Assignment 7:
In answer to the question of whether or not Truman Capote included himself in his work, I would have to say that, in the case of In Cold Blood, he did not--and yes, there is a ton of questioning about the legitimacy of the work. I heard on an NPR show about Nelle Harper Lee that she took copious notes for Truman and therefore, he had likely plagiarized her notes in parts? Anyway, in his other work--including one famous piece about Marilyn Monroe--he puts himself in, but he is always a cynical, sardonic sort of voice of truth who berates the other character.
So I am not sure exactly how objective one might want to classify Truman. But he's a good writer, and his writing is interesting and good. Some of it is about men who are in prison for murder, so I don't really feel sorry for them. But I realize that even that is a problem--that everyone has their rights--doing this indep. study has made it viscerally clear to me (personally, if not universally) that there is a strict sort of ethics involved. That is broken, in a way, by all journalists.
SHADOWBOXING
I had a friend who took a "nature writing" class for her EP at Eckerd one winter term, and all I heard about for months was how stupid it was. It really irritated me because I think one can write well about anything if one looks hard enough at what makes it interesting. That said, I do think that nature writing is not really about nature, per se. I agree with Iverson that it is "a response" to the world around us. It gave me an idea, as little as I may use it, about writing about New York as a garden or something. But I have a feeling that it's been done. If there is some sort of writing about New York's gray buildings and chipped sidewalks as a metaphor for the natural world or even a replacement for it, let me know. I'd like to read it.
Iverson states that "the most important responsibility of the nature writer is to define and deconstruct our relationship to our natural environement and defend aspects of the environement that are far too often overlooked or exploited (137) . . . we like nature to represent what we are not." I would argue that there is more to nature writing than a kind of fulbright-fellowship-winning, Pulitzer-prize-style reportage on the dangers of what we are doing to the environment and/or simply rehashing the same old argument of where our place is in relation to nature, along with "embrac[ing] ambiguity (138)." But maybe that is a subject for my own essay. I think that we ARE nature, whether we think we are or not--most people seem to think that we are apart from nature, as I will discuss in the Owens piece. So what does it mean that we "interpret" a difference between ourselves and nature?
Also, if the last paper is to be nature/travel writing, I'd like some more input about travel writing. Even though I think I have a pretty good idea :) it might be nice to see some examples/writing on it.
OWENS
This piece creates a conflict of sorts for me. On the one hand, it belongs in the spectrum of nature writing. But on the other, it is simply a speech about humanity, as most speeches given at commencement seem to be. Also, it was laced a bit strongly with irony--for example, the first part about a human working to remove the traces of humanity left in a park (155), and distrust of humanity: "the government was trying to minimize impact . . . never mind the mining operation just a few miles back (156)." Irony upon irony! Owens is setting up his position as an anti-anthrocentric one (of course, or should I say, NATURALLY haha) only so that he can tackle it in a few paragraphs. He ends page 156 with a good moment tackling anthrocentrism by saying that we have foolishly written about nature with regard to ourselves. This implies that we do not "deserve" nature, or to be "in nature"--that there is a kind of separatism evident. Most people don't seem to notice how "heil hitler" (i.e. fascist) this comes off as being.
I read a book a while ago called "Ishmael" (horribly written by the way) and that was the message of the book--that anthrocentrism is killing the world. I remember coming to the same conclusion that Owens does here: don't WE deserve something? We ARE part of nature, after all. It is a kind of reversal of bleeding-heart strategy. And while I did find it completely wrenching that the women cried over the little burnt-down cabin, it felt a bit manipulative. I don't know, maybe I've just read/heard too many commencement-speech-like pieces. The piece felt a bit obvious in places, such as when (157) Owens states that he is guarding the wilderness against his own presence.
Or how about on 159, when he makes the general statement: "It is dangerous and wrong, I ALWAYS say, to generalize about Native Americans"?, and then just goes on to list facts about Native Americans and to attribute the trait of responsibility to them. This is an issue I wanted to tackle in my essay--that attempting to be "fair" in dealings with Native Americans (or any other misunderstood "subject"--not object!!)often leads to even more unfairness. If Native Americans are humans, as they are of course, then why do THEY have a monopoly on environmental responsibility? Owens gets far more on track when he gets to his main theme: we are ALL here, and we all belong here. It is a powerful statement, and he states it well. Enough of my criticism. But I just had to say what I thought about certain parts of it. It felt a bit patronizing, is all.
