I feel "slightly beyond myself" every time I put finger to keyboard because I'm not a particularly talented writer.
I'm always looking for validation that my writing will connect to anyone, at all, let alone sophisticated readers. However, I've also been practicing for awhile now, and I feel like there must come a time when a writer should trust herself.
I believe there are two parts to art. There's the expression, but there's also the reception. If there's no reception then it's an incomplete piece. For me, there's always a push and pull between wanting to make something true and honest, but also wanting it to land with an audience.
In continuing a potential thread to this topic, I would like to add to it.
I would consider myself to have “Kafka Syndrome” -- I find it difficult to place value or take pride in things I do/create. When it comes to my writing I’ve experienced what I think anyone would call encouragement or even minor success. I managed to get some short stories published not too long after I first started writing and every time I’ve shown someone a piece of work, I’ve had back words of encouragement or praise, even.
Very recently I had the privilege of having my work read and critiqued by one of my favourite authors -- Chuck Palahniuk. The critique was brilliant, and he even called my piece “wonderful” (*obligatory closeup camera shot of tear falling down cheek*).
I mention all this because, despite the encouragement, despite my favourite author calling something I did “wonderful”, I still find it hard to muster up the self-encouragement to write. One would think after this I’d be typing away until my fingertips were bone nubs, but no. There is, I think, still an apprehension to write on my part.
I think I know what the solution to this is, and I intend to do it. All the same though, and with the intention of hopefully continuing an interesting discussion topic, I thought I’d share this.
Is it possible you find yourself intimidated by your own gifts as seen and affirmed by an author you greatly admire? It happened to me when Alice Munro endorsed my first book, to my publisher’s delight and my own fear that I might never again write anything worthy. Others might have reacted by typing till their fingers were bone nubs; I couldn’t write anything longer than a blog post. Other writers I know have found this puzzling because it doesn’t seem to make any sense. I am sharing it now in the spirit of openness to bafflement at this odd devotion called writing. What George says here about sending a playful gift into the world is a tonic for this kind of angst, I think.
I'm so happy for you that your first book got an endorsement from Alice Munro. How thrilling! Your reaction isn't logical, but I wouldn't say that it doesn't make sense. I think a lot of people would be afraid of, "there's nowhere to go but down from here."
Do you find that the praise and good feedback makes it harder to write because of feeling like you don't want to mess it up?
Sometimes, I feel like I'm only as good as my last piece, so if a piece is good, then I'm afraid to continue because I'm not sure the next thing I write will be as good.
I believe that may be part of it, yes. The concern that I may be setting myself up for failure; or that I’ll discover I’m not cutout for writing, maybe.
It sounds like you're afraid of being disappointed. The praise allowed you to create a certain view of yourself and you don't want to risk losing it. I totally understand that.
Interesting take, though I don’t necessarily think that it’s a case of the praise/encouragement resulting in me creating a certain view of myself, but more so that I already have an established view of myself which is averse to the praise/encouragement. Does that make any sense?
I think some of the issue perhaps lies within thinking of writing vs actually writing. You think about it too much and you put it off. You seal off the doorway to that avenue in your head and just start writing, then pretty soon you’ve got something; and it doesn’t even matter if what you’ve produced has any merit to it or not, what matters is that you just wrote.
Maybe stop looking through the prism of others... Accept your own full stop. Give yourself the usual time for review then hold your head up and put it out there.
Feedback is a different phase.
Trust in yourself. Surely that way I can get stronger.
On the reception side of the ledger there are also shoals awaiting your small barque to gut it. I “came in second” in an annual, nation wide (Canada) short story contest. As you can imagine I was thrilled and thought, “Yes, I can do this”. However, with some time and space I had to admit to myself something I had forgotten (buried): I had consciously gone out to try and win the damn thing. I had read past year’s winners. I knew the kind of small bore, domestic tales they liked, all dressed up in meat-and-potatoes language;time running in only one direction; characters learning a moral lesson, etc etc. so reception was fabulous but my experience was closer to a beaner student who aced tests through sheer rote memory. No real creativity was exercised - well maybe a bit. I ended wishing I could recall the story and burn it in the back yard. Took me awhile to get something off my pen that I felt even half way decent about. Cautionary tale? Unless you’re into writing airport best sellers, it kinda is. (And not that there’s anything wrong with that!) Reception is a tricky beast in the constant scrabbling after the authentic.
Me too. Or rather checking out the judges and previous winners. Mainly, though, to see if it’s worth even submitting. There are some themes that, though needed and good, are not either my experience or generally what I write about. If I get the sense of what they like/are looking for and I feel like it’s not me, I tend not to put in the effort and submission fee. Maybe it’s wise or maybe it’s self-limiting. Maybe I’m just lazy.
I doubt you're being lazy! Your presence here in SC over this last year is an indication of that. Not every journal/story is a match. There are two judges of that, I think: you & the editor.
It still takes quite a bit of skill to look at the previous winners and deduce what would win, so I think you're right that you can do this. It sounds like you ended up writing something that you weren't particularly passionate about, like a tech writer writing an instruction manual. That's not necessarily a bad thing to have done it once and learned that it's not your thing.
I don’t attach my writing to its reception at all. The only time I do is at a live reading and someone makes a noise when I’m done (of appreciation I hope) I just think— oh I’m not that person’s cup of tea, even as I wallpaper my study with way more rejections than acceptances (ok not really but it had more metaphoric punch than a full email box of thanks but no thanks emails with the occasional “send us another” peppered in there for hope) I love it when someone “gets me” or, more accurately, they enjoy the work and find value in it but I’m one of those people who has to write so maybe my revision process needs more work than I think for more people to enjoy it? IDK that’s why I’m here I guess
Well said Amy. I agree that this tension exists between expression and reception. And a writer must always keep The Reader in mind. That said, as a writer myself, and as most writers I know would agree: You’re a ‘true’ writer if you write out of pure necessity. Not financial necessity. Not the necessity of attention or fame. But because the writing comes bursting forth from the depths of your soul and you simply cannot resist it.
I love this. It feels like a kind approach to all works of art, not just written ones. I used to despise the band Rush. Every single aesthetic decision they committed to their recordings chafed against my sensibilities. Their music hurt me like an itchy sweater. But my reaction was all out of scale. So I watched a documentary about them, and carefully listened to some of the records on headphones. And now—I get it. I get what they meant to do. They did it brilliantly. Do I like the music of Rush? No, I do not. But I now I dislike it with love in my heart, and I crank it up when it comes on the car stereo.
"I dislike it with love in my heart." Exactly. I don't mean about Rush, per se, but in general - this is a more solid feeling than just disliking it before examining it completely. And esp if something is causing a strong negative reaction, there's often something there...
My mom was a music teacher and called this Appreciation. To this day, students will approach my mom and say, you taught me I didn’t have to love, but to learn and appreciate! As a high school teacher, this was something, maybe the thing, I tried to convey to my students. They had grown up hearing empty statements like “this book changed my life” and would be perplexed. There were always the students who tried to say “these books are part of a great conspiracy of dunces.” The belief in collective wisdom has never been so embattled! The idea of growing into books is so important. The idea that we can work to see!! This conversation has me all worked up haha!!
Jodie, this is a really great reminder as I psych myself up to start an MFA program next month. One of the assigned books for the first residency just did NOT land with me, and I love that you've reminded me of the art appreciation classes I've taken in the past--they were so helpful in making my initial reaction to a piece of art fade into the background so I could see (and appreciate!) what elements it was using effectively. Thank you for this pragmatic addition to George's thoughts!
Yes, that we subconsciously choose to be with people who re-enact the traumas of our past. And we then have the opportunity to learn from them, and by learning, we can move on.
I wonder what she says when those triggering us are directly responsible for the trauma? It's a different experience, isn't it: observing a behaviour which triggers, to having an abuser taunt us with their power. What would cause me to spend time with my sisters? They'd be furious if I made an effort...
Yes, I work with that one when someone triggers me. I find that I'm getting better at recognizing when I am triggered, rather than just rushing into my reaction, believing it, and blaming the other person. I still may not want to be around that person, but it's a way to develop humility, understanding, and openness.
Beautifully put Timothy. I agree that this wonderful discussion extends to all works of art. My .02 on this topic is that I believe the Artist, whether a writer, painter, musician, chef, etc, is making an offering, both to express something inside and to seek connection, with others, with the universe or something deeper inside themselves, by way of the art. And I believe the Recipient, in a museum, listening to the music, reading the book, eating the meal, is hoping for a connection and perhaps to understand the world or themselves a bit better, and ideally to have their heart opened a bit. When I think about it this way, there is no bad art. There are only a series of encounters, or relationships, that may or may not resonate deeply enough to deserve my investment. Learning more about the person(s) on the other side of the equation definitely adds richness and possibility. But like any offering, or any relationship, they're just not all going to work out, at least not on the first pass. They might work later, or they might never work. Even that is interesting. Either way is OK, I think, if we approach with compassion and curiosity. Anyway, your phrase about 'disliking it with love in your heart' resonated for me in a big way. Nicely expressed! Thanks for the gift.
Thank you both for that!! I have only occasionally listened to Rush, but lately I have received so much joy from watching their performance of “Tom Sawyer” on You Tube.
