I Like __ A Lot
I like Stephen Dixon a lot
Stephen Dixon’s stories, like Beckett’s, flourish despite — or perhaps because of — their constraints. There’s probably a better way to talk about it, but I think of it as ‘dense minimalism,’ wherein scarcity is conveyed through excessive means in writing. I’ve been very interested in Dixon ’s methods and with this post I will try to investigate him formally. To do this, I will use three fairly random (of course, I had to find something to get the point across, but the search was pretty casual) excerpts from 30: Pieces of a novel. My goal is to convey how constructed his narrative space is. The blockquotes are sentences from 30: Pieces of a novel.
He looks at the postcard she must have written last night before she came to bed.
Here Dixon uses a postcard to contradict, or at least bring into question, the location and relationship of the characters. He looks at the postcard she must have written alludes to the traditional orientation one has with a postcard, that it was sent from far away. The end of the sentence […] last night before she came to bed explains that ‘she’ who wrote the postcard was with him, bringing to question: Is it a postcard she wrote a long time ago that he kept? Is the unsent postcard written for another person? Who? Do they communicate in-person via postcards? There is an enormous juxtaposition of space – the breadth of a postcard’s implications to the intimacy of sharing a bed. With one simple sentence, Dixon has traversed/implicated miles and years.
He could do nothing today. Yesterday he could do nothing too.
Dixon could have simply wrote “He could do nothing,” but instead, opted to use both sentences to suggest a pattern. Could he do something/nothing the day before yesterday? What about tomorrow? With Dixon, every turn of phrase and oblique juxtaposition is constructed. His sentences are small compact riddles, that when solved, get you half way to solving the story itself, which is another matter entirely. His structure reminds me of Faulkner’s omnipresent subjectivities (i.e. multiple unreliable narrators forming an objective account) happening all at once. His stories tend to start in the middle, and end at the beginning, so it’s read like 2 – 3 – 1 instead of 1 – 2 – 3.
On the street she pushes the wheelchair about twenty feet toward Columbus Avenue and then says, “Something’s not working, I can’t go any further. Let me sit.”
Again, he uses a signifier (this time a wheelchair) to thwart reader’s expectations. A wheelchair is meant to be pushed by a non-owner, someone who doesn’t need a wheelchair. It isn’t until ‘Let me sit’ that we know ‘she’ has been pushing the wheelchair herself. “Something’s not working” may be a description of either the wheelchair or the person’s leg/hip/foot etc. Dixon, again, describes a very complex matter in an extremely prosaic manner. This at heart, I think, is what Dixon ’s writing is about – the exploration (and exploitation) of language’s constraints in the telling of unlikely truths. I like Stephen Dixon a lot.
Tags: 30: Pieces from a Novel, Stephen Dixon
His best story is “The Apology.” You should post on the way that one moves time forward. And, Jesus, when will Melville House finally come out with the promised 3-volume Uncollected Stories set? Hurry, hurry, Melville House!
His best story is “The Apology.” You should post on the way that one moves time forward. And, Jesus, when will Melville House finally come out with the promised 3-volume Uncollected Stories set? Hurry, hurry, Melville House!
good point nate. crap, i should have done that.
good point nate. crap, i should have done that.
I love Dixon when I read him yet at the same time haven’t read many of his actual books.
Any suggestions?
I love Dixon when I read him yet at the same time haven’t read many of his actual books.
Any suggestions?
my favorites are ‘movies’ and ‘I.’
my favorites are ‘movies’ and ‘I.’
I. and End of I. are good places to start, but they’re late career. Interstate is the most accessible of his famous books. Frog can be a slog, I’m afraid, and ditto Gould and 30. The Collected Stories is a good sampling of the career arc, early to mid. Sleep is a good later collection. Too Late is a good earlyish book, and shows what he can do if he wants to try something genreish.
Philip Roth notably rips off signature Dixonian techniques in The Counterlife and American Pastoral. Roth is a more ambitious, more important, and more well-rounded author. Dixon can be actually a better writer. Roth’s canvas is major, big. Dixon’s canvas is often minor, small. “The Apology,” his best work (in I.) is a major accomplishment, and a better short story than any Roth ever wrote.
Why do we have to compare? I’m a moron.
I. and End of I. are good places to start, but they’re late career. Interstate is the most accessible of his famous books. Frog can be a slog, I’m afraid, and ditto Gould and 30. The Collected Stories is a good sampling of the career arc, early to mid. Sleep is a good later collection. Too Late is a good earlyish book, and shows what he can do if he wants to try something genreish.
Philip Roth notably rips off signature Dixonian techniques in The Counterlife and American Pastoral. Roth is a more ambitious, more important, and more well-rounded author. Dixon can be actually a better writer. Roth’s canvas is major, big. Dixon’s canvas is often minor, small. “The Apology,” his best work (in I.) is a major accomplishment, and a better short story than any Roth ever wrote.
