Friday, November 7, 2008
Post #7 from J.F. Marin
Hey gang. The question I put forth for your reflection and response is this, as we part ways and move off in our own directions, which writer would you place at the top of your personal list as highly influential and innovative? Tell what is it about their work that merits your acclaim. In addition, what innovations (if any) do we see ourselves bringing to the world of literature and future readers?
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21 comments:
J.J. B's response to J.F. post:
Lauremce Sterne. Just kidding. Actually, I've been partial to John Updike. J.F. I may have mentioned that to you in a past class. Anyway I've always liked how Updike has focused on what I would call inner male thought or even sensitivity in relation to daily or life instances. The one common thing that I have found in his narratives with all his male characters is his ability to describe, in extensive detail, their thought process during an event or an instance that most men, including yours truly, wouldn't be able to put into words or wouldn't want to. "The Maple Stories", which are a series of instances on marriage, is the one book of his that I would refernce most to illustrate this point. Overall, I like writers who can, like Updike, describe instances about anything or anyone and this is the type of writer I wish to eventually be myself. The major flaw with these type of writers is the possibility of over discribtion which would drive most readers crazy, but I think that with just the right amount of describtion a writer can bring their readers into a story more deeply. It, obviously, takes a lot of practice but I think that I am a writer whose up to the challenge.
J.J. B:
Oops! I misspelled Laurence. Shows the level of appreciation I have for the guy.
M. Brooks' response to J.J.B.
I also think that detail in writing is a "delicate balance," so to speak. I've never read Updike, (actually, I think I may have read one of his essays for Dave last year, anyhow...), but the way you describe his writing style resonates with me. I appreciate authors who can describe the thought process or emotions well. And that's the sort of detail I enjoy--that which describes character motivation, or is so vivid you can actually SEE their emotions, their pain. I don't care for extensive detail on setting or physical appearances (usually, because sometimes authors can do this quite comically or in some other way that engages me). Anyhow, in my own writing, this is something I am working on as well, when to use detail, and how much. I sometimes have trouble being too sparse--because I know what my characters are thinking and feeling, I sometimes neglect to share that with the reader, hoping they can infer these things from dialogue or action.
Paula's response to J.F.'s prompt:
Well, this won't surprise any of you, but certainly Virginia Woolf--in her essays including A Room of One's Own, and Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse (the last is my personal favorite novel). I love the way she experimented, getting beyond that "railway line of the sentence." I love the way she juxtaposes in Lighthouse two such different women: the unmarried and down at her heels artist, and the married and utterly maternal (mothering the whole universe) central character, Mrs. Ramsay. I love the way Woolf plays with time. Part One is really just one day. Part Two is short and covers 10 disastrous years,including WWI. Part Three is again one day.
I'm not sure I can pick one writer definitively; however, Franz Kafka is certainly somewhere around the top of my list. With Metamorphosis in mind, and The Trial (which I am currently reading), Kafka has this incredible talent to write about fantastic events in an ordinary way, so as to render these fantastic occurrences commonplace. This makes him a magical realist (as JJA, Melissa and I have been learning about it in Nonwestern Lit). In the Metamorphosis, Gregor turns into a cockroach, or some similar specimen, and the event does not receive the extraordinary description it seems to warrant. Gregor's family seem more disgusted by the event than particularly shocked. What I appreciate about this style of writing is that it challenges us to be open minded. If things that we think are beyond the realm of possibility are written about in such a mundane style, this encourages us (or at least me) to reconsider the things I believe or take for granted. It encourages us the be more accepting or open to ideas and practices that seem strange to us. I would like to do this as a writer, encourage readers to become more open minded.