So funny that you use the Rush example. I hated them with a passion until I learned that they are my brother's favorite band. That made me think: if a person I consider highly intelligent and artistically discerning finds something so worthy in their music, then maybe I should take a deeper look. And it helped me realize that my "hatred" for Rush was probably caused (or at least influenced by) the situation in which I first heard them, which was as a captive audience, where the music selection was controlled by someone I didn't particularly like....
I had no idea how much company I had on this. It makes me smile and laugh.
I feel like your point about seeing (or reading or hearing) through your brother's point of view is what the most recent piece here was all about. "Smart, thoughtful people love this—what might I be missing?"
Also—I totally hear you about disliking stuff when it's introduced by someone you don't like. It's wild how susceptible our judgements are to influences like that. Mine are, anyway. It really makes me question my capacity for independent thought.
"It really makes me question my capacity for independent thought." --Me too!! I think the wisest people I know are the ones who continuously investigate the source of their own thoughts and opinions.
You never know! It’s quite interesting that they are loved and or despised for trying something different. (I also was fascinated to learn that Alex Lifeson’s parents were from Serbia, and Geddy Lee’s parents were from Poland, and survived the Nazi death camps.)
Ahhh! Same same same about Rush. Growing up I would feel like I was crawling out of my skin whenever their songs came on the radio while riding around in my parents’ car. It took me until my 30s before I gave it a critical thought with an open mind. And like you, I’m still not a fan, but I can see glimpses of the genius for sure. It’s not for me, but still pretty bad ass.
I mean, if you like that sort of thing , it's truly great! The turning point came for me when I was watching a documentary about them, and Gene Simmons (Rush was opening for Kiss on tour in the 70s) made what he thought were disparaging remarks about Rush. He derided them as nerds because they always returned to their hotel rooms and read books directly after gigs instead of engaging in all kinds of rock 'n roll excess like they were supposed to in Simmons's view. I was like, "Wait—these are people after my own heart!"
> To get a piece of writing to live, you have to be in relation to it in a way that leaves it slightly beyond you. You’re flailing, you’re trying everything, you’re grasping at straws, you’re following a trail, you’re achieving unintended results, sometimes you’re going beyond the limit of your talent, other times you’re avoiding things that you know you can’t do well, and so on. You are allowing to the table certain parts of yourself that, in real life, you might try to hide or conceal; you are recreating parts of yourself that you’ve since grown out of or discarded: you literally don’t know what it is you’re trying to do.
One of the main things I’ve learned since I started taking fiction writing seriously is that you don’t really seem to have full control of the work. You’re doing your best to apprehend it and the skill is really that apprehension, even more skillful if you can apprehend it delicately.
But this is a big part of the fun, too, once you start taking writing seriously. Like you said, it’s not like you’re trying to communicate something you already know, it’s much more like you’re trying to discover something. It can be very exciting, when you’ve spent hundreds of hours on something, and you find something new, as if it was there all along.
David Bowie talks about this. He said the artist should wade out until they're just in over their head. He also talks about not "playing to the audience. Fantastic stuff.
This piece also reminds me of when I was in school, gnashing my teeth as I read The Faerie Queene. I should probably give it another try.
especially the bit about avoiding things you know you can't do well.
Listening to George on a You-Tube interview recently he mentioned his practice of improving by micro adjustments, time and time again. I've given myself licence to write badly, knowing I'll go back and micro-adjust. It's been really helpful.
Noone will read this because it's so far down but I'm bouncing between vigorous agreement with this and then also wondering how this relates to something written in the Freakification incident (can we call it an incident): "Many writers I know - most, actually - are thoughtful and considerate and even deferential to the views and wishes of other people. All good traits, in a human being. But in this one zone of our lives (the artistic zone) we’re allowed to be wildly and indefensibly opinionated and self-indulgent (which is also called “having a style.”)Sometimes finding our style involves honoring the little aversions we feel even if (especially if) we can’t rationalize or explain these."
Great point! And I should add that I ditch books all the time. So…a contradiction. But I pay special attention to books that bind me up in a certain way, and that have a reputation or that people I respect have praised. Also - continuing the frankness - I will keep criticism to myself if I ditch something - won’t claim it’s bad, but will just move away…🥴
Thanks everyone for reading so far down! 😊 More and more I feel that reading and writing at its best is about observing the fine and rough paradoxical movements of our responses to stories and just noticing them without falling into the comfort of judgement. Much like meditation.
So far down? It's the replies that you get email notification of way after you posted comment that tell me that - while it is a fast flowing river Story Club's 'Archive' quite the just managed to read it as it went by before it washed downstream, went over the falls and was soon lost in the Great Sea of Words - there is not just latently but actually and potentially enormous insight to be mined from reading back, selectively, over the rich literary assets that are George's Newsletters and the Comment Conversations that ignite around them. 😊
Sorry I was definitely not at my most optimistic when I wrote the comment. I can't tell you how much getting responses has lifted me up after a tough week x
I'm fortunate that humility comes to me so easily. (I just wish it hadn't required such a steady stream of humiliations to achieve.) Whenever I encounter the off-putting or the incomprehensible, I start with the assumption that I'm missing something. If I were a detective, I would always be a Person Of Interest.
...steady stream of humiliations. This statement amuses me and hurts at the same time - it could have been me talking there. This year I am trying to sidestep those "humiliations" by simply not caring as much. Humility is overrated! And what I am discovering is that worrying about the humiliations limits me from trying so many things! So I am trying not to worry so much about them. It's hard to execute on but so freeing! Thanks for sharing that thought.
There is an old tale about two rabbis that Carl Jung mentions in his "Memories, Dreams, Reflections". One asks the other why people don't see the face of God nowadays. The other answers: "It because we do not bow down low enough."
I had the honor to study privately for a couple of years with this marvelous cranky poet named Larry Fagin. He taught me so many things. One I’ve already mentioned he said about a memoir piece of mine, “I don’t care about the story. I care about the language.” And he set me to reading writers I’d never heard of like Jane Bowles. I didn’t like “Stick of Green Candy” the first time I read it and told Larry so. He said in his blunt manner, “There’s nothing wrong with the story. It’s you.” I told this to another writer buddy who was offended and asked me how I let him say this to me. I went back and reread the story realizing what I was objecting to about was personal. Larry pushed me to see beyond my immediate rejection. Bowles’s stories are strange nether worlds filled with magic because of her perceptions. You/I/we have to bend a bit to enter her odd world.
Like yours, too. I reread “Mom of Bold Action” again today & I see it so differently than when I first read it. I didn’t understand the pov first read. I wanted it to fit into my idea of story, which it doesn’t. SC has helped me do what my writer/psychologist friend Barry Friesen calls “readjusting the frame.”
We have to bend into the unfamiliar & give it a chance. Esp those of us who dare to write. Gotta read. And read stuff we don’t understand or even like. If we want to grow.
“…but there are elements in our most powerful work that require us to approach the writing with a kind of disciplined abandon, that makes the result comes out a little crazily – misshapen, partial, wild, not in a linear relation to reality; out of sync, somehow, with our “real” selves; imperfect, in other words.”
Yes! TY for this. I always get a gift from your posts. This quote is one. It gives me permission to go back and put back in something I just cut from a story. I love the section & it makes the story imperfectly perfect.
I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes by one of my favorite bad boys (he makes Gurov look like bread pudding) of literature the Viscount de Valmont in Liaisons Dangereuse: “It’s beyond my control.”
I was just looking for your longer comment that had disappeared. Glad you enjoyed it. And wow what a night that must have been. I came to D. Hall late but feel in love with him via his "Essays at Eighty." OMG, so funny and still horny at his age. Actually, he taught me something even my therapist didn't tell me. That sexual excess after losing a person is a means of handling grief. And one of my favorite lines was his comment "a pause as big as a rickshaw." What a loss. I hope you write a piece about that night. Ashamedly, I don't know Ginsburg's work. I shall look up some. 🦩
Yes I deleted it— not sure why— I’ve become sensitive about reporting “stories” that include others — Ginsberg’s “Howl” is astonishing. And among the details of The New Yorker article that I loved about Fagin was his fascination with that Paris crowd. I discovered Anais Nin in high school in a very back handed way and she took me to all of them — I read Henry Miller and Durrell before I read Hemingway or Steinbeck. I’d have been very happy to cross paths with Fagin!
I read Miller/ Durell/Kazantzakis’ first, too. My literate mother had them lying around😎 only read Nin’s Incest Diaries. “Le Roi Soleil”😳 it’s no wonder I found most stuff dull after that. Never read the Grapes book. I’ll look up Howl. Larry’s father killed himself. We had that in common. He however refused to look back or write about it. I spent way too much time doing that but it got me past myself so all’s well that began bad!
Many of the best books I have encountered in a lifetime of reading I did not make it through on the first attempt. Ulysses, Gravity’s Rainbow, Moby Dick. Fell away, didn’t connect, it was just too damn hard. Then at some point I went back to them and took another whack at it. And in some cases, yet another whack. In most cases, I finished the books eventually, and they were great, and I would have really missed something if I had not persevered.
I guess it’s true of the arts in general; we can run across a painting or hear a song, and not react to it at all, or else decide not to like it, until repeated viewings/listenings, undertaken because other people whose opinions we respect like the piece in question. And often, though not always, we come around. We catch what we had been missing. We find the rhythm that will take us through the work. The first time I heard what would become one of my favorite song recordings of all time, The Band’s album, Music From Big Pink, I was left more or less completely unmoved. I kept at it, though, because so many musicians I respected were talking about how good it was. And the result has been, when it comes to art works, that I’m less likely to take my first impression as the last word.
