesn’t stop moving. We’re all somersaulting forward in the flood, occasionally finding our footing long enough to stab a tattered piece of parchment to a telephone pole.
Great great post, Roxane, and great comments thus far.
“Experimental” writing can be memorable but a different kind of memorable than “traditional” writing. It can be memorable like a beautiful moment is memorable, even if, from a narrative standpoint, we can never put our finger on why.
Burroughs and Joyce are always great examples of memorable experimental writing because they capture the essence of a striving evolution. We’re all after it, whether we’re aware of it or not. But we can’t be hasty. Although we live in an accelerated age, I think it’s foolish to attempt to buck narrative, to say, “This is it. This is what it is now,” because it’s not, nor will it ever be.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of experimental work and I’m a fan of experimentation, but I recognize that it’s not the endgame. Great experimental works deserve to be revered, but for what they are–again, that striving evolution.
And it’s all a written measure of progress, but the works that stand out the most, the ones most deserving of celebration, are the works that incorporate the best in current experimentation within a coherent narrative structure, even if that structure could be defined as experimental.
It ain’t easy to strike that balance. But that’s what we’re constantly fighting for. I think. But the beast doesn’t stop moving. We’re all somersaulting forward in the flood, occasionally finding our footing long enough to stab a tattered piece of parchment to a telephone pole.
This is great, Roxane. And I agree with Donald–the idea that narrative is dead is such a small sample of such a small sample that it hardly even matters. Most of the people I know who are avid readers (outside of the writing community) just want a great story. That’s why they read stuff like Ken Follett or Twilight–most of them know the writing is sucky, and the characters ridiculous, but they just want a fast-paced, exciting story.
I can see both sides, sort of…I come to fiction writing by way of painting then poetry, and so language is my first love and was my primary focus for the longest time. But I would get the same rejection comments over and over again: beautiful sentences, wonderfully drawn characters, but NOTHING HAPPENS. I had to learn that most people aren’t reading stories for the same reason they look at a painting. I had to figure out how to write a story where something happens, which was actually really hard for me and sometimes I still suck at it, to be honest.
As a reader, I have maybe a higher tolerance for little narrative or altered narrative–those are some of my favorite books, but I do read them almost like looking at a painting. Almost like studying. But the page-turners, the ones I take on trips and read when I’m sad and can’t put down–those are the stories with a strong and compelling narrative. Doesn’t matter if it’s linear or not, just give me characters I love and a storyline I care about and I’ll fly through the thing and read through the night. War and Peace, Bleak House, Bros Karamazov–I read these faster than book only a quarter of their size because goddamnit I had to know what happened to the characters.
This is great, Roxane. And I agree with Donald–the idea that narrative is dead is such a small sample of such a small sample that it hardly even matters. Most of the people I know who are avid readers (outside of the writing community) just want a great story. That’s why they read stuff like Ken Follett or Twilight–most of them know the writing is sucky, and the characters ridiculous, but they just want a fast-paced, exciting story.
I can see both sides, sort of…I come to fiction writing by way of painting then poetry, and so language is my first love and was my primary focus for the longest time. But I would get the same rejection comments over and over again: beautiful sentences, wonderfully drawn characters, but NOTHING HAPPENS. I had to learn that most people aren’t reading stories for the same reason they look at a painting. I had to figure out how to write a story where something happens, which was actually really hard for me and sometimes I still suck at it, to be honest.
As a reader, I have maybe a higher tolerance for little narrative or altered narrative–those are some of my favorite books, but I do read them almost like looking at a painting. Almost like studying. But the page-turners, the ones I take on trips and read when I’m sad and can’t put down–those are the stories with a strong and compelling narrative. Doesn’t matter if it’s linear or not, just give me characters I love and a storyline I care about and I’ll fly through the thing and read through the night. War and Peace, Bleak House, Bros Karamazov–I read these faster than book only a quarter of their size because goddamnit I had to know what happened to the characters.
doesn’t the outlier define what the others like? I have 1% tattooed on my inside wrist so I hope this is true.
doesn’t the outlier define what the others like? I have 1% tattooed on my inside wrist so I hope this is true.
yes yes yes yes yes yes. read in in a single sitting, couldn’t tear away, it was like reading my own journal in parts and recognizing that maybe, just maybe the certification was correct.
Dave is right, read this book.
yes yes yes yes yes yes. read in in a single sitting, couldn’t tear away, it was like reading my own journal in parts and recognizing that maybe, just maybe the certification was correct.
Dave is right, read this book.
I feel like maybe the HTMLGiant crowd is the only place you can say that you are in the minority for liking narrative more than language-y/non-narrative experimentation (although there was of course Blake’s post where he reminded everybody that narrative is everything ever, or whatever). I mean, isn’t that part of what differentiates HTMLGiant from most lit blogs? (I mean, aside from the ‘indie publishing’ aspect) I feel like I’m remarkably in the minority even here not because I like narrative more than language, but because I like form & text (in Barthes’s idea of ecriture) more than I like language. I like concept more than language more than narrative (basically this just means I spend most of my time nerding out to post-68 French lit & poetry). I mean, isolating as such is all very reductive, but whatever, I dont’ think that’s really the point of my comment.
Part of the reason that I am so averse to ‘traditional narrative,’ outside of my mostly complete disinterest in it (I have bought lots of what I’ve been told were really well-written horror MMs [from the likes of Peter Straub & co.] and even if I like the story I get totally bored and never end up finishing the book), is due to it’s inherent mark of the traditional hegemony. While I may be a white male my identity has to regularly take the position of the [marginalized] Other due to my homosexuality & my [probably fairly extreme] politics.