EDMUNDSON --
This essay was funny & interesting, but I wasn't quite sure what the story was. The first moment we get about how she feels about nature is when she is confronting the poison oak with its own existence, daring it to try and "get her." On p. 162, she says : "You'll never get me now!" which implies that she has been duped by it (and nature?) before. Nature has camouflaged itself from her previously, and with the natural change of seasons, which is nothing to the plant, but important to her, she has been able to "beat" it and not fall into its trap. Was it setting a trap for her earlier? Probably not! If nature inadverdently camouflages itself from humanity, what does that mean?
On the same page, she addresses another ecological "issue": when she sees a beer can tucked behind a bush, she thinks to herself, "Does hiding [the can] a little bit make you sort of ecological?" This goes back to the theme of seeing/not seeing -- it is a very interesting idea, that of perception and what nature and saving nature means to different people.
On p. 163, she equates nature with God ("I have been pondering the whole idea of it--the outdoors, wildlife--God, in a way--"). This fits with the next thing I noticed that, in talking to the dogs about the bunny she has just seen, she might be seen as someone who gets along better with animals than with humans. This contradicts the earlier impression of her as "desecrating" a poison oak shrub. And also with her "categorizing" of things into a points system--for example, a lizard is only one point. Only one point? That certainly doesn't seem very "nature-loving" of someone. On the other hand, just because she is contemplating God and nature doesn't mean that she can't desecrate a bush or squish a lizard. That sort of harshness is a part of nature, after all. But it is interesting that she has points -- and needs to slap things in an obsessive-compulsive sort of way. She seems to think that just because she has categorized nature, that it follows her whims--but really it is the other way around. She is categorized and made into a rule-abiding, fact-collecting creature by her reaction TO nature.
Finally, at the end she says that cats are zero points. What does that symbol of domestication, the house cat, symbolize in this essay? I wasn't quite sure. Maybe it just went to show that human ideas about wildness and domestication are ridiculous, or maybe the fact that cats (and lizards) are more ubiquitous than deer shows that it is not just nature that is sacred but that which we create in our minds as sacred.
STYLE: "Concision"
I learned that I frequently am redundant and use metadiscourse. I learned to do this mostly because of word counts on essays. However, at the end of the chapter Williams notes that it is not good simply to be short and sweet. The writer risks being terse. Thus the "garrulous charm" that he attributes to Strunk and White might apply to me as well! It will be very difficult to stop using redundant words and phrases, and to become more confident in what I am saying to simply just say it. It's hard because the excersises make sense in the book but when I actually get to the point of trying to write, it's a lot harder to actually put it to use.
Both of the pieces I read for this week actually combined garrulous charm and concision. At first glance, both seemed quite concise and straightforward--but then I started to notice little quirks that made the writing unique to its respective authors. For example, Edmunson used phrases like "Not much of a spitter," or "Not one to gape at Nature." This made her narrator seem in control of the "lightness" with which she treated her subject--Nature--and thus she was able to be humorous about serious issues: God, desecrating Nature, etc.
In answer to the question of whether or not Truman Capote included himself in his work, I would have to say that, in the case of In Cold Blood, he did not--and yes, there is a ton of questioning about the legitimacy of the work. I heard on an NPR show about Nelle Harper Lee that she took copious notes for Truman and therefore, he had likely plagiarized her notes in parts? Anyway, in his other work--including one famous piece about Marilyn Monroe--he puts himself in, but he is always a cynical, sardonic sort of voice of truth who berates the other character.
So I am not sure exactly how objective one might want to classify Truman. But he's a good writer, and his writing is interesting and good. Some of it is about men who are in prison for murder, so I don't really feel sorry for them. But I realize that even that is a problem--that everyone has their rights--doing this indep. study has made it viscerally clear to me (personally, if not universally) that there is a strict sort of ethics involved. That is broken, in a way, by all journalists.
SHADOWBOXING
I had a friend who took a "nature writing" class for her EP at Eckerd one winter term, and all I heard about for months was how stupid it was. It really irritated me because I think one can write well about anything if one looks hard enough at what makes it interesting. That said, I do think that nature writing is not really about nature, per se. I agree with Iverson that it is "a response" to the world around us. It gave me an idea, as little as I may use it, about writing about New York as a garden or something. But I have a feeling that it's been done. If there is some sort of writing about New York's gray buildings and chipped sidewalks as a metaphor for the natural world or even a replacement for it, let me know. I'd like to read it.