You can say I don’t trust my feelings and judgements, or you could say that I have learned to bring some objectivity to the process of evaluation. Not every piece of writing will speak to us. And yet, as our Story Leader puts it, works of art “may keep unfolding for years to come, regardless of that first readerly reaction.” That is what I finally learned.
One afternoon, I opened Lincoln In the Bardo and started in at my usual breakneck speed. I somehow had the idea it was about vampires. (sorry) After a few pages, I looked up wide-eyed and said to myself, What is this? And put the book down. After the Christmas rush and spending a full day lounging, I picked up the book again and gave it the slow, concentrated attention it deserved. What a gem! I loved it! Sometimes coming in a with a "proper" mindset makes all the difference in our experience of a book.-
Years ago, for about six months after my father died, I could only read the puffiest of puff pieces. I now have a better understanding of and appreciation for puff pieces. Again, it was everything about my mindset at the time. Sometimes we aren't ready for the message (or any message). A book to me is very much about the shared experienced between the writer and the reader.
As a struggling new writer, I really appreciate the idea of letting go of the story. Flailing, trying everything, grasping at straws, etc, is maybe more a part of the process than I realized. Not just me as a new writer wallowing in the mud and getting nothing but dirty. That maybe one day I will emerge triumphant and holding a small mud pie!
"Sometimes coming in a with a "proper" mindset makes all the difference in our experience of a book." This applies to all types of stories. I just mentioned this in my newsletter while talking about Jordan Peele's latest film, Nope. Going in focused on decoding the story made all the difference.
Only today I’ve been trying to help my autistic son understand that there are no accidents in the story he has to study for school. When the car crashes into a lorry of pigs on the motorway the author made a decision that that car would not crash into a concrete lorry. He said it wouldn’t have occurred to him to think about the author deciding that fact or it might add a layer of meaning somehow.
I love how GS articulates the effort and intention of an author. It doesn’t come naturally to every reader to pick that up. I think because there’s a misconception that stories are written easily from start to finish by gifted individuals. The work is a secret only known to those who try writing themselves.
Listening to audio books and the New Yorker Fiction podcast was how I found GS stories, and as I wouldn’t call myself a sophisticated reader, but a hard working reader, I believe this ‘taught’ me how to appreciate GS’s work. So when I came to the page, I knew not to be ‘frightened’ of the style.
I very much sign up to the idea that we develop as readers, books find us when we are ready for them, and readers who have an openness will find themselves rewarded if they’re given the guidance they seek.
I think part of the lack of focus from readers on the intent of the author comes from the way we study literature. The post-modern fixation on understanding a story from multiple angles was solidified by Roland Barthes' book The Death of the Author. I think, in its time (and still now in some ways) the idea that the author's perspective is irrelevant to the meaning of the text was helpful. It was a reaction to the obsession with historical context that came before it. But I'm glad we're coming around to seeing fiction as something formed by humans. Not that authors own the meaning of their work necessarily. It's like George says: "Our work is of us but is not Us." Thinking about fiction and poetry that way is what inspires me to try my hand at it. It somehow makes it more possible.
This is interesting to me Andrew, I didn't know about Barthes' essay. Was he suggesting there is just one accurate way to understand fiction? - e.g. as the author intended it, from his/her perspective?
If we take the view that work is 'of us but is not us', we expand opportunity of understanding considerably, and I suppose there is a temporal element too in the mix.
Last year I was in a group discussing Conrad's Heart of Darkness, and what you've offered here would have been useful to contribute to answering the question of whether Conrad (as opposed to the narrator Marlow) was (knowingly) racist. Going off track a bit, but thanks for sharing.
Barthes was trying to redirect the focus of lit analysis back to the text itself. This was in 1967. Before that, analysis was completely focused on the author's intent, and it was assumed that the author's intended meaning was the authoritative one. The Death of the Author flipped that on its head (hence the name). In a sense, it's the opposite of how you described it. It was the people before Barthes that believed there was one accurate way to understand fiction. Barthes paved the way to handing that authority back to each individual reader.
Looking at Heart of Darkness as an example, Barthes would've said that whether Conrad was racist or not, judged by the standards of his time or ours, is irrelevant. What matters is the text. Personally, I feel like that "throws the baby out with the bath water." Heart of Darkness likely has legitimate "meanings" or "readings" that Conrad never intended, consciously or otherwise. The meaning(s) of the novel will, of course, change over time as our understanding of race, colonialism, sex, nature, etc. change.
It's clear, based on everything we know about Joseph Conrad, that Heart of Darkness was INTENDED to be a scathing and anti-racist criticism of colonialism. That colours (excuse the pun) my reading of the book. But that's MY perspective, which is also coloured by my white, male, European, colonial heritage. Obviously, my perspective isn't authoritative. The question Barthes asks is, "Is Conrad's?" He answers, "No." I'm not so quick to answer either way, honestly. I put Conrad's perspective higher in importance than my own. But I would also weigh the perspective/criticism of a Black reader or Congolese citizen/ancestor a lot higher than my own as well. That's what I mean by Barthes' "dead author" perspective being "helpful."
That gets into even more complex territory. Probably 85% of books from say 50-plus years ago would be seen as ‘racist’ now. Perhaps antiracism and anti racist books will be seen as racist in 20-30 years from now. (Which frankly wouldn’t be surprising.) Another question is: Are the authors themselves racist? Or is it a reflection of the cultural milieu at the time? Should we judge art by the artist? By the content? By the intent? Who decides the rules here? Etc.
Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, I think there’s a ton of wisdom in saying, like, there are some works that we need to rise up to meet, and that there’s an education to be had in, as readers, trying to parse through our reactions, which, as a former teacher once said, often has something to do with our moral paradigm of the world, and this being challenged, rather than by the validity and nature of the work itself. Like, I sometimes want to scream when I read those one or two star Goodreads reviews (often of books I love) that are basically just like “I didn’t like the characters” or “these characters annoyed me.”
But, I’m also deeply suspect and skeptical of writers desires and motivations sometimes in creating art. I’m just literally astounded sometimes by the amount of writers who are shitty, ungenerous, and mean spirited in real life. Like, I’ve just witnessed too many “writers” that are really using their craft to assuage or amplify their own egos. Because they have “something important to say.” Which at times might be valid! But these writers don’t generally care about their audience. It’s usually about ME. And, some of these writers get published, which brings me to another concern, which is MARKETING and capitalism and how, at the end of the day, books are meant to sell. Like, I remember reading a short story in Best American short stories, that was published in The New Yorker, and being completely blown away by how bad it was. Like, I was angry. And you could make the case that this was just me as a reader, but I honestly believe that this particular author and story (which I’ll let remain unnamed) was published because it fit some particular trend or niche, or because this writer was a familiar brand, or icon, based on his or her previously published, commercially successful, first book.
And, idk, like, I thought I was crazy going through the best American short stories anthology, thinking like, is this stuff actually good, but then I started reading the pushcart small press anthology and I was blown away by the difference, how well crafted these stories were, how they made me feel. Beautiful, too.
Idk. Maybe this is just my experience working at a bookstore for four years, but I’m very jaded with the commercialism and marketing that tries to convince me that something that is published is good. (At the same time, I want to fully own that, perhaps, this could be my subjective tastes as a reader.) but couldn’t it also be the cause that bad art is created for selfish, monetary, and egotistical reasonings? And that what we call our “tastes” are actually correct, in resisting something which, through financial pressures, the world is trying to tell us is good?
Idk...sorry if this sounds rants and crabby. But I was so so so mad to see that story I mentioned earlier published in BASS and the New Yorker, and weirdly grateful when discovering the Pushcart anthology.
Am also perhaps jaded because I’ve seen and known too many writers that, like, just don’t care about reading, or their audience, or are drawn to writing not because of the work, or audience, but because of this romanticized mythology and cult status we’ve sometimes created (thanks, Beats!) to being a “writer.”
Eric, Publishing has changed dramatically over the last, say, two or so decades, as you probably know if you work in a bookstore, sometimes for the good (I'm thinking of works that originate on the internet & then find their way to paper), but not always, as in the case you make for declining quality using BASS as an example. I have every volume of BASS since 1980, and a few going back before then (short stories are what I love most), and while, in my opinion, not every story in those earlier volumes is a winner, the overall decline over the years is distinct, measurable, and disappointing. Sure, some of it is owing strictly to taste; what sings to me may not register at all with another reader or, for that matter, editor. It may also have to do with larger shifts in the culture overall, which we can chart in everything from TV to politics, as in what was once unthinkable is now acceptable. Whatever the cause, quality is the issue and it's decline is evident. I think it has in part to do with what you refer to as "romanticized mythology and cult status" of writing. And I think, again and only in part, that the eruption of the number of MFA programs is a measure of that, not a total indicator, but a distinct one. I keep up my subscription to the NYer, but some weeks I wonder why, reading the fiction. Of course no reader wants to have things over explained, to be excluded from the joy of participation while reading, but the other extreme, the deliberately obtuse, excludes as well: figure it out, the author seems to be saying and with a sneer and saying it with back up from an editor. As for your sounding ranty and crabby, as you put it, I don't think so. I think you make valid points. John Thompson has much to say about the evolution/disruption of the publishing industry in his book The Book Wars. He was also a recent guest of Brook Gladstone's on On the Media, NPR, very telling interview.