Camille Roy has an essay collected in Biting the Error (which is a really great collection of essays from the authors of the new narrative ‘movement’) called “Experimentalism, Why?” that questions the modes of writing for someone who exists outside of the hegemonic norm of not only the literary canon, but also society itself. She insists (I am paraphrasing due to not having the collection with me/not having actually read the essay in a couple years)(and this is something that it seems like Kathy Acker was also very insistent upon) that it is disingenuous to write a story either as or about the marginalized in a form (and this includes everything from narrative structure to pace to ‘construction of metaphors’ [and by this I mean what Barthes refers to as the Literary Metaphor ((excuse all the Barthes I just finished the book yesterday)) in Writing Degree Zero]) that is canonically recognized as belonging Straight White Bourgeois Males.
Sure, it is arguable that it is better to be “subversive” by co-opting the form, by taking it away from the SWBM and ‘making it your own,’ but to me it seems more like a homosexual acting straight so more people are willing to talk to him.
And because part of my otherness has to do with both my sexuality and my politics, it is important to me (as someone who cares more about ART than anything else) that my own art reflect a position of change in terms of disrupting the hegemony (and Capitalism) that has fucked everything up to begin with. Art should make you feel things, but if those things you are feeling are ostensibly escapist empathy then the only thing that the work of Art is letting you do is to see yourself (and as anybody with familiarity to art history knows, being able to find yourself in a work of art is the Ultimate bourgeois act), and if all you can see is yourself then change isn’t going to occur.
The easiest way to respond to my little rant here would be to claim that “that’s all fine and ideologically dandy, but sometimes I just want to relax with a book.” And that’s fine. But the idea is that when form itself has broken away from the hegemony, once people can stop seeing “nonsense on the page,” they can start seeing a story told in a way that was not invented and owned by SWBM for the entire time the novel has been in existence. And thus the subaltern have a new voice that is just as easily heard as that of the SWBM.
I feel like maybe the HTMLGiant crowd is the only place you can say that you are in the minority for liking narrative more than language-y/non-narrative experimentation (although there was of course Blake’s post where he reminded everybody that narrative is everything ever, or whatever). I mean, isn’t that part of what differentiates HTMLGiant from most lit blogs? (I mean, aside from the ‘indie publishing’ aspect) I feel like I’m remarkably in the minority even here not because I like narrative more than language, but because I like form & text (in Barthes’s idea of ecriture) more than I like language. I like concept more than language more than narrative (basically this just means I spend most of my time nerding out to post-68 French lit & poetry). I mean, isolating as such is all very reductive, but whatever, I dont’ think that’s really the point of my comment.
Part of the reason that I am so averse to ‘traditional narrative,’ outside of my mostly complete disinterest in it (I have bought lots of what I’ve been told were really well-written horror MMs [from the likes of Peter Straub & co.] and even if I like the story I get totally bored and never end up finishing the book), is due to it’s inherent mark of the traditional hegemony. While I may be a white male my identity has to regularly take the position of the [marginalized] Other due to my homosexuality & my [probably fairly extreme] politics.
Camille Roy has an essay collected in Biting the Error (which is a really great collection of essays from the authors of the new narrative ‘movement’) called “Experimentalism, Why?” that questions the modes of writing for someone who exists outside of the hegemonic norm of not only the literary canon, but also society itself. She insists (I am paraphrasing due to not having the collection with me/not having actually read the essay in a couple years)(and this is something that it seems like Kathy Acker was also very insistent upon) that it is disingenuous to write a story either as or about the marginalized in a form (and this includes everything from narrative structure to pace to ‘construction of metaphors’ [and by this I mean what Barthes refers to as the Literary Metaphor ((excuse all the Barthes I just finished the book yesterday)) in Writing Degree Zero]) that is canonically recognized as belonging Straight White Bourgeois Males.
Sure, it is arguable that it is better to be “subversive” by co-opting the form, by taking it away from the SWBM and ‘making it your own,’ but to me it seems more like a homosexual acting straight so more people are willing to talk to him.
And because part of my otherness has to do with both my sexuality and my politics, it is important to me (as someone who cares more about ART than anything else) that my own art reflect a position of change in terms of disrupting the hegemony (and Capitalism) that has fucked everything up to begin with. Art should make you feel things, but if those things you are feeling are ostensibly escapist empathy then the only thing that the work of Art is letting you do is to see yourself (and as anybody with familiarity to art history knows, being able to find yourself in a work of art is the Ultimate bourgeois act), and if all you can see is yourself then change isn’t going to occur.
The easiest way to respond to my little rant here would be to claim that “that’s all fine and ideologically dandy, but sometimes I just want to relax with a book.” And that’s fine. But the idea is that when form itself has broken away from the hegemony, once people can stop seeing “nonsense on the page,” they can start seeing a story told in a way that was not invented and owned by SWBM for the entire time the novel has been in existence. And thus the subaltern have a new voice that is just as easily heard as that of the SWBM.
i feel like maybe this is going to be another one of those “really long comments” that I’ve written that absolutely no one will respond to. I really hope that’s not true, if only in this one case. This is shit that I feel is really really important, and I hope people argue with me and force me to think around my own ideas and response, I’d really like to dialogue about this with intelligent people who might not agree with me, and I feel like this would be a great place to do that.
i feel like maybe this is going to be another one of those “really long comments” that I’ve written that absolutely no one will respond to. I really hope that’s not true, if only in this one case. This is shit that I feel is really really important, and I hope people argue with me and force me to think around my own ideas and response, I’d really like to dialogue about this with intelligent people who might not agree with me, and I feel like this would be a great place to do that.
