September 29th, 2009 / 2:44 pm
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12) We can’t care about sand mutants; if you do, or think you do, kill yourself.
(#12 of Frederick Barthelme’s 39 Steps via Gary Percesepe at PANK)
Ryan Call
September 29th, 2009 / 2:44 pm
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September 29th, 2009 / 2:44 pm
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i got a rule for F. Barthelme: “We can’t care about more than one book about old white dudes fucking young weird white women in apartments; if you think they do, or do yourself, I don’t know, think about something else?”
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or kill yourself
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I might be able to care about sand mutants. Once I cared about a very old man with enormous wings
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i think that, provided i get a good plot and characterization of the sand mutant, that i would care about the sand mutant, especially if he also didn’t like his job, or maybe had a rough romantic relationship with someone, maybe even another sand mutant.
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Isn’t a sand mutant just what happens to a normal person after the cataclysmic combo of climate change drought and long-term industrial pollution in a populated area? Hasn’t George Saunders written about mutants (not sand, but still) in a way that would probably be okay with Frederick Barthelme?
Also, NO. 40: 39 rules is too many rules for fiction-writers, or any writers. I say this even as I could probably keep a few of his in mind when I’m getting carried away trying to ignore the idea of there being rules. And I realize that these 39 rules really just make up Barthelme’s aesthetic viewpoint, but he’s the one calling it a primer (primers generally being intended for the non-participant or person with new interest).
I think I would like to have seen this list revised or annotated by Donald Barthelme.
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September 29th, 2009 / 7:57 pmBlake Butler—
I second that emotion
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