Hi Rosann. Thanks so much for your thoughtful and, I feel, for me, validating response, as well as the recommendation. Will definitely check out! will say I’ve also felt similarly about New Yorker stories.
Yes, some things end up out in the world that suck. There's no denying it. Film is a medium that particularly astounds me when it comes to this (how did so many people agree to work so hard to make this horrible thing?). But I'll refer you to George's response to Bart (who's comment is currently at 9 likes, to help you find it).
"I'm not sure that I mean it's a good (solid) assumption [that there is a collective wisdom at work in the realm of criticism] - but it's one that, if we make it, helps us read "deeper into" a work that we may be resisting. It's like...a good aspiration, maybe. It could be that a given story is, in fact, a waste of time, ultimately, but I've always felt that, especially for would-be writers, it's better to err on the side of this assumption, than its opposite ("I don't like it, so shall flee.") :)"
I’ve just returned to a first draft of my own work, and am mystified by it. I’m trying to connect, trying to understand my own intention, working hard to figure out what on earth it’s meant to be about. So this post is well timed. I will try pretending the work is written by someone else and see if a generous enlightenment occurs.
While I appreciate the sentiment and find it very generous, I believe this is a bold assumption:
"I assume that there is a collective wisdom at work in the realm of criticism..."
I think there are many truly excellent writers who are flogged (and/or completely ignored) by those "in the realm of criticism." And a lot who are exalted, shouldn't be, and don't/won't withstand the test of time (though that may reflect the fact that there's not necessarily "collective wisdom" at work over time either).
Hi Bart. I'm not sure that I mean it's a good (solid) assumption - but it's one that, if we make it, helps us read "deeper into" a work that we may be resisting. It's like...a good aspiration, maybe. It could be that a given story is, in fact, a waste of time, ultimately, but I've always felt that, especially for would-be writers, it's better to err on the side of this assumption, than its opposite ("I don't like it, so shall flee.") :)
But don’t we sometimes resist a work because we sense we don’t like the person behind it? What I love most about your stories (George Saunders) is the love and respect you have for your characters, no matter what horrible things you put them through. To my mind, an instinct for a writer's sincerity trumps craft, however well executed.
This is a really interesting question. I don’t think I have looked into the authors behind works I like/don’t like enough to know if that is true for me. Or if it’s that I simply didn’t get the work on some level.
I was watching a Netflix special by comedian Hannah Gadsby (https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/80233611?s=i&trkid=13747225&vlang=en&clip=80998602) who explained that she didn’t like Picasso because he was basically a pedophile and made some pretty sexist comments. That got me wondering about the question of the person vs the work. (Which also leads into the topic of cancel culture.. but not sure I should go there!) It’s a question I haven’t quite resolved in my own mind and interested to hear people’s thoughts..
Thanks for the link, Rachel (she is very funny)! I may not have worded this right. I was talking about the sense you get from reading a writer's work, not knowing anything about the person. The way female characters are portrayed, violence is depicted, the feeling of being manipulated rather than genuinely engaged...etc.
Cancel culture or equating a writer's work with their personal lives and politics is to my mind a different topic -- but one very much worth discussing. Apparently, many Lit mags are pulling published work because writers' personal opinions don't align with theirs...No idea of how to feel about that, but probably negative.
'Apparently, many Lit mags are pulling published work because writers' personal opinions don't align with theirs...No idea of how to feel about that, but probably negative' You are right to feel negative, very negative, very negative indeed about any 'Lit Mag' that evidences such bias, it is a step on the to some kind of 'Lit Hell' when the editorial message that is being received by writers is "be sure you are aligned with our opinions or else".
Thank you for clarifying. That makes sense. I also read the link you posted, which was scary and sad to read about how it effected the people who it happened to.
True, GS. I think we writers can always learn a lot from criticism, from people not emotionally invested in our work...even if some of said criticism is ‘bad.’
An observation I once heard from a visual artist was: I'm not looking for what I know, I'm looking for what I haven't met yet. (I probably made a bollix of her exact words) but I have found it an expansive way to read. I want to be an ambitious reader because I am reading towards what I want to write and have no interest in middle-brow literature. Sometimes I recognise that the piece of work I find tin eared or bland can't help me (personally) learn to be a better writer, but in some cases it could help me become a more commercial writer, or an easier writer. I am only hungry for literature that challenges because I want to know what the novel can become. That said I would never recommend anyone follow my approach to anything, except admiring birds.
Well, I've read all the comments here and am intimidated to write at all but I have to say that I have often returned to a book that, at first attempt, I just didn't like. Life experience brings so much to my appreciation of books I tried earlier in my life and just couldn't read, but now find fascinating.
Happens with music, too. It was always my inclination to focus on lyrics but one of my children showed me how to listen to the music and now I get to hear all my favorite songs like I'm hearing them for the first time. I love it!
George's description of having "grown into" Dubliners resonated with me. When I first encountered Balzac, in my early twenties, I found his narratives compelling, but I thought his scheming characters were rather one-dimensional. Later I would discover that when property, money, and position are at stake, people often do behave exactly as Balzac depicted.
East of Eden was one where I had read the first chapter about the California mountains and put it back down more than once. When I made it to the second chapter I was astounded and couldn't put it down.
I tend to trust literary experts, writers, well-known critics as I approach a work of literature, as well as my own sensibilities developed from long years of study. I will come back to a work if it doesn't immediately speak to me. But I try not to dismiss works without giving them a good chance. For a long time, I tried to read Arthur Koestler's "Darkness at Noon," a slim novel about Stalinist Russia. Surprisingly, I had never heard of it, and it ranked #8 on the Modern Library's greatest novels between 1900-1998. I was working at the Yale library at the time, just before Harold Bloom died. I've always been interested in western canon formation and had the good fortune to be assigned to the literature section of the library. I spent much time dipping into introductions written by Bloom. I ran into Bloom's edition of Koestler's book with a very short introduction. Most of the time, Bloom went on for pages explaining the significance of a classic. For Koestler's work, he wrote half a page. He said something along the lines of that Koestler's work belongs to his age and nothing more. It's a work of its time and can be safely ignored as not a work of note. That was the permission I needed to set the book aside instead of banging my head against something that I had trouble getting into. I don't think it was me. I've read other books of their time and been able to see value in them as they rose above their time. These comments today really do speak to me about how literature is the combined work of reader and writer trying working together to create art.
I also haven't read "Darkness at Noon," but your comment, ironically, finds me interested. Mostly, because I just finished reading a classic that's extremely "of its time" yet has influenced centuries of fiction since then… Dante's Divine Comedy.
Reading it doesn't feel that way. There's no way I would've understood 95% of it without the footnotes. So much reference to 12th Century Italian politics!
I like this humble, open hearted way of approaching art and giving the creator (and presumably her process) the benefit of the doubt. I come at it with an understanding of wanting to bring a curious and respectful witness to the amazing work the creator has achieved. I don’t care if a critic has told me the value of something. I like “Big Mac” fiction as well as gourmet. The thing is though, a middle of the road response will often shut me down faster than a truly repulsed response. I can work through any response but my lukewarm response. I feel the weight of all the books I want to read and those not published yet and am too quick to slap a DNF on one that doesn’t pull me in or evoke an effect. Trying harder holds no power for me at 57. I won’t should on myself anymore.
"I won’t should on myself anymore." I love that, and at 64, I agree.
I am less likely to push myself through a book that's not working for me. But also careful to say--it's not the book, it's me. Maybe another time would be different. But there's only so much time, and like you say, so many books!
I feel "slightly beyond myself" every time I put finger to keyboard because I'm not a particularly talented writer.
I'm always looking for validation that my writing will connect to anyone, at all, let alone sophisticated readers. However, I've also been practicing for awhile now, and I feel like there must come a time when a writer should trust herself.
I believe there are two parts to art. There's the expression, but there's also the reception. If there's no reception then it's an incomplete piece. For me, there's always a push and pull between wanting to make something true and honest, but also wanting it to land with an audience.
Yes, Amy - this distinction between "expression" and "reception" is really interesting. We'll be talking more about this here, I bet.
In continuing a potential thread to this topic, I would like to add to it.
I would consider myself to have “Kafka Syndrome” -- I find it difficult to place value or take pride in things I do/create. When it comes to my writing I’ve experienced what I think anyone would call encouragement or even minor success. I managed to get some short stories published not too long after I first started writing and every time I’ve shown someone a piece of work, I’ve had back words of encouragement or praise, even.
Very recently I had the privilege of having my work read and critiqued by one of my favourite authors -- Chuck Palahniuk. The critique was brilliant, and he even called my piece “wonderful” (*obligatory closeup camera shot of tear falling down cheek*).
I mention all this because, despite the encouragement, despite my favourite author calling something I did “wonderful”, I still find it hard to muster up the self-encouragement to write. One would think after this I’d be typing away until my fingertips were bone nubs, but no. There is, I think, still an apprehension to write on my part.
I think I know what the solution to this is, and I intend to do it. All the same though, and with the intention of hopefully continuing an interesting discussion topic, I thought I’d share this.
Is it possible you find yourself intimidated by your own gifts as seen and affirmed by an author you greatly admire? It happened to me when Alice Munro endorsed my first book, to my publisher’s delight and my own fear that I might never again write anything worthy. Others might have reacted by typing till their fingers were bone nubs; I couldn’t write anything longer than a blog post. Other writers I know have found this puzzling because it doesn’t seem to make any sense. I am sharing it now in the spirit of openness to bafflement at this odd devotion called writing. What George says here about sending a playful gift into the world is a tonic for this kind of angst, I think.