Experimentalism or what have you isn’t calling for a smarter reader, just one who is willing to invest. Before Grace Paley how would we have read Dylan Landis?
It’s bullshit to say that a story with a narratival focus is “stripped of all the bullshit.” Holy shit is that bullshit. Compare Austen to Woolf.
Of course you like Dear Everybody. I can’t think of many people who are more considerate of audience than MK is. Which isn’t to presume that Ben Marcus is less so.
You like what you like. You just trust yourself to determine what’s good and what’s bad, if those things are important to you.
I disagree with these words with my whole body: “a good story, plainly told. With nothing else in the way,”
A good story, no matter how you designate it, ought to do whatever it can to play with and subvert tradition.
Experimentalism or what have you isn’t calling for a smarter reader, just one who is willing to invest. Before Grace Paley how would we have read Dylan Landis?
It’s bullshit to say that a story with a narratival focus is “stripped of all the bullshit.” Holy shit is that bullshit. Compare Austen to Woolf.
Of course you like Dear Everybody. I can’t think of many people who are more considerate of audience than MK is. Which isn’t to presume that Ben Marcus is less so.
You like what you like. You just trust yourself to determine what’s good and what’s bad, if those things are important to you.
I disagree with these words with my whole body: “a good story, plainly told. With nothing else in the way,”
A good story, no matter how you designate it, ought to do whatever it can to play with and subvert tradition.
I’m sorry about the “You like what you like” part I just wrote. Of course you know that, and it wasn’t intended to render your very good post as value-less. Strike that line.
I’m sorry about the “You like what you like” part I just wrote. Of course you know that, and it wasn’t intended to render your very good post as value-less. Strike that line.
I hope AWP has a htmlgiant panel with Roxane, Jereme, and Adam. I don’t care how much in debt I am…I’d fly out to Denver for that.
I hope AWP has a htmlgiant panel with Roxane, Jereme, and Adam. I don’t care how much in debt I am…I’d fly out to Denver for that.
I question whether people who talk about “narrative fatigue” (or similar concepts) really dislike narrative. I think why they are really saying is that they dislike expected narrative or narrative told in a predictable way. This is the problem with the typical semi-depressed narrator, second-page flashback, domestic realism story that ends on a pretty image and quasi-epiphany. It is just predictable, as predictable and recycled as a hollywood popcorn sequel or a top 40 rock song.
Plenty of experimental work contains just as much narrative though, I think.
For any work of any art to work for me it needs to be somewhat surprising. It has to feel unique and excite me in some way. Formal experimentation is one, but style or story or humor or unique characters are all others.
I can’t say well-crafted but typical works ever excite me much though, in any medium from pop song to short-short. Gimmie some singer with a weird voice or a writer with some weird metaphors instead.
I question whether people who talk about “narrative fatigue” (or similar concepts) really dislike narrative. I think why they are really saying is that they dislike expected narrative or narrative told in a predictable way. This is the problem with the typical semi-depressed narrator, second-page flashback, domestic realism story that ends on a pretty image and quasi-epiphany. It is just predictable, as predictable and recycled as a hollywood popcorn sequel or a top 40 rock song.
Plenty of experimental work contains just as much narrative though, I think.
For any work of any art to work for me it needs to be somewhat surprising. It has to feel unique and excite me in some way. Formal experimentation is one, but style or story or humor or unique characters are all others.
I can’t say well-crafted but typical works ever excite me much though, in any medium from pop song to short-short. Gimmie some singer with a weird voice or a writer with some weird metaphors instead.
I also have to agree with Adam Robinson that a traditional narrative-focused story is not in any way “stripped of all the bullshit” or “without artifice.”
Everytime I hear something like that I think of when George Saunders was talking about realism doesn’t really make much sense as a term and said, to paraphrase, that a story where the pattern on the curtains is a perfect metaphor for the characters declining marriage isn’t really what real life is like.
I’d say these traditional stories have just as much artifice as any other stories. It is merely artifice that we have become habituated to through repetition.
I also have to agree with Adam Robinson that a traditional narrative-focused story is not in any way “stripped of all the bullshit” or “without artifice.”
Everytime I hear something like that I think of when George Saunders was talking about realism doesn’t really make much sense as a term and said, to paraphrase, that a story where the pattern on the curtains is a perfect metaphor for the characters declining marriage isn’t really what real life is like.
I’d say these traditional stories have just as much artifice as any other stories. It is merely artifice that we have become habituated to through repetition.
“Experimentalism or what have you isn’t calling for a smarter reader, just one who is willing to invest.”
Agreed, but I’d also argue that “experimentalism”, broadly speaking, is also there for the more experienced reader (or listener or watcher.) I mean that only literally and not as any judgement. If you don’t really listen to country music (or rap music or punk music or jazz music, etc.), whatever the standard popular stuff is might easily suit you. But the more you invest in a music genre and the more you listen to it, the more you will be bored by bands doing what you’ve heard a million other bands do. You will seek out bands doing different things in the style.
This goes for film or art or writing. The more you read fiction, the more you will want to see its potentials and be excited by new ways it can work.