Melissa B.'s response to Paula:
I too find Virginia Woolf highly influential and innovative. Pertaining to my post on Kafka, I think Woolf also encourages us to "think outside the box," so to speak. In Moments of Being, Woolf says that as a kid, she saw a flower and suddenly realized the flower she saw was not the whole flower. It extended into the earth and was part of the earth. Our identities are not as solitary as we often think, rather, each of our "beings" is ongoing, and we are all connected with one another. Clarissa Dalloway felt her being flowing ever onward, and it was only when she made an effort to "pull all the parts together," that she was Clarissa Dalloway.
I think John Steinbeck and Fyodor Dostoyevsky tied for the most influential in my life. It is hard to do this because every author has some kind of effect on what I perceive to be good writing or an innovative way of interpreting their reality. We are reading Satrapi's Persepolis which is a graphic novel, and I appreciate how that visual way of telling a story is just as effective as the chapters of digressions of Tristram.
As a future teacher, I know I am going to have to teach media literacy as much as the canon to be effective in our Age of Instant Information. Even higher education is embracing this openness much more readily than high school education. I doubt twenty years ago whether any professor would accept teaching a class without ever seeing the students face-to-face. Now, there are whole universities that specialize in learning around busy schedules and from home. I think that fluidity of media is one of the innovation that I am going to take to the classroom with me.
Kristine's Response:
Hello Everyone!
I apologize, I completely forgot to post this weekend! Too much going on, but anyway...
I cannot say that there is one writer that I hold at the top of my list - often it is not the writer who intrigues me, but the story. However, if I would have to choose a writer, it would be Virginia Woolf. Although I have not read much of her work, I find "Mrs. Dalloway" to be extraordinary. I am amazed at Woolf's ability to write in a stream-of-consciousness style (something I could never even think of attempting to do).
In terms of what I might bring to the world of literature, it will most likely be not in terms of my own writing, but how I choose to teach literature. I hope to make students interested in reading and make literature come alive for all students, which can be difficult to do, especially for those who find reading challenging or do not enjoy it. My goal is to make literature jump off the page for students, whether it's through acting out scenes or relating it to their lives.
Hey y'all. Whew! What a weekend! Too much to do and so little time... Forgot to respond to my own post... typical! Anyhoo, like Melissa, I've got soooo many writers on my list of favs - King, Morrison, Cooper, Rice, Walker, Larsen, WW Brown, Jacobs, and so on. However, my top choice is the late Octavia Butler.
Butler's work blew my mind when I first read it. She opened my eyes to the possibility that even I could write SF, and well! She took timeless themes of assimilation, race, chattel enslavement, and gender and brilliantly married them with the boundless creativity of fantasy. I was never as much a fan of SF as I've always been of historical slave accounts/fiction and vampire tales. Yet Butler combined these into a unique and cohesive unit of storytelling that is descriptive, engrossing, and innovative.
As for me, back when I was teaching, it was always a bit of challenge to come up with methods of bringing the beauty of lit. to my students. I had to find a personal connection between what they were reading and their individual lives. I had to help them find their voice in their own writings. I miss those days and the challenge/thrill of connecting. Now, I'm struggling as a writer to keep myself connected to my desire to write. I'm hard pressed to ignore the fact that "there is nothing new under the sun" and instead take what's been done and enrich it with my own flavor. I look forward to someday turning the lit. world on its ear with a fresh perspective and style of writing of my own.
Like you JJB, I'm big on description. While we are deeply enmeshed in the techno world of media overload, I still believe in the reader using their mind's eye to see, hear, taste, smell, and feel the characters, places, and actions on the page. I love works that as I read them I can envision the characters, etc. because of the writer's use of description.
Kristine’s Response to J.F.
I like your comment that you “believe in the reader using their mind's eye to see, hear, taste, smell, and feel the characters, places, and actions on the page. I love works that as I read them I can envision the characters, etc. because of the writer's use of description.” As an avid reader, I enjoy stories that I can dive into and feel like I am a part of the action. Action in stories is worthless when supported by flat characters and only mildly described settings. Although sometimes descriptive writing is nauseating, (ie Moby Dick, Tristram Shandy (at times), it is an important part of a good story and need not be ignored by the writer or reader.