OMG I know exactly what you are talking about- being paralyzed by that sort of praise! What a crazy/silly little trick the mind does!
I'm so happy for you that your first book got an endorsement from Alice Munro. How thrilling! Your reaction isn't logical, but I wouldn't say that it doesn't make sense. I think a lot of people would be afraid of, "there's nowhere to go but down from here."
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Do you find that the praise and good feedback makes it harder to write because of feeling like you don't want to mess it up?
Sometimes, I feel like I'm only as good as my last piece, so if a piece is good, then I'm afraid to continue because I'm not sure the next thing I write will be as good.
I believe that may be part of it, yes. The concern that I may be setting myself up for failure; or that I’ll discover I’m not cutout for writing, maybe.
It sounds like you're afraid of being disappointed. The praise allowed you to create a certain view of yourself and you don't want to risk losing it. I totally understand that.
Interesting take, though I don’t necessarily think that it’s a case of the praise/encouragement resulting in me creating a certain view of myself, but more so that I already have an established view of myself which is averse to the praise/encouragement. Does that make any sense?
I think some of the issue perhaps lies within thinking of writing vs actually writing. You think about it too much and you put it off. You seal off the doorway to that avenue in your head and just start writing, then pretty soon you’ve got something; and it doesn’t even matter if what you’ve produced has any merit to it or not, what matters is that you just wrote.
Just write..you are over thinking it^^
Write about this precise fear. This is where the creative juice is!
Maybe stop looking through the prism of others... Accept your own full stop. Give yourself the usual time for review then hold your head up and put it out there.
Feedback is a different phase.
Trust in yourself. Surely that way I can get stronger.
Well I am going to try this from now.
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Thanks for responding, George. I sure hope so.
If you want to hear the right radio channel,you have to tune into it^^
On the reception side of the ledger there are also shoals awaiting your small barque to gut it. I “came in second” in an annual, nation wide (Canada) short story contest. As you can imagine I was thrilled and thought, “Yes, I can do this”. However, with some time and space I had to admit to myself something I had forgotten (buried): I had consciously gone out to try and win the damn thing. I had read past year’s winners. I knew the kind of small bore, domestic tales they liked, all dressed up in meat-and-potatoes language;time running in only one direction; characters learning a moral lesson, etc etc. so reception was fabulous but my experience was closer to a beaner student who aced tests through sheer rote memory. No real creativity was exercised - well maybe a bit. I ended wishing I could recall the story and burn it in the back yard. Took me awhile to get something off my pen that I felt even half way decent about. Cautionary tale? Unless you’re into writing airport best sellers, it kinda is. (And not that there’s anything wrong with that!) Reception is a tricky beast in the constant scrabbling after the authentic.
Wow. I have often found myself doing this a bit. Deconstructing certain journals. You’re brave and smart and awesome for sharing.
Me too. Or rather checking out the judges and previous winners. Mainly, though, to see if it’s worth even submitting. There are some themes that, though needed and good, are not either my experience or generally what I write about. If I get the sense of what they like/are looking for and I feel like it’s not me, I tend not to put in the effort and submission fee. Maybe it’s wise or maybe it’s self-limiting. Maybe I’m just lazy.
I don't think you're being lazy. I think you're being wise. If you don't love what you're writing, what's the point?
I doubt you're being lazy! Your presence here in SC over this last year is an indication of that. Not every journal/story is a match. There are two judges of that, I think: you & the editor.
Each journal has its own flavor and aesthetic so I think it’s smart research!
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It still takes quite a bit of skill to look at the previous winners and deduce what would win, so I think you're right that you can do this. It sounds like you ended up writing something that you weren't particularly passionate about, like a tech writer writing an instruction manual. That's not necessarily a bad thing to have done it once and learned that it's not your thing.
I don’t attach my writing to its reception at all. The only time I do is at a live reading and someone makes a noise when I’m done (of appreciation I hope) I just think— oh I’m not that person’s cup of tea, even as I wallpaper my study with way more rejections than acceptances (ok not really but it had more metaphoric punch than a full email box of thanks but no thanks emails with the occasional “send us another” peppered in there for hope) I love it when someone “gets me” or, more accurately, they enjoy the work and find value in it but I’m one of those people who has to write so maybe my revision process needs more work than I think for more people to enjoy it? IDK that’s why I’m here I guess
Very relatable ❤️
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Well said Amy. I agree that this tension exists between expression and reception. And a writer must always keep The Reader in mind. That said, as a writer myself, and as most writers I know would agree: You’re a ‘true’ writer if you write out of pure necessity. Not financial necessity. Not the necessity of attention or fame. But because the writing comes bursting forth from the depths of your soul and you simply cannot resist it.
Michael Mohr
‘Sincere American Writing’
https://michaelmohr.substack.com/
With expression and reception the piece is firing on all cylinders, I’m thinking.
I trust you^^
I love this. It feels like a kind approach to all works of art, not just written ones. I used to despise the band Rush. Every single aesthetic decision they committed to their recordings chafed against my sensibilities. Their music hurt me like an itchy sweater. But my reaction was all out of scale. So I watched a documentary about them, and carefully listened to some of the records on headphones. And now—I get it. I get what they meant to do. They did it brilliantly. Do I like the music of Rush? No, I do not. But I now I dislike it with love in my heart, and I crank it up when it comes on the car stereo.
"I dislike it with love in my heart." Exactly. I don't mean about Rush, per se, but in general - this is a more solid feeling than just disliking it before examining it completely. And esp if something is causing a strong negative reaction, there's often something there...
My mom was a music teacher and called this Appreciation. To this day, students will approach my mom and say, you taught me I didn’t have to love, but to learn and appreciate! As a high school teacher, this was something, maybe the thing, I tried to convey to my students. They had grown up hearing empty statements like “this book changed my life” and would be perplexed. There were always the students who tried to say “these books are part of a great conspiracy of dunces.” The belief in collective wisdom has never been so embattled! The idea of growing into books is so important. The idea that we can work to see!! This conversation has me all worked up haha!!
Jodie, this is a really great reminder as I psych myself up to start an MFA program next month. One of the assigned books for the first residency just did NOT land with me, and I love that you've reminded me of the art appreciation classes I've taken in the past--they were so helpful in making my initial reaction to a piece of art fade into the background so I could see (and appreciate!) what elements it was using effectively. Thank you for this pragmatic addition to George's thoughts!
Good luck with your MFA program! I'm jealous! All the best on your journey and happy new year.
This reminds me of something Marianne Williamson said, that we are meant to be with the people who trigger us most.
Yes, that we subconsciously choose to be with people who re-enact the traumas of our past. And we then have the opportunity to learn from them, and by learning, we can move on.
I wonder what she says when those triggering us are directly responsible for the trauma? It's a different experience, isn't it: observing a behaviour which triggers, to having an abuser taunt us with their power. What would cause me to spend time with my sisters? They'd be furious if I made an effort...
wow. I'll sit with that one for a while.
Yes, I work with that one when someone triggers me. I find that I'm getting better at recognizing when I am triggered, rather than just rushing into my reaction, believing it, and blaming the other person. I still may not want to be around that person, but it's a way to develop humility, understanding, and openness.
Ohhhhh I love this ❤️❤️🔥. Now convince the wokies 😂😂
Beautifully put Timothy. I agree that this wonderful discussion extends to all works of art. My .02 on this topic is that I believe the Artist, whether a writer, painter, musician, chef, etc, is making an offering, both to express something inside and to seek connection, with others, with the universe or something deeper inside themselves, by way of the art. And I believe the Recipient, in a museum, listening to the music, reading the book, eating the meal, is hoping for a connection and perhaps to understand the world or themselves a bit better, and ideally to have their heart opened a bit. When I think about it this way, there is no bad art. There are only a series of encounters, or relationships, that may or may not resonate deeply enough to deserve my investment. Learning more about the person(s) on the other side of the equation definitely adds richness and possibility. But like any offering, or any relationship, they're just not all going to work out, at least not on the first pass. They might work later, or they might never work. Even that is interesting. Either way is OK, I think, if we approach with compassion and curiosity. Anyway, your phrase about 'disliking it with love in your heart' resonated for me in a big way. Nicely expressed! Thanks for the gift.
"there is no bad art. There are only a series of encounters, or relationships, that may or may not resonate deeply enough to deserve my investment."
Love this. Perfect way to put it.
Right. Take what works and leave the rest, as they say 🙌
“…I dislike it with love in my heart…” That is a great achievement!
I didn’t understand Rush (husband a huge fan) until I understood the once-in-lifetime phenomena: Neil Peart.
And then on another level after reading
Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road by Neil Peart; he is a very gifted writer too.
He wrote all the songs.
Thank you both for that!! I have only occasionally listened to Rush, but lately I have received so much joy from watching their performance of “Tom Sawyer” on You Tube.
So funny that you use the Rush example. I hated them with a passion until I learned that they are my brother's favorite band. That made me think: if a person I consider highly intelligent and artistically discerning finds something so worthy in their music, then maybe I should take a deeper look. And it helped me realize that my "hatred" for Rush was probably caused (or at least influenced by) the situation in which I first heard them, which was as a captive audience, where the music selection was controlled by someone I didn't particularly like....
I had no idea how much company I had on this. It makes me smile and laugh.
