With any luck, Rhian will come roaring in here later with a proper post, but for now I wanted to direct your attention to The Litlab, where I just posted a selection of experimental writing from Skoog's students at Idyllwild Arts Academy. Skoog has got some talented kids under his wing, and his mad lit skills only make them more so.
The Litlab winter hiatus is over, so if you've got something good, please send it in!
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Who Should Review Books? And Where?
Posting has been light lately, as W6HQ has been overwhelmed with scheduling oddities, including one of us (Rhian) working the polls for Super Tuesday. Personally, I threw in for Obama. Hillary looks just as good on paper, if not better (Paul Krugman is very persuasive on the subject of their competing health care plans), but Obama's got the mojo, and America could use a little of that stuff right now. In any event, tonight's result will neither make my day nor break my heart.
What would make my day, though, is the magical appearance of excellent book reviews all across the land. Fat chance of that! I don't think there's any aspect of literary culture that people complain about more than book reviews. The superstar reviewers are routinely disdained, sometimes because their superstar status seems undeserved, mostly because, if you disagree with them, their prominence only serves to remind you how powerless you and your opinion really are. Everyone hates The New York Times Book Review--in part because they're the primary popular book section in the country, but mostly because they let lightweight writers review other lightweight writers, resulting in embarrassing over-praising of work that shouldn't be featured in the first place. And because, ever since McGrath swept through town, they appear to consider fiction and poetry to be less important than nonfiction. And then there are the jacket-blurb factories, Kirkus et al., who review book many months before they're published, and can cause entire publicity departments to give up on a writer in an instant--all under an anonymous catchall that leaves nobody at all responsible. We do, of course, have The New York Review of Books, Bookforum, The London Review of Books--genuinely excellent publications that nevertheless are not widely read by the masses of people we hope will want to buy our books. These magazines are about as good as book reviewing gets, but they leave me unsatisfied--not in my reading of them, which is enjoyable, but in the way they make me long for writing that was more succinct but just as intelligent, and widely available.
What do I really want in a critic? I used to think that professional critics were no good--that writers should be judged by other writers. But that's even worse--the whole thing would just be horribly incestuous and overwhelmed by blatant logrolling and the discharging of vendettas.
No, what I want is for smart readers to review books. Intelligent, incisive people who praise reluctantly, criticize respectfully, and take the time to figure out what makes a writer tick. The reviews of my own work which I most treasure are not necessarily positive--indeed, the best one ever went out of its way to observe how undercooked my first couple of novels were--but rigorous, respectful, honest, and even-handed. And these are rare.
The best thing said in recent years about critics was said by a critic: Anton Ego, of the Pixar movie Ratatouille, which I consider to be very nearly a masterpiece of a flick. (You should see it if you haven't--it's a children's picture about artistic integrity!) Over the closing scenes, the dour Frenchman intones:
The discovery and defense of the new! That's what book reviewing should be all about--accepting the new and different at face value, and trying to judge it on its own terms. If it falls flat, so be it--but take it seriously.
Rhian might already have said this, but I think she's right--some of the most useful book reviewing of recent years has appeared in the customer comments of Amazon.com. (I don't need to hotlink that, right?) It's true! There are smart people on there, saying what they think, without guile, without preconceptions. Of course, most customer comments are crap, or worse, but it turns out to be very easy to weed these out. The good ones are by readers who are rooting for the new and interesting--they want books to be excellent, because they want to have a good time reading them. They're not getting paid, either--they're offering up their opinions because their opinions mean something to them, and they want them out there.
The internet is not entirely there yet, I think, as an organ of cultural evaluation. It needs to develop a history, a track record. But it's coming along. People bitch about bloggers all the time, but we don't need less of them--we need more. It doesn't matter if most of them suck. Most of everything sucks. What matters is that they're honest. And this is increasingly how I feel about book reviews--excellence would be wonderful, but when you get down to it, shitty honesty is better than brilliant disingenuousness.
Now go Barack the vote!
What would make my day, though, is the magical appearance of excellent book reviews all across the land. Fat chance of that! I don't think there's any aspect of literary culture that people complain about more than book reviews. The superstar reviewers are routinely disdained, sometimes because their superstar status seems undeserved, mostly because, if you disagree with them, their prominence only serves to remind you how powerless you and your opinion really are. Everyone hates The New York Times Book Review--in part because they're the primary popular book section in the country, but mostly because they let lightweight writers review other lightweight writers, resulting in embarrassing over-praising of work that shouldn't be featured in the first place. And because, ever since McGrath swept through town, they appear to consider fiction and poetry to be less important than nonfiction. And then there are the jacket-blurb factories, Kirkus et al., who review book many months before they're published, and can cause entire publicity departments to give up on a writer in an instant--all under an anonymous catchall that leaves nobody at all responsible. We do, of course, have The New York Review of Books, Bookforum, The London Review of Books--genuinely excellent publications that nevertheless are not widely read by the masses of people we hope will want to buy our books. These magazines are about as good as book reviewing gets, but they leave me unsatisfied--not in my reading of them, which is enjoyable, but in the way they make me long for writing that was more succinct but just as intelligent, and widely available.
What do I really want in a critic? I used to think that professional critics were no good--that writers should be judged by other writers. But that's even worse--the whole thing would just be horribly incestuous and overwhelmed by blatant logrolling and the discharging of vendettas.
