Another Definition of Writing

The process of putting one's obsessions in order. (Jean Grenier)

--from THE CYNIC'S DICTIONARY edited by Aubrey Dillon-Malone

Bringing Down the Fire

In [my Father's] confessing his own weakness [he] had found access to a hidden source of power inside, or perhaps outside, himself. In any case it was a source of power that was magical and mystical.

Until that night I had only understood that the writer's goal was to reveal truths in words manipulated so effectively as to cause movement in the minds and hearts of those who read them. What I hadn't understood was that it would cost anything. I thought I could do those things while remaining secure and safe in myself. I had even thought that writing fiction was a way to conceal my true feelings and weaknesses.

But that night I realized that no matter how good I became at manipulating symbols I could never hope to move anyone without allowing myself to be moved that I would only arrive at slight truths if I wasn't willing to reveal truths about myself.

I didn't enjoy the realization, for I was no fonder of self-revelation than my father was. And although I knew I would love to do with written words what my father had done in speech, I wasn't sure I could pay the price. I wasn't sure I wanted to.

Eventually I would write about my father and his church, in an article that was published in the New York Times. I wasn't exactly afraid to write that piece. But even as I began it I was aware that I would be touching on the marrow of my bones, that I would be playing with fire. And even now I can't say too much about the process, except this: it's still going on. Not writing the piece-that was done two years ago-but writing, or rewriting, myself.

For that's where my understanding of all this has brought me. . . . I also suppose that's how Faulkner [in Absalom, Absalom] may have felt, how he captured the fire to reach across the barriers of generation and origin and race and kindle a light of understanding in my heart. What I had to do to be a writer was to be in two places at once-to both bring the fire and to allow it to wash over me, to change me and touch me and make me different.

It may sound silly, but I believe that to become a better writer I have to try to become a better person, just as I believe that the best preacher is not the saint but the person who allows himself or herself to be touched by the word, even as he or she transmits or interprets it. Of course a writer isn't really a preacher, and a novel isn't divine word. . . Every preacher is not a saint, God knows. But the truth, I hope, is that we come to both a book and a service of worship with the same hopes-that we'll learn something, yes, but, more important, that we'll be touched by something, that we will feel a connection with some source of power and energy and understanding.

from a talk by David Bradley in "Bringing Down the Fire, part of Spiritual Quests, William Zinsser, editor.

Yet Another Definition of a Writer

Somebody a little below a clown and a little above a trained seal. (John Steinbeck)

--from THE CYNIC'S DICTIONARY edited by Aubrey Dillon-Malone

Another Definition of a Writer

A frustrated actor who recites his lines in the hidden auditorium of his skull. (Rod Serling)

--from THE CYNIC'S DICTIONARY edited by Aubrey Dillon-Malone

Definition of Writing

Trivial personalities decomposing in the eternity of print. (Virginia Woolf)

--from THE CYNIC'S DICTIONARY edited by Aubrey Dillon-Malone

Similar passages in two books published 5 years apart

By The Associated Press | April 23, 2006

Examples of similar passages in Kaavya Viswanathan's "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life" and Megan McCafferty's "Sloppy Firsts."

McCafferty's book, page 7: "Bridget is my age and lives across the street. For the first twelve years of my life, these qualifications were all I needed in a best friend. But that was before Bridget's braces came off and her boyfriend Burke got on, before Hope and I met in our seventh grade Honors classes."

Viswanathan's novel, page 14: "Priscilla was my age and lived two blocks away. For the first fifteen years of my life, those were the only qualifications I needed in a best friend. We had bonded over our mutual fascination with the abacus in a playgroup for gifted kids. But that was before freshman year, when Priscilla's glasses came off, and the first in a long string of boyfriends came on."

------

McCafferty's book, page 6: "Sabrina was the brainy Angel. Yet another example of how every girl had to be one or the other: Pretty or smart."

Viswanathan's novel, page 39: "Moneypenny was the brainy female character. Yet another example of how every girl had to be one or the other: smart or pretty."

