This post has nothing to do with books

White Tulip

But a picture’s worth a thousand words, right? (Nothing like a glib cliche to cover up one’s deficiencies ;-))

As astute readers may discern from the above photo, I finally got a digital camera. I know. 21st century and all that. Which means the flickr account I set up a while ago in anticipation of such an event will now actually have photos in it … and all 4 (or is it 3?) of my readers can anticipate more photo-posts from me.

So I’m just playing around with it at the moment, learning all the things it will do (it shoots movies!). I think my favorite feature so far is the continuous shooting setting–that will be awesome for taking triathlon photos.

2006 Books Read – #5

The Best American Short Stories of the Eighties edited by Shannon Ravenel

The Best American Short Stories of the Eighties

Whew!

This is an uber-anthology consisting of two stories from each of the Best American anthologies from 1980-1989. I picked it up because the author names are mostly well-known ones that you see bandied about a lot, but I hadn’t read any of these stories before.

I actually started reading it last year, got about halfway through and set it aside. This isn’t a knock on the quality of the stories. The problem is that it’s an anthology. I couldn’t finish a story and immediately jump into the next one. I had to give each story time to settle between readings. This made for a much slower read than a novel or even a short story collection. And I get a little antsy when I’m reading the same book for a really long time, hence the break.

Onto the content: There’s no question that these stories are good. But that said, I didn’t like all of the stories equally well. There was one story I couldn’t get through (basically, I found the style annoying). I connected with more of the later stories than the earlier ones (they were arranged chronologically).

Some of the stories (particularly “The Way We Live Now” – Susan Sontag and “The Management of Grief” – Bharati Mukherjee) felt like historic records of moments in time. I found reading “The Management of Grief” (about the aftermath of Air India) especially poignant, given that the trial only took place last year and the defendants were acquitted.

The stories that will stay the longest with me are probably “Helping” by Robert Stone and “The Management of Grief.” I’ll definitely look for other work by Mukherjee.

So what’s in it?

  • From 1980, “The Old Forest” by Peter Taylor & “The Emerald” by Donald Barthelme
  • From 1981, “The Shawl” by Cynthia Ozick & “A Working Day” by Robert Coover
  • From 1982, “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver & “Exchange Value” by Charles Johnson
  • From 1983, “Deaths of Distant Friends” by John Updike & “Sur” by Ursula K. LeGuin
  • From 1984, “Nairobi” by Joyce Carol Oates & “In the Red Room” by Paul Bowles
  • From 1985, “Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story” by Russell Banks & “Fellow-Creatures” by Wright Morris
  • From 1986, “Gryphon” by Charles Baxter & “Health” by Joy Williams
  • From 1987, “The Way We Live Now” by Susan Sontag & “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien
  • From 1988, “Dede” by Mavis Gallant & “Helping” by Robert Stone
  • From 1989, “The Management of Grief” by Bharati Mukherjee & “Meneseteung” by Alice Munro

On Critiquing

Bloggers with rabid fans (e.g. Dooce, Miss Snark) fascinate me. Or, rather, the fans fascinate me. Anything the blogger says they will agree with. God forbid they disagree with the blogger and get banished!

So, I was pleased to see that some of Miss Snark’s fans actually disagreed with some rather dubious advice that she gave recently.

A snarkling had read a writing buddy’s manuscript and found some aspects of it lacking (this is a shock? It’s a draft by an unpublished writer…) and asked Miss Snark what to do. The snarkling seemed to be baffled at this development, like the possibility that the manuscript wouldn’t be ready for publication hadn’t even crossed her mind.

Miss Snark:

You say “I was glad to read your novel. I never offer comments but I can answer questions about it.” General questions like “did you like it” can be answered truthfully with “not as much as I hoped I would after reading -and this is where you insert the name of the work you did like.” You’ll know she has no idea about character development if she doesn’t ask anything about it.

What?! Give the poor writer a critique, goddamnit. You’re her writing friend, not her mother. Don’t be mean, but do be honest. Tell her what she’s doing wrong. (If it’s an unmitigated disaster, pick your battles; choose whatever’s worst and start there.)

You don’t say: “Your novel sucks.” That’s being a jerk. You say: “I didn’t find your characters believable because *insert reasons here*. I suggest you do this.” This is constructive criticism. There are three parts to it:

1. Make it an “I” statement: “I think…” “In my opinion…”
2. Give specific reasons why the characters (or whatever) aren’t working.
3. Suggest what could be done to fix the problem.

I know it’s hard. Do it anyway. Both of you will be better writers for it.

If she takes it well, she’ll have an awareness of her writing that she never had before; this may be a turning point for her. If she takes it badly, you’ll know not to offer to read/critique her work again. Regardless, you will learn so much from critiquing. It will make your writing better. Honest.

Thankfully, some of the snarklings offered suggestions along this line. In fact, this time, they offered much better advice than Miss Snark herself. Read the comments.

Truth

Excellent post on truth in writing, be it fiction or non:

A more useful criteria would begin with the understanding that all good writing seeks the truth, whether that’s a metaphorical or an objective truth, and it should be judged accordingly. Deciding if a book is “true” or not should never stop at the title page; a good reader should never suspend his or her critical faculties. This is precisely why reading is such a mentally interactive experience, why writing is — in my opinion — an essentially higher art than other, more passive media. While reading a book, one must constantly be engaged in trying to hear dialogue, visualize surroundings, judge character and background. A good book, in turn, challenges a reader; makes him or her rethink what they are sure they know and believe.

In which I find out that I'm not a real person

Literary fiction is like haute couture; real people may not buy it but it’s what’s featured in the pages of the New York Times and defines your line.

It makes my head hurt, both that there are people who write who don’t know what literary fiction (otherwise known as plain old literature) is and also that literary fiction is continually disparaged as being something that “real” people don’t read.

*sigh*

Million Writers Award

The storySouth Million Writers Award honors and promotes the best fiction published in online literary journals and magazines.

Anyone can nominate one story; editors can nominate up to three stories. Nominations took place last month. Toasted Cheese nominated three stories (“Musee Mecanique” by Terri Brown-Davidson, “Refuge” by Anna Evans, and “Cravings” by Trish O’Brien-Edwards).

The Notable Stories of 2005 (selected by eight judges) were released yesterday, and one of Toasted Cheese’s stories was chosen!

The judges selected “Cravings” as one of the Notable Stories of 2005.

I’m possibly more excited than if I wrote the story myself!