Noisy Foolishness: Kundera Quote

I dug this quote up for a buddy (read the book years ago), and thought, it's so brilliant, why not post it?

from The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera

(Afterword: A Talk with the Author by Philip Roth)

"I am wary of the words pessimism and optimism. A novel does not assert anything; a novel searches and posses questions. I don't know whether my nation will perish and I don't know which of my character is right. I invent stories, confront one with another, and by this means I ask questions. The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything. When Don Quixote went out into the world, the world turned into a mystery before his eyes. That is the legacy of the first European novel to the entire subsequent history of the novel. The novelist teaches the reader to comprehend the world as a question. There is wisdom and tolerance in that attitude. In a world built on sacrosanct certainties the novel is dead. The totalitarian world, whether founded by Marx, Islam, or anything else, is a world of answers rather than questions. There, the novel has no place. In my case, it seems to me that all over the world people nowadays prefer to judge rather than ask, so that the voice of the novel can hardly be heard over the noisy foolishness of human certainties."

Ten Poems About Work

(Continuation of Feb 20th post)

• "Filling Station" by Elizabeth Bishop
• "As Children Together" by Carolyn Forche
  
• "3 A.M. Kitchen: My Father Talking" by Tess Gallagher
• "The Nurse" by Dorianne Laux
• "You Can Have It" by Philip Levine
• "Sole Custody" by Joe Millar
• "Notes Between Swing and Graveyard" by John C Morrison
  
• "I Want You Women Up North To Know" by Tillie Olsen
• "Pickle Belt" by Theodore Roethke
  
• "To Elsie" by William Carlos Williams

As always, I invite folks to add to this list . . .

Working Class Fiction

I'm teaching expository writing with a thematic focus on The Working Class and I've compiled a couple lists. We've been reading from an excellent book titled Literature, Class and Culture, by which many of the following titles were found.

Ten novels about work:

• Well by Matthew McIntosh
• Yonnondio by Tillie Olsen
• Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan
• Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
• Betsey Brown by Ntozake Shange
• The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
• Daughter of Earth by Agnes Smedley
• Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
• Cane by Jean Toomer
• The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
  

Ten stories about work:

• "Mama" by Dorothy Allison
• "A Wagner Matinee" by Willa Cather
• "Life in the Iron-Mills" by Rebecca Harding Davis
• Edison, New Jersey" by Junot Diaz
• "Barn Burning" by William Faulkner
• "His Own Society" by Gish Jen
• "Mint" by Craig Lesley
• "The Apostate" by Jack London
• "The Tartarus of Maids" Herman Melville
• "I Stand Here Ironing" by Tillie Olsen
  

Also Rebel Graphics has an amazingly comprehensive list of Working Class Literature: fiction, nonfiction and poetry. A great resource.

I invite anyone to add to this list, I could use the suggestions.

More to come (10 poems, essays, memoirs, zines and songs about work) . . .

Grammar Stuff!

Okay, every nerd must have these!

Artist, writer, and high school teacher Lee Knapp is taking the battle to preserve American language to the kitchen by creating these wonderful grammatically correct mugs, plates, and greeting cards.

My new grammar plates and mugs arrived yesterday and I LOVE them! I totally just ate an omelet on my "Lie or Lay" plate. It was glorious.

Grammarstuff.com

Festivals

WORDSTOCK
Portland, OR

Tons of events going on: IPRC Text Ball, Oregon Book Awards, First Thursday gallery shows, Poetry slams, the whole she-bang, check out wordstockfestival.com.

Wordstock book fair at Portland Convention Center November 8th and 9th.
Amazing line-up this year. I'll make it easy and tell you who you should see: Aimee Bender, Andre Dubus III, David Guterson, William Kittredge, John C Morrison, Stewart O'Nan, Ann Packer, Paulann Peterson, Kevin Sampsall, Peter Sears and Leslie What.

