Behind the Scenes
Risk sentimentality.
A nice piece of advice that started with Colum McCann, given to Marlon James, and then repeated in an interview conducted by Maud Newton.
The relationship is at least as gripping as what happens between Mr. Rochester and Jane Eyre but fundamentally doomed. Was it difficult to write?
Oh my god it was the hardest thing I’ve ever written in my life. I remember calling friends shouting, “I just wrote a love scene! All they do is kiss!” to which they would respond, “. . . and are they then dismembered?” and I’d go, “No, after that they dance!” It was hard. I resisted it for as long as I could because I didn’t believe in it at first, and even when I did, I couldn’t figure out how to write it. Not until Irish novelist Colum McCann gave me permission by giving me the best writing advice I’ve ever gotten from a writer: Risk Sentimentality.
There’s a belief that sex is the hardest thing for a literary novelist but I disagree: love is. We’re so scared of descending into mush that I think we end up with a just-as-bad opposite, love stories devoid of any emotional quality. But love can work in so many ways without having to resort to that word. Someone once scared me by saying that love isn’t saying “I love you” but calling to say “did you eat?” (And then proceeded to ask me this for the next 6 months). My point being that, in this novel at least, relationships come not through words, but gestures like the overseer wanting to cuddle.
The rest of the interview is here.
Tags: Marlon James, Sentimentality
This is fantastic advice and now I want to read James’s book. Even “risk emotional involvement” or “risk”, and not in terms of language, but in terms of emotional intensity. And yeah, if its mush, then- you can cut it, or try to fix it. Now I just need to take his advice, because I would say it’s easier not to.
I saw Marlon touring with Trinie Dalton for this book. Seemed like pretty good book, but I didn’t get a chance to read it.
I saw Marlon touring with Trinie Dalton for this book. Seemed like pretty good book, but I didn’t get a chance to read it.
Looks good. I couldn’t get through Earl Lovelace, to whom they compare him. But I love Edwidge Danticat and reading about the Caribbean in general,as I spend a lot of time in that part of the world. Anyway, love is harder to write about undoubtedly, far riskier- and far riskier in life, too. I would say one the few times fiction/real life stuff coincide.
I too think it’s excellent advice, but I read it slightly more narrowly, to suggest that risking an emotional pitch that borders on sentimentality is the way to really charge writing with emotional intensity. Emotional involvement should be there as a matter of course–and there’s risk in that, in a broad, existential way–but I think his observation is that peoples’ fear of sentimentality and melodrama is excessive in some contemporary writing. (Not everywhere, of course, as Mary Gaitskill’s new collection, for example, reminds us.)
I too think it’s excellent advice, but I read it slightly more narrowly, to suggest that risking an emotional pitch that borders on sentimentality is the way to really charge writing with emotional intensity. Emotional involvement should be there as a matter of course–and there’s risk in that, in a broad, existential way–but I think his observation is that peoples’ fear of sentimentality and melodrama is excessive in some contemporary writing. (Not everywhere, of course, as Mary Gaitskill’s new collection, for example, reminds us.)
On the nose, I think, Shya. Someone needs to diagnose the sometimes irrational fear of sentimentality we seem to encourage.
On the nose, I think, Shya. Someone needs to diagnose the sometimes irrational fear of sentimentality we seem to encourage.
Irony
Irony
cynicism too maybe
Your thoughts on this: http://htmlgiant.com/?p=6842 ?
Your thoughts on this: http://htmlgiant.com/?p=6842 ?
Good question, Ken. The concept of “sentimentality” has become so loaded that Lock can dismiss it in a four word parenthetical statement.
John Irving quotes George Santayana here:
“And to those who contend that no one was ever so sentimental, or that there was no one ever like Wemmick or Jaggers or Bentley Drummle, to name a few, Santayana says: ‘The polite world is lying; there are such people; we are such people ourselves in our true moments, in our veritable impulses; but we are careful to stifle and hide those moments from ourselves and from the world; to purse and pucker ourselves into the mask of conventional personality; and so simpering, we profess that it is very coarse and inartistic of Dickens to undo our life’s work for us in an instant, and remind us of what we are.'”
Good question, Ken. The concept of “sentimentality” has become so loaded that Lock can dismiss it in a four word parenthetical statement.
John Irving quotes George Santayana here:
“And to those who contend that no one was ever so sentimental, or that there was no one ever like Wemmick or Jaggers or Bentley Drummle, to name a few, Santayana says: ‘The polite world is lying; there are such people; we are such people ourselves in our true moments, in our veritable impulses; but we are careful to stifle and hide those moments from ourselves and from the world; to purse and pucker ourselves into the mask of conventional personality; and so simpering, we profess that it is very coarse and inartistic of Dickens to undo our life’s work for us in an instant, and remind us of what we are.'”
You know, I just realized that this advice sums up, in a different way than I explained to you, Matthew, when asked about my recent influences, what I learned by reading Tom Drury. He risks sentimentality to give dimension to his characters, and as a result (though occasionally lapsing into that very thing), his prose feels vibrant and sensual and real. And hilarious. But not always in a laugh out loud way. More in the way you find a loved one’s foibles or habits endearing. So quickly did I associate and sympathize with Drury’s characters, in other words, that I was able to view their behavior as if through the lens of historical familiarity. A lot of this, I’d argue, has to do with risking sentimentality.
You know, I just realized that this advice sums up, in a different way than I explained to you, Matthew, when asked about my recent influences, what I learned by reading Tom Drury. He risks sentimentality to give dimension to his characters, and as a result (though occasionally lapsing into that very thing), his prose feels vibrant and sensual and real. And hilarious. But not always in a laugh out loud way. More in the way you find a loved one’s foibles or habits endearing. So quickly did I associate and sympathize with Drury’s characters, in other words, that I was able to view their behavior as if through the lens of historical familiarity. A lot of this, I’d argue, has to do with risking sentimentality.
I used to think Kerouac’s writing was soulful, before I realized it was just overly-sentimental, like that old Wolfean romanticism. Now I wonder what the difference is.
I used to think Kerouac’s writing was soulful, before I realized it was just overly-sentimental, like that old Wolfean romanticism. Now I wonder what the difference is.
Yes. I like that.
Yes. I like that.