No, what I want is for smart readers to review books. Intelligent, incisive people who praise reluctantly, criticize respectfully, and take the time to figure out what makes a writer tick. The reviews of my own work which I most treasure are not necessarily positive--indeed, the best one ever went out of its way to observe how undercooked my first couple of novels were--but rigorous, respectful, honest, and even-handed. And these are rare.
The best thing said in recent years about critics was said by a critic: Anton Ego, of the Pixar movie Ratatouille, which I consider to be very nearly a masterpiece of a flick. (You should see it if you haven't--it's a children's picture about artistic integrity!) Over the closing scenes, the dour Frenchman intones:
In many ways the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgement. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But, the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things... the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something... and that is in the discovery and defense of the new.
The discovery and defense of the new! That's what book reviewing should be all about--accepting the new and different at face value, and trying to judge it on its own terms. If it falls flat, so be it--but take it seriously.
Rhian might already have said this, but I think she's right--some of the most useful book reviewing of recent years has appeared in the customer comments of Amazon.com. (I don't need to hotlink that, right?) It's true! There are smart people on there, saying what they think, without guile, without preconceptions. Of course, most customer comments are crap, or worse, but it turns out to be very easy to weed these out. The good ones are by readers who are rooting for the new and interesting--they want books to be excellent, because they want to have a good time reading them. They're not getting paid, either--they're offering up their opinions because their opinions mean something to them, and they want them out there.
The internet is not entirely there yet, I think, as an organ of cultural evaluation. It needs to develop a history, a track record. But it's coming along. People bitch about bloggers all the time, but we don't need less of them--we need more. It doesn't matter if most of them suck. Most of everything sucks. What matters is that they're honest. And this is increasingly how I feel about book reviews--excellence would be wonderful, but when you get down to it, shitty honesty is better than brilliant disingenuousness.
Now go Barack the vote!
Sunday, February 3, 2008
A Very Weird Book
Our frenemy and resident gadfly, Max, suggested we read Alan Harrington's The Revelations of Dr. Modesto, so I tracked it down. It sounded pretty interesting: first published in 1955, it's about a loser salesman who writes away for the secrets of success from the back of a magazine, follows the advice to the letter, and becomes wildly if unhappily successful. He then goes on a bizarre trek to find the mysterious Dr. Modesto. It reminded me a lot of The Phantom Tollbooth, actually: they're both picaresques peopled with irrational characters.
This isn't a book about people so much as it is about ideas -- and one gets the impression, reading it, of ideas slamming into each other and bouncing off walls like bumpercars. The main idea is Dr. Modesto's "Centralism," which claims one can achieve success by being as close to "average" as possible -- dressing, acting, and speaking as much like the norm as one can, including living in the middle of town and mirroring people's needs and desires back to them. Of course this kind of success is shown to be meaningless and a charade, and Dr. Modesto a lunatic. It must have seemed terribly subversive at the time, and indeed it predicts the popular overthrow of "square" culture pretty accurately.
The best thing about this novel is the writing, which is often stunning. It makes me wish the story itself weren't so jangled and pressured and trying to make a point. Novels are all conversations with their culture, aren't they? But some novels address larger and more universal questions (war, say, and peace), others take on smaller, individual questions, and still others are about the passing mood of a society. The latter books don't always wear as well over time. We're much more cynical and knowing about conformity now, and the topic even seems a bit tired in YA novels.
Harrington, who hung out with the Beat crowd, apparently later became obsessed with the idea that our society was being taken over by psychopaths. True enough, as it turns out. I wonder if his anger and consternation at the culture of the time overwhelmed his more literary tendencies. Well, I certainly empathize.
This isn't a book about people so much as it is about ideas -- and one gets the impression, reading it, of ideas slamming into each other and bouncing off walls like bumpercars. The main idea is Dr. Modesto's "Centralism," which claims one can achieve success by being as close to "average" as possible -- dressing, acting, and speaking as much like the norm as one can, including living in the middle of town and mirroring people's needs and desires back to them. Of course this kind of success is shown to be meaningless and a charade, and Dr. Modesto a lunatic. It must have seemed terribly subversive at the time, and indeed it predicts the popular overthrow of "square" culture pretty accurately.
The best thing about this novel is the writing, which is often stunning. It makes me wish the story itself weren't so jangled and pressured and trying to make a point. Novels are all conversations with their culture, aren't they? But some novels address larger and more universal questions (war, say, and peace), others take on smaller, individual questions, and still others are about the passing mood of a society. The latter books don't always wear as well over time. We're much more cynical and knowing about conformity now, and the topic even seems a bit tired in YA novels.
Harrington, who hung out with the Beat crowd, apparently later became obsessed with the idea that our society was being taken over by psychopaths. True enough, as it turns out. I wonder if his anger and consternation at the culture of the time overwhelmed his more literary tendencies. Well, I certainly empathize.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
As She Climbed Across The Table
I haven't read this Jonathan Lethem novel in years, and to my surprise, it's even better than I remembered. It's a love story, it's a science fiction novel, it's an academic comedy. I wish I'd written it.
Here's my favorite bit--one of my favorite bits of anything, when you get down to it:
It's not even worth saying what this novel is about. I could be a wag and say it's about nothing--way more about nothing than Seinfeld ever was--but that, as No. 2 used to say, would be telling. Suffice it to say that it's about a physics experiment that turns into a philosophical conundrum that turns into a romance. And that it contains the beautifully awful line, "Something happened to my penis."
