thebookishowl.com

The writer’s job is to see through the lies and layers of falsehood around him. To cut through the noise and cries to get to the heart of the matter. To the key to the situation; the truth of the world. From Brothers Karamazov to Heart of Darkness to Rebecca this has been the novelist’s goal.

A writer, especially a novelist, should have one overriding concern: getting to the truth. It’s what fiction at its best is about. What really happened? This is the task of the true writer– maybe his only true task. All else is posing.
AttackingtheDemi-Puppets

THE BEHAVIOR of established literary persons toward Tom Bissell’s ULA essay itself gives the lie to his thesis that all writers are outsiders.

From literary agent Heather Schroder, to reviewers like Garth Risk Hallberg, Ron Hogan, and Maria Bustillos, the attitude toward reading the reappeared essay had to have been, “These are writers beyond the pale”—and so, able to be smeared to the extent Bissell smeared us: linking the Underground Literary Alliance bizarrely to the worst crimes of the Bolsheviks. To “lots and lots of tombstones.” Not one of the literary personages who read Bissell’s essay called him on his blatant slurs. We were the Other– “not writers” surely—and so very much outside the groupthink walls of those who identify with the literary status quo.

That not one of these articulate people will now defend the essay, or answer questions about it, or retract their support of it, shows the literary monolith at work—a monolith of behavior and thought. Not one of them is capable of breaking from the conformity of the herd.

AttackingtheDemi-Puppets

Here are some details from the Romance Writers of Australia:

In 2013, Curtin University, in association with Romance Writers of Australia presents the inaugural Elizabeth Jolley Conference, Reading and Writing Romance in the 21st Century, a one-day academic conference on romance writing. The conference is presented as part of the Romance Writers of Australia 22nd Annual Conference to be held on August 16-18, 2013.

Of interest to academics, students and scholars of romance writing, as well as romance writers and readers, the conference will explore critical understandings of romance writing and the cultural significance of romance writing and its audiences.

The keynote speaker is Professor Imelda Whelehan. The call for papers is as follows:

….there is no one representative romance novel. (Bly, 2010 p61)

The meaning of ‘romance fiction’ in the twenty first century has become complex, diverse and wide-ranging. At a time when the future of books, reading and fiction are hotly debated topics, the many sub-genres of romance (and romance-driven general fiction) continue to be bestsellers. In light of its continued popularity, as well as increasing academic and critical attention, it is timely to consider how our understandings of romance fiction have changed. So too, we might consider the way in which the constitution, demands and desires of its audience has shifted. For, just as there is more than one type of romance, it is becoming clear that there is more than one type of romance reader.

This conference invites papers that explore the notion of reading and writing romance in the twenty first century. Whilst the genre of contemporary romance fiction is the main focus, we also welcome contributions that situate romance fiction in its historical context, or explore its place in mainstream and literary fiction. We particularly welcome papers that focus on Australian authors and audiences.

Among the questions the conference seeks to ask are: Has the increased connectivity and social networking enabled by the internet and e-publishing helped bring romance fiction into the mainstream? Or have its readers just become more vocal, connected and better able to share their passion? How well does contemporary romance fiction reflect shifts in relationships, marriage and sexuality? Is romance fiction bound to reflect normative social narratives, or can it offer more challenging representations of gender, race, sexuality and class? To what extent does contemporary romance fiction reflect key socio-political concerns such as indigenous issues, ethnicity, multiculturalism or Pacific Rim relations?

Suggested topics include (but are not limited to):

•    Explorations of the contemporary audiences for contemporary romance fiction
•    Beyond the pseudonym: who is writing romance fiction today?
•    The relation and position of fanfiction in the genre
•    The impact of e-publishing and social networking on romance fiction writers and readers
•    Changes to the marketing, packaging and branding of contemporary romance fiction
•    The demographic  breakdown of romance fiction readers and writers
•    The impact of e-readers on the public/private impacts of reading romance fiction
•    Explorations of genre boundaries: the relation of romance fiction to women’s fiction,  chick lit and other genres
•    Cross-genre pollination: the impact of paranormal romance on the genre and its readership
•    The relation of romance fiction to mainstream and literary fiction
•    Analyses of contemporary romance fiction covers and cover art
•    Explorations of the ideal romance fiction reader
•    Explorations of romance fiction sub-genres such as historical romance, medical, gothic, paranormal romance

Abstracts of no more than 300 words are due by January 11th 2013 [...] Successful submissions will be invited to submit full papers for consideration for publication in a special issue of The Australasian Journal of Popular Culture (full papers due June 2013).