Iverson states that "the most important responsibility of the nature writer is to define and deconstruct our relationship to our natural environement and defend aspects of the environement that are far too often overlooked or exploited (137) . . . we like nature to represent what we are not." I would argue that there is more to nature writing than a kind of fulbright-fellowship-winning, Pulitzer-prize-style reportage on the dangers of what we are doing to the environment and/or simply rehashing the same old argument of where our place is in relation to nature, along with "embrac[ing] ambiguity (138)." But maybe that is a subject for my own essay. I think that we ARE nature, whether we think we are or not--most people seem to think that we are apart from nature, as I will discuss in the Owens piece. So what does it mean that we "interpret" a difference between ourselves and nature?
Also, if the last paper is to be nature/travel writing, I'd like some more input about travel writing. Even though I think I have a pretty good idea :) it might be nice to see some examples/writing on it.
OWENS
This piece creates a conflict of sorts for me. On the one hand, it belongs in the spectrum of nature writing. But on the other, it is simply a speech about humanity, as most speeches given at commencement seem to be. Also, it was laced a bit strongly with irony--for example, the first part about a human working to remove the traces of humanity left in a park (155), and distrust of humanity: "the government was trying to minimize impact . . . never mind the mining operation just a few miles back (156)." Irony upon irony! Owens is setting up his position as an anti-anthrocentric one (of course, or should I say, NATURALLY haha) only so that he can tackle it in a few paragraphs. He ends page 156 with a good moment tackling anthrocentrism by saying that we have foolishly written about nature with regard to ourselves. This implies that we do not "deserve" nature, or to be "in nature"--that there is a kind of separatism evident. Most people don't seem to notice how "heil hitler" (i.e. fascist) this comes off as being.
I read a book a while ago called "Ishmael" (horribly written by the way) and that was the message of the book--that anthrocentrism is killing the world. I remember coming to the same conclusion that Owens does here: don't WE deserve something? We ARE part of nature, after all. It is a kind of reversal of bleeding-heart strategy. And while I did find it completely wrenching that the women cried over the little burnt-down cabin, it felt a bit manipulative. I don't know, maybe I've just read/heard too many commencement-speech-like pieces. The piece felt a bit obvious in places, such as when (157) Owens states that he is guarding the wilderness against his own presence.
Or how about on 159, when he makes the general statement: "It is dangerous and wrong, I ALWAYS say, to generalize about Native Americans"?, and then just goes on to list facts about Native Americans and to attribute the trait of responsibility to them. This is an issue I wanted to tackle in my essay--that attempting to be "fair" in dealings with Native Americans (or any other misunderstood "subject"--not object!!)often leads to even more unfairness. If Native Americans are humans, as they are of course, then why do THEY have a monopoly on environmental responsibility? Owens gets far more on track when he gets to his main theme: we are ALL here, and we all belong here. It is a powerful statement, and he states it well. Enough of my criticism. But I just had to say what I thought about certain parts of it. It felt a bit patronizing, is all.
EDMUNDSON --
This essay was funny & interesting, but I wasn't quite sure what the story was. The first moment we get about how she feels about nature is when she is confronting the poison oak with its own existence, daring it to try and "get her." On p. 162, she says : "You'll never get me now!" which implies that she has been duped by it (and nature?) before. Nature has camouflaged itself from her previously, and with the natural change of seasons, which is nothing to the plant, but important to her, she has been able to "beat" it and not fall into its trap. Was it setting a trap for her earlier? Probably not! If nature inadverdently camouflages itself from humanity, what does that mean?
On the same page, she addresses another ecological "issue": when she sees a beer can tucked behind a bush, she thinks to herself, "Does hiding [the can] a little bit make you sort of ecological?" This goes back to the theme of seeing/not seeing -- it is a very interesting idea, that of perception and what nature and saving nature means to different people.
On p. 163, she equates nature with God ("I have been pondering the whole idea of it--the outdoors, wildlife--God, in a way--"). This fits with the next thing I noticed that, in talking to the dogs about the bunny she has just seen, she might be seen as someone who gets along better with animals than with humans. This contradicts the earlier impression of her as "desecrating" a poison oak shrub. And also with her "categorizing" of things into a points system--for example, a lizard is only one point. Only one point? That certainly doesn't seem very "nature-loving" of someone. On the other hand, just because she is contemplating God and nature doesn't mean that she can't desecrate a bush or squish a lizard. That sort of harshness is a part of nature, after all. But it is interesting that she has points -- and needs to slap things in an obsessive-compulsive sort of way. She seems to think that just because she has categorized nature, that it follows her whims--but really it is the other way around. She is categorized and made into a rule-abiding, fact-collecting creature by her reaction TO nature.
Finally, at the end she says that cats are zero points. What does that symbol of domestication, the house cat, symbolize in this essay? I wasn't quite sure. Maybe it just went to show that human ideas about wildness and domestication are ridiculous, or maybe the fact that cats (and lizards) are more ubiquitous than deer shows that it is not just nature that is sacred but that which we create in our minds as sacred.