If you are a one-book-a-year person then you can be surprised and excited by most anything you read, but if you are like most readers here and read several books a month, well it is gonna stop exciting you to read the same stuff.
So I think it is less a matter of intelligence than experience in that particular form.
“Experimentalism or what have you isn’t calling for a smarter reader, just one who is willing to invest.”
Agreed, but I’d also argue that “experimentalism”, broadly speaking, is also there for the more experienced reader (or listener or watcher.) I mean that only literally and not as any judgement. If you don’t really listen to country music (or rap music or punk music or jazz music, etc.), whatever the standard popular stuff is might easily suit you. But the more you invest in a music genre and the more you listen to it, the more you will be bored by bands doing what you’ve heard a million other bands do. You will seek out bands doing different things in the style.
This goes for film or art or writing. The more you read fiction, the more you will want to see its potentials and be excited by new ways it can work.
If you are a one-book-a-year person then you can be surprised and excited by most anything you read, but if you are like most readers here and read several books a month, well it is gonna stop exciting you to read the same stuff.
So I think it is less a matter of intelligence than experience in that particular form.
what i would have said. thx.
what i would have said. thx.
‘Before Grace Paley how would we have read Dylan Landis?’
that’s good.
about HOW realism…
should re-read my posts before hitting submit
‘Before Grace Paley how would we have read Dylan Landis?’
that’s good.
about HOW realism…
should re-read my posts before hitting submit
thanks…jhon. i’d heard great things about the book, heard MK read part of it at a festival, and i went home to read it in one sitting. haven’t gotten so caught up in a book since “in the lake of the woods.”
thanks…jhon. i’d heard great things about the book, heard MK read part of it at a festival, and i went home to read it in one sitting. haven’t gotten so caught up in a book since “in the lake of the woods.”
I’m a straight cracker with moderate views and I agree that art ought to be inscrutable, but not so as to create a code that straight crackers can’t dig, but because no one can dig it. It’s wrong to suggest that just because you’re outside the kingdom, all the other outlaws get what you’re saying.
I’m a straight cracker with moderate views and I agree that art ought to be inscrutable, but not so as to create a code that straight crackers can’t dig, but because no one can dig it. It’s wrong to suggest that just because you’re outside the kingdom, all the other outlaws get what you’re saying.
I guess I’m a little confused by the way you use the term “traditional narrative.” It is true that since the early nineteenth-century the short story and novel have adopted certain conventions that reflect their straight, bourgeois, white male origin. But even the modern novel itself really begins with Don Quixote, which was written as an anti-novel (as a satire on contemporary novels of chivalry). There are novels that are considered experimental because of their structure, like Hesse’s Steppenwolf, their language, like Finnegans Wake, or subject matter, like John Rechy’s City of Night, but all maintain a core element of storytelling. I think you are confusing “traditional narrative,” with conventional (bourgeois) structure, language and subject matter. These can be experimented with; but without the storytelling aspect is there really communication of anything to the reader? Storytelling is the element that needs to be there to keep the (average) reader’s interest. I have no problem with the idea that the traditional short story or novel form is tied to the dominant culture, and in fact can serve as the “opiate of the masses.” But “traditional narrative,” in the sense of telling a story, is transcultural. If one looks at the pre-European contact literature of peoples from the Inuit to the Aboriginal Peoples of Australia, it falls into two categories, song, and “pure” storytelling. Is that not a form of traditional narrative? It seems to me that it is not the idea of telling a story that needs to be challenged, but the narrow conventions of “Western” forms and language.
I guess I’m a little confused by the way you use the term “traditional narrative.” It is true that since the early nineteenth-century the short story and novel have adopted certain conventions that reflect their straight, bourgeois, white male origin. But even the modern novel itself really begins with Don Quixote, which was written as an anti-novel (as a satire on contemporary novels of chivalry). There are novels that are considered experimental because of their structure, like Hesse’s Steppenwolf, their language, like Finnegans Wake, or subject matter, like John Rechy’s City of Night, but all maintain a core element of storytelling. I think you are confusing “traditional narrative,” with conventional (bourgeois) structure, language and subject matter. These can be experimented with; but without the storytelling aspect is there really communication of anything to the reader? Storytelling is the element that needs to be there to keep the (average) reader’s interest. I have no problem with the idea that the traditional short story or novel form is tied to the dominant culture, and in fact can serve as the “opiate of the masses.” But “traditional narrative,” in the sense of telling a story, is transcultural. If one looks at the pre-European contact literature of peoples from the Inuit to the Aboriginal Peoples of Australia, it falls into two categories, song, and “pure” storytelling. Is that not a form of traditional narrative? It seems to me that it is not the idea of telling a story that needs to be challenged, but the narrow conventions of “Western” forms and language.
good points
good points
sorry, nice points. heh
sorry, nice points. heh
yes, i agree. and i’m one of those people, i guess, who likes ‘traditional realism’ over experimental works. but what i like more than anything is story that seems to play by all the ‘traditional realism’ rules, but that somehow isn’t ‘traditional realism’ at all – like, it’s ‘realism’ stripped of any apparatus; a story about stuff happening rather than a character growing or changing or following one of the many ‘arcs’ that a traditional story is supposed to follow.
i’ve been trying to say for some time that there’s a difference between realism and representationalism. don’t have time to go into it, but: representationalism being a story that looks like ‘traditional realism’ or ‘traditional narrative’ but which actually is challenging what such ‘realism’ is. in this way making a story that we are not habituated to but which feels like we should be. i think i probably sound ridiculous saying that.