------

McCafferty's novel, page 23: "Though I used to see him sometimes at Hope's house, Marcus and I had never, ever acknowledged each other's existence before. So I froze, not knowing whether I should (a) laugh (b) say something (c) ignore him and keep on walking.

Viswanathan's novel, page 49: "Though I had been to school with him for the last three years, Sean Whalen and I had never acknowledged each other's existence before. I froze, unsure of (a) what he was talking about and (b) what I was supposed to do about it."

------

McCafferty's novel, page 68: "Tanning was the closest that Sara came to having a hobby, other than gossiping, that is. Even the webbing between her fingers was the color of coffee without cream. Even for someone with her Italian heritage and dark coloring, it was unnatural and alienlike.

Viswanathan's novel, page 48: "It was obvious that next to casual hookups, tanning was her extracurricular activity of choice. Every visible inch of skin matched the color and texture of her Louis Vuitton backpack. Even combined with her dark hair and Italian heritage, she looked deep-fried."

Fiction and Non-Fiction

"I make few distinction between straight biographies and novels. They both are works of fiction." Jay Parini in bookslut.com

Definition of a Writer

Someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. (Thomas Mann)

--from THE CYNIC'S DICTIONARY edited by Aubrey Dillon-Malone

Dialogue

Dialogue is not just about how characters talk. It is, more than anything else, a writer's trick. Dialogue in even the most "realistic" story is not how real people talk -- it is a convention created by the writer and accepted by the reader. The most effective realistic dialogue is dialogue that supports the illusion to such an extent that the reader forgets they are reading and begins to hear the words in their mind's ear, convinced that this is, indeed, how real people talk.

If you want to see the difference between real dialogue and fictional dialogue, record a conversation, and transcribe exactly what you hear. Written down, it will usually seem confusing, repetitive, fragmentary, and, paradoxically, unrealistic (or at least mannered), because our minds are not used to converting pure speech into text.

posted by Matthew Cheney in mumpsimus.blogspot.com

The Joy of Writing

Why does this written doe bound through these written woods?
For a drink of written water from a spring
whose surface will xerox her soft muzzle?
Why does she lift her head; does she hear something?
Perched on four slim legs borrowed from the truth,
she pricks up her ears beneath my fingertips.
Silence - this word also rustles across the page
and parts the boughs
that have sprouted from the word "woods."

Lying in wait, set to pounce on the blank page,
are letters up to no good,
clutches of clauses so subordinate
they'll never let her get away.

Each drop of ink contains a fair supply
of hunters, equipped with squinting eyes behind their sights,
prepared to swarm the sloping pen at any moment,
surround the doe, and slowly aim their guns.

They forget that what's here isn't life.
Other laws, black on white, obtain.
The twinkling of an eye will take as long as I say,
and will, if I wish, divide into tiny eternities,
full of bullets stopped in mid-flight.
Not a thing will ever happen unless I say so.
Without my blessing, not a leaf will fall,
not a blade of grass will bend beneath that little hoof's full stop.

Is there then a world
where I rule absolutely on fate?
A time I bind with chains of signs?
An existence become endless at my bidding?

The joy of writing.
The power of preserving.
Revenge of a mortal hand.



By Wislawa Szymborska
From "No End of Fun", 1967
Translated by S. Baranczak & C. Cavanagh
© Wislawa Szymborska, S. Baranczak & C. Cavanagh

The Almighty Dollar Trumps Human Rights

Google Defends China Stance
APRIL 13, 2006

GOOGLE has defended its widely criticised censorship policy for China, insisting it must follow local laws, as it launched its new brand for the lucrative internet market.

"We simply don't have a choice but to follow the law," chief executive officer Eric Schmidt said.

Mr Schmidt was attending a launch ceremony in Beijing for the US internet giant's new Chinese name, which translates to "Gu Ge."

"We must comply with the local law, indeed we have all made a commitment to the government that we will absolutely follow the Chinese law. We don't have any alternatives.

"It is not an option for us to broadly make information available that is illegal, inappropriate or immoral or what have you."