Here's my favorite bit--one of my favorite bits of anything, when you get down to it:
Georges De Tooth was our resident deconstructionist, a tiny, horse-faced man who dressed in impeccable pinstriped suits, spoke in a feigned poly-European accent, and wore an overlarge, ill-fitting, white-blong wig. He could be seen hurrying between the English department and his car, an enormous leather briefcase gripped in both arms as if it were the cover of a manhole from which he had just emerged. Or sitting in faculty meetings, silent and pensive, chewing on the stem of an unloaded pipe, often held with the bowl facing sideways or down. The library housed a dozen or so of his slim, unreadable volumes, as well as a thick anthology of savage attacks by his enemies. He lived in a room at the YMCA. He had for fifteen years.That's perfect, in my view. Lethem, like all great writers, is uneven, and I've kvetched about his stuff here before--but when he's good, he's great. This book actually has more heft than I remember--not physical heft, mind you--and I had completely forgotten the ending, which accomplishes the near-impossibility of living up to expectations.
It's not even worth saying what this novel is about. I could be a wag and say it's about nothing--way more about nothing than Seinfeld ever was--but that, as No. 2 used to say, would be telling. Suffice it to say that it's about a physics experiment that turns into a philosophical conundrum that turns into a romance. And that it contains the beautifully awful line, "Something happened to my penis."
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Shows About Books
The NY Times tells me that Daniel Menaker has left his old position at Random House and will be running a web-based show on books, with interviews -- kind of like a Charlie Rose thing, it seems. Though Menaker looks like a cutie in his rolled-sleeve oxford shirt and curly gray mop-top, I can't imagine I'll be stopping by. I have barely enough time to make the circuit of all my favorite blogs as it is -- watching an interview would seem unbearably time-consuming. I mean, I'd rather actually just read.
And here's a confession: not only do I dislike teevee shows about books, I don't even like books about books. So many memoirs about reading have come out in the last few years, about how the writer's life was affected by reading, about the impact of certain books. Bleah: even though I could possibly write one of those things myself, I have no interest in reading someone else's. I don't quite know why this is, except that maybe the experience the writer is detailing in his memoir is one that is actually available to anyone who reads the same books -- so why not go for the unmediated pleasure? Also, there's also the suspicion that these memoirs aren't actually about the books they purport to be about, but about the amazing sensitivity of the memoirist. Or maybe I just hate being told how to read something.
One show I did used to like was Michael Silverblatt's "Bookworm," which we got on the radio in Montana but don't get here. Actually, I loathed his snobby tone for the longest time, but I got over it eventually and began to enjoy his brainy, weird trains of thought. Ithaca is supposed to be getting its own public radio station in the next year -- WITH -- and maybe we can talk them into carrying that show...
And here's a confession: not only do I dislike teevee shows about books, I don't even like books about books. So many memoirs about reading have come out in the last few years, about how the writer's life was affected by reading, about the impact of certain books. Bleah: even though I could possibly write one of those things myself, I have no interest in reading someone else's. I don't quite know why this is, except that maybe the experience the writer is detailing in his memoir is one that is actually available to anyone who reads the same books -- so why not go for the unmediated pleasure? Also, there's also the suspicion that these memoirs aren't actually about the books they purport to be about, but about the amazing sensitivity of the memoirist. Or maybe I just hate being told how to read something.
One show I did used to like was Michael Silverblatt's "Bookworm," which we got on the radio in Montana but don't get here. Actually, I loathed his snobby tone for the longest time, but I got over it eventually and began to enjoy his brainy, weird trains of thought. Ithaca is supposed to be getting its own public radio station in the next year -- WITH -- and maybe we can talk them into carrying that show...
Monday, January 28, 2008
Acme Novelty Library No. 18
I just finished reading the latest installment of Chris Ware's ongoing comic series, and it's my favorite thing from him in quite a while. I've been enjoying the single-day-of-school narrative, "Rusty Brown," that the last two books have focused on, but No. 18 returns to the one-legged anti-heroine of the "Building Stories" cartoons that ran last year in the New York Times Magazine. I'm glad for it. This installment deepens the character enormously, and brings real pathos to a series that I was worried might be a little too cute for its own good.
The front endpapers are devastating--a swirl of text and images, set against a black background, which represent the narrator's contemplation of suicide. You have to turn the book around and around to read it, and it's a big book--the result feels like driving the death bus. We read her fragmented thoughts, and watch her imagine who might discover her corpse: her parents, her landlady, her cat. It's terribly sad and real, as are the back endpapers, which depict her lying awake in bed, over and over, at different ages. The last drawing in the book shows a sleepless night at perhaps age three; her leg is not yet missing, but she is still sad.
In between we get some back story--a boyfriend, an abortion--but the real strength of the work comes from the Ware's stunning illumination of workaday detail. He shows us, over two pages, the evidence of time passing at a florist's: the light changing, the gradual droop of a rose. There's a wonderful bit where the protagonist tosses a pair of stained underpants into a washing machine, and I can't quite explain why it's so moving. And several pages are dedicated to stripping away the layers of her body, like the acetate pages in the encyclopedia she read as a child. We see her frumpy clothes, her flesh, her muscles and bones, while all around the panels tear away the layers of her misery. Ware's ability to move the eye around the page is unmatched; he continues to experiment with the architecture of comics in emotionally satisfying ways.
I wasn't as wild about Adrian Tomine's Shortcomings, the story of Ben Tanaka, an insufferable prick who nevertheless is always surrounded by beautiful women. Reviews of this book have praised its addressing of the politics of dating among Asian-Americans, but really, if you've been to college in the past twenty years, you've heard it all already.
