Assignment 2

First, "James Kandy" is a character I made up, but have never written about. And I liked the way it sounded so I've used it as an email, and other things, but then never wrote about him. So we'll see how that works out. Maybe I'll change the name of a character in one of my essays to James Kandy, or something.

Next, you asked (perhaps rhetorically, in which case oops) what might have made me read "Merced" on my own. Well, I really like the title. It sounds like an interesting travel-piece. I think I would have been interested in the story up until the narrator realizes that Mercedes is going to die. Because then I guessed the narrator would have some sort of mental breakdown, and as interesting as I find breakdowns and failures of that nature to be, for some reason I glazed over then. It's not a bad-looking essay at all, it's just not my "type" I guess! :)

And third, I'm having a really tough time writing. I've got something I'm working on, and it's coming along fine. I just don't think it's as interesting as anything else I've written, or anything I've read. I don't know if this is good, or what, but I'm finding it very hard to write about my life. Writing is usually easy for me but this is hard.

"You Should Feel Lucky"

This chapter from Lerner's book is at once both hilarious ("for now she is this skinny thing and I hate her", 2) and quite sad ("By the time I reached sixth grade, I couldn't stand most of my closest friends", 3). The humor is contained and balanced carefully within the text, as if it were teetering on the edge of a bucket of tears, about to fall in. I mean that none of the jokes are quite jokes, but rather the humor comes from the fact that the internal monologue of the narrator is so real, so warm and down-to-earth about her size and mental state that we laugh along with her at the pathetic state the world -- even as we know that we are included in it. This made it much funnier, but it was a kind of self-aware, smart humor rather than something pitiful. I don't know how she did it.

The prose is excellent, spaced-out, making full use of every image, using only a few words or sentences. One of the first themes that I started to notice was on page 2, when Lerner points out that Wanda, the tall fat girl, is a "safety net"--even as her "cheeks flush quickly and are often either firing up or fading out." Wanda is not stable, not "normal". I love how Lerner shows us this with a simple physical description of Wanda's cheeks. It's fabulous. Thus Lerner's world is established as being "scrambled" or chaotic. It is topsy-turvey: she finds solace in knowing that someone else is hurting.

Lerner tries to control the chaos of her world by controlling who her friends are. This is both smart and potentially violating -- she risks becoming even more alienated from herself by doing this, although it does prepare her for the real world. Her size becomes a metaphor for life, and the more her weight is out of control, the more she attempts to control smaller things around her. She sees things in terms of food (a "dollop" of misanthropy", 3), viscerally connected or repulsed by the physicality of what people look like (for example, the "frosted, hot pink" shades of her friend's mother) and cannot escape her skin ("...gymn shorts cling to my skin", 3).

By putting this story in the present tense, Lerner creates that sense of immediacy that both connects and repels the reader to and from her story. When she asks herself: "Do I or do I not want another donut?" we are reminded (perhaps) of Hamlet's "To be or not to be" speech. Both Lerner and Hamlet are asking "Do I, or do I not, want to live"? When Lerner gets to the point that she wants to "kill" her friend's mother, we start to cheer for her, because we see that she has forgotten her own self-hatred for a moment. Lerner wants to protect her friend! She's mad for her friend! And then we sink back into the internal, conflicted thoughts of Lerner's narrative.

from Style, w/ "Merced" pp. 3-28:

The first 2 chapters are great because, in them, Williams talks about how silly "turgid" writing can make someone feel they are not smart, and why would you want to do that, when people already worry about whether they are smart enough? However, I wonder what this is saying about the science of linguistics/grammar/etc. in our age. Must we ALL write like this now, because it is the vogue in writing to be clean, clear, spare, and reporter-ish? I find all kinds of writing fascinating, and I hope that Williams is not breaking his own "rules" about what kind of writing is GOOD when he bashes all the elaborate, unecessarily complex writing (and perhaps mindset or philosophy) of past stylists. In my view, most fiction writers are clean and spare, while it's the dissertation and article writers who try to be annoyingly complex. And I know this because I am doing my Ford project and reading all sorts of literary and historical articles that are pretty much that way.

Reading this book in respect to "Merced", the interesting thing is that, in Williams, "no one learns to write well by rule, especially those who can't feel or think or see" (10). This relates to the essay because, in it, the narrator thinks that she can get away with laziness and even profit by it, by following the rules (or at least not breaking them). However, she soon starts to see that illness and health do not follow their alloted pathways. I may not be making sense in relating the "theme" of a style book to that of an essay, but they are both nonfiction, so what the heck. The important thing, I would then gather, is to see what literal style tactics are suggested in Williams that resurface in "Merced", which is clearly written so that anyone can understand it, and does not attempt to confuse the reader, except when the author is showing how "complex" (and i.e. arrogant) she is when dealing with Mercedes' illness.