Cartoonists rule Wordstock: Alison Bechdel, Derek Kirk Kim, Spain Rodriguez, and Lynda Barry. Signings at the Dark Horse table, go meet Jesse Reklaw. I think some other amazingly talented cartoonists will be signing there as well.

Stop by the Silk Road/Pacific University table and talk with Julie and Kyle. I won't be there because I'll be attending . . .

The Kenyon Review Literary Festival

NOVEMBER 6-8, 2008

GAMBIER, OHIO

Featuring: Richard Ford, Fred Andrle, David Baker, Gerald Duff, Holly Goddard Jones, Derek Mong, Margot Singer, Lynne Thompson, Jan Wagner, and G.C. Waldrep.

2:00-3:00 PM

Panel Discussion: Breaking into Publishing Moderator: David Lynn, editor, The Kenyon Review; Panelists: Karen Craigo, editor, Mid-American Review, Jerry Kelly, publisher, XOXOX Press, David McNamara, publisher, sunnyoutside press, John Walker, editor, Silk Road

Peirce Hall, Bemis Music Room

So, if you're in or near Gambier, stop by the CLMP table to talk with me about Silk Road Literary Journal, or just talk to me . . . I get lonely.

Midterm: On and On and On

On taking an extra semester:
I've decided to take an extra semester: so I'll be graduating in June, instead of January. During my essay semester in Pacific's MFA program my writing went through a pretty large transformation. I think this is largely due to what I learned while writing the essay. I ditched all my old drafts from 1st and 2nd semester and started fresh mid-way through 3rd semester. I kept thinking, since I had some time off at the beginning of 4th semester, I'd have enough time to polish up these newer drafts. Wrong. I think my thesis would've been passable, but I wanted to see these stories through. Reflection: Patience, sister, it all takes time.

On Revision Strategies:
Notes on my short story drafts have increased significantly. I'm writing summaries, revision strategies, character sketches, meditations. Mostly these consist of questions I ask myself . . .

Summary:

• What is this story about?

• Why is it important?

• What's the protagonist's existential dilemma?

Revision Strategy:

• What's not working? [List methods/strategies for improvement.]

• What is working? [List why it's working.]

• Analysis on feedback from workshop/adviser: Does the feedback make sense with my vision? Why or why not? [Usually I make a list of what I need to change, whether it be simple clarity of a sentence or larger story concerns.]

• Are your summaries (what the story is about, why it's important, existential dilemma) clear within the context of the story? Why or why not?

Character Sketches:
These are fun. Usually, I write from the 1st person perspective of all the characters . . . sometimes they're not even a part of the story, but are important in my understanding of back story. I've been working on mapping a character's emotional progression throughout a story (this way I can see spots where I need to slow up). But mostly, these are just fun free writes: interviews, diary entries, letters to another character, whatever I need to get a better understanding of where someone is coming from.

Meditations:
Free writes about abstract concepts within the story. So, if the story is about loneliness what are specific, concrete and meaningful details that I (or the character) associate with loneliness? Sometimes the meditations have nothing to do with the story, but are more about my understanding about these concepts.


Too much analysis? Yeah, maybe you're right. But, I don't really like to analyze while I'm working through the story . . . I just like to play. So separating the play (organic, intuitive, the heart) from the work (structure, the mind) is helpful for me. Sometimes it works.

Big shout-out to David Long (most of the strategies listed above were his suggestions).

On Reading:
I need to read more. What I have read this semester has been largely influential on my work, especially the books Something Happened and Last Night at the Lobster, and Dubus' short story "The Pretty Girl." Mrs. Dalloway, of course.

Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space.
Bozzini, George and Leenerts, Cynthia. Literature Without Borders.
Cheever, John. The Collected Stories.
Dubus, Andre. Selected Stories of Andre Dubus.
Ford, Richard. Vintage Ford.
Gillespie, Sheena and Singleton, Robert. Across Cultures: A Reader for Writers.
Heller, Joseph. Something Happened.
Long, David. The Falling Boy.
O'Nan, Stuart. Last Night at the Lobster.
Schulz, Bruno. The Street of Crocodiles.
Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One's Own.
Woolf, Virginia, Et Al, The Mrs. Dalloway Reader.