Full details here. If you’d like to stay informed about the conference, you can subscribe to the Elizabeth Jolley Conference blog.

Teach Me Tonight

I’ve been trying to grasp the ideas of Jacques Lacan, which I find intriguing. I’m using the filter of Slavoj Zizek, who’s a more readable writer than Lacan himself, whose prose, like that of so many French philosophers, is deathly boring.

I take Lacan’s core idea that of the divide between conscious and unconscious which leads to paradox. For instance, the most upstanding man in church, the model of uprightness, might on Saturday night be the biggest sinner in the community– or even a serial killer. On the other hand, the athiest who publicly rejects God in fact internalizes him, and may be more rigidly obsessed with rules than the believer. I’m not sure Lacan’s notions are often true, but they’re at least sometimes true.

How do Lacan’s ideas apply to writers? I think of two instances where they might.

I remember in 2006 when the ULA protested a “Howl” celebration at Columbia University for its phoniness. When Jellyboy the Clown and I entered Miller Hall, where the “celebration” was taking place, it was like walking into a morgue. These upscale folks honoring the Beats were the most unalive uncelebratory unBeat rigidly constipated people I’d ever seen. They listened to a creaky recording of “Beat”– not a lively version– and you could hear absolutely nothing else. We’d entered a church service, and not a very lively one at that. High Mass at its most stifling. The Beats? Wild men? Joy? There was none of this. The Beats were treated by the unBeat audience as dead mummies to be silently worshipped, but dare not one behave in any manner resembling the actual Beats! It was a Lacanian paradox. Those who’d ostensibly rejected all rules had imposed upon themselves their own– or really, brought the same rules and uptight behavior that the Beats thought they’d destroyed, back.

A second example might be the 3,000 or 30,000– by now it might be 3 million– system writers who signed a public petition proclaiming their support for the Occupy Wall Street movement. The petition, of course, asks them to do nothing. There’s no commitment, and since everyone is signing it, including literature’s One Percent, there’s absolutely no risk. Most if not all of these writers gave no support to the Underground Literary Alliance when it was around making noise last decade. Some of them were actively hostile to it. The ULA was a very Occupy-like organization ten years ahead of the fact, with the difference that we wanted to apply our ideas of democracy to the literary realm itself. (And of course found, “You can’t do that!”)

What’s a Lacanian analysis of the current petition? Mine is that by signing it, the writers publicly demonstrate their commitment to abstract concepts of concern and change– without having to actually change anything. It’s like walking around with a badge or sign on themselves that says, “I Care.” Now designated publicly as virtuous, they’re absolved from being so in reality. The Lacanian paradox is that those writers on the list are least likely to put Occupy ideas into action; to try to make them, in their own field– where they wield actual influence– a reality. They don’t have to make them a reality! After all, they’re on the list.

I’d look then, to find establishment writers of character, honesty, and integrity, for those names not on the list. Those not playing the phony game. I’ve spotted two surprising names not on the list, who you’d think would automatically be on there. I think I may have misjudged those fellows– they may have more honor than I thought– and wonder if I owe them an apology.

AttackingtheDemi-Puppets

If the previous post sounds extreme, then it’s because it’s a response to the domination of the serious literary scene by a flawed philosophy, namely postmodernism.

One characteristic of a great writer, one would think, would be having a first-rate mind. First-rate novelists of the past like Tolstoy used their expansive intelligence to look outward, at the things of this world– war, birth, death, the land, marriage– and beyond the things of the world. It’s not that today’s writers are less intelligent than in the past– it’s what use they make of that intelligence. I’ll concede that David Foster Wallace was highly intelligent. Yet because of his flawed philosophy, he used that intelligence to gaze inward, ever inward, fixed solipsistically on his own thoughts and feelings, and the minute sense impressions of life.

