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Scaring the Dickens Out of Myself: Part Two by Rich Chiappone

5/10/2011

 
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Following my confession about my general ignorance of High Literature and my crush on Jane Eyre, I’d like to argue why the baggy old capital “C” Canon, while no longer venerated as widely as it once was, might still be useful to us here in the program. 

Even if you set aside the equally baggy old and rather vague notion that a writer should be well rounded (meaning well read) and familiar with the world of literature and its history, there is a simple pragmatic reason to read the capital “G” Great Books: to avoid a Tower of Babel when we attempt to discuss the craft of writing in classrooms or workshops. Because, just as the larger culture is becoming less homogeneous and more diverse all the time, each new class of writing students brings a myriad of new literary influences and inclinations along with it. 


It’s no news that at one time, maybe a hundred years ago, every English major leaving an American college would have read many of the same books as every other student of that time, from Homer to the Bible to Samuel Johnson and Keats and so forth. A conversation then, at the graduate level would assume a certain common base of referents. Today, our national religion being individualism, it seems that we can’t gather together ten students (or maybe even ten faculty) who’ve all read the same one book. In the mentorship mode of our program it’s not a problem: a teacher can assign books, or negotiate and find books the two parties have coincidentally read. But in larger classroom situations, it’s not easy.

Like everyone else, readers across the board seem to be more and more specialized today. Some read voluminously, but sometimes narrowly: say, almost nothing but detective novels, for example, or only nature essays, or whatever. In the day to day world, it’s not a problem. But the rise in respectability (or maybe it’s simply the grudging acceptance) of genre writing is beginning to raise questions about how to discuss writing when a smaller and smaller percentage of each class has read the same books. And if there’s any question that genre writing is becoming more acceptable, consider this.

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Last week, an issue of the Missouri Review landed in my mailbox, as respectable a literary magazine as you could ask for. This issue includes a review and commentary on four novels; it is titled “Books With Bite.” Four vampire novels. Just imagine how the many “literary” novelists who sent their books to TMR to be reviewed feel about being overlooked in favor of the tooth-in-neck genre. I’m not complaining; it was a fascinating piece--and I’ve never read a vampire novel. I enjoyed it very much. But, then again, I don’t have a novel floating around out there trying to get attention in serious literary magazines.


However you feel about genre writing, there is no turning back the tide now. We will continue to get more and more genre writers in the program. And this is not entirely new. One of my best friends in Alaska is the science fiction writer, Michael Armstong. He received his MFA here at UAA in 1986; his thesis project was his first published sci-fi novel, After the Zap. 

The argument for salvaging some part of the traditional Canon, for insisting that students are familiar with some of the old Greats, is that it provides us with some common referents. One of the most durable ways to teach the unteachable subject of creative writing has always been to show by example. The question is (for our purposes): which example? Even the Great Books add up pretty quickly. And, unless a student happens to have a BA in English Literature, the odds are still slim that a whole room full of people will have read the same long, dense novels.

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However, anthologies of short works offer a possible solution. In fiction, one simple way to provide a wide range of good examples of good writing is to assign a big fat anthology of great short stories for all fiction writers--even if they want to write a dwarf and elf novel. Then, every aspect of craft can be easily pointed to in a classroom discussion. We can say, “Look at how Flannery O’Connor used dialogue to create tension between Julian and his mother.” Or, “Look at the way Chekov shows Guruov’s heartlessness when he sits there eating that slice of watermelon as Anna weeps for her lost honor.” Or, “Look how Fitzgerald first shows us his main character’s good intentions in 'Babylon Revisited,' and then shows how his weakness crushes him.”  Elves and dwarves need to do all that stuff, too. So do cowboys and detectives and space aliens and fly fishermen. 


The same goes for poetry and essay anthologies.

I’ll argue again and again that it is more important how you read than what you read. There is plenty to be learned from every successful work, regardless of genre. Those authors are doing something right. If it were really simple to write a successful wizard or western or sci-fi or detective novel, everyone would be home making millions doing that, instead of going to graduate school to learn how. Some of you have had to listen to me go on about reading like a writer, so I’ll spare you that here. And I’m not arguing that everyone has to read the old masters because they are good for you and will make you a better person. 