The very end of Chapter 2 ("Correctness") sums up by saying that it is important to have choices. Linguistically, Williams seems to think that it is not what SHOULD get written that gets written, but what IS written that matters. Language, he feels, develops without regard to our beliefs about it--and yet, he says, what's important is that "we have a choice"(27). So, we can choose what to write, even if it doesn't matter ultimately what we think SHOULD get written. Because our subconscious or whatever will just make use slip up and write what IS. And with regards to "Merced", I think that ties in quite neatly with the theme of death and how we are to deal with the future.

pp. 31-50, w/ "You Should Feel Lucky":

Analyzing Lerner by looking at the (hippie) principles, not (emperor-imposed) rules, I see that she follows all of them quite well. No abstract, complex writing here: "IT IS 1972. I AM twelve years old." Subject verb object. Subject verb object. Present tense makes it immediate. The problem with both this story, and the style book, is one that is probably not very viewable but that kind of bothers me. Sure, you can make all of your subjects into characters, and your verbs into actions, like you learned in elementary school (I didn't, by the way. I was homeschooled until middle school and I have no idea how I learned to write. By osmosis or by guessing. That's why I both enjoy and resist this style book). Anyway. The point is that, by doing that, you reduce writing to the computer-like inscribing of details. Williams even notes this: "we need a way to look at our own writing in a way that is almost mechanical . . ." (43). Everyone's writing starts to look alike. Actually a lot of "good" writing does look alike at this point in time. But what are we headed towards--the perfection of writing style? No, didn't think so. We are headed towards individual perfection of writing style. Or just, individual writing that, for whatever mysterious reason, turns out to be labeled as "good" by a lot of people? What exactly constitutes good style, or good writing? Williams suggests that some of the answers lie in future chapters.

I like that Williams writes this book clearly, as he suggests works better, and yet he is not "writing down", which is kind of how the Shadowboxing book feels, BUT at the same time, I have read lots of "writing" books and not many "style" books (besides Strunk & White). The difference is this: say you have a proplem. You go to two people: one is a writing person, and another is a style person. The writing person just encourages you, describes your problem, and talks about it, without addressing what is really to be done. The style doesn't care about the grand scheme of how the problem looks. The style person just diagnoses and then tells you what you can do.

from Shadowboxing, pp. 35-42:

In the last section of "Memoir", we see tips for doing a life chart, workshop strategies, and an explanation about "Sentiment vs. Sentimentality", "Past or Present Tense?", and "The Naked Truth about Commas" (I don't know what that title is referring to). Some of this feels like a re-hash, but it's good to hear it again, especially for someone like me who tends to forget about tenses even though I clearly know the difference. And I'm always terrified of being melodramatic so the note on that was good, as well.

Moving into "The Personal Essay", I found most interesting the part about the "confessional" aspect of personal essays (41), which also tied in to the sentimental note above--basically, as Iverson suggests, what do I have to say that will be relevant to other people? That's some big pressure, and it's kind of making my writing go not well (it's so odd). I've read some amazing nonfiction and I love it so much when it is done well, and so I am kind of wondering what, exactly, I have to say. There's something there, but I may have to go deeper than I do with my fiction to get at it. Which is interesting in itself.

Assignment 1 "Merced"

I find the intro's assertion that "Merced" should be "required reading for all pre-med students" stifling. What does that mean? Why am I reading this if I am not a pre-med student? It seems to make the essay into something more, and yet less, than what it is. It makes it 'more' in the sense that 'nonfiction' just seems better--it is a moral fable, etc. (whatever you need it to be) but it's true. It's not just an Aesop's Fable or an Anderson fairy tale, which (I guess) many people have gotten disillusioned with lately ("It's not real! It didn't happen! It's about talking animals!" etc.).

However, the essay becomes 'less' when one realizes that, if it is "required reading", then that makes it into a sort of educative piece of writing, more "transactional" and informational than emotionally inspiring. But on to the piece. For the first three pages, Ofri was talking about how cocky she was to have done "the right thing" when she didn't even deserve credit for doing it. She hadn't thought of it out of any care for the patient, but rather because Bellevue was a "teaching institution" where one was "supposed to waste some money on exotic tests in order to learn (124)."