AttackingtheDemi-Puppets

A short essay of mine, “A Tale of Two Literary Worlds,” has been posted at the citizen journalist website Inewp, at
http://inewp.com/?p=8888

I wrote the article after looking at the current issue of Vanity Fair at a magazine stand. Though I opened the issue because Angelina Jolie was on the cover, I found inside an essay by Keith Gessen of n+1 instead!

Keith Gessen’s subject is Chad Harbach’s novel, The Art of Fielding, but he also examines today’s publishing world. I was struck by the narrowness of Gessen’s viewpoint. I had to respond.

AttackingtheDemi-Puppets

THE PLIGHT OF UNDERGROUND WRITERS

The fate of Eric aka Jellyboy– and as much or moreso of poet Frank D. Walsh– illustrates the need for ways to protect and defend American underground writers, and to archive their work.

Most mainstream writers won’t acknowledge that the underground variety even exists as a unique type. System writers come from, or are co-opted into, a narrow world, and insist that their bounded space is all there is.

Standard writer organizations, such as PEN American Center, are elitist and privileged, solely unto themselves, and so for our purposes are useless.

I’d love to be proven wrong about that, but don’t think it will happen.

One path is to outcompete the mainstream. Extremely difficult given the circumstances, but not impossible.

Another way is to do some of the things a one-time underground writers group engaged in, including advocacy and the exposing of system corruption. As we’ve seen, at least some writing has been saved; the fact, the existence, the histories of a few great American folk writers recorded.

*****************************************************
At the moment my first task is to save myself!

You can aid in this by purchasing Ten Pop Stories for 99 cents at:

Amazon’s Kindle store at http://www.amazon.com/

or as a Nook Book at http://www.bn.com/

AttackingtheDemi-Puppets

VS Naipaul, [...] winner of the Nobel prize for literature [...], who has been described as the “greatest living writer of English prose”, was asked if he considered any woman writer his literary match. He replied: “I don’t think so.” Of Austen he said he “couldn’t possibly share her sentimental ambitions, her sentimental sense of the world”.

He felt that women writers were “quite different”. He said: “I read a piece of writing and within a paragraph or two I know whether it is by a woman or not. I think [it is] unequal to me.” The author [...] said this was because of women’s “sentimentality, the narrow view of the world”. (Fallon)

When Naipaul made these comments last week I contacted Smart Bitch Sarah to pass on some information about a response to them and elaine mueller then left a comment containing a quotation from Dale Spender’s The Writing or the Sex? or Why You Don’t Have to Read Women’s Writing to Know It’s No Good. I was intrigued and wanted to find out more about Spender’s views. Here are some quotes from her Mothers of the Novel: 100 Good Women Writers Before Jane Austen which demonstrate that Naipaul’s comments are just the latest in a long line of attempts to denigrate women writers by casting them and their writing as sentimental and limited:

That Jane Austen, Maria Edgeworth, Fanny Burney and many more good women novelists wrote ‘love stories’ is not in dispute. What is at issue is the way in which the love stories of women have been devalued. For it is not that male novelists from Samuel Richardson to D. H. Lawrence have not written love stories, but that when they have done so they are called by a different name – and are accorded a more deferential status. D. H. Lawrence is not labelled as a writer of romantic fiction: his reputation would be eroded if he were.

That women writers have had their mobility constrained and their access to certain areas of life reduced, is not at issue. But so too have men. And what is at issue is that the partial experience of half the population – that of women – is judged to be narrow, second rate, specialised, while the partial experience of the other half – that of men – is held to be supremely significant and universal. Such a value judgment which is associated with the status of the sex and not the quality of the experience leads to the absurd situation where Jane Austen is patronised as a prisoner of the country parsonage while the parameters of T. S. Eliot’s office pass without critical comment.