STYLE: "Concision"
I learned that I frequently am redundant and use metadiscourse. I learned to do this mostly because of word counts on essays. However, at the end of the chapter Williams notes that it is not good simply to be short and sweet. The writer risks being terse. Thus the "garrulous charm" that he attributes to Strunk and White might apply to me as well! It will be very difficult to stop using redundant words and phrases, and to become more confident in what I am saying to simply just say it. It's hard because the excersises make sense in the book but when I actually get to the point of trying to write, it's a lot harder to actually put it to use.
Both of the pieces I read for this week actually combined garrulous charm and concision. At first glance, both seemed quite concise and straightforward--but then I started to notice little quirks that made the writing unique to its respective authors. For example, Edmunson used phrases like "Not much of a spitter," or "Not one to gape at Nature." This made her narrator seem in control of the "lightness" with which she treated her subject--Nature--and thus she was able to be humorous about serious issues: God, desecrating Nature, etc.
posted by jameskandy at 4:48 PM
3 Comments:
Hi Yasmin,
Isn't it interesting how there might be "a ton of questioning about (a) work" if the author isn't only truthful about his subject matter and theme, but also himself (or herself)? It goes back to considering the authority of the writer: Should we believe this writer? Why? Does (s)he not only expose the subject matter well enough that we know it's been researched enough, but also show that the author is honest about his (or her) role in the work as well? Perhaps that's why we like to go away from a writing not only learning something about the subject matter, but the author as well. If we feel the author is "hiding" too much, we question the writer's authority.
As an aside, I hadn't heard about the questioning as to whether Capote "plaigarized" Nelle Harper Lee in his work, but if she agreed to take copious notes and turn them over to him, there might have been some sort of assent as to how much he could use her words. It sounds like she might have ghostwritten for him, and was OK with it. Who knows, unless we were there?
Anyway. I'm interested in your comment that says there is a strict code of ethics involved in writing non-fiction "that is broken, in a way, by all journalists." What do you mean by that?
Let's get down to nature writing.
You've hit it on the nose and took away from your reading what I hoped you would: Nature writing is about a response to your own definition of what "nature" is. What is natural to you? Would nature be defined by our relationships, with not only our earth but with each other? What is "natural" anymore? I'm stealing this from a worksheet given to me by one of my own professors, Rita Ciresi:
"Broadly defined, a nature essay explores some aspect of the natural world. The subject matter you examine can be vast (a celebration of the solar system) or minute (a meditation on a mosquito) ... while a traditional nature essay (such as Thoreau's 'Walking') often takes a long-winded and philosophical look at one part of nature, a contemporary nature essay can be in the meditative mode or it an be framed in terms of a memoir."
I chose the two works in the book that I had you read because they are very much contemporary meditations on the authors' places in the world right now -- how nature was either being ruined, or redefined, in our world.
I have to admit that I didn't love Owens' work much, but it is a classic compare/contrast essay, and we can look at it in terms of that. By comparing and contrasting his current world to the one that Robert Frost lived in, Owens shows the change in nature and his understanding of it. I liked the narrative in which he opens his essay -- compelling opening with good details, which drew me in -- but I wonder if he drew too much upon Frost, because I did start glazing over those passages. Also, on page 159, I thought he was going off-track when he spoke about the classes he taught in Native American literature; I felt he was losing touch with his thematic matter. But I was always drawn back in when he returned to his narrative and description, and his personal experience with nature. Perhaps I just like a good anecdote.
I thought Edmundson's essay used a lot of stylistic techniques. You say you worry about being redundant in your work -- yet the use of repetition is different, and can be powerful. Edmundson uses repetition in two ways -- the repetition of images, in her "point" system -- which we see at the beginning of the work when she gets "five points" for spotting a quail, and then at the end of her work, when she gets "zero points" for spotting a cat. It creates a circular feel to her work, tying the beginning with the end.
Also, the choice to use the word "points" more than once begins a stylistic feel, somewhat poetic. You have to be careful with this, because if the technique is overused, it just begins to feel like, "Can't you use a different word?" But some stylists use repetition well. (If you want a good example of this, I'd recommend Maud Casey's novel "Geneaology", which I'm reading now.)
You see in these essays many of the craft techniques we've talked about before, which can be "stolen" from fiction: good detail and description of setting (Edmunson's paragraph two), use of characterization (paragraph three). And I feel you've come to realize that what you've learned about good non-fiction in your previous essays is transferable to anything you write, no matter the form: we want empathy, we want to learn something, we want to be entertained with narratives and style.