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I’m here to give writing advice, and I find that it’s a lot easier to do when a roomful of students have read some of the same writings as I have. The truth is, nobody can be widely read in every genre. But the building blocks of narrative are used in every story regardless of genre: conflict, character development, setting, action, summary, scene, dialogue and so forth. What I’m asking for is a way to talk about those things using examples students will recognize. 

The Great Books are great because their authors knew how to do some of those things very, very well. It would be a shame not to take advantage of that.  


P.S. I’m almost done with Blathering Heights. Some time, let’s talk about whether it was wise for Emily Bronte to use a first person narrator to tell us what is almost all told to 'him (inside quote marks) by Ellen Dean the servant, including lengthy (apparently memorized) passages of dialogue that she recounts verbatim (quotes within her quotes) between herself and other characters, and even including some overheard dialogue that another character recites to Ellen (quotes within quotes within quotes).  Somebody should have said, “Emily, babe, I have two words for you: ‘third person.’”
Lisa Houlihan
5/11/2011 07:10:14 am

When the vampire genre became popular, and all my students (I teach high school juniors) devoured those books, I vowed never to read a vampire novel. I've never had a desire to anyway, but I was just so irritated with the way the craze blinded the kids to any other options. The Canon can do that too, I suppose, in making some thing a great book has to be on some special list. Because you are so fresh on your journey with the classics and because it's so easy to get discouraged early on, the Bronte sisters are on the same level of Great Books Hell as Hardy. I say toss Catherine and Heathcliff out the window...or if you're determined to finish the novel, send them on vacation back to the bookshelf for a while and make a trip back to the bookstore for one of the actually great Great Books. I agree that many of the books that have made their way onto the Canon are there because the writers did something right and have something to teach us about the writing craft, but those Bronte sisters and Hardy (along with some un-named others) are just so melodramatic and convoluted and blasted boring. Recently one of the other English teachers at my school shared the shocking news that Jane Eyre is his favorite book. In turn, he was shocked when I said, "Ugh, I hate that book!" And when ALL of the other teachers in our department agreed with me, he defended himself with "Jane is such a moving, inspiring character" "she goes through so much suffering and yet manages to stay strong" "it's such a beautiful love story" and went on to read some stupid section that might have been moving if it wouldn't have been so gaggingly unrealistic and wouldn't have been buried under mounds of adjectives and needless details. As my eyelids grew heavy, and my chin began to slip out of my hand, I somehow managed to yawn, "And your point is?"

Vivian Faith Prescott
5/12/2011 01:09:20 am

I agree about the value of anthologies. I love them. I buy them at thrift shops, library free bins, used books stores, and find them tossed aside, left behind in college dorm lobbies at the end of the school year.

Also, I reject the "canon" and how we percieve the canon, which means "western canon." Typically, there is no mention of the oral traditions and texts like the Kalevala, or Skaay's Haida myths.

Thanks for a good discussion, Rich.

Erin link
5/12/2011 05:59:45 am

Generally when I'm at a total loss for what to read and think to myself that I should try and read something "classic" I revert back to the Modern Library 100 Greatest English Language Novels list. There's plenty wrong with the list, but overall, when I suck it up and commit to something from it, I'm pretty happy about it. Honestly the only reason that I read Winesburg, Ohio and The Bridge of the San Louis Rey was because they're both on that list, and man am I happy I read those books.

Part of what got me interested in going back to classics or "the canon" was studying Russian. In Russian culture literature is such a huge vital part of their national identity it makes the US's relationship to written work seem like a one night stand. There such a wide knowledge of, and respect for, the Russian masters, that even when I was chatting with someone who wasn't that into books, they could still pull a Tolstoy reference as an example.

Of course, the flip side of that is a tendency to reject outside cultures and voices, which I think is the fine line you walk when pushing a Canon. Yes, it's great to get everyone to read some of the widley accepted classics, but at this point American culture is so varied, even when reading work that has a universal message, there's always going to be somebody in the room who doesn't connect.


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