Google caused an uproar earlier this year when it launched its new service for China, google.cn, after agreeing to censor websites and content banned by the nation's propaganda chiefs.

The Silicon Valley company, whose rise as a global internet giant was accompanied by the motto: 'Do no evil', joined the likes of Yahoo and Microsoft in bowing to China's censorship demands.

While Google and the other companies have come under pressure in the US not to succumb to Chinese pressure, Mr Schmidt praised China's rulers for their internet strategy that has seen a huge online population develop.

"We look at the rise of China, the investment and the smart people and we are in awe of what has occurred here," Mr Schmidt said.

"And we salute the government, key leaders in the industry and all of you who have made the rise of the internet in China such a tremendous accomplishment."

In the case of Yahoo, it came under fire last year for supplying information to the Chinese government that led to the arrest of Chinese journalist Shi Tao.

Shi was sentenced to 10 years in prison for passing on a government censorship order through his Yahoo email account.

Mr Schmidt refused to answer a reporter's question on whether Google would also supply personal information on its internet users to Chinese authorities if requested.

"I'd rather not answer a hypothetical question," he said.

Geraldine Brooks' MARCH Wins Pulitzer

NEW YORK Apr 17, 2006 (AP)— "March," Geraldine Brooks' novel that imagines the life of the fictional father in Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women," was awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for fiction on Monday.

For the first time since 1997, the Pulitzer board declined to award a prize for drama.

Brooks depicted the life of John March, the father absent for most of Alcott's famed 1868 novel of four sisters growing up in Massachusetts during the Civil War.

By RICHARD PYLE

A Temple of Texts

A Temple of Texts provides the most seductive introduction to Gass's world of words, if only because it includes an annotated list of his favorite books. Originally published as a pamphlet (I am looking at my own copy now), "A Temple of Texts: Fifty Literary Pillars" reprinted the extended captions accompanying an exhibition at Washington University in St. Louis, where Gass taught philosophy for many years. He tells us that he dashed off these 100 to 200-word notes in just a few days, but they are marvelous miniatures nonetheless. Each is essentially a love letter, a Valentine. Plato's dialogues, Gass forthrightly claims, "are among the world's most magical texts." Paul Valéry's Eupalinos is "my favorite essay." "Of the books I have loved . . . there has been none that I would have wished more fervently to have written" than Rilke's Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge . Ford Madox Ford's Parade's End stands as "the most beautiful love story in our language." Gaston Bachelard's Poetics of Space offers "writing which gives me a warm feeling, like sunny sand between the toes." See what I mean? You want to run to a bookstore already.

from a review of A Temple of Texts (William H. Gass) by Michael Dirda in the Washington Post February 19,2006

We Are Losing

"A book can be a significant event in the history of your reading, and your reading (provided you are significant) should be an essential segment of your character and your life. . . . In this country, we are losing, if we have not lost, any appreciation for what we might call 'an intellectual environment.' . . . Libraries have succumbed to the same pressures that have overwhelmed the basic cultural functions of museums and universities . . . so that now they devote far too much of their restricted space, and their limited budget, to public amusement, and to futile competition with the Internet. It is a fact of philistine life that amusement is where the money is. . . . Of course libraries contain books, and books contain information, but information has always been of minor importance, except to minor minds. The information highway has no destination, and the sense of travel it provides is pure illusion. What matters is how the information is arranged, how it is understood, and to what uses it is going to be put. In short, what matters is the book the data's in."

from A Temple of Texts by William H. Gass

Flannery O’Connor

I was profoundly impressed by the stories of Flannery O’Connor – I think she’s probably the American Chekhov. They’re just so beautifully constructed, so powerful, so dazzling that the unexpected shift in plot resists analysis, almost as it does in Raymond Carver’s brilliant story “Cathedral.” The difference is that, with “Cathedral,” you can analyze it, pinpointing the moment of that shift in the triangle between the three people in the story (a lovely way to set up a story because you know that by its end the balance will shift, it’s got to be two against one). The shift there is unexpected, all right; somehow the husband the blind man team up against the wife, whereas at the beginning it’s the wife and the blind man teamed up against the husband. But at least you can follow the shift; you know exactly what’s happening. Whereas with O’Connor, as in “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” or “Good Country People,” the story is so artless – or artful – that you don’t know what’s happening until suddenly at the end, there it is, it’s all happened. It’s precisely because you can’t analyze it that it’s so powerful and immediate a story.