What I do like about Tomine is his drawing style--he's great at depicting the bland details of urban living so that they seem wonderfully alive. His characters are also hugely expressive in their faces and body language--so much so that the best bits of this book are the panels where nobody's saying anything, and nothing's going on. This is why I love Tomine's New Yorker covers--they pack a lot of story into one picture. Special props for the look on Ben's girlfriend's face when she discovers his cache of white-girl porno, and he lamely points out that there's a Latino chick in there somewhere. It's perfect.
The front endpapers are devastating--a swirl of text and images, set against a black background, which represent the narrator's contemplation of suicide. You have to turn the book around and around to read it, and it's a big book--the result feels like driving the death bus. We read her fragmented thoughts, and watch her imagine who might discover her corpse: her parents, her landlady, her cat. It's terribly sad and real, as are the back endpapers, which depict her lying awake in bed, over and over, at different ages. The last drawing in the book shows a sleepless night at perhaps age three; her leg is not yet missing, but she is still sad.
In between we get some back story--a boyfriend, an abortion--but the real strength of the work comes from the Ware's stunning illumination of workaday detail. He shows us, over two pages, the evidence of time passing at a florist's: the light changing, the gradual droop of a rose. There's a wonderful bit where the protagonist tosses a pair of stained underpants into a washing machine, and I can't quite explain why it's so moving. And several pages are dedicated to stripping away the layers of her body, like the acetate pages in the encyclopedia she read as a child. We see her frumpy clothes, her flesh, her muscles and bones, while all around the panels tear away the layers of her misery. Ware's ability to move the eye around the page is unmatched; he continues to experiment with the architecture of comics in emotionally satisfying ways.
I wasn't as wild about Adrian Tomine's Shortcomings, the story of Ben Tanaka, an insufferable prick who nevertheless is always surrounded by beautiful women. Reviews of this book have praised its addressing of the politics of dating among Asian-Americans, but really, if you've been to college in the past twenty years, you've heard it all already.
What I do like about Tomine is his drawing style--he's great at depicting the bland details of urban living so that they seem wonderfully alive. His characters are also hugely expressive in their faces and body language--so much so that the best bits of this book are the panels where nobody's saying anything, and nothing's going on. This is why I love Tomine's New Yorker covers--they pack a lot of story into one picture. Special props for the look on Ben's girlfriend's face when she discovers his cache of white-girl porno, and he lamely points out that there's a Latino chick in there somewhere. It's perfect.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Mary Robison
I have loved Mary Robison since I read her short story "I Am Twenty-One" in an anthology, I think, back in college. The collection that story's in, An Amateur's Guide to the Night, is an 80's-style minimalist masterpiece. Aw, crap, it's just a masterpiece! This is what I think minimalism was, in those days: every sentence had a whole story packed into it.
Right now I'm rereading Why Did I Ever, a 200-page novel told in about 500 fragments. It's about a middle-aged woman with two messed-up adult children, several ex-husbands and a job as a script doctor, which she is about to lose. She also has a speed habit, which explains the fragments. Here are a few of them:
Sometimes I read a book and wish I could just call up the writer and take her out for a sandwich. Some writers seem like long-lost friends. It would probably creep them out to know it, though.
Right now I'm rereading Why Did I Ever, a 200-page novel told in about 500 fragments. It's about a middle-aged woman with two messed-up adult children, several ex-husbands and a job as a script doctor, which she is about to lose. She also has a speed habit, which explains the fragments. Here are a few of them:
135
Rifling this copy of Rolling Stone, I say, "Here's a full-page ad for the U.S. fucking Army. And do I hate Jann Wenner for running this ad? No. It's they who don't write him letters saying, 'Cancel our subscriptions, Butterball! You better rethink!"
141
That fat man driving around with his little pooch? Now why don't I know him or someone like him? That man, I bet, could make me very happy.
Party
"What's with the bandage?" I ask the Deaf Lady. "Did you hurt your hand?"
"This? Just a mattress fire."
"Oh, don't tell me," I say.
She says, "Calm down, I made sure it was out."
"When did his happen?"
"Uh, yesterday."
"You couldn't mean yesteday. Yesterday -- "
"All right, all right. Then the other day it was," she says. "Get off my ass."
I hear her and deep down I realize that God put the Deaf Lady next door to me for a reason.
283
I shouldn't be, at this late hour, but I'm up in my room, walking all around, and I've got my hammer but not a goddamn thing to nail.
And I wasted too much time and spent too much time painting in here and painting everything. Yellow and red? It looks like a Midas Mufflers.
Sometimes I read a book and wish I could just call up the writer and take her out for a sandwich. Some writers seem like long-lost friends. It would probably creep them out to know it, though.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Books That Make You Dumb
It's Saturday, Rhian's at work, and I will take the horrible step of making the day's post not only a link, but a link I stole from Cory Doctorow. It's about an amusing new project by "disruptive technologist" Virgil Griffith, in which he has made a large chart identifying correlations between various books and the SAT scores of their readers.
"Yes," Griffith writes, "I'm aware correlation ≠ causation. The results are awesome regardless of direction of causality. You can stop sending me email about this distinction. Thanks." Nonscience notwithstanding, we are amused to see how low the Bible, The Color Purple, and Fight Club are skewing. Meanwhile, Nabokov and Garcia Marquez are tops among high scorers.
Always nice to have another excuse to be an insufferable snob, however unnecessary such a thing might be.
