book of the month
Here is where rants are made. There are several published authors teaching in the Columbia College Fiction Writing Department. Soon, a biography (I believe to be written in the narrative style of In Cold Blood) about the life of Ray Bradbury will be published by Sam Weller. (Took Creative NonFiction with him last summer) Joe Meno, winner of the Nelson Algren award, has authored many different forms of excellent work, from novels to screenplays. (Currently enrolled in his Advanced Fiction this semester) And then, there's the elder teaching body, people who have not only taught in the fiction writing department for years, they are graduates of the Story Workshop method that is celebrating its 35th anniversary. One of these faculty members was (and I use this word hesitantly) lucky to have published his first novel just last year. All of this would be okay if not for the horrendous situation in which I find myself. I have a class in which this man's novel has been assigned. I had to buy this book that I would never have bought to use in a class taught by one of this man's colleagues. Not only that, this man is graciously taking time out of his busy schedule and walking down the hall to speak with our class tomorrow. All of this would even be somewhat alright, perhaps, yes, a little incestuous, creepy, a bit of forced insurance someone buys this poor man's novel, on some level of back scratching, these tactics make sense, except:
Our teacher waited until last week to announce his visit.
Our teacher was surprised to discover that none of us had cracked open this book.
Our teacher admonished us for taking too long to read Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities.
Our teacher just emailed our class with the suggestion, "Try to finish reading the novel before you come to class."
What sort of nonsense is all that? I am on page 86, and I skipped a passage we read out loud in class! And I've been reading it as much as I can, on the bus, at home, and I am still nowhere near finishing the damn thing. But now it's not about us reading the book, because if it was, our teacher might have suggested we begin it perhaps two or three weeks ago. No, this is about her impressing her colleague with a class full of bright, eager young people directed to ask pertinent questions.
blech.
Now, for those of you not completely swayed by the facts as they are, how about some pithy judgments? The book isn't bad. It's not terrible. For the most part, things are in order. Dialogue. Scene. Descriptions. Characters. Check check check. But then, there's this narrative filled with clichéd terms, dated colloquialisms that are twisted and turned. Maybe it's being exposed to A Tale of Two Cities and Grapes of Wrath (another class) and then taking a walk down the path of contemporary, post modern, ironic and flippant fiction, but it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I hope to god if I ever make a story like this, someone tells me the bad news.
Promise you will.
posted by stine @ 10:54 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
You know, I purposefully didn't want to name names, but since you asked...
It's called Hidden Place, by Shawn Shifflett.
He said something funny today when he came to class, and that was, something like, When people know you have published a book there's a lot more respect for you, like you're the sort of person that accomplished something, so they tend to automatically give you respect, and once you've published, you tend to be less critcal of other people's work, since all you wanted was to be published anyway.
I thought that was alright.
I thought he was alright.
He was charming and laughed a lot and we listened. And he tried to be helpful and teacherly.
Now that I'm nearly through with the book (a timely delay on the train helped me get to page 200!) I can safely say that the poor guy wrote this novel and it's better than not doing anything and it takes a lot of stomach to do something big and stick yourself out there, prancing around for all to see. So, you see, he's right, I did give him more regard just because he's published...
Ah Kathie. As an aside to those of you who don't know her, this is slighty sarky (sarcastic), but also, Kathie is the only person I know who writes exactly the way she talks. It's really cool.
So Kathie darling, I can't tell if you're saying I have no chance in the vast world of bagzillion book publishing world or I should wait like Shifflett did to publish my first novel when I'm forty.
I think he waited so long cause he knew he was hanging on a piece of dental floss. I guess a better direction would be to ask if you've actually read the book. Once I got into it, the complaints I had about his cheesy narrative style were still with me, but he wrote a decent story and used the Story Workshop Method to a tee. He talked about the PW review, saying that it really hurt the book. Sales and such. But that is such a trecherous road to take, espcially with a bit of dental floss on your side.
Anyway, this isn't really about whether Shifflett's a good writer or not, or if I have a chance in hell of being a published alumna. Mostly, I was pissed I had to read this book in a week because dude was gonna take time out of his busy schedule and walk down the hall and talk to our class.
Besides, you're absolutely right about looking at what's generally unpleasant and making sure I don't make the same mistake in my writing. I've already noticed my tendency to take cliches and make an easy joke or metaphor rather than take the time to write fresh and quick.
dinner, lunch, coffee, I'll take any meal with you I can get!
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