snob lit

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“’Genre fiction’ is a nasty phrase – when did genre turn into an adjective? But I object to the term for a different reason. It's weasel wording, in that it conflates lit fic with literature. It was clever marketing by publishers to set certain contemporary fiction apart and declare it Literature – and therefore Important, Art and somehow better than other writing.
     The term sneaks back into the past in a strangely anachronistic way, so that, for example, Jane Austen's works are described as literary fiction. This is nonsense. Can anyone think for a moment that were she writing today she'd be published as lit fic? No, and not because she'd end up under romance or chick lit, but because she writes comedy, and lit fic, with a few rare exceptions, does not include comedy within its remit.
     Austen never for a moment imagined she was writing Literature. Posterity decided that – not her, not John Murray, not even her contemporary readership. She wrote fiction, to entertain and to make money.”

— Elizabeth Edmondson [She is the author of 30 novels], The Guardian
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The Sense of a Middle

I have just finished Julian Barnes' The Sense of an Ending, and I can't for the life of me figure out what all the fuss was about.
     I was hoping that this winner of the 2011 Man Booker Prize (He has been shortlisted for the Booker four times; this time he was successful.) would have a bit more clout — some resonance. Granted, the book does have some good bits about memory and what turns the history record of anything into "received" history, if you will. But the tedious ruminations of his protagonist Tony Webster, a schoolboy who never grew up, read a lot like Harry Potter without the magic… in every sense of the word.
     The tragic events that eventually come to light at the end of the novella have prompted many readers to read the book more than once; a quick search of the web reveals that many have sifted through the book for nuanced clues; they have marvelled at Barnes' skill as a technician, at his ability to immerse the reader in the conscience and concerns of the aging narrator. But the plot just doesn't hold up.
     The circumstances that drive the drama of the story are implausible, out of character, contrived. The withholding of certain bits of information, though somewhat vindicated by the first person perspective and Tony's faulty memory, does not justify the murkiness and inauthenticity of the story's unfolding.
     As John Gardner says, in his On Becoming a Novelist (I quote this guy a lot… sorry): "The wiser and more experienced writer gives the reader the information he [or she] needs to understand the story moment by moment…. [the author] counts on the characters and plot for his story's power, not on tricks of withheld information, including withheld information at the end."
     It makes you wonder why this book is a novella rather than a novel. Maybe his editor was on vacation towards the end of the process. Or maybe Mr. Barnes just didn't have the time or energy to put in a middle.
— Michael Hale

Mixed Similes; Mixed Feelings

From: Folded Sky

"I'm in the process of rereading something I wrote twenty years ago — an unpublished novel that has always been my favourite child. It's like walking along a rediscovered path through the woods, a path you know that you, and you alone, once carved out of dense forest. It's a bit overgrown in places, and sometimes hard to negotiate, but with some judicious cleanup the going is not only smooth but full of surprises that only come with reading a manuscript that has gone 'cold,' as John Gardner spoke of in his book On Becoming a Novelist.
     But it's much easier 'to have written than to write' to paraphrase the famous quote from Michael Kanin. The beginning of the process: the initial chop at the dense jungle with your machete (Where to start? Which tree do I take down first?) is much more daunting.
     Starting a new writing project is like dipping your toe into cold water before the big plunge. Before long you are immersed in it, your lake of words, wondering what all the fuss was about. "Come on in, the water's fine!" you want to call out to no one in particular.


     Like a fish oblivious to the pond that sustains it, you lose yourself inside the skin of your characters, enthralled to the 'fictive dream' as John Gardner called it — again from his book On Becoming a Novelist.
    But writing a longer work isn't quite like that — you have to come up for air every now and then, climb out of the water and step back, stand there in the cool evening breeze and assess it for what it is: a lake full of cold fish. It might seem real, tangible, believable, warm to the touch, (you're sure of it, you've spent your day there — the water's fine); but does it have meaning? Is it worth committing to paper?"
— Michael Hale

For a review of A Fold in the Tent of the Sky, go here...

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The Long Haul

" […] most creative writing workshops are oriented towards short fiction. For the young novelist, this can be troublesome. His talent may go unnoticed: his marathon-runner pace does not stir the same interest as the story writer’s sprinter’s pace; and the kinds of mistakes workshops focus on are not as important in a novel as in a short story […] Sometimes it happens that the young novelist distorts his art in an attempt to compete with the short story writers in his class. He tries to make every chapter zing, tries dense symbolism and staggeringly rich prose; he violates the novelistic pace."
— John Gardner, On Becoming a Novelist


I've owned and cherished this book for many years, and have read it more than once, not just for its nuts-and-bolts advice on tackling longer works, but for Mr. Gardner's deep understanding and compassionate wisdom. If you need something to get you through a parched or rocky stretch of your "marathon" book, On Becoming A Novelist is like a cool drink from a mountain spring.

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