You can consider this a travel piece, if you want. Travel essays are similar to others in that they can talk about a journey, i.e., literary journalism, or an author's discovery of himself through setting, i.e. nature writing. Some of the conventions of travel narratives you might consider are:
1. presenting a stranger in a new land,
2. exploring the question of perception,
3. providing a sense of adventure and/or means of escape from the mundane,
4. commentary on cultural attitudes.
Two essays you might look at, if you are choosing to combine nature and travel writing (both findable by a google search) are E.B. White's "Once More to the Lake" and Joan Didion's "Goodbye To All That", which (surprise!) shows her love for the city of New York. Didion's work could also be considered a valediction, which is bidding a farewell to something -- another form you could consider, especially in nature writing, when the contemporary essayist might bid a fond adeiu to what nature has been considered to be in the past.
You said you were worried that a meditation on New York "had been done before" -- and if it has, who cares? If you choose to use New York as your subject matter, it will be made fresh by your insight and your point of view. I'd be interested in reading it, simply because I've visited NYC and commented that I couldn't stand to live there because of the extreme lack of green. I wonder what your take on the "nature of New York" is.
Lots to think about! I think you've done a fabulous job this semester, and I know you're winding down, so here's the schedule for the rest of the "semester":
Aug. 4: Read Lesson 9 in "Style" on Elegance. On the blog, relate the chapter to ANY of the readings we've done all summer, one you feel incorporates elegance especially well -- or not. (You can relate the chapter to White or Didion, if you choose to read those essays.)
Also, I'd like you to blog what you feel this semester has taught you about creative non-fiction in general. I know that's a broad statement, but trust your instincts. You might go over your previous blogs to help with your comprehension of what non-fiction is.
Aug. 11. Nature writing piece due. Also, In a private e-mail to me, I'd like you to write an honest assessment of the semester: What did you find particularly useful about your studies (in your readings, or perhaps assignments)? Was there anything that you felt was left unclear, or was unhelpful? Remember it's pretty hard to hurt my feelings -- I'd rather you be honest than worry about my ego. You'll help me shape my course on The Personal Essay for the fall, which I'll much appreciate.
That's it! I'll be e-mailing you separately soon on your literary journalism piece. I hope you've been revising all along with your first works, or soon you're going to have four pieces, with revision, due at the beginning of the fall semester, which could be overwhelming. Do take care to create a schedule for yourself for revision so you aren't overwhelmed at the last minute.
I hope your travels back to Eckerd were successful, and that you also get to Boston safely. You sure are traveling a lot this summer -- fun!
Danita
Well, I might not end up going to Boston after all (bummer). But I have traveled a TON this summer and I've done my Ford project as well as done this indep. study. So I'm definitely happy I managed to survive.
I just wanted to write back about the comment: "There is a code of ethics to journalism that is broken by all journalists." I know, cryptic, I'm sorry. Sometimes I just write stuff and forget to clarify. What I meant to say was that, in journalism, there seems (as nowhere else in the writing world) to be a strict "code" about what works/doesn't work, and what is right/wrong to write about. And yet, a good story might be written more poetically or with "garrulous charm" (against the journalistic, Hemingwayesque "style"?). Or perhaps a good story writer actually manipulates and bribes people to get his/her "scoops".
I don't know, it just seems to me(from taking a journalism class once, and from writing some little pieces for a local paper a few times when I was in High school)that Big Journalism sort of sits the baby journalist down and says, "Okay. Here are the rules. Now go break them."
And THAT'S what I meant. Hopefully that makes more sense.
Well, I might not end up going to Boston after all (bummer). But I have traveled a TON this summer and I've done my Ford project as well as done this indep. study. So I'm definitely happy I managed to survive.
I just wanted to write back about the comment: "There is a code of ethics to journalism that is broken by all journalists." I know, cryptic, I'm sorry. Sometimes I just write stuff and forget to clarify. What I meant to say was that, in journalism, there seems (as nowhere else in the writing world) to be a strict "code" about what works/doesn't work, and what is right/wrong to write about. And yet, a good story might be written more poetically or with "garrulous charm" (against the journalistic, Hemingwayesque "style"?). Or perhaps a good story writer actually manipulates and bribes people to get his/her "scoops".
I don't know, it just seems to me(from taking a journalism class once, and from writing some little pieces for a local paper a few times when I was in High school)that Big Journalism sort of sits the baby journalist down and says, "Okay. Here are the rules. Now go break them."
And THAT'S what I meant. Hopefully that makes more sense.
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