I feel like your point about seeing (or reading or hearing) through your brother's point of view is what the most recent piece here was all about. "Smart, thoughtful people love this—what might I be missing?"
Also—I totally hear you about disliking stuff when it's introduced by someone you don't like. It's wild how susceptible our judgements are to influences like that. Mine are, anyway. It really makes me question my capacity for independent thought.
"It really makes me question my capacity for independent thought." --Me too!! I think the wisest people I know are the ones who continuously investigate the source of their own thoughts and opinions.
Rush has certainly ignited quite the conversation on here. I’ve learned so much about them!
I had no idea they were so polarizing outside of my own skull.
You never know! It’s quite interesting that they are loved and or despised for trying something different. (I also was fascinated to learn that Alex Lifeson’s parents were from Serbia, and Geddy Lee’s parents were from Poland, and survived the Nazi death camps.)
Ahhh! Same same same about Rush. Growing up I would feel like I was crawling out of my skin whenever their songs came on the radio while riding around in my parents’ car. It took me until my 30s before I gave it a critical thought with an open mind. And like you, I’m still not a fan, but I can see glimpses of the genius for sure. It’s not for me, but still pretty bad ass.
I mean, if you like that sort of thing , it's truly great! The turning point came for me when I was watching a documentary about them, and Gene Simmons (Rush was opening for Kiss on tour in the 70s) made what he thought were disparaging remarks about Rush. He derided them as nerds because they always returned to their hotel rooms and read books directly after gigs instead of engaging in all kinds of rock 'n roll excess like they were supposed to in Simmons's view. I was like, "Wait—these are people after my own heart!"
Appreciate Rush in a mix tape situation only ha ha and only sometimes
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Wow you connected so well. Thanks
I relate to this in a big way:
> To get a piece of writing to live, you have to be in relation to it in a way that leaves it slightly beyond you. You’re flailing, you’re trying everything, you’re grasping at straws, you’re following a trail, you’re achieving unintended results, sometimes you’re going beyond the limit of your talent, other times you’re avoiding things that you know you can’t do well, and so on. You are allowing to the table certain parts of yourself that, in real life, you might try to hide or conceal; you are recreating parts of yourself that you’ve since grown out of or discarded: you literally don’t know what it is you’re trying to do.
One of the main things I’ve learned since I started taking fiction writing seriously is that you don’t really seem to have full control of the work. You’re doing your best to apprehend it and the skill is really that apprehension, even more skillful if you can apprehend it delicately.
But this is a big part of the fun, too, once you start taking writing seriously. Like you said, it’s not like you’re trying to communicate something you already know, it’s much more like you’re trying to discover something. It can be very exciting, when you’ve spent hundreds of hours on something, and you find something new, as if it was there all along.
David Bowie talks about this. He said the artist should wade out until they're just in over their head. He also talks about not "playing to the audience. Fantastic stuff.
This piece also reminds me of when I was in school, gnashing my teeth as I read The Faerie Queene. I should probably give it another try.
The Bowie interview:
https://youtu.be/cNbnef_eXBM
feet almost on the ground😳
I love Bowies idea!! Like, being just afloat, a little uncomfortable. So interesting!
It was cold with that Queene^^
especially the bit about avoiding things you know you can't do well.
Listening to George on a You-Tube interview recently he mentioned his practice of improving by micro adjustments, time and time again. I've given myself licence to write badly, knowing I'll go back and micro-adjust. It's been really helpful.
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You stated this really well, Dawson. Agony and ecstasy.
A story is a river at the delta^^
Noone will read this because it's so far down but I'm bouncing between vigorous agreement with this and then also wondering how this relates to something written in the Freakification incident (can we call it an incident): "Many writers I know - most, actually - are thoughtful and considerate and even deferential to the views and wishes of other people. All good traits, in a human being. But in this one zone of our lives (the artistic zone) we’re allowed to be wildly and indefensibly opinionated and self-indulgent (which is also called “having a style.”)Sometimes finding our style involves honoring the little aversions we feel even if (especially if) we can’t rationalize or explain these."
Great point! And I should add that I ditch books all the time. So…a contradiction. But I pay special attention to books that bind me up in a certain way, and that have a reputation or that people I respect have praised. Also - continuing the frankness - I will keep criticism to myself if I ditch something - won’t claim it’s bad, but will just move away…🥴
Thanks everyone for reading so far down! 😊 More and more I feel that reading and writing at its best is about observing the fine and rough paradoxical movements of our responses to stories and just noticing them without falling into the comfort of judgement. Much like meditation.
So far down? It's the replies that you get email notification of way after you posted comment that tell me that - while it is a fast flowing river Story Club's 'Archive' quite the just managed to read it as it went by before it washed downstream, went over the falls and was soon lost in the Great Sea of Words - there is not just latently but actually and potentially enormous insight to be mined from reading back, selectively, over the rich literary assets that are George's Newsletters and the Comment Conversations that ignite around them. 😊
Sorry I was definitely not at my most optimistic when I wrote the comment. I can't tell you how much getting responses has lifted me up after a tough week x
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I read far down....so don't jump to early conclusions^^
I may have been in a bad mood when I dashed this comment off. Sorry about that. In my defence I had COVID :-)
I'm fortunate that humility comes to me so easily. (I just wish it hadn't required such a steady stream of humiliations to achieve.) Whenever I encounter the off-putting or the incomprehensible, I start with the assumption that I'm missing something. If I were a detective, I would always be a Person Of Interest.
I just thought of Peter Faulk in “Colombo” for some reason.
"One more thing…"
I can see his squinty eyes and rumpled coat.
You are once again going to crack the case..because of your clever questions^^
...steady stream of humiliations. This statement amuses me and hurts at the same time - it could have been me talking there. This year I am trying to sidestep those "humiliations" by simply not caring as much. Humility is overrated! And what I am discovering is that worrying about the humiliations limits me from trying so many things! So I am trying not to worry so much about them. It's hard to execute on but so freeing! Thanks for sharing that thought.
There is an old tale about two rabbis that Carl Jung mentions in his "Memories, Dreams, Reflections". One asks the other why people don't see the face of God nowadays. The other answers: "It because we do not bow down low enough."
Or we don't look high enough^^
You learned to fly^^
I like that thought, Mary.
On Reading
I had the honor to study privately for a couple of years with this marvelous cranky poet named Larry Fagin. He taught me so many things. One I’ve already mentioned he said about a memoir piece of mine, “I don’t care about the story. I care about the language.” And he set me to reading writers I’d never heard of like Jane Bowles. I didn’t like “Stick of Green Candy” the first time I read it and told Larry so. He said in his blunt manner, “There’s nothing wrong with the story. It’s you.” I told this to another writer buddy who was offended and asked me how I let him say this to me. I went back and reread the story realizing what I was objecting to about was personal. Larry pushed me to see beyond my immediate rejection. Bowles’s stories are strange nether worlds filled with magic because of her perceptions. You/I/we have to bend a bit to enter her odd world.
Like yours, too. I reread “Mom of Bold Action” again today & I see it so differently than when I first read it. I didn’t understand the pov first read. I wanted it to fit into my idea of story, which it doesn’t. SC has helped me do what my writer/psychologist friend Barry Friesen calls “readjusting the frame.”
We have to bend into the unfamiliar & give it a chance. Esp those of us who dare to write. Gotta read. And read stuff we don’t understand or even like. If we want to grow.
“…but there are elements in our most powerful work that require us to approach the writing with a kind of disciplined abandon, that makes the result comes out a little crazily – misshapen, partial, wild, not in a linear relation to reality; out of sync, somehow, with our “real” selves; imperfect, in other words.”
Yes! TY for this. I always get a gift from your posts. This quote is one. It gives me permission to go back and put back in something I just cut from a story. I love the section & it makes the story imperfectly perfect.
I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes by one of my favorite bad boys (he makes Gurov look like bread pudding) of literature the Viscount de Valmont in Liaisons Dangereuse: “It’s beyond my control.”
Indeed it is Monsieur.
i love this post, Lucinda. And raise my glass to Larry Fagin.
TY, Gail. Larry died in 2017. Here's a lovely tribute to him. He was a fascinating complicated character. One of my best stories came from his prompt to write a story about a monster who wasn't a monster. Called "Breeding" it can be found at Jellyfish Review. Here's Larry... https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/none-of-us-will-ever-be-famous-remembering-the-poet-larry-fagin
The article is terrific. “Folded the story into a paper airplane!” Thank you for attaching the link. I raise my glass to him, even in death!
I was just looking for your longer comment that had disappeared. Glad you enjoyed it. And wow what a night that must have been. I came to D. Hall late but feel in love with him via his "Essays at Eighty." OMG, so funny and still horny at his age. Actually, he taught me something even my therapist didn't tell me. That sexual excess after losing a person is a means of handling grief. And one of my favorite lines was his comment "a pause as big as a rickshaw." What a loss. I hope you write a piece about that night. Ashamedly, I don't know Ginsburg's work. I shall look up some. 🦩
Yes I deleted it— not sure why— I’ve become sensitive about reporting “stories” that include others — Ginsberg’s “Howl” is astonishing. And among the details of The New Yorker article that I loved about Fagin was his fascination with that Paris crowd. I discovered Anais Nin in high school in a very back handed way and she took me to all of them — I read Henry Miller and Durrell before I read Hemingway or Steinbeck. I’d have been very happy to cross paths with Fagin!