by Anne Bernays in “For the Love of Books”

Truth in Memoir

About James Frey's A Million Little Pieces

As long as people are infatuated with “reality” as a way to restore their faith in the hope that they are the masters of their own destinies, then we will have false memoirs like this one. They are a dime a dozen and they sell. But something truer might show a different kind of story—a story that shows us how little control we have in the world, and how vulnerable we are to forces bigger that we are, and that all we have, at the end of the day, are our stories.

from Truth in Memoir by Mara Naselli at identitytheory.com

Treasure Island

This reconsideration of "Treasure Island" can scarcely be called a rediscovery, because "Treasure Island" has never been lost. Still, it is now 125 years old, and it has been more than half a century since I first read it. Even the best and most beloved of books lose some of their steam over the years, as their stories become universally familiar and as their language gradually comes to seem dated and stilted.

. . .A rereading of Stevenson's novel after all those years says nothing to me so much as that good books -- and "Treasure Island" is a very good book -- really have lives of their own, entirely apart from movies and other adaptations of them. Some of the adaptations of the book are very good, but none is as good as the book itself. "Treasure Island" is a genuine classic that still somehow retains its power to surprise, to amuse and -- even though we all know how it ends -- to raise the reader's blood pressure.

Over the years "Treasure Island" (by Robert Louis frequently has been pigeonholed, and dismissed, as a book for boys. To be sure, Stevenson had boys in mind as he wrote it, but many girls have gotten great pleasure out of it and so, for that matter, have many adults, this one included. If we insist on literary categorization, then someone really must invent a category into which could be fit all those books -- Booth Tarkington's "Penrod" novels, Mark Twain's "Tom Sawyer," Johanna Spyri's "Heidi" -- that are routinely filed in the children's section yet are often read by adults, and for that matter all those books that are rated "adult" yet can, and should, be read by children of a certain age: Russell Baker's "Growing Up," Richard Wright's "Native Son," Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."

A century and a quarter after its publication, "Treasure Island" apparently still is finding plenty of readers. Many different editions of it are available, some (like the Penguin) with scholarly apparatus and appendices, others unadorned and aimed, obviously, at younger readers. This reader, no spring chicken, has no doubt that they will enjoy it as much as he did when he was their age -- and that their parents will, too.

from Stevenson's 'Treasure Island': Still Avast Delight
By Jonathan Yardley in the Washington Post (Monday, April 17, 2006)

Meaning in a Short Story

"A good short story should not have less meaning than a novel" (Flannery O'Connor)

A Profane Poem

A Profane Poem?
(from the blog chekhovsmistress.com)

W.H. Auden:

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed on terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

Profane? Apparently the asinine officials at the Coral Academy of Science in Reno, Nevada think so. They're forbidding a ninth-grader from reciting the poem in a competition there next week because of the words “hell” and “damn.” The kid's suing. (via The Poetry Foundation)

THE LATEST: A federal judge has now ruled that the school violated the First Amendment. From the opinion by Judge Brian Sandoval:

"Defendants (Coral Academy) apparently consider the poem inappropriate because it contains language that conflicts with the school's policies against students general use of profanity. However, when spoken in the context of a poem at a school-authorized, off-campus competition and written by a nationally recognized poet, the court finds that the language sought to be censured cannot even remotely cause a disruption of the educational mission."

Exfoliating Our Souls

Novels are a place where we exfoliate our souls with the rough edges of life, not pamper ourselves with fantasies that don't seem to know they're fantasies or confuse ourselves with imitation insights. . .

from This Story Will Save You by LEV GROSSMAN, Time (April 17, 2006)