Recently in Literary Commentary Category

I really didn't think I'd ever find it. An entire film without a central conflict. Films are all about conflict - even the toy store-on-screen Transformers II had a central conflict (save the world from the aliens). But The Time Traveler's Wife (adapted from the bestselling book) has actually avoided any real point at all.

Went to see Julia/Julie, the film about Julia Child and former Salon blogger Julie Powell. I take the time to point out she was a Salon Blogger (a blogger using the small community created by Salon.com in the early 2000's) as I was as well, blogging about the same time my crazy zoo over at Pesky the Rat, a political satire blog (rats! snakes in miniskirts! Talking anerobic bacteria!). I remember seeing Julia/Julie in our community rankings, and thinking it was a nice idea. Cooking good food every single day for a year is really a no-lose proposition. She didn't really participate in the community much that I could see, but then again, an obsession such as hers left little time for socializing.

I've got a couple of short stories out for submission, both to journals that publish mainly dramatic works. My stories tend to have a bit of humor in them. Have I a shot in hell? Perhaps not. But I've spent a few months reading these literary journals, trying to understand what they like, what they are willing to put on their pages, and I have to say, a little non-caustic humor might do wonders for their circulation.

A moment of silence in the suburbs for a writer who consistently proved that Americans are perfectly happy to read literary fiction.

Neil Gaiman, author of numerous fantasy, fiction, and children's books, won the Newberry today for his spooky book, "The Graveyard Book". Neat trick for an Englishman - the Newberry is for US-based authors - but it turns out he lives right here in Minnesota. I suppose if he's willing to endure -20 in the morning he can have a Newberry. Gaiman's "Coraline" is one of the creepiest books I've ever read, and will soon be coming out in theaters as a stop-animation film.  Argh! Mother has buttons for eyes! Argh! Yeah, ok, you have to have read it.  Anyhow, I have a soft spot for Gaiman because he actually has a decent blog. When an author has a decent blog, it causes me to think he might just be hooked into this modern world of ours enough to be relevant to it.

Below...a couple of pics from the Grand Canyon. At the end of a long and stunning road through scrub and low forests is the Watchtower, a sightseeing structure that overlooks the eastern parts of the canyon. The inside of it is actually quite interesting, with lots of designs that to me looked Hopi.

Poets & Writers has an article this month about about the dangerous blurring of fiction and nonfiction of late, as evidenced by numerous high-profile scandals (Andrew Furman, Poets & Writers Sept/Oct 2007. article not online; summary here).  In it the author describes difficulties in defining the ethical lines of nonfiction, especially when he made the effort to teach a class that crosses both genres. 

There seems to be an emphasis in creative nonfiction on really terrible life stories (not stories terribly told, but rather lives lived in terrible circumstances) and though there is some of that in my family history, I like to think there is more to CNF than shock value. In addition, some of the CNF I've read seems to be far too narratively intact to be real. Making specific accusations can get one into trouble, but I'll point to the New Yorker as one place where I've read more than a few astonishingly "perfect" nonfiction pieces by prominent contemporary authors.

I have a lot of nonfiction material in my life, especially if I look to the lives of relatives, such as my eccentric grandmother, and others, and I think if I work at it for a long time, I can draw some kind of real narrative through the events of their lives. To do so, though, I'd have to step outside of their immediate story and put it in the context of history of the time, pull in larger themes--I don't see a closeup, personal narrative being realistic given the absence of recorded conversations and direct physical evidence.

So I suppose what really gets me about contemporary CNF is something touched on in the P&W article--the possibility, or at least the perception, that many great nonfiction pieces are significantly fictional.  As a person who primarily writes fiction, I resent that fiction is less regarded by many Americans at the present time; (a Barnes & Noble employee once told me that there were two sections in Barnes & Noble, nonfiction and "make-believe"--she will go, I am quite sure, straight to hell) and I resent that people are writing what they claim as nonfiction using fictional elements, and being allowed to publish as such. I think the emphasis on fantastic and horrible situations exacerbates this by encouraging exaggeration and fabrication.

But what to do. MFA programs such as mine might even be part of the problem, as they encourage drafting of nonfiction narratives in an inevitably competitive environment. The New Yorker has done it's part with its remarkably perfect nonfiction tales, setting a bar most real-life narratives do not meet. But perhaps most of all, at this time in history, is the extraordinary rise of reality television, true crime television, and sensationalistic news.  Americans are increasingly used to amazing family tales told in their living rooms, most of which wrap up neatly in a half hour or hour program. Is there a sense that writers must meet the same standard as an aggressively edited episode of "Dateline" or "48 Hours: Mystery"?  I don't think many would admit to it, but we are all part of one media culture, which feeds and influences itself in surprising ways.

Food for thought.  Speaking of food for thought, how about Hot Dish on a Stick? A sight like this at the Minnesota State Fair this weekend reminded me that truth is still sometimes stranger than fiction.



And let's not forget the Tackiest Amusement Ride Ever: I'll call her the Amazon Queen.  There is a curious emphasis on her breasts.