On Being Discouraged:
While you're feeling through the dark, unaware of what's ahead, knowing that even if there is anything good, it still won't be easy --what keeps you going? In the face of self-doubt and self-worth, devoid of inspiration -- what inside yourself will be steady enough to hold you up? These are some of the questions I've been asking myself lately. For me, routine has suddenly become ritual. Always returning to the computer, no matter what: devotion, patience, mindful work. Even during the tough times, even with jobs I hated, I've found a tremendous amount of satisfaction in hard work. So, I'll keep working at this, the craft, until -- I don't know -- I die, or it stops making sense.

Three readings in three days

Powell's had a good line-up of readings last weekend, so I slept under a desk in their cuddly rare book room for three days (shhh, don't tell).

Paul Auster : Friday, September 19th

7:00 pm. Geez. Standing room only? (I shuffle to the back near two annoying people) (they do not move) (. . . three points if anyone out there gets that joke . . . three more if someone calls me annoying for attempted literary humor)

Auster read from Man in the Dark, opening with the first page . . . "I am alone in the dark, turning the world around in my head as I struggle through another bout of insomnia, another white night in the great American wilderness." Pretty good first line, yeah? It was a fine reading, but a little odd because the bulk of excerpts Auster read were two characters (Katya and August) discussing films. The reading ended up being mostly film commentary. Perhaps if I'd read the book I'd understand its significance to the story, but I left Powell's more excited about renting movies than cracking open the book. Auster refused to do Q&A, which bummed me out a bit (I don't know, though, it's more miss than hit with Q&A, so maybe not a huge loss). But, all and all, it was an interesting reading.

Chuck Klosterman: Sunday, September 21st

6:45. Yes! Found a seat on one of the side benches next to a guy who later told me I had a contagious laugh (three points for me if that was a compliment, minus three if he was really saying my hee-hawing is so loud it embarrassed him into a spazzy chuckling fit)

What can I say? Chuck's funny. Pop-cultural journalist and writer of Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs and Killing Yourself To Live, Klosterman's first book, Fargo Rock City, was what caught my attention (Note: Klosterman worked at The Forum while I was still living in Fargo. Met him once at a party . . . my friend was all, "Wasn't that the guy who writes the weird hip section in The Forum? Yeah, he totally sucks.") (Aside: I wonder if Klosterman has been nominated for Rough Rider award . . . seriously, NoDak has a "Rough Rider" award!)

Klosterman read from his first novel, Downtown Owl, which is set in the fictional rural town of Owl, North Dakota, and follows three very different characters -- Mitch is a high school quarterback, Horace is a 73-year-old widower, and Julia is a newly arrived social studies teacher. The selection he read cracked me up, and I wish I had a quote but when I laugh my eyes squint too much for me to see, and therefore I cannot write while I'm laughing and therefore I cannot give you a quote, and for this I am sorry. Anyway . . . the Q & A was equally awesome because Klosterman just bantered on about interviewing Marilyn Manson, how Steely Dan rocks (and shut up they do so), writing fiction vs. nonfiction, his book's appearance on the OC, how 1 out of 3 girlfriends like his books, and about his look ("Some say I look like an aging lesbian. Others think I look like Sally Jessy Raphael"). Nice.

Irvine Welsh: Monday, September 22nd

6:45 Arrived with my friend Neva Feva after scarfing down some yellowish rice at Whole Foods. Wonderful Emily joined us after 7.

Welsh read from, Crime, a novel set in Miami, featuring a return for Detective Inspector Ray Lennox from Welsh's 1998 novel Filth. Recovering from a cocaine-and stress-induced breakdown, Lennox finds nothing but more corruption in the Sunshine State.

Welsh's American accent was awesome, he sounded just like John Wayne.

Final Tally
Me: 3
Sally Jessy Raphael: zilch-o (Ha! In your face Sally Jessy!)