yes, i agree. and i’m one of those people, i guess, who likes ‘traditional realism’ over experimental works. but what i like more than anything is story that seems to play by all the ‘traditional realism’ rules, but that somehow isn’t ‘traditional realism’ at all – like, it’s ‘realism’ stripped of any apparatus; a story about stuff happening rather than a character growing or changing or following one of the many ‘arcs’ that a traditional story is supposed to follow.
i’ve been trying to say for some time that there’s a difference between realism and representationalism. don’t have time to go into it, but: representationalism being a story that looks like ‘traditional realism’ or ‘traditional narrative’ but which actually is challenging what such ‘realism’ is. in this way making a story that we are not habituated to but which feels like we should be. i think i probably sound ridiculous saying that.
why dont you just like what you like. you don’t have to defend it. i agree with people above re: why are you trying to fit into this htmlg crowd? This crowd is itself trying to fit into a larger crowd that you already squarely fit into.
i hear this all the time, baffling = bad. For me baffling = good. It’s an incredibly liberating feeling to not have to comprehend something the way I’m used to and just experience. The problem is when someone has an insecurity about being the dumb person in the room, youre too worried about seeming dumb to other people. fuck all that. theres no such thing as dumb or smart, i dont know why that is even part of the conversation. there is only experience.
why dont you just like what you like. you don’t have to defend it. i agree with people above re: why are you trying to fit into this htmlg crowd? This crowd is itself trying to fit into a larger crowd that you already squarely fit into.
i hear this all the time, baffling = bad. For me baffling = good. It’s an incredibly liberating feeling to not have to comprehend something the way I’m used to and just experience. The problem is when someone has an insecurity about being the dumb person in the room, youre too worried about seeming dumb to other people. fuck all that. theres no such thing as dumb or smart, i dont know why that is even part of the conversation. there is only experience.
“theres no such thing as dumb or smart…there is only experience.” i mean, this obviously applies to roxane (who i don’t know, but hi) who writes intelligent stuff and always says intelligent things. but it in no way applies to the man who asked me to explain to him the directions on the his frozen lasagna the other day. when you’re trying to make someone understand how to write a check at the bank, yeah, there’s a difference between dumb and smart. oh, but we’re talking about art here, right, so no, doesn’t apply.
“theres no such thing as dumb or smart…there is only experience.” i mean, this obviously applies to roxane (who i don’t know, but hi) who writes intelligent stuff and always says intelligent things. but it in no way applies to the man who asked me to explain to him the directions on the his frozen lasagna the other day. when you’re trying to make someone understand how to write a check at the bank, yeah, there’s a difference between dumb and smart. oh, but we’re talking about art here, right, so no, doesn’t apply.
the idea is not that all the other outlaws automatically get what “i” am saying, but rather than the dominant mode of storytelling is no longer the dominant mode of storytelling. i am not arguing for the eradication of traditional narrative or conventional bourgeois structure, but a societal necessity for all modes of storytelling (whatever that can mean) to have as much of a presence on the literary sphere. if experimental writing as marginal writing is intentionally obtuse for only the sake of obtusity then I think its political value is diminished. i wouldn’t say that intentionally obscure art is no longer art, but i think it works on a different level as what i, at least personally, believe art should be doing.
the idea is not that all the other outlaws automatically get what “i” am saying, but rather than the dominant mode of storytelling is no longer the dominant mode of storytelling. i am not arguing for the eradication of traditional narrative or conventional bourgeois structure, but a societal necessity for all modes of storytelling (whatever that can mean) to have as much of a presence on the literary sphere. if experimental writing as marginal writing is intentionally obtuse for only the sake of obtusity then I think its political value is diminished. i wouldn’t say that intentionally obscure art is no longer art, but i think it works on a different level as what i, at least personally, believe art should be doing.
Roxane,
I love that you brought McClanahan into this post, because I had such a similar reaction when I heard him read recently. The thing about McClanahan, though, is how strange his stories are, which I think is why they function so well. It’s tempting to lump him into the traditional/narrative group because his use of language is often “merely” pragmatic (or pragmatic-seeming). However, the narratives themselves are insane and free-flowing and continually surprising. That’s what excited me so much about McClanahan. Because there’s many different ways that the experienced reader can be surprised. One of those ways, sure, is something experimental, or technically “more difficult,” as in using language in a way it hasn’t been used before (this being the “traditional avant-garde”). Another is by using a narrative that itself is surprising. Out of those two, I think the “traditional avant-garde” is typically regarded as intellectually superior. But which is actually better? Both can be boring, and both can be thrilling. I don’t quite understand why I’m constantly challenged to choose one or the other.
Anyway, I enjoyed the post.
Roxane,
I love that you brought McClanahan into this post, because I had such a similar reaction when I heard him read recently. The thing about McClanahan, though, is how strange his stories are, which I think is why they function so well. It’s tempting to lump him into the traditional/narrative group because his use of language is often “merely” pragmatic (or pragmatic-seeming). However, the narratives themselves are insane and free-flowing and continually surprising. That’s what excited me so much about McClanahan. Because there’s many different ways that the experienced reader can be surprised. One of those ways, sure, is something experimental, or technically “more difficult,” as in using language in a way it hasn’t been used before (this being the “traditional avant-garde”). Another is by using a narrative that itself is surprising. Out of those two, I think the “traditional avant-garde” is typically regarded as intellectually superior. But which is actually better? Both can be boring, and both can be thrilling. I don’t quite understand why I’m constantly challenged to choose one or the other.