Kristine’s response to J.J. Bach…
John Updike – that’s a name I have not heard in awhile! I read some of Updike’s work in high school and also enjoyed it (although I cannot remember what the name of the short story was!) I agree that is important to have “just the right amount of description” and not too much, as excessive description can lead to boredom. However, as I wrote in my response to J.F., a story without description is also boring and makes no impact on the reader.
Paula to J.J.B.--I heard John Updike give a reading at UW-M a few years ago. He was amazing with questions and answers: thoughtful, kind, generous.
Paula to Melissa B--Woolf criticized 19th Century British authors because she thought they wrote with ridiculous details about the buttons on a character's shirt or blouse, but not about the inner person/thoughts.
Paula to j.f.--The Milwaukee Public Library had a "Milwaukee Reads" session with Kindred and Butler. She was quite amazing: intense, eloquent, edgy. She talked quite a bit about the slavery research she had done (she mentioned Beloved, of course). Have you read Marge Piercy's feminist sf novel: Woman on the Edge of Time? It's also magical realist, Melissa B.
Paula to J.J.A. and Kristine--sometimes it is truly a conundrum to me to figure out how we DO reach/teach students these days, making the words "jump out" at the students. You're right, J.J., that one way is graphic novels. I know this is yet another flaw in my character, but I don't much like them as a genre. That isn't a reflection on their quality, either. There's something claustrophobic and inhibiting to me, somehow, about the words in those little balloons. Even for Maus, a novel I like.
J.J.B response to Melissa B.
I'm glad you brought up Metamorphosis by Kafka. I've actually not only have read it several times, I've also written a parody of it, so I can relate to what you're saying about Kafka's ability to take a shocking unexpected event and to make it seem like a common everyday occurance. I agree that it teaches us to be open minded and I would also add that at the same time Kafka shows us how fearful and judgemental a society can be just in the way Gregor's family reacts to him as he transforms from human to insect.
J.J.B's response to J.J.A:
I would agree that visual learning is as effective as digressive learning. I would add that aspiring writers, if not all writers, should learn the visual approach before the digressive one. As I stated in my response, I like John Updike. Updike is an example, in my view, of a writer who has mastered the ability to describe without losing his readers simply because of his ability to describe a scene without using too many words. At first a writer, in my view, should always try to describe with a visual frame of mind. Reference an object or place, then place their characters with that object or place. By visualizing, a writer can see an object or place and learn to use fewer words when describing them, thus making them better at describtion.
To JJA, Kristine, and Paula... From what little I've seen of Persepolis I found it to be fabulous storytelling! I'm buying a copy.
To JJB and Melissa... I am intrigued by this Kafka and look forward to checking out that particular work Metamorphosis.
To Paula... As much as I share the spirit of feminist thought with the late great V.W., Dalloway did little for me other than paint a vivid picture of the period and the characters. She was very adept at description without going over the top I think.
JJA's Response to Paula and Kristine
Yeah, I am not sure how to approach the teaching of literacy in a multimedia world definitively. I am pretty sure teachers need to incorporate all different types of texts (the widest interpretation of that word possible) in the classroom to prepare students for the world that we live in. It is interesting to think that twenty years ago, email and the Internet and blogs weren't even a part of the conversation when it came to academics. Now, they are expected prerequisites for all university study as well as many high school courses.
JJA's Response to Author Comments
As for writing styles and such, I have always looked for voice as a major factor in whether I will read an author again or try out some of their other works. For instance, Hemingway rarely explained detail and left the reader to supply the background for the story. He is one of my favorites. I am also a Faulkner and Dickens and Dostoyevsky fan which developed even minor characters to the point of absurdity. It really depends on the hook that the author uses and their ability to develop that hook into a moving narrative. I haven't read Kafka, but I will put him on the list.
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