Even if it were the case that women writers were unable to directly participate in the more turbulent and treacherous ebb and flow of life (and to assume that male experience is more turbulent, treacherous and ‘alive’ than that of women is questionable indeed) there is no evidence that direct participation in the entire gamut of human involvements and emotions is necessary in order to portray them convincingly in writing. (163)

The reception of the novel Mary Barton demonstrates the extent to which the presumed sex of the author, rather than the subject or style of the writing itself, can shape the reception of a text:

When it was believed that Mary Barton was written by a man, the Athenaeum (1848) was full of praise for the author’s grasp of politics and the fair and forcible portrayal of the working classes [...]. But when known to be written by a woman, the whole tenor of the criticism changed. It is not the political acumen of Elizabeth Gaskell but her ability to promote sympathy which becomes the focal point. Her emotionalism, her lack of objectivity are soon ‘discovered’ and the broad canvas of class politics is reduced – by the critics – to a ‘sweet and fragrant’ love story. The literary records are tampered with and rewritten to the extent that Elizabeth Gaskell’s ‘mental palate fed always as it was on the fruit and frothing milk of her nursery days, kept a nursery simplicity and gusto. And in consequence her whole picture of life is touched with a peculiar dewy freshness, shimmers with a unifying, softening light’ [...].

This is the woman writer who not only provided a fair and forcible account of class politics but who, in Victorian times, dared to write about prostitution, unmarried mothers and dominated wives – from a woman’s point of view. (164-65)

Of particular relevance to this blog and its readers is one of the conclusions Spender reaches about the consequences of these sexist attitudes towards women authors:

The terms ‘women’s novels’ and ‘romance’ are often used interchangeably and to signify deprecation. Whether this is the result of the low status of women being transferred to ‘romance’, or the low status of ‘romance’ being transferred to women, is not possible to determine. But as there is little justification for the wholesale devaluation of women, so too is there little justification for the wholesale devaluation of ‘romance’. As Margaret Jensen (1984) has pointed out, such dismissal generally occurs before and not after an examination of the facts. [...]

Now anyone who has defied convention and actually studied women’s writing would not want to contend that all women writers are excellent and all romances works of art. But most would want to suggest that it is nonsense to lump together all women’s novels and to call them ‘romance’ [...]. Not only is this practice unjustified in terms of the diversity of the writing: it is unjustified in terms of the bad name it gives to romance.

For there is nothing inherently inferior or deficient about romance. When it is the substance of men’s writing it can become an exploration of human relationships and provide an insight into the human condition. And to think that the status of the woman writer could be improved by the repudiation of romance is just as misguided as thinking it could be improved by the repudiation of sex. The derisory connotations of woman and romance are equally undeserved and there are good grounds for seeking to reclaim both woman and romance, instead of subscribing to the inferiority of either. (166-67)

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• Fallon, Amy. “VS Naipaul finds no woman writer his literary match – not even Jane Austen: Nobel laureate says there is no female author whom he considers his equal.” The Guardian. 2 June 2011.
• Spender, Dale. Mothers of the Novel: 100 Good Women Writers Before Jane Austen. London: Pandora, 1986.

—-

I chose the image because of a comment made by Jane Austen in a letter dated

December 16th 1816, to James Edward Austen

This comment to her nephew has been famous (or infamous) since its publication in her brother Henry’s “Biographical Notice” in 1817, even though it is probably one of the most facetious of all her proclamations, in its way:

“What should I do with your strong, manly, spirited Sketches, full of Variety and Glow? — How could I join them on to the little bit (two Inches wide) of Ivory on which I work with so fine a Brush, as produces little effect after much labour?” (Pemberley.com)

The dimensions of the portrait, painted in watercolour on ivory, are 2 1/2 x 2 in. It was, however, probably painted by a man: “Portrait of Mrs. Franklin Haven (Sarah Ann Curtis); about 1830. Attributed to: Thomas Edwards, American, 1795–1869.” I downloaded it from Wikimedia Commons.

Teach Me Tonight

Tim Powers decides to teach geometry instead

Numerous memorable exchanges occurred during the week I attended the Writers and Illustrators of the Future workshop as one of the winning authors. Many of the more outrageous I can’t quote here (the Workshop is a “safe” environment for people to express opinions they wouldn’t in public, such as conventions), but here’s one my favorites that I feel is quite safe out in the open:

Me: [To Eric Flint] I’m interested to know the sources you used to research the Thirty Years’ War. Because, I’m also a Thirty Years’ War buff —

Eric Flint: For God’s sake, why?