Anyway, I enjoyed the post.
While storytelling may not have been initially ‘dominated’ by SWBM, in the last two centuries it certainly has been, and since I would argue the overlap of Late Capitalism and Globalisation or whatever permutation between the two the “current world” is situated in, at his moment, from a Capitalist, & even academic point of view, the SWBM rules all in literature. Thus, I am referring to both “traditional narrative” and conventional bourgeois structure when I cry for the sub-altern.
Well, yes. I think text can transmit affect experientially without inherently telling a story even in the traditional narrative mode as you are defining it. There’s this Brian Evenson quote related:
“…the belief that literature is not primarily about representing something but about experiencing something. Reading is an intensive experience, and this aspect of it can be more important than its mimetic or didactic tendencies. Such literature is not about imitating the world but about creating a new world that the reader experiences. It argues that by careful manipulation of style, syntax and content, the writers has a palpable impact on the reader.”
I think “storytelling” is inherently representational. I also think that the narrow conventions of “Western” forms & language need to be challenged.
While storytelling may not have been initially ‘dominated’ by SWBM, in the last two centuries it certainly has been, and since I would argue the overlap of Late Capitalism and Globalisation or whatever permutation between the two the “current world” is situated in, at his moment, from a Capitalist, & even academic point of view, the SWBM rules all in literature. Thus, I am referring to both “traditional narrative” and conventional bourgeois structure when I cry for the sub-altern.
Well, yes. I think text can transmit affect experientially without inherently telling a story even in the traditional narrative mode as you are defining it. There’s this Brian Evenson quote related:
“…the belief that literature is not primarily about representing something but about experiencing something. Reading is an intensive experience, and this aspect of it can be more important than its mimetic or didactic tendencies. Such literature is not about imitating the world but about creating a new world that the reader experiences. It argues that by careful manipulation of style, syntax and content, the writers has a palpable impact on the reader.”
I think “storytelling” is inherently representational. I also think that the narrow conventions of “Western” forms & language need to be challenged.
Where on earth do I say I’m trying to fit in with the HTMLG crowd? That’s… just not what I’m saying in any way.
Where on earth do I say I’m trying to fit in with the HTMLG crowd? That’s… just not what I’m saying in any way.
Again, I would come back to the idea of communication. If terrorists blow up a building, something is “experienced,” there is a “palpable impact,” and to some extent the bombing itself is the “message.” But without some sort of communiqué about why the building was bombed (“the narrative”), the act is meaningless. This is an extreme example, but the communication aspect is why one uses words instead of paint or a camera. Literature without communication, literature that is simply experience, doesn’t CHANGE anything. Especially not the reader. I guess that I am not only in favor of narrative, but believe that the only reason to give a shit about art is because of its didactic usefulness.
Again, I would come back to the idea of communication. If terrorists blow up a building, something is “experienced,” there is a “palpable impact,” and to some extent the bombing itself is the “message.” But without some sort of communiqué about why the building was bombed (“the narrative”), the act is meaningless. This is an extreme example, but the communication aspect is why one uses words instead of paint or a camera. Literature without communication, literature that is simply experience, doesn’t CHANGE anything. Especially not the reader. I guess that I am not only in favor of narrative, but believe that the only reason to give a shit about art is because of its didactic usefulness.
i inferred it from the whole outlier thing and other people have commented also. i tend to assume if someone feels they are an outlier and attempting to engage in conversation about the very thing in a forum that tends to promote the very thing, then they are trying to not be an outlier anymore, or to fit in. i dont mean personally fit in, just trying to fit in w/r/t literary taste. if all this wrong, then im wrong, sorry.
i inferred it from the whole outlier thing and other people have commented also. i tend to assume if someone feels they are an outlier and attempting to engage in conversation about the very thing in a forum that tends to promote the very thing, then they are trying to not be an outlier anymore, or to fit in. i dont mean personally fit in, just trying to fit in w/r/t literary taste. if all this wrong, then im wrong, sorry.
Ahh, that’s not quite what I meant. I just meant that I often feel like my tastes run differently. I don’t feel badly about this. If I conveyed that, such was not my attention. As I note early in the essay, this is simply an appreciation and a discussion rather than an indictment of anything and in my conclusion I think I make that pretty clear that really, it’s not about traditional or experimental but rather about good writing that speaks to a reader.
Ahh, that’s not quite what I meant. I just meant that I often feel like my tastes run differently. I don’t feel badly about this. If I conveyed that, such was not my attention. As I note early in the essay, this is simply an appreciation and a discussion rather than an indictment of anything and in my conclusion I think I make that pretty clear that really, it’s not about traditional or experimental but rather about good writing that speaks to a reader.
attention=intention
attention=intention
I’m loving all the discussion here. Thanks for the comments, all. Very interesting stuff to talk and think about. I’m crazy busy right now but I will try to respond to some of the meatier comments later.
I’m loving all the discussion here. Thanks for the comments, all. Very interesting stuff to talk and think about. I’m crazy busy right now but I will try to respond to some of the meatier comments later.
it is an indictment though. I mean you say it isn’t at the beginning but all that gets thrown out the window with this: ‘stripped of any bullshit’
From this point on, the reader knows you consider language-y work as bullshit. ‘don’t give a damn about the audience.’ ‘antagonisti.’ this is fiery language. You can’t just say its not an indictment. It is. Its like saying, i dont mean any offense, but fuck you, and i didn’t mean any offense by that.
it is an indictment though. I mean you say it isn’t at the beginning but all that gets thrown out the window with this: ‘stripped of any bullshit’
From this point on, the reader knows you consider language-y work as bullshit. ‘don’t give a damn about the audience.’ ‘antagonisti.’ this is fiery language. You can’t just say its not an indictment. It is. Its like saying, i dont mean any offense, but fuck you, and i didn’t mean any offense by that.