I began to wonder if this would be a tale about a "lucky break" one doctor experienced. But no. This is a serious story--a very serious story. The high point is when Ofri is "exhilarated" (i.e. "I loved the ICU"!!! p. 126) that there is some fascinating new diagnosis she can count herself in on--lyme disease in the city. She throws out medical jargon and struts around the pages until page 8, where she learns the truth--Mercedes is dying.

But let's back up a bit. The irony of the fact that Ofri talks about how "careful" her training has been up till now, compounded by her random chance in "diagnosing" the case, is heightened by the language that she uses in the first half of the story. It is lighthearted and conversational--as if she were telling a story and then, whoa, STOP. We learn that Mercedes is back. When I read this, I thought: "Well, no one deserves credit, except Nature." And that struck me as being the core of what this essay is about: Nature.

It's kind of like Stephen Crane's "The Open Boat", which is also (sort of) based on a true story and also deals with the arbitrariness of life in the face of cold, cruel Nature. When Ofri goes to say hello to Mercedes (after discovering that she is back in the hospital), Mercedes "had no recollection of [Ofri] (126)"--meaning that Nature doesn't care about our attachments to it, especially after we had neglected to acknowledge her power over us. There are moments that drive this point home--for example, when we sense the hollow arrogance of the medical establishment's machines, "breathing life into our critically ill patients" (127). But life is already there. The machines are just another part of it.

And when Ofri helplessly thinks that maybe Mercedes could use a "third" antibiotic, we realize that Nature doesn't need our help or input at all. It's quite heavy-handed in it's point, but that's okay. It's interesting and valid for everyone, not just doctors. Writers themselves can be arrogant with their use of real events and people in order to produce "art". There is another dimension here, that distinction between the false and the true, which is a sort of meta-nonfiction level Ofri is playing with.

When Ofri distinguishes between the "case" Mercedes and the "real" Mercedes, we sense her discomfort with the designations and, too, we worry about what/who is real in this story and in life. How would we treat a "case"? What would we do with a real person? Ofri takes us very deep, deep into hell, it would seem. When she goes on a walk, she notes columns that poke out like "portals into some dark netherworld" (130). The imagery stops being so fun and "light" and moves into earthy, "real" tones and descriptions: the family, coming to see Mercedes, is seen "like a landscape: a range of backs, with shadowed dips and peaks", and Ofri has to "see what was on the other side of them"(131).

But death is a part of Nature, and so it is only by allowing death to exist outside of her control that Ofri becomes one with Nature and is allowed to emerge from the netherworld of her real and imagined guilt. When Ofri relents to Nature, sobbing into the priest's tunic, she finally realizes that she has no control. It is as though religion, which is (admittedly) man-made, is a "thing" that helps comfort us against Nature, which does not comfort or care. Finally, when another patient is "coding" at the end of her shift, she has totally relented to the forces of Nature. "Bed 2 was coding, but somebody else was taking care of it (135)."

So what is the role of literary writing in all of this? Well, the doctor's world is not natural, and the world of literature that she is inhabiting with us is "natural", yet full of death and mystery. Therefore, literature/death makes her go deeper into what frightens her. Or maybe she cops out and heads for literary writing as another kind of "comforter" (much like the "false comfort" of religion earlier) which is as superficial as the medical hubris language she employed before.

And now, to tie it all up: what does "Merced" mean? Why is it shortened? It could be the first explanation that popped into my mind: that it is "cut off" the way that Mercedes' life was cut off, and for no reason, really, because nature wanted it to be that way. So I went and looked it up. Mercedes is also a town in Texas, and the name of an expensive car. "merced" is a town in California. Mercedes means: "mercies" (as in, Mary of the Mercies, in Catholic tradition), and Merced means "mercy" singular, or "grace." (etymonline.com). So I was wrong--the title just means that mercy or grace was bestowed upon Ofri, who was given a second chance to save lives, make the right diagnoses, etc. And if I am treating her "nonfiction, true" story a bit lightly, just think about the way that she treated that poor girl's case, and everything evens out.