I read Miller/ Durell/Kazantzakis’ first, too. My literate mother had them lying around😎 only read Nin’s Incest Diaries. “Le Roi Soleil”😳 it’s no wonder I found most stuff dull after that. Never read the Grapes book. I’ll look up Howl. Larry’s father killed himself. We had that in common. He however refused to look back or write about it. I spent way too much time doing that but it got me past myself so all’s well that began bad!
Many of the best books I have encountered in a lifetime of reading I did not make it through on the first attempt. Ulysses, Gravity’s Rainbow, Moby Dick. Fell away, didn’t connect, it was just too damn hard. Then at some point I went back to them and took another whack at it. And in some cases, yet another whack. In most cases, I finished the books eventually, and they were great, and I would have really missed something if I had not persevered.
I guess it’s true of the arts in general; we can run across a painting or hear a song, and not react to it at all, or else decide not to like it, until repeated viewings/listenings, undertaken because other people whose opinions we respect like the piece in question. And often, though not always, we come around. We catch what we had been missing. We find the rhythm that will take us through the work. The first time I heard what would become one of my favorite song recordings of all time, The Band’s album, Music From Big Pink, I was left more or less completely unmoved. I kept at it, though, because so many musicians I respected were talking about how good it was. And the result has been, when it comes to art works, that I’m less likely to take my first impression as the last word.
You can say I don’t trust my feelings and judgements, or you could say that I have learned to bring some objectivity to the process of evaluation. Not every piece of writing will speak to us. And yet, as our Story Leader puts it, works of art “may keep unfolding for years to come, regardless of that first readerly reaction.” That is what I finally learned.
I love the Band. They’re so themselves. I guess I can appreciate anything that is fully itself. It seems the same for me in fiction.
The Day they drove old Dixie down^^
One afternoon, I opened Lincoln In the Bardo and started in at my usual breakneck speed. I somehow had the idea it was about vampires. (sorry) After a few pages, I looked up wide-eyed and said to myself, What is this? And put the book down. After the Christmas rush and spending a full day lounging, I picked up the book again and gave it the slow, concentrated attention it deserved. What a gem! I loved it! Sometimes coming in a with a "proper" mindset makes all the difference in our experience of a book.-
Years ago, for about six months after my father died, I could only read the puffiest of puff pieces. I now have a better understanding of and appreciation for puff pieces. Again, it was everything about my mindset at the time. Sometimes we aren't ready for the message (or any message). A book to me is very much about the shared experienced between the writer and the reader.
As a struggling new writer, I really appreciate the idea of letting go of the story. Flailing, trying everything, grasping at straws, etc, is maybe more a part of the process than I realized. Not just me as a new writer wallowing in the mud and getting nothing but dirty. That maybe one day I will emerge triumphant and holding a small mud pie!
"Sometimes coming in a with a "proper" mindset makes all the difference in our experience of a book." This applies to all types of stories. I just mentioned this in my newsletter while talking about Jordan Peele's latest film, Nope. Going in focused on decoding the story made all the difference.
Vampires! Haha. You were sure in for a surprise.
Triumphant mud pies! For everyone!
Only today I’ve been trying to help my autistic son understand that there are no accidents in the story he has to study for school. When the car crashes into a lorry of pigs on the motorway the author made a decision that that car would not crash into a concrete lorry. He said it wouldn’t have occurred to him to think about the author deciding that fact or it might add a layer of meaning somehow.
I love how GS articulates the effort and intention of an author. It doesn’t come naturally to every reader to pick that up. I think because there’s a misconception that stories are written easily from start to finish by gifted individuals. The work is a secret only known to those who try writing themselves.
Listening to audio books and the New Yorker Fiction podcast was how I found GS stories, and as I wouldn’t call myself a sophisticated reader, but a hard working reader, I believe this ‘taught’ me how to appreciate GS’s work. So when I came to the page, I knew not to be ‘frightened’ of the style.
I very much sign up to the idea that we develop as readers, books find us when we are ready for them, and readers who have an openness will find themselves rewarded if they’re given the guidance they seek.
I think part of the lack of focus from readers on the intent of the author comes from the way we study literature. The post-modern fixation on understanding a story from multiple angles was solidified by Roland Barthes' book The Death of the Author. I think, in its time (and still now in some ways) the idea that the author's perspective is irrelevant to the meaning of the text was helpful. It was a reaction to the obsession with historical context that came before it. But I'm glad we're coming around to seeing fiction as something formed by humans. Not that authors own the meaning of their work necessarily. It's like George says: "Our work is of us but is not Us." Thinking about fiction and poetry that way is what inspires me to try my hand at it. It somehow makes it more possible.
This is interesting to me Andrew, I didn't know about Barthes' essay. Was he suggesting there is just one accurate way to understand fiction? - e.g. as the author intended it, from his/her perspective?
If we take the view that work is 'of us but is not us', we expand opportunity of understanding considerably, and I suppose there is a temporal element too in the mix.
Last year I was in a group discussing Conrad's Heart of Darkness, and what you've offered here would have been useful to contribute to answering the question of whether Conrad (as opposed to the narrator Marlow) was (knowingly) racist. Going off track a bit, but thanks for sharing.
Barthes was trying to redirect the focus of lit analysis back to the text itself. This was in 1967. Before that, analysis was completely focused on the author's intent, and it was assumed that the author's intended meaning was the authoritative one. The Death of the Author flipped that on its head (hence the name). In a sense, it's the opposite of how you described it. It was the people before Barthes that believed there was one accurate way to understand fiction. Barthes paved the way to handing that authority back to each individual reader.
Looking at Heart of Darkness as an example, Barthes would've said that whether Conrad was racist or not, judged by the standards of his time or ours, is irrelevant. What matters is the text. Personally, I feel like that "throws the baby out with the bath water." Heart of Darkness likely has legitimate "meanings" or "readings" that Conrad never intended, consciously or otherwise. The meaning(s) of the novel will, of course, change over time as our understanding of race, colonialism, sex, nature, etc. change.
It's clear, based on everything we know about Joseph Conrad, that Heart of Darkness was INTENDED to be a scathing and anti-racist criticism of colonialism. That colours (excuse the pun) my reading of the book. But that's MY perspective, which is also coloured by my white, male, European, colonial heritage. Obviously, my perspective isn't authoritative. The question Barthes asks is, "Is Conrad's?" He answers, "No." I'm not so quick to answer either way, honestly. I put Conrad's perspective higher in importance than my own. But I would also weigh the perspective/criticism of a Black reader or Congolese citizen/ancestor a lot higher than my own as well. That's what I mean by Barthes' "dead author" perspective being "helpful."
Thank you Andrew.
That gets into even more complex territory. Probably 85% of books from say 50-plus years ago would be seen as ‘racist’ now. Perhaps antiracism and anti racist books will be seen as racist in 20-30 years from now. (Which frankly wouldn’t be surprising.) Another question is: Are the authors themselves racist? Or is it a reflection of the cultural milieu at the time? Should we judge art by the artist? By the content? By the intent? Who decides the rules here? Etc.
🫰🫰🔥❤️
Yes 🙌 🔥❤️
Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, I think there’s a ton of wisdom in saying, like, there are some works that we need to rise up to meet, and that there’s an education to be had in, as readers, trying to parse through our reactions, which, as a former teacher once said, often has something to do with our moral paradigm of the world, and this being challenged, rather than by the validity and nature of the work itself. Like, I sometimes want to scream when I read those one or two star Goodreads reviews (often of books I love) that are basically just like “I didn’t like the characters” or “these characters annoyed me.”
But, I’m also deeply suspect and skeptical of writers desires and motivations sometimes in creating art. I’m just literally astounded sometimes by the amount of writers who are shitty, ungenerous, and mean spirited in real life. Like, I’ve just witnessed too many “writers” that are really using their craft to assuage or amplify their own egos. Because they have “something important to say.” Which at times might be valid! But these writers don’t generally care about their audience. It’s usually about ME. And, some of these writers get published, which brings me to another concern, which is MARKETING and capitalism and how, at the end of the day, books are meant to sell. Like, I remember reading a short story in Best American short stories, that was published in The New Yorker, and being completely blown away by how bad it was. Like, I was angry. And you could make the case that this was just me as a reader, but I honestly believe that this particular author and story (which I’ll let remain unnamed) was published because it fit some particular trend or niche, or because this writer was a familiar brand, or icon, based on his or her previously published, commercially successful, first book.
And, idk, like, I thought I was crazy going through the best American short stories anthology, thinking like, is this stuff actually good, but then I started reading the pushcart small press anthology and I was blown away by the difference, how well crafted these stories were, how they made me feel. Beautiful, too.
Idk. Maybe this is just my experience working at a bookstore for four years, but I’m very jaded with the commercialism and marketing that tries to convince me that something that is published is good. (At the same time, I want to fully own that, perhaps, this could be my subjective tastes as a reader.) but couldn’t it also be the cause that bad art is created for selfish, monetary, and egotistical reasonings? And that what we call our “tastes” are actually correct, in resisting something which, through financial pressures, the world is trying to tell us is good?
Idk...sorry if this sounds rants and crabby. But I was so so so mad to see that story I mentioned earlier published in BASS and the New Yorker, and weirdly grateful when discovering the Pushcart anthology.
Am also perhaps jaded because I’ve seen and known too many writers that, like, just don’t care about reading, or their audience, or are drawn to writing not because of the work, or audience, but because of this romanticized mythology and cult status we’ve sometimes created (thanks, Beats!) to being a “writer.”