I think what I’m most into is some diversion from typical “romantic” or “victorian” story telling, as these vehicles have been driven for far too long. But what I don’t generally fall so deeply in love with is some abandonment of the purpose of story telling or communication in general. I’m not a giant fan of language poetry, for instance.
It’s my opinion that something semi “entertaining” should be taking place. If I hang around with someone who talks nothing but jibberish, I eventually will distance myself from the person. Ronald Sukenick said that the puropse of reading fiction was to spend time in the mind of the author (paraphrase). I couldn’t agree more, but I don’t spend time with people who cluck away without reason.
I think what typically happens is that those whose fictional purpose is to solely subvert the form assume some form of intellectual high ground, as though by nature of their difficult presentation of language they are elevated to a positon of higher thought, and that those who have difficulty accessing, or decoding, these haphazard trains of logic are intelectually inferior.
But I truly believe that there has to be some relationship with tradition in all art forms.
A slab of concrete, some shards of broken glass, splinters of wood, shingles, a toilet, and a door knob strown together in a predesignated space is not a fucking house.
I will never stand on piles of ingredients for a house and say, “Wow, this is such an awesome house,” becuase piles of parts of things aren’t things. They’re piles of parts of things.
But some would look at me on the pile bitching about the lack of house, shake their heads and say, “He just doesn’t get it.”
But hey, let them enjoy the rubble.
I think what I’m most into is some diversion from typical “romantic” or “victorian” story telling, as these vehicles have been driven for far too long. But what I don’t generally fall so deeply in love with is some abandonment of the purpose of story telling or communication in general. I’m not a giant fan of language poetry, for instance.
It’s my opinion that something semi “entertaining” should be taking place. If I hang around with someone who talks nothing but jibberish, I eventually will distance myself from the person. Ronald Sukenick said that the puropse of reading fiction was to spend time in the mind of the author (paraphrase). I couldn’t agree more, but I don’t spend time with people who cluck away without reason.
I think what typically happens is that those whose fictional purpose is to solely subvert the form assume some form of intellectual high ground, as though by nature of their difficult presentation of language they are elevated to a positon of higher thought, and that those who have difficulty accessing, or decoding, these haphazard trains of logic are intelectually inferior.
But I truly believe that there has to be some relationship with tradition in all art forms.
A slab of concrete, some shards of broken glass, splinters of wood, shingles, a toilet, and a door knob strown together in a predesignated space is not a fucking house.
I will never stand on piles of ingredients for a house and say, “Wow, this is such an awesome house,” becuase piles of parts of things aren’t things. They’re piles of parts of things.
But some would look at me on the pile bitching about the lack of house, shake their heads and say, “He just doesn’t get it.”
But hey, let them enjoy the rubble.
Well, you can certainly take it that way. I don’t think language-y writing is bullshit but I do think some “experimental” work is bullshit and antagonistic but I also think the same thing about certain non-experimental works. It’s more an indictment of bad writing but I think that’s all I have to say about that. I’m pretty sure you will always find a reason to disagree with me (and vice versa).
Well, you can certainly take it that way. I don’t think language-y writing is bullshit but I do think some “experimental” work is bullshit and antagonistic but I also think the same thing about certain non-experimental works. It’s more an indictment of bad writing but I think that’s all I have to say about that. I’m pretty sure you will always find a reason to disagree with me (and vice versa).
@ “bad writing”: There will be a ‘slogan’ on the credits page of the first issue of Pop Serial magazine and it will read: “SAY IT! NO ‘GOOD’ OR ‘BAD’ IN ART”
@ “bad writing”: There will be a ‘slogan’ on the credits page of the first issue of Pop Serial magazine and it will read: “SAY IT! NO ‘GOOD’ OR ‘BAD’ IN ART”
I recently did an informal tabulation of subjects of stories in a random number of on-line (mostly flash) journals. The three subjects and the frequency with which they appeared are as follows:
Number of stories where the plot is basically somebody musing on whether he or she still loves his or her partner 23
Number of stories about someone being abused by a boss at work 2
Number of stories about someone losing their job, home, or health insurance because of the economy 1
I recently did an informal tabulation of subjects of stories in a random number of on-line (mostly flash) journals. The three subjects and the frequency with which they appeared are as follows:
Number of stories where the plot is basically somebody musing on whether he or she still loves his or her partner 23
Number of stories about someone being abused by a boss at work 2
Number of stories about someone losing their job, home, or health insurance because of the economy 1
Thanks, Roxane, and everyone else. Awesomely helpful thoughts. Even though my own experience of “Little House” was rendered Languagey and fragmented by scattered viewings through different lenses, narrative almost seems like a neurotransmitter all its own, and it’s remarkable to me how automatic the urge is to apply narrative to texts, whether they do or don’t seem to want it.
Thanks, Roxane, and everyone else. Awesomely helpful thoughts. Even though my own experience of “Little House” was rendered Languagey and fragmented by scattered viewings through different lenses, narrative almost seems like a neurotransmitter all its own, and it’s remarkable to me how automatic the urge is to apply narrative to texts, whether they do or don’t seem to want it.