"Yes," Griffith writes, "I'm aware correlation ≠ causation. The results are awesome regardless of direction of causality. You can stop sending me email about this distinction. Thanks." Nonscience notwithstanding, we are amused to see how low the Bible, The Color Purple, and Fight Club are skewing. Meanwhile, Nabokov and Garcia Marquez are tops among high scorers.
Always nice to have another excuse to be an insufferable snob, however unnecessary such a thing might be.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
How you know you're finished
I mentioned, a few posts ago, that I was about to send off a "finished" novel to my agent, and a few people wondered how I knew it was done. This is a pretty common question among writing students, too, for a very simple reason--nobody has ever managed to answer it adequately. And I'm not going to be able to here, either.
In a sense, the answer is simple--it's finished when you decide it's finished. Then, having made the decision, you "know" it to be true. But the objective truth, if there is one, is much more complicated--it depends on what we mean by "finished." Do we mean that the work is in its final state, on a bookstore shelf, ready to be bought? Perhaps--but Henry James is famous for rewriting all of his early published works, and I can think of several contemporary writers who have issued "director's cuts" of some of their books.
So maybe it's only really finished when the author dies, right? After that, it can't be changed. But of course we know, from the history of such long, complicated books as Ulysses and In Search Of Lost Time, that death doesn't bring the work to a close either. There will be different editions, complied by various scholars, based on various notes, statements, or secondhand recollections of the author. We were just complaining a few weeks back about the "unexpurgated" Carver stories now making their way into the public eye.
This is all kind of beside the point, because the real question was about how a writer--that is, me, or you--knows when to stop writing. But it's worth seeing the big picture first. A book is never finished: that should be at the forefront of the writer's mind. Once you've accepted that, you can confront the utter arbitrariness of completion, and just push it until you can't stand it for another second.
Who was it who said a book was done when you started putting back all the commas you removed in the previous draft? Probably a lot of people. It's a decent rule of thumb. You're finished when you become paralyzed by indecision. Of course, even that's not the end, because six months later, you'll be a different person--a person who will see the manuscript differently, and perhaps will have a clearer sense of what to do.
If you're lucky, though, the book will be published by then, and it will be too late. Because this process is agonizing, and sometimes you need to cut your losses and move on. You have to take what energy you have left and plough it into the next project--maybe that one will be the one that turns out perfect on the first try.
For me, personally, I have several "dones." There's the end of the first draft, where I have for the first time a complete, semi-coherent piece of work. Then there's the end of draft three, when I usually decide it's ready for Rhian, Ed, or another friend to read. Draft four or five goes to the agent, and maybe six or seven (if I've managed to get it accepted for publication) goes into galleys. And then there's the published version, which, for all practical purposes, I consider really done. This system does indeed help me know when I'm through--if I'm reaching draft three, for instance, it must be "done," by definition. The system creates artificial mental deadlines, which I force myself to meet, regardless of how incomplete the work is. Then I'm finished because it's time for me to be finished.
That said...I was paging through Mailman, my fourth novel, the other night, and I came across at least half a dozen sentences the current incarnation of myself would never allow to make it into print. Maybe someday...
Nah. I'm done.
PS: a note to the dorks out there...I'm posting this from Ubuntu Linux, which I just installed on my laptop. I recommend it--it has been way easier to set up than Vista was a few months ago, when I tried configuring Rhian's machine. If you're into open source, public domain, and all the other ethical systems that foster creative innovation, you might dig doing your writing in this environment.
In a sense, the answer is simple--it's finished when you decide it's finished. Then, having made the decision, you "know" it to be true. But the objective truth, if there is one, is much more complicated--it depends on what we mean by "finished." Do we mean that the work is in its final state, on a bookstore shelf, ready to be bought? Perhaps--but Henry James is famous for rewriting all of his early published works, and I can think of several contemporary writers who have issued "director's cuts" of some of their books.
So maybe it's only really finished when the author dies, right? After that, it can't be changed. But of course we know, from the history of such long, complicated books as Ulysses and In Search Of Lost Time, that death doesn't bring the work to a close either. There will be different editions, complied by various scholars, based on various notes, statements, or secondhand recollections of the author. We were just complaining a few weeks back about the "unexpurgated" Carver stories now making their way into the public eye.
This is all kind of beside the point, because the real question was about how a writer--that is, me, or you--knows when to stop writing. But it's worth seeing the big picture first. A book is never finished: that should be at the forefront of the writer's mind. Once you've accepted that, you can confront the utter arbitrariness of completion, and just push it until you can't stand it for another second.
Who was it who said a book was done when you started putting back all the commas you removed in the previous draft? Probably a lot of people. It's a decent rule of thumb. You're finished when you become paralyzed by indecision. Of course, even that's not the end, because six months later, you'll be a different person--a person who will see the manuscript differently, and perhaps will have a clearer sense of what to do.
If you're lucky, though, the book will be published by then, and it will be too late. Because this process is agonizing, and sometimes you need to cut your losses and move on. You have to take what energy you have left and plough it into the next project--maybe that one will be the one that turns out perfect on the first try.
For me, personally, I have several "dones." There's the end of the first draft, where I have for the first time a complete, semi-coherent piece of work. Then there's the end of draft three, when I usually decide it's ready for Rhian, Ed, or another friend to read. Draft four or five goes to the agent, and maybe six or seven (if I've managed to get it accepted for publication) goes into galleys. And then there's the published version, which, for all practical purposes, I consider really done. This system does indeed help me know when I'm through--if I'm reaching draft three, for instance, it must be "done," by definition. The system creates artificial mental deadlines, which I force myself to meet, regardless of how incomplete the work is. Then I'm finished because it's time for me to be finished.