Eric, Publishing has changed dramatically over the last, say, two or so decades, as you probably know if you work in a bookstore, sometimes for the good (I'm thinking of works that originate on the internet & then find their way to paper), but not always, as in the case you make for declining quality using BASS as an example. I have every volume of BASS since 1980, and a few going back before then (short stories are what I love most), and while, in my opinion, not every story in those earlier volumes is a winner, the overall decline over the years is distinct, measurable, and disappointing. Sure, some of it is owing strictly to taste; what sings to me may not register at all with another reader or, for that matter, editor. It may also have to do with larger shifts in the culture overall, which we can chart in everything from TV to politics, as in what was once unthinkable is now acceptable. Whatever the cause, quality is the issue and it's decline is evident. I think it has in part to do with what you refer to as "romanticized mythology and cult status" of writing. And I think, again and only in part, that the eruption of the number of MFA programs is a measure of that, not a total indicator, but a distinct one. I keep up my subscription to the NYer, but some weeks I wonder why, reading the fiction. Of course no reader wants to have things over explained, to be excluded from the joy of participation while reading, but the other extreme, the deliberately obtuse, excludes as well: figure it out, the author seems to be saying and with a sneer and saying it with back up from an editor. As for your sounding ranty and crabby, as you put it, I don't think so. I think you make valid points. John Thompson has much to say about the evolution/disruption of the publishing industry in his book The Book Wars. He was also a recent guest of Brook Gladstone's on On the Media, NPR, very telling interview.
Hi Rosann. Thanks so much for your thoughtful and, I feel, for me, validating response, as well as the recommendation. Will definitely check out! will say I’ve also felt similarly about New Yorker stories.
Yes, some things end up out in the world that suck. There's no denying it. Film is a medium that particularly astounds me when it comes to this (how did so many people agree to work so hard to make this horrible thing?). But I'll refer you to George's response to Bart (who's comment is currently at 9 likes, to help you find it).
"I'm not sure that I mean it's a good (solid) assumption [that there is a collective wisdom at work in the realm of criticism] - but it's one that, if we make it, helps us read "deeper into" a work that we may be resisting. It's like...a good aspiration, maybe. It could be that a given story is, in fact, a waste of time, ultimately, but I've always felt that, especially for would-be writers, it's better to err on the side of this assumption, than its opposite ("I don't like it, so shall flee.") :)"
The people who put together the Pushcart anthologies are amazing.
I’ve just returned to a first draft of my own work, and am mystified by it. I’m trying to connect, trying to understand my own intention, working hard to figure out what on earth it’s meant to be about. So this post is well timed. I will try pretending the work is written by someone else and see if a generous enlightenment occurs.
🔥🔥❤️
While I appreciate the sentiment and find it very generous, I believe this is a bold assumption:
"I assume that there is a collective wisdom at work in the realm of criticism..."
I think there are many truly excellent writers who are flogged (and/or completely ignored) by those "in the realm of criticism." And a lot who are exalted, shouldn't be, and don't/won't withstand the test of time (though that may reflect the fact that there's not necessarily "collective wisdom" at work over time either).
Hi Bart. I'm not sure that I mean it's a good (solid) assumption - but it's one that, if we make it, helps us read "deeper into" a work that we may be resisting. It's like...a good aspiration, maybe. It could be that a given story is, in fact, a waste of time, ultimately, but I've always felt that, especially for would-be writers, it's better to err on the side of this assumption, than its opposite ("I don't like it, so shall flee.") :)
But don’t we sometimes resist a work because we sense we don’t like the person behind it? What I love most about your stories (George Saunders) is the love and respect you have for your characters, no matter what horrible things you put them through. To my mind, an instinct for a writer's sincerity trumps craft, however well executed.
This is a really interesting question. I don’t think I have looked into the authors behind works I like/don’t like enough to know if that is true for me. Or if it’s that I simply didn’t get the work on some level.
I was watching a Netflix special by comedian Hannah Gadsby (https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/80233611?s=i&trkid=13747225&vlang=en&clip=80998602) who explained that she didn’t like Picasso because he was basically a pedophile and made some pretty sexist comments. That got me wondering about the question of the person vs the work. (Which also leads into the topic of cancel culture.. but not sure I should go there!) It’s a question I haven’t quite resolved in my own mind and interested to hear people’s thoughts..
Thanks for the link, Rachel (she is very funny)! I may not have worded this right. I was talking about the sense you get from reading a writer's work, not knowing anything about the person. The way female characters are portrayed, violence is depicted, the feeling of being manipulated rather than genuinely engaged...etc.
Cancel culture or equating a writer's work with their personal lives and politics is to my mind a different topic -- but one very much worth discussing. Apparently, many Lit mags are pulling published work because writers' personal opinions don't align with theirs...No idea of how to feel about that, but probably negative.
https://litmagnews.substack.com/p/de-platforming-lets-talk-about-it/comments
'Apparently, many Lit mags are pulling published work because writers' personal opinions don't align with theirs...No idea of how to feel about that, but probably negative' You are right to feel negative, very negative, very negative indeed about any 'Lit Mag' that evidences such bias, it is a step on the to some kind of 'Lit Hell' when the editorial message that is being received by writers is "be sure you are aligned with our opinions or else".
Thank you for clarifying. That makes sense. I also read the link you posted, which was scary and sad to read about how it effected the people who it happened to.
Sometimes the work is great and the person is garbage^^
True, GS. I think we writers can always learn a lot from criticism, from people not emotionally invested in our work...even if some of said criticism is ‘bad.’
An observation I once heard from a visual artist was: I'm not looking for what I know, I'm looking for what I haven't met yet. (I probably made a bollix of her exact words) but I have found it an expansive way to read. I want to be an ambitious reader because I am reading towards what I want to write and have no interest in middle-brow literature. Sometimes I recognise that the piece of work I find tin eared or bland can't help me (personally) learn to be a better writer, but in some cases it could help me become a more commercial writer, or an easier writer. I am only hungry for literature that challenges because I want to know what the novel can become. That said I would never recommend anyone follow my approach to anything, except admiring birds.
Agreed 👍
Do not agree^^
Well, I've read all the comments here and am intimidated to write at all but I have to say that I have often returned to a book that, at first attempt, I just didn't like. Life experience brings so much to my appreciation of books I tried earlier in my life and just couldn't read, but now find fascinating.
Happens with music, too. It was always my inclination to focus on lyrics but one of my children showed me how to listen to the music and now I get to hear all my favorite songs like I'm hearing them for the first time. I love it!
George's description of having "grown into" Dubliners resonated with me. When I first encountered Balzac, in my early twenties, I found his narratives compelling, but I thought his scheming characters were rather one-dimensional. Later I would discover that when property, money, and position are at stake, people often do behave exactly as Balzac depicted.
East of Eden was one where I had read the first chapter about the California mountains and put it back down more than once. When I made it to the second chapter I was astounded and couldn't put it down.
I tend to trust literary experts, writers, well-known critics as I approach a work of literature, as well as my own sensibilities developed from long years of study. I will come back to a work if it doesn't immediately speak to me. But I try not to dismiss works without giving them a good chance. For a long time, I tried to read Arthur Koestler's "Darkness at Noon," a slim novel about Stalinist Russia. Surprisingly, I had never heard of it, and it ranked #8 on the Modern Library's greatest novels between 1900-1998. I was working at the Yale library at the time, just before Harold Bloom died. I've always been interested in western canon formation and had the good fortune to be assigned to the literature section of the library. I spent much time dipping into introductions written by Bloom. I ran into Bloom's edition of Koestler's book with a very short introduction. Most of the time, Bloom went on for pages explaining the significance of a classic. For Koestler's work, he wrote half a page. He said something along the lines of that Koestler's work belongs to his age and nothing more. It's a work of its time and can be safely ignored as not a work of note. That was the permission I needed to set the book aside instead of banging my head against something that I had trouble getting into. I don't think it was me. I've read other books of their time and been able to see value in them as they rose above their time. These comments today really do speak to me about how literature is the combined work of reader and writer trying working together to create art.
I also haven't read "Darkness at Noon," but your comment, ironically, finds me interested. Mostly, because I just finished reading a classic that's extremely "of its time" yet has influenced centuries of fiction since then… Dante's Divine Comedy.
There’s still a part of me that wants to finish Koestler’s book. But life’s too short. I think Bloom would say Dante is “of all time,”
Reading it doesn't feel that way. There's no way I would've understood 95% of it without the footnotes. So much reference to 12th Century Italian politics!
Beautifully said Lee 🙏
I like this humble, open hearted way of approaching art and giving the creator (and presumably her process) the benefit of the doubt. I come at it with an understanding of wanting to bring a curious and respectful witness to the amazing work the creator has achieved. I don’t care if a critic has told me the value of something. I like “Big Mac” fiction as well as gourmet. The thing is though, a middle of the road response will often shut me down faster than a truly repulsed response. I can work through any response but my lukewarm response. I feel the weight of all the books I want to read and those not published yet and am too quick to slap a DNF on one that doesn’t pull me in or evoke an effect. Trying harder holds no power for me at 57. I won’t should on myself anymore.
"I won’t should on myself anymore." I love that, and at 64, I agree.
I am less likely to push myself through a book that's not working for me. But also careful to say--it's not the book, it's me. Maybe another time would be different. But there's only so much time, and like you say, so many books!