Yes, being a scholar of the Thirty Years’ War does cause people to look at you askance, even another person who has done extensive research into this most anarchic of Early Modern wars. Suffice it to say, I simply cannot help my attraction to the madness of that long, gory, indecisive war. Magnificent madness.

At his acceptance speech during the awards ceremony, writer Brennan Harvey (who is no relation to me except now as a good friend) stated that “K. D. Wentworth and Tim Powers filled my head up to here,” making a motion far above his forehead. “I don’t even know what I learned yet.” That’s the best way to put it. In that week, the experience of listening to advice from a who’s-who of the best in speculative fiction made it sometimes feel as if I were getting machine-gunned with data. I wrote as fast as my hand could go over my notepad, and eventually I’ll sort it all out and see what sticks the most. However, the sheer mass of it made me realize that I can’t do a single blog post to cover what happened during the week. So I will focus on one item at a time.

All the writers in the lobby of the Roosevelt. I’m the guy in the center with the white tie and braces. Tim Powers is over my right shoulder. K. D. Wentworth is in blue two places to Tim’s right

The most instructive exercise we writers underwent during the week was the “twenty-four-hour Story.” The short version: write a story in twenty-four hours. No upper or lower word-count limit, as long as it is a complete story.

There was more to it, however. K. D. Wentworth said, “Whatever happens in you life, you say, ‘I can use this!’ ” To explore that, our stories had to be syntheses of three outside influences:

1) The Token. This was a small item that K. D. Wentworth handed to each of us the day before we had to write our stories. Each was a random trinket, some bizarre, some banal. Because K. D. Wentworth uses the same items from year to year, I can’t reveal what they are (“Otherwise everybody would be making requests for certain tokens each year,” she explained). Jordan Lapp, who was handling writing the public blog for the week, posted a photo of me holding up my token, so it’s semi-public now. But I won’t spread it further or post it here.

2) Research. The thirteen writers walked down Hollywood Blvd. to the Hollywood Public Library where had instructions to do research on any topic we stumbled onto. The trip down Hollywood Blvd. could make a story in itself, although as a local it didn’t have the same affect on me as it did for some of the writers who had never been to Los Angeles, and the one who had never been to the United States. Once in the library, I picked an aisle, looked at the Dewey Decimal System placard denoting all the subjects in the aisle, and had the words “Penal System” leap out at me. I walked to that section, and tugged out a slender book titled Prison: Introducing Issues with Opposing Viewpoints. Once I started flipping through it, I discovered it was probably aimed at high school students to help them with critical thinking. The book consisted of essays culled from various sources that put contrasting arguments about the U.S. prison system beside each other. I read through “Prison Are Beneficial to Society” vs. “Prisons Are Not Beneficial to Society” and saw that there was enough material here for three books. I found especially intriguing the suggestion — whether true or not — that prisons teach criminals how to be better criminals instead of rehabilitating them.

I lead an incredibly aggressive group into the Hollywood Library

3) Talk to a Random Stranger. This notion terrified all of us. I thought I would be the only one nervous about engaging someone on the street in conversation, but I forgot that most writers have a level of introversion. Perhaps it doesn’t match mine, but it’s there. Tim Powers assured us that this is not as difficult as it sounds. He was right, and the results for most of us were, hum, amusing. Especially when the street on which trolling for someone interesting to talk to was Hollywood Blvd., where people wearing ten-foot-tall Dr. Suess hats are merely part of the landscape. We were supposed to engage in the conversation in our walk back from the library, and we couldn’t tell the person we talked to about our reason for stopping to chat.

My random encountered happened about five blocks down Hollywood. I had already gotten mistaken for Tobey Maquire twice, and would have yet a third occurrence before I got back to the hotel, but I resisted taking the easy path of speaking to someone who had approached me. Instead, I wandered past a tattoo parlor and noticed two men admiring a third man’s tattoos. So I joined in, and took the chance to ask the man to explain what his tattoos meant. I was especially intrigued with the Latin phrases on his arm. I didn’t tell him that I can read Latin, so I asked him what the words meant. He explained — and was completely wrong about the translation. Startlingly wrong. I just nodded and inwardly smiled. I had hit the story-idea jackpot! This was too good. His tattoo meant almost the opposite of what he thought it did. He thought ex means “without.” No, it means “out of, from, down from.” He thought “IVSTVS” means “spirit.” No, the Latin word iustus means “just, fair, lawful.” The word for spirit is animus, or as it would have been tattooed in all-capital script, “ANIMVS.”