That said...I was paging through Mailman, my fourth novel, the other night, and I came across at least half a dozen sentences the current incarnation of myself would never allow to make it into print. Maybe someday...
Nah. I'm done.
PS: a note to the dorks out there...I'm posting this from Ubuntu Linux, which I just installed on my laptop. I recommend it--it has been way easier to set up than Vista was a few months ago, when I tried configuring Rhian's machine. If you're into open source, public domain, and all the other ethical systems that foster creative innovation, you might dig doing your writing in this environment.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Earthquake by Susan Barnes
I just wanted to mention a strange little book that I discovered recently on our store shelves: Earthquake is a collection of three stories that link together into a short, fictiony memoir. Barnes doesn't force her memories -- of an unusual childhood spent in Alaska and Massachusetts -- into any kind of straight narrative, but leaves them as fragments and anecdotes. Her writing is beautiful, unadorned, and clear as water. And funny, which I always like.
It's published by Turtle Point Press, and let me tell you: if the future lies in small presses publishing work like this, well... it's going to be an awfully nice future.
It's published by Turtle Point Press, and let me tell you: if the future lies in small presses publishing work like this, well... it's going to be an awfully nice future.
Thoughts on Bookselling
If you work in a bookstore, particularly an independent one, you hear a lot about "handselling," or pushing individual books that you personally love. Word of mouth and handselling is supposed to be what makes or breaks a lot of books. The other day I got to fill out a questionnaire from BookSense (the program from the American Booksellers Association that promotes selected titles) asking which books I "most enjoyed handselling" during 2007. Note they didn't ask that I had actually read any of the books -- just that I enjoyed selling them. And even though I'm probably one of the people at the store who is most into literary fiction, I had honestly only read three of the novels they listed. I'd only read one of the non-fiction (though I'd hurriedly skimmed a few others!) and none of the kids' books. I don't often read new hardcovers, anyway -- they're too expensive. I ended up doing write-in votes for fiction, because I care a lot about it... but I happily checked off the titles of other books I enjoyed selling but never read.
The thing is... people hardly ever come in and ask me, What should I read? More often they ask, What was that book reviewed in the Times? or Who was that guy on Terri Gross? About half the people come into the store with a particular book or magazine in mind. Another quarter are just looking around. The rest have a vague idea, and only a few of those really want suggestions from the schlump behind the counter.
Sometimes they do, though. Most often it's because they're buying a book as a gift. The most common requests are for a book for a kid they don't know that well -- I almost always recommend classics, because you don't want to give a new, untried book in that situation. I constantly push the Oz books, but so far, no one has ever bitten. I've had more luck with The Secret Garden. And you can't go wrong with Curious George, in my opinion, especially the first one in which George is smoking a pipe in one scene and goes to jail in another.
Another common request is for a book for "My mom, and it should be uplifting." In this case I recommend Sue Monk Kidd, because my own mom likes her. I've never cracked one of her books myself.
Recently a customer asked me for a book that could be read aloud to the whole family and that everyone would enjoy. Gosh, that had me flummoxed, especially when he said they'd already done the James Herriot books. He ended up recommending a book to me:"My Family and Other Animals" by Gerald Durrell. It sounded great, so I ordered us a copy.
One of the most popular features of our store is the Staff Favorites shelf, though. We do sell a lot of books from it, but I think it's also entertaining as a psychological artifact -- people like to look at the books and make guesses about the store staff. A friend of mine said, "I could guess the ages of everyone just by looking at those books." Ha!
The thing is... people hardly ever come in and ask me, What should I read? More often they ask, What was that book reviewed in the Times? or Who was that guy on Terri Gross? About half the people come into the store with a particular book or magazine in mind. Another quarter are just looking around. The rest have a vague idea, and only a few of those really want suggestions from the schlump behind the counter.
Sometimes they do, though. Most often it's because they're buying a book as a gift. The most common requests are for a book for a kid they don't know that well -- I almost always recommend classics, because you don't want to give a new, untried book in that situation. I constantly push the Oz books, but so far, no one has ever bitten. I've had more luck with The Secret Garden. And you can't go wrong with Curious George, in my opinion, especially the first one in which George is smoking a pipe in one scene and goes to jail in another.
Another common request is for a book for "My mom, and it should be uplifting." In this case I recommend Sue Monk Kidd, because my own mom likes her. I've never cracked one of her books myself.
Recently a customer asked me for a book that could be read aloud to the whole family and that everyone would enjoy. Gosh, that had me flummoxed, especially when he said they'd already done the James Herriot books. He ended up recommending a book to me:"My Family and Other Animals" by Gerald Durrell. It sounded great, so I ordered us a copy.
One of the most popular features of our store is the Staff Favorites shelf, though. We do sell a lot of books from it, but I think it's also entertaining as a psychological artifact -- people like to look at the books and make guesses about the store staff. A friend of mine said, "I could guess the ages of everyone just by looking at those books." Ha!
Monday, January 21, 2008
My Remainder Post
Rhian intimated that I would be more articulate than she in my admiration for Tom McCarthy's Remainder, but I find myself at as much a loss as she was. It's a very peculiar piece of work, and one I enjoyed enormously--in fact I quickly added it to the syllabus of this "Weird Stories" class I'm teaching this semester.