'Twas a gorgeous day at the fair, though, and tens of thousands came to eat stuff-on-sticks and wander acres of delights.

 

 

Over at Eric Alterman's blog, "Altercation", a post today gives me a bit of hope as a fiction writer.  The conventional wisdom is that people read less these days, and an AP article came out recently claiming as much. In the course of the post, Alterman's guest-blogger, Siva Vaidhyanathan, says:

Perhaps the best-known such survey was done in 2004 by the National Endowment for the Humanities. It was called "Reading at Risk"...It said 57 percent of Americans had not read a work of literary fiction....Many of those people, I am sure, read The Anarchist in the Library and no other book that year. After all, why would you? Oh, neither of these surveys asked non-English language readers what they read. There are many other problems with the surveys. But there are bigger problems with how we share and discuss the findings.

So this study, a summary of which I found here, sounds the alarm about reduced numbers of literary readers in American society.  It does seem a bit disheartening, and it's written with a kind of sky-is-falling message. But in S.V.'s analysis, Americans just have a heck of a lot more entertainment/enrichment options than we did 40 years ago, and the numbers reflect that more than a general devaluation of reading or intellectual pursuit.  Reading is now part of a greater media/literary tradition, inevitable in a more complex and technologically advanced society.

So, no, we are not getting intellectually lazy. Some of us are lucky enough to have jobs that pay us to read. But in general, millions more Americans read and buy books than did 30 years ago. Why? Because there are millions more Americans than there were 30 years ago.

That's just common sense.There's more people doing just about everything these days. And since the study didn't look at people who read in non-English languages, it doesn't account for America's growing foreign-born population, many of whom come from cultures with sophisticated literary traditions.

But DESPITE all these rich new media forms, many of which are very compelling--I mean, we're all sitting here reading the internet--reading is still a major part of American culture. Morning talk shows still feature a variety of authors. And the relationship between books and film grows ever tighter, as more and more books, many of them "literary" fiction, are made into films--which then spur more interest in the books themselves.  And millions and millions continue to read. 93 million adults read a form of literature in the last twelve months. NINETY-THREE MILLION. 

In the study, the authors cite increased participation in writing creatively, which in my view serves to undercut their theory that literary culture is in crisis. Taking the time to write creatively is not a small thing, in fact many people are terrified of the prospect.   Yet  a healthy increase in creative writers over twenty years shows continued engagement with the art form:

Contrary to the overall decline in literary reading, the number of people doing creative writing increased by 30 percent, from 11 million in 1982 to more than 14 million in 2002. However, the number of people who reported having taken a creative writing class or lesson decreased by 2.2 million during the same time period.

If there really was a precipitous intellectual decline in America, I guess I'd expect the # of people who write creatively to drop as well. But it didn't. Clearly something is fueling the literary cycle, and it is more complex than just books.  As for the decline in classes--not surprising, as incomes have eroded over the last few years, and leisure time has decreased.  I wonder how this fits in with the very real proliferation in MFA programs, which seem to have popped up everywhere.  Are fewer people taking classes, but more people taking on serious writing programs?

There's more to literary life than just books, but books are in no danger anytime soon. 

Just saw Stardust, the film adaptation of Neil Gaiman's illustrated book of the same name. Lots of fun, certain to be the sort of film people buy for their DVD collections and watch on cold winter days. I haven't read the book, though the film was intriguing enough that I might give it a go. A sweet, satisfying story, with good performances and nice production design.

With Lord of the Rings, Narnia, and most of Grimm's Fairy Tales fully claimed by the film industry, newer tales like Gaiman's are Hollywood's only chance to bring fantasy fables to the big screen.  Stardust doesn't lend itself to sequels, so new stories must be found.  The best of these newer fairy tales for many years was the horrific "Pan's Labyrinth", but Pan aside, the pickings, I fear, are slim. I'd like to see an art-film version of "A Brief History of the Dead" (one of my favorite recent books),  but it's unlikely to be blockbuster material, and IMDB shows no current plans for such a film.  Instead, it appears, we are faced with the tiger in the inflatable raft.  I must confess, I have not read the book about the tiger in the inflatable raft. I'm not sure I ever will. But a full-length feature film? Gimme a lifejacket, I'll swim from here...

A big fantasy narrative is hard to pull off without borrowing from the past; Gaiman is no different.  The hero-falls in love-with a star-in human form-is an old construction. C.S. Lewis uses it in his best book of the Narnia series, "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader", in which Caspian meets the daughter of a star at the end of the world and eventually marries her.  Other details in Stardust are openly borrowed from a variety of ancient tales. 

Years ago I wrote a juvenile fiction novel, which for various reasons I have not yet attempted to publish, that takes place in a fantasy realm. Throughout the writing process I was acutely aware of how difficult--perhaps impossible--it is to write fantasy that doesn't pull from many of these earlier epic and fairy tales but also has a compelling narrative and a sense of a larger story. If you don't use the fantasy symbols and archetypes so well established throughout western literature, you have to build from scratch, and that's tough going.

Anyhow, that's enough musing for tonight. Enjoy the frog.