Why do we have to compare? I’m a moron.
interesting take and roth/dixon. i would have never thought of that. but i didn’t read either two roth books you mentioned.
interesting take and roth/dixon. i would have never thought of that. but i didn’t read either two roth books you mentioned.
good post jimmy, i think you nailed the way he nails big things in clean phrases
my favorite, or at least one of them is ‘the switch’ from I., the way he uses perspective in that for the creation of empathy is insanely great, and i’ve never seen it done elsewhere in such a way
i have read a lot of dixon and still think i. is him at the height of what he can do
good post jimmy, i think you nailed the way he nails big things in clean phrases
my favorite, or at least one of them is ‘the switch’ from I., the way he uses perspective in that for the creation of empathy is insanely great, and i’ve never seen it done elsewhere in such a way
i have read a lot of dixon and still think i. is him at the height of what he can do
his empathy hurts.
and he has empathy for the reader — for not having empathy for the characters (usually invalids). it’s just a big messy pile of empathy it’s disgusting.
Oh, yes, The Switch! I forgot about that one, and, wowie-wow, it’s almost as good as the apology
his empathy hurts.
and he has empathy for the reader — for not having empathy for the characters (usually invalids). it’s just a big messy pile of empathy it’s disgusting.
Oh, yes, The Switch! I forgot about that one, and, wowie-wow, it’s almost as good as the apology
well those two are sitting on my shelf, I should get on it
well those two are sitting on my shelf, I should get on it
someone blog about uh the revolutionary road movie, plleeeeeease
ryan call i’m looking at you baby!
the books by him that affected me most emotionally were maybe ‘old friends’ and ‘meyer’ and ‘fall and rise’
i like the cover of ‘old friends’
i like his short story where a disfigured person gets attacked or something and then the police chase him by accident thinking he did something wrong and shoots him in the face in the woods (my summary is wrong, i forget the story title)
the books by him that affected me most emotionally were maybe ‘old friends’ and ‘meyer’ and ‘fall and rise’
i like the cover of ‘old friends’
i like his short story where a disfigured person gets attacked or something and then the police chase him by accident thinking he did something wrong and shoots him in the face in the woods (my summary is wrong, i forget the story title)
I put Frog down. It felt too big for my brain. I’m sure I’ll come back to it, I really like what he does with literature.
I put Frog down. It felt too big for my brain. I’m sure I’ll come back to it, I really like what he does with literature.
Dixon on Bernhard
http://raintaxi.com/online/1997winter/dixon.shtml
“Perhaps even to call this an essay is absurd, though to call it inconsequential and minor isn’t. But I hope I just did what I always like to do and that’s to belittle my own work and show myself as a writer who’s part bumbling semimoron. And also done what I’ve never done in print before, so far as I can remember, and my memory isn’t that good, and that is to plug the work of someone else and write even in the most exaggerated definition of the word an essay.”
Dixon on Bernhard
http://raintaxi.com/online/1997winter/dixon.shtml
“Perhaps even to call this an essay is absurd, though to call it inconsequential and minor isn’t. But I hope I just did what I always like to do and that’s to belittle my own work and show myself as a writer who’s part bumbling semimoron. And also done what I’ve never done in print before, so far as I can remember, and my memory isn’t that good, and that is to plug the work of someone else and write even in the most exaggerated definition of the word an essay.”
oh, when people agree with you conversations on literature are appropriate.
word.
oh, when people agree with you conversations on literature are appropriate.
word.
Wow. I haven’t read him in ages and he is one of those I confuse with Millhauser and some other dudes because I am easily confused.
I found the part comparing Roth’s books the counterlife and american pastoral with dixon’s work intriguing- those books were not written anywhere near each other timewise. Like, 20 years apart? I love both those novels. Anway, I like the whole “influence”theories, not in a ” you stole!” way, but just in a cool connect the dots way.
Wow. I haven’t read him in ages and he is one of those I confuse with Millhauser and some other dudes because I am easily confused.
I found the part comparing Roth’s books the counterlife and american pastoral with dixon’s work intriguing- those books were not written anywhere near each other timewise. Like, 20 years apart? I love both those novels. Anway, I like the whole “influence”theories, not in a ” you stole!” way, but just in a cool connect the dots way.
i’m sorry J. for disappointing you.
i’m sorry J. for disappointing you.
I’m just raggin you chen, Dixon is good stuff.
I’m just raggin you chen, Dixon is good stuff.
One time I had diarrhea! I had to shit all fucking day!
One time I had diarrhea! I had to shit all fucking day!
i read I a couple months ago and liked it quite a bit, but there were parts where i laughed and felt like maybe i shouldn’t have been…
i read I a couple months ago and liked it quite a bit, but there were parts where i laughed and felt like maybe i shouldn’t have been…