Chad we really are conditioned to apply narrative to texts. That’s a really great statement and one I’m going to continue to think about.
Chad we really are conditioned to apply narrative to texts. That’s a really great statement and one I’m going to continue to think about.
Roxane, great article! Definitely some strong insight here. I’m not quite sure how I feel about narrative fatigue, but this is something I’ll think about while writing. Thanks!
Roxane, great article! Definitely some strong insight here. I’m not quite sure how I feel about narrative fatigue, but this is something I’ll think about while writing. Thanks!
[…] today Roxane posted about the merits of what she called “good stories.” She also invoked a discussion of […]
I’m with you on the whole “completely stripped of any bullshit” bullshit. Realism written in the minimalist style reflect a series of creative choices. A different set of choices than the postmodern collagist or the political satirist, etc. but choices all the same. The issue here is style. Realists seldom self-identify as stylists and when boxed into a corner will usually tell you they traffic in the truth. Scratch a dirty realist, find a lazy critic.
I’m with you on the whole “completely stripped of any bullshit” bullshit. Realism written in the minimalist style reflect a series of creative choices. A different set of choices than the postmodern collagist or the political satirist, etc. but choices all the same. The issue here is style. Realists seldom self-identify as stylists and when boxed into a corner will usually tell you they traffic in the truth. Scratch a dirty realist, find a lazy critic.
I’m in classes with tons of experimental poets, and I constantly feel the same as you when I read their workshop pieces. The classes with a fiction writer/poet split make me feel dumb. Too much “theory” for my brain. It’s like I’m visiting an alien world. I’m just interested in the nuts and bolts, about how to improve my fiction. Content and technique and whatever. Not all this crazy shit.
I like some experimental fiction. “Fun” stuff like Jesse Ball or more linear like Steve Erickson and more whatever like Stephen Dixon. I think a lot of the “experimental” authors who I like don’t like being classified this way.
I didn’t know there was a distinction between “experimental fiction” and “experimental prose” until I started my MFA. Experimental prose isn’t concerned with “story” and “character.” It’s pretty much poetry in prose form. In a long form. Not exactly how I classify prose poetry since I’m really into poets Russel Edson and James Tate (new stuff).
I think there’s a way to do experimental writing and still be accessible to the reader, and this is what writers should strive for.
I’m in classes with tons of experimental poets, and I constantly feel the same as you when I read their workshop pieces. The classes with a fiction writer/poet split make me feel dumb. Too much “theory” for my brain. It’s like I’m visiting an alien world. I’m just interested in the nuts and bolts, about how to improve my fiction. Content and technique and whatever. Not all this crazy shit.
I like some experimental fiction. “Fun” stuff like Jesse Ball or more linear like Steve Erickson and more whatever like Stephen Dixon. I think a lot of the “experimental” authors who I like don’t like being classified this way.
I didn’t know there was a distinction between “experimental fiction” and “experimental prose” until I started my MFA. Experimental prose isn’t concerned with “story” and “character.” It’s pretty much poetry in prose form. In a long form. Not exactly how I classify prose poetry since I’m really into poets Russel Edson and James Tate (new stuff).
I think there’s a way to do experimental writing and still be accessible to the reader, and this is what writers should strive for.
Ah. The conventional and the experimental each have their own aesthetic booby-traps, and us youngins are quite susceptible. I wouldn’t get to down on it—they’re just working their stuff out.
Ah. The conventional and the experimental each have their own aesthetic booby-traps, and us youngins are quite susceptible. I wouldn’t get to down on it—they’re just working their stuff out.
[…] for this sensuous and likely embryonic blab. I’ll also adopt the third person here. Roxane, at the top of her post, said that it wasn’t an condemnation of experimental literature, and then, in my reading of […]
This one got me a little worked up:
http://joshuaharmon.blogspot.com/2010/03/on-artifice-simple-stories.html
This one got me a little worked up:
http://joshuaharmon.blogspot.com/2010/03/on-artifice-simple-stories.html
[…] wrote about my love for Little House on the Prairie, Dear Everybody and Normal People Don’t Live […]
“A lot of writing confuses me. It is difficult to talk about this confusion for fear of seeming unintelligent or unsophisticated or intellectually lazy.”
You know, I was a bit scared about writing that not-exactly-positive review of JA Tyler’s book because I was so sure everyone would jump all over me shouting ‘YOU DON’T GET IT. YOU ARE STUPID’ and then I’d never be able to read or write anything again. But actually I felt better for saying ‘hey, I don’t get this’. I wish more people would admit that.
“A lot of writing confuses me. It is difficult to talk about this confusion for fear of seeming unintelligent or unsophisticated or intellectually lazy.”
You know, I was a bit scared about writing that not-exactly-positive review of JA Tyler’s book because I was so sure everyone would jump all over me shouting ‘YOU DON’T GET IT. YOU ARE STUPID’ and then I’d never be able to read or write anything again. But actually I felt better for saying ‘hey, I don’t get this’. I wish more people would admit that.
[…] 1, 2010 by Ethel Rohan At HTMLGIANT, I read Roxane Gay’s post here and Chistopher Higg’s rebuttal […]
i have 5%.
i have 5%.
[…] Links WordPress.com WordPress.org what is a traditional story? April 1, 2010, 6:44 pm Filed under: Uncategorized Roxanne Gay provides her take here. […]