It reminds me, as it did R., of Magnus Mills, but also of Kazuo Ishiguro, and to some extent The Magic Mountain. It's a book in which the narrator is concealing something from the reader, and possibly from himself as well. It's also about memory, a favorite subject of mine. Perhaps the most shocking thing about it is how completely is succeeds in the very ambitions I set for myself in writing my current novel-in-progress--though McCarthy and I are writing to different ends. I hope my book ends up being a tenth as absorbing as his.
The story, such as it is, is about a man who, in the wake of a mysterious accident, has an epiphany while staring at a crack in the wall of a friend's bathroom, which epiphany leads him to embark upon a series of increasingly elaborate re-enactments of apparently meaningless moments, in the hope of...well, we don't have any idea why he's doing it, actually. The plot is not quite the point here, though--it's the voice, which lives on this razor's edge between utterly convincing and completely unbelievable, and it's that sense of impending and inevitable collapse that drives the novel. He pretty much pulls it off in the end, though I found myself wishing it weren't so...Fight-Clubby. That said, if there was no such thing as Fight Club, I might have had no problem with it at all.
In any event, its success is derived from its attention the detail--it is, in fact, about detail itself--how we remember it, and how those memories create meaning. It would be the perfect assigned text to accompany my "ordinariness" post of last week--it shows that the ordinary is extraordinary, in as strange and satisfying a manner possible.
As for my novel...for better or worse, I'm sending it out tomorrow. How a person knows when his novel is finished is a topic for another day. (Although, hint: a person has no goddam idea.)
It reminds me, as it did R., of Magnus Mills, but also of Kazuo Ishiguro, and to some extent The Magic Mountain. It's a book in which the narrator is concealing something from the reader, and possibly from himself as well. It's also about memory, a favorite subject of mine. Perhaps the most shocking thing about it is how completely is succeeds in the very ambitions I set for myself in writing my current novel-in-progress--though McCarthy and I are writing to different ends. I hope my book ends up being a tenth as absorbing as his.
The story, such as it is, is about a man who, in the wake of a mysterious accident, has an epiphany while staring at a crack in the wall of a friend's bathroom, which epiphany leads him to embark upon a series of increasingly elaborate re-enactments of apparently meaningless moments, in the hope of...well, we don't have any idea why he's doing it, actually. The plot is not quite the point here, though--it's the voice, which lives on this razor's edge between utterly convincing and completely unbelievable, and it's that sense of impending and inevitable collapse that drives the novel. He pretty much pulls it off in the end, though I found myself wishing it weren't so...Fight-Clubby. That said, if there was no such thing as Fight Club, I might have had no problem with it at all.
In any event, its success is derived from its attention the detail--it is, in fact, about detail itself--how we remember it, and how those memories create meaning. It would be the perfect assigned text to accompany my "ordinariness" post of last week--it shows that the ordinary is extraordinary, in as strange and satisfying a manner possible.
As for my novel...for better or worse, I'm sending it out tomorrow. How a person knows when his novel is finished is a topic for another day. (Although, hint: a person has no goddam idea.)
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Year Without News
Well, I have to say I've had it. I can't take the news anymore. Yep, after eight years of up-and-down roller-coastering, of the crushingly inevitable horror that the war has become, that the presidency has become -- now that at least some of it is on the brink of being over, I realize I just can't take another second of it. I can't stand this sense of intense caring in the face of powerlessness anymore. I've erased all my news links. I'm going to spend the next year avoiding as much national news as I can.
Don't even tell me who wins the primaries, because I don't want to know!
Whew, thank God that's over.
In its place I'm going to read fiction. More and more fiction! Since we've been running this blog I've been introduced to so many great books -- I work in a bookstore, I live with a writer, but still: I have gaps in my reading. Huge ones. I'm going to spend the next year reading, but not the news.
The world of politics can do without me.
Don't even tell me who wins the primaries, because I don't want to know!
Whew, thank God that's over.
In its place I'm going to read fiction. More and more fiction! Since we've been running this blog I've been introduced to so many great books -- I work in a bookstore, I live with a writer, but still: I have gaps in my reading. Huge ones. I'm going to spend the next year reading, but not the news.
The world of politics can do without me.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Should He Do It?
An anonymous commenter on the previous thread linked to this article in Slate about Dmitri Nabokov's dilemma--should he burn his father's last, unfinished manuscript, as explicitly directed by the great writer? Or should he release it to the world? The younger Nabokov describes the story as quite groundbreaking, but appears to be leaning toward destruction. His reasoning is evidently related to his frustration with chronic public misinterpretation of his father's work.
Personally, that sounds to me uncomfortably like "People are too dumb to deserve to see this." I am pretty much always against the dead writer in such cases, for two reasons. First, I think it's absurdly arrogant to think that you can control your public image after you're dead. In fact, it's foolish to think you can when you're alive. Of course Nabokov's arrogance is part of what made him such a delight--and if anyone actually deserved to be arrogant, it was him. In any event, death is final, and the dead belong to history--as much as, if not more than, they belong to their descendents.
But more importantly, if a writer wants his stuff destroyed, he ought to have the balls to do it when he's alive. And if he doesn't do it when he's alive, then he doesn't really want it destroyed. What kind of wanker puts a burden like this on his surviving family? Vera was originally instructed to burn the note cards (Nabokov wrote on note cards, and in fact it was Vera who saved the ones containing Lolita from the trash incinerator, less then ten blocks from where I'm sitting right now), but couldn't bring herself to do it. And now Dmitri himself is growing old, and he can't do it either.