At that point, I had a complete story idea mapped out in my animus.

At 5 p.m., the official twenty-four-hour period to write the story began. The thirteen of us had until the re-convening in the main classroom at Author Services at 5 p.m. the next day to write the first draft of speculative fiction story combing our three prompts.

I never worried much about my ability to write a story in twenty-four hours. After years of National Novel Writing Month and my general propensity to move fast, doing about 5,000 words in a day was not troubling. I was more concerned about the lack of planning time and the rather rough state of the final product. I never let anybody read my first drafts, but this time I would have to surrender one for a possible general reading.

The writers fanned out through the lobby and other public rooms of the Roosevelt Hotel that evening. It was a bizarre environment in which to work, because even on a weeknight the Hollywood party-life is flowing like overpriced liquor (0 for a bottle of Jack Daniels — I am not joking) through the hallways of a ritzy hotel. A bunch of stressed writers crooked over laptops and dressed in their best shabby casual were sprinkled through the cocktail-dress-and-hipster partiers. I’m surprised the omni-present hovering bouncers didn’t kick us out as vagrants.

This photo of me writing near the pool is staged. Hugette, the official photographer for the workshop, was barred from taking photos in the lobby (those omni-present bouncers are always on the watch), so she asked me to move to the pool bar and pretend to work there. I ended up enjoying the location — it was less crowded than other parts of the hotel — and managed to reach 4,000 words that evening in my bizarre fantasy story centered on mistranslated magical tattoos.

The next morning, I typed the remaining 2,000 words in my hotel room. I was glad to reach the end, and even more pleased when my story was not randomly selected as one of the three that would be handed out for critiquing.

I think all the writers would agree that this “triple prompt + speed write” exercise was one of the best experiences of the workshop. It was certainly the most stressful; even given my usual working speed, trying to produce something decent in the midst of a workshop where you’re surrounded by some of the top talent in the field freaked me out. But the exhilaration of it was a fabulous intoxicant.

The main lesson this exercise taught was how the universe feeds the writer everything he or she needs when it comes to inspiration. It’s a very Taoist way of perceiving writing: discovery through openness to experience. I’ve done stories from writing prompts before, and usually found it a mechanical exercise. The combination of three elements, one of them social, made this far different from other writing prompt exercise. Thrown into the pressure-cooker of time and the atmosphere of the Writers of the Future workshop and the craziness of a hot-spot hotel made for a surreal creativity factory.

What do I think of the first draft that I produced out of this? Well, It’s certainly strange. I haven’t yet decided if I will rewrite it, but I am starting to lean toward returning to it. K. D. Wentworth and Tim Powers said that quite a few of these twenty-four hour stories have gone on to sell to major markets. I saw potential in the three stories that were randomly given to us for critique.

But whether I finish it, or whether or not it sells, I’ll never forget the writing of it.

“IVSTVS” ≠ “spirit.” Just to reiterate.

Black Gate

Where are new talents bursting on the scene to revolutionize the art? This is the most stagnant period in American literary history, in part because writers have lost any sense of real creativity, are content instead to copy the accepted models, trying to perfect what’s already been done. There’s a stagnant mental attitude which oversees and pervades the entire system of literature. This may be due to where America is right now as a civilization, a nation of bureaucracies and institutions, where competent mediocrity is celebrated, has been institutionalized and turned into high value.

The system’s best, like Jonathan Franzen, are skilled mechanics. Even if one accepts the dubious proposition that David Foster Wallace was a “genius” writer—when was that? When did he first gain strong notice? Twenty years ago? He was a follower, maybe a culmination, of academic trends. He led to more paint-by-the-numbers imitators. The art wasn’t turned on its head. There was no Michael Vick breathtaking shock-the-world breakthrough. DFW signalled the end of a trend, not the nascent beginning of one.

Today’s writers are content to write and exist within comfortable boxes. That’s the problem.

AttackingtheDemi-Puppets