Finally, the ending is awful--way too "wrapped up" for nonfiction. Ofri might have ended on page 136, with the "unknown etiology" of Mercedes' death. But no--she has to go on about life and death blah blah etc. until she's made the reader forget what he or she was reading in the first place. I like a cold, hard finish. But that's just me.

from STYLE: COMING SOON (I have not yet received the 8th edition, I'm sorry, I will post it with the next assignment if that's okay?)

from SHADOWBOXING: pp. ix-4

Creative nonfiction is defined and contrasted with fiction in the intro and first section of the "Memoir" chapter. I learned a lot that made sense but that I had never stopped to think about before. Such as, in nonfiction the author is not invisible. Yikes! So I can't hide behind characters? No matter how personal or bizarre it gets, fictional happenings can always be "explained away" as just that--stories (most people seem to think my stories are EXACTLY drawn from my life, which is hilarious. But if I reveal to them how much I made up, they feel slighted, as if I were tricking them--which is the point).

The difference between the genres feels vast and yet nonexistant. Let me explain using the painter/photographer simile from the text, because for a fiction writer, as long as you are sane and still creatively okay you are fine (the painter can just use the real landscape as a guideline for his/her imaginary landscape). But creative nonfiction depends more heavily upon the material, it seems. Or on selecting the material. Or maybe not. I guess someone could write about living in a white cell well, if they were amazing.

So the interesting thing is all of the similarities between the two "genres" to me. The most striking difference (which is not in this book) is the James Frey or Truman Capote thing--in nonfiction, people expect you to tell the truth, and they get really angry when they find inconsistencies. I guess calling writing "fiction" is more of a disclaimer than anything--"Don't go poking into my life, ya hear?" The hardest thing to figure out in the Memoir section is exactly WHY people connect more with "the real". I don't (I would like to believe that I connect with good writing, natch) and it's part of why I have always loved and hated Truman Capote--I wish he'd written more fiction, but then his nonfiction is so good, and yet probably full of lies. That tell the truth so well. But I am getting into literary journalism . . .

Memory itself is "contradictory and subjective". But there is SUCH value in trying, as best as one is able, to tell the truth. It will be a remarkable excercise for me because, well, I'm a fiction writer and I'm not used to being able to discount everything as a fable. I actually do have a real life. And I like writing best that feels truthful--whether it's fiction or non, there's an element of truth that one can either reveal (or fake, in fiction). And so the challenge will be to really tell the truth, and then decide what to do with it.

from "This Boy's Life" (Wolff):

This story reminded me of my own road trip stories from childhood. They are the richest, most interesting times I remember from being a kid. And what I like about Wolff is the way that he makes the story structured almost like a fiction story--with the metaphors on trouble constantly cropping up ("Every couple of hours the Nash Rambler boiled over", 7) and wanting impossible things ("...she and her mother lived a dream life...in which they played the part of sisters", 7), and so forth. Starting out with the story about the truck running off the road was powerful, and it underscored the runaway inertia that seemed to be keeping Wolff's mother running toward trouble even when she wanted to stop--she's "lost her brakes". The interesting thing I took from it was that Wolff's mother, like many poor people or gamblers who keep chasing the same dream and messing up because it's so ridiculous, is not poor at all (or didn't use to be--she grew up in a house with a turret!). So it highlights the gulf between the rich and the poor even as it shows how alike they really are, and brings to the reader's mind the safe place to be nice, middle America. Or at least, that seems to be what the boy-Wolff wants subconsciously. He's too young to realize it yet, b/c he knows how to manipulate his mom and he gets caught up in her exhilarating enthusiasm. But there is an undercurrent of disdain/disillusionment that we see coming from the adult Wolff's POV, I think. Not sure.

from "The Liar's Club" (Karr):

Karr's writing is more condensed than Wolff's (who is more Hemingway-ish in his leaving out of details). Karr, on the other hand, tosses in everything. I liked the way that she used phrases like "canary-colored" and "an enormous black tear" to describe things and show the way that children think/act. The dialect was very real, of course (because it is). When she brought in the epic references to ate (12) I thought it was interesting, and tried to connect it to the piece as a whole, and came up with a meta-non-fiction sort of idea that Homeric, passionate anger is a "fictional" sort of thing and she is writing non-fiction, showing that nonfiction stories about creepy violent neighbors can be just as fascinating as wildly poetic epics, and even more scary and awe-inspiring.

I was also interested in the way that Karr kept trying to control everything. Karr tries to line up Junebugs (12) and they keep “waggling” everywhere (13). Also she is obsessed with who will take her and her sister home, and her relationship to her sister, and the power her sister and the sheriff, etc., have over her. It seems to be about the out-of-control-ness of being a child, but also about how out of control we all are even as adults. It is another meta-nonfictional thing—that she comments on the way that we try to control memory, but at times it is vague, etc.