blame Ernest...

Last week I heard an interview on NPR with Annie Dillard. For those of you not familiar, she is the author of “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek” and is mainly known for her narrative fiction. I have read one and a half books by her. They are reasonably decent and mostly consist of musings on faith, religion, herself , life and nature interspersed with an activity she finds herself doing. (i.e. walking in a forest, throwing up sandbags during a storm, etc.) I don’t particularly find anything entirely redeemable about her books. They seem to contain similar thoughts that any person would have during their life or everyday actions. These musings don’t offer much in the way of intellect or revelatory thoughts on life other than to stress that one must take the time to really experience it. Maybe that’s the point and that is fine. I just find her to be a lot like what talking to your sort of strange, earthy aunt or grandma would be like. From what I have read, it plays out like a modern-day Walden; only not as insightful.

Ironically enough, this interview on NPR displayed her as just that. It was very enjoyable for the most part but there was something she said that really bothered me. She recently released a work of fiction (only her 2^nd) and apparently she had written around 1200 pages at first. After this, she somehow was able to pair it down to a little over 200. She explained that she did this by closely editing the 1200 pages so that what was left was that which was necessary. No extra descriptions or overly-long paragraphs. She even explained that she cut down sentences in an attempt to cut out that which was not necessary. In the conversation she mentioned Hemingway and how he was a journalist before writing The Torrents of Spring and The Sun Also Rises. She mentioned his tight, easy prose and then Annie Dillard stated that, “When it comes to writing, we have learned everything from Hemingway.”

Now, I don’t necessarily fully disagree with what she is saying. Yes, it is a bit of an outlandish statement that EVERYTHING we have learned from writing since his existence is because of him. Nevertheless, it made me think of modern American literature since Hemingway and the statement begins to make a bit of sense. Who is at the top of popular American fiction? What books are on that list?

A Tom Clancy novel?

How about The Da Vinci Code?

Elmore Leonard?

How about a little less popular. How about those who can be candidates for being in some sort of canon (oops… I said it) in let’s say…hmm…200 years.

Joyce Carol Oates?

Tim O’Brien?

Okay, Okay but how about a little less popular but trying to do something a little bit less main stream.

Chuck Palahniuk?

I could make an arguement for all of the above as being highly influenced by Hemingway.

Yeah but what about Pynchon! He isn't influenced by Hemingway.

Ahh…here we go…now there is somebody who is doing something that isn’t Hemingway like. And yes, although I hate to say it neither is David Foster Wallace. And although I could easily make the argument that he is in fact following a Hemingway-esque style…I guess Dave Eggers isn’t entirely either. Although, I have read nothing but his first novel which I thumb my nose at and isnt that really a work of non-fiction anyways? Note: If you are sitting here wondering why Don DeLillo, Cormac McCarthy or Toni Morrison and probably a few others (although not too many) have not been mentioned then shoot me, I haven’t read them yet. (getting to it…)

The POINT is that upon hearing Annie Dillard say this, I was at first in total disagreement but then I came to realize that to a certain degree she is actually somewhat right. And to further that realization, it dawned on me that perhaps that is the problem I have with so much American Literature. From what I can tell Hemingway is all about the story. By whichI mean to say, there is a focus on what happens; the events, how the plot plays out. This is opposed to a focus on the internal reactions, the memory or all the minutes and hours in-between these events. In fiction by Hemingway, it is the story that is most important. Sure, there are small, intricate details about those stories and the characters that make him great but 46 years after his death, do we still need to be writing like him? It may be also a symptom of our culture and contemporary society, but I don’t particularly see anything wrong with a story about very little or even a story about nothing. (But you know not in that Seinfeld sense because then we are just turning into a David Sedaris memoir, yuck.) It seems that a story about the insanity of what the mind must endure every waking hour in our highly-technological world or a story about how definitive reality is becoming less and less discernable (perhaps it never has been, I know but roll with me…) is lacking. Not entirely absent but seriously lacking. It is a strange thing to declare and desire but I find lots of American literature to be overflowing with that which is overly focused on the "story", the short tight, easy prose, or written very much in the vein of realism.(just like Papa Ernest.)

Frankly, it’s boring. It’s making life boring.

I was writing the other day and I suddenly became overwhelmed with the possibility that I had just written ten pages of nothing. I expressed my discontent and Amy said, “So what?”

How true. Who cares? I am tired of story-driven fiction and I am tired of most realism. There is no problem with telling about real-life events but when I write, I am attempting depict life in a way that is accurate but wholly interesting and far from realism. This sounds a bit like an oxymoron and yes, maybe that is exactly what it is. I am trying to accurately write about life but I am tried of realism. Surreal-realism? Sure, why not.

Furthermore, there is enough non-fiction, true-life stories out there. Why would we write fictitious ones? What would motivate someone to do this? If it is to write a great “story”, then honestly, I find that laughable. I could care less about writing a “story”; there are enough of great “stories” out there that have actually happened.

I am writing to fill the void, to fill what is missing when these stories are re-told. Thoughts, reflections, the mundane, the misery, the imagination, perception, “stinky” the trashcan (see last blog), all compiled into a huge mess that is my or someone else’s brain and spit back out at you. And do take note, it will come in long sentences, with lots of commas.

Its not that there isn’t anything redeeming about the authors mentioned above (although I would argue that there isn’t with some of them). Nor is it that I am declaring that realism isn’t legitimate or that is doesn’t contain anything compelling. Nor is there necessarily a problem with weeding out the unnecessary in your writing. (sure, Pynchon could probably use an editor) Rather, I am merely making the observation that there is too much of it and that there is very little out there that is today, accurately describing contemporary first world life without falling into either “story”-driven narratives or a focus on that which is absurd and ironic. I currently loathe contemporary examples of both.

In all sounds like a lot of youthful, heated manifesto-like speaking…I know. So what…I working towards something…all of this is helping getting me there.

I blame Hemingway for all of this.

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in a side note, i am still trying to figure out what to do with this blog. I have noticed that it comes almost weekly. Therefore, I think I am going to to stick to that. I got other things to write and read and i refuse to write a detailed account of what I have been doing. however, i have also come to find that this blog has been working as almost a rough draft for more elaborate essays and articles that i end up writing. its almost like a notepad that i scribble all my ideas out upon and then later go back to, expand, and touch up. unfortunately, you don't get the final draft of it. sorry...i guess...should i be sorry for writing a blog? this is absurd..hopefully it will not always turn out this way.