But now he might. I think this would be a shame. I'll go a step further, in fact, and say right here, out in public, that I enthusiastically encourage Rhian, our kids, and their future offspring to ignore completely any deathbed requests I might happen to make, especially any involving writing. With any luck I'll be tired, old, delirious, and full of shit, and once I'm gone, you may all do whatever you please.
Personally, that sounds to me uncomfortably like "People are too dumb to deserve to see this." I am pretty much always against the dead writer in such cases, for two reasons. First, I think it's absurdly arrogant to think that you can control your public image after you're dead. In fact, it's foolish to think you can when you're alive. Of course Nabokov's arrogance is part of what made him such a delight--and if anyone actually deserved to be arrogant, it was him. In any event, death is final, and the dead belong to history--as much as, if not more than, they belong to their descendents.
But more importantly, if a writer wants his stuff destroyed, he ought to have the balls to do it when he's alive. And if he doesn't do it when he's alive, then he doesn't really want it destroyed. What kind of wanker puts a burden like this on his surviving family? Vera was originally instructed to burn the note cards (Nabokov wrote on note cards, and in fact it was Vera who saved the ones containing Lolita from the trash incinerator, less then ten blocks from where I'm sitting right now), but couldn't bring herself to do it. And now Dmitri himself is growing old, and he can't do it either.
But now he might. I think this would be a shame. I'll go a step further, in fact, and say right here, out in public, that I enthusiastically encourage Rhian, our kids, and their future offspring to ignore completely any deathbed requests I might happen to make, especially any involving writing. With any luck I'll be tired, old, delirious, and full of shit, and once I'm gone, you may all do whatever you please.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Mass Market Paperbacks Are Perfect
I was in the city yesterday to play some music--but before I did, I had an errand to run. I won't elaborate upon it here, but it was extremely dorky and necessitated my getting a large black flight case from Orchard Street to West 26th. And I am cheap, so no cab. I took the train.
As I was getting my case out of my bandmate's car, I saw, lying on the seat, the book I had been reading. (Remainder, of course, which so far I love.) I thought, should I take it with me? You never know when you're going to be stuck with nothing to do for ten minutes. I actually picked it up--but I knew it wouldn't fit in my coat pocket. It's a medium-sized trade paperback, and half the thing would have been poking out. So I left it, and hauled my case to the subway.
I got on the F at 2nd Avenue, and halfway to Lafayette Street the train ground to a halt. The lights flickered. The smell of acrid smoke began to filter through the crack between the doors. As it happened, a train up ahead had met some reeking demise, and we would be held up, confined in the tunnel, for nearly half an hour. Eventually, we would make it far enough to the next station to be able to evacuate through the front car--but meanwhile, I was stuck. With nothing to read.
If Remainder had been a mass market paperback, I would have thoroughly enjoyed the wait. But like most books I want to read, it wasn't. What's our beef with this wonderful invention? Why can't all books be published this way? If there were a decent publisher out there who would put out my stuff exclusively as mass market originals, I would fall over myself to get on board. It's the perfect format--small, cheap, egalitarian. It doesn't last forever, but it lasts long enough. Let libraries have the hardcovers, and fill the bookstores with books you can stick in your pocket. There are times when I have decided to read something exclusively because of its format, choosing it over books I actually wanted to read more, but would encumber me on my travels. I have actually re-read bad books for this reason.
Sometimes I have to stop and remind myself--what's this whole thing about? Writing, I mean. Am I doing it just to amuse myself? Sure--but I don't want to amuse myself in a drawer. I want people to read it. I want LOTS of people to read it. I want my blathering-ass self promulgated as efficiently as possible throughout the nation and world. Mass market paperbacks cost half what trade paperbacks do. Half! Why can't we all drop the charade and embrace them? The human pocket should never be without one.
As I was getting my case out of my bandmate's car, I saw, lying on the seat, the book I had been reading. (Remainder, of course, which so far I love.) I thought, should I take it with me? You never know when you're going to be stuck with nothing to do for ten minutes. I actually picked it up--but I knew it wouldn't fit in my coat pocket. It's a medium-sized trade paperback, and half the thing would have been poking out. So I left it, and hauled my case to the subway.
I got on the F at 2nd Avenue, and halfway to Lafayette Street the train ground to a halt. The lights flickered. The smell of acrid smoke began to filter through the crack between the doors. As it happened, a train up ahead had met some reeking demise, and we would be held up, confined in the tunnel, for nearly half an hour. Eventually, we would make it far enough to the next station to be able to evacuate through the front car--but meanwhile, I was stuck. With nothing to read.
If Remainder had been a mass market paperback, I would have thoroughly enjoyed the wait. But like most books I want to read, it wasn't. What's our beef with this wonderful invention? Why can't all books be published this way? If there were a decent publisher out there who would put out my stuff exclusively as mass market originals, I would fall over myself to get on board. It's the perfect format--small, cheap, egalitarian. It doesn't last forever, but it lasts long enough. Let libraries have the hardcovers, and fill the bookstores with books you can stick in your pocket. There are times when I have decided to read something exclusively because of its format, choosing it over books I actually wanted to read more, but would encumber me on my travels. I have actually re-read bad books for this reason.
Sometimes I have to stop and remind myself--what's this whole thing about? Writing, I mean. Am I doing it just to amuse myself? Sure--but I don't want to amuse myself in a drawer. I want people to read it. I want LOTS of people to read it. I want my blathering-ass self promulgated as efficiently as possible throughout the nation and world. Mass market paperbacks cost half what trade paperbacks do. Half! Why can't we all drop the charade and embrace them? The human pocket should never be without one.
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