I have a friend who was friends with a woman named Michelle Maykin. The only reason I know this is because Michelle had leukemia and her family and friends ran a website called Project Michelle to try and get people to register as bone marrow donors, for her and all the others dealing with leukemia. I would periodically visit her site to see how she was doing. I don't know why--I didn't know her. Maybe because I felt connected to her, however distantly. Maybe because my grandmother died of leukemia. Maybe just because of who she was. She seemed like an incredible person. Anyway, Michelle died yesterday. I can't believe how sad it makes me. She lived in the Bay Area. She was only 27.
I guess the best way to help someone live on is to share their stories. You can check out her web site if you want to know more about her.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Sunday, July 19, 2009
some new thoughts on metafiction
I am nearing the end of Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer. I can't say I'm enthralled, though he does some interesting stuff. But one thing I am realizing is that metafiction is best used judiciously. There are a few times, for instance, where Foer-the-author calls out his own inability to fully express a character motivation or a craft technique. One example is in a paragraph that I just read: a letter from Foer-the-character's guide Alexander, who is reading Foer-the-character's story about the journey they have gone on together.
"I have a further issue to discuss about your writing." (Alexander writes) "Why do women love your grandfather because of his dead arm? Do they love it because it enables them to feel strong over him? Do they love it because they are commiserating it, and we love the things that we commiserate? Do they love it because it is a momentous symbol of death? I ask because I do not know."
Alexander has read Foer-the-character's story and has questions and even qualms. These sorts of passages provided me some initial relief: "aha! Foer-the-author sees exactly what is going on and is consciously choosing either not to expand or is planning to expand in some yet-unknown way." And, as I said, I'm not done with the book so the latter may be true. But there is also a way in which this feels very much like cheating. I remember a teacher once saying something about how if a character has to comment on how cliche something s/he is doing, then it probably is cliche and the author needs to just write it better. This came back to me while reading this passage. Commenting on something not being very deeply written does not excuse the fact that it is not.
I still love the idea of commenting on the process of writing within the writing. But it's interesting to see an example of it being done not so well, too. In this case, I would tend to agree with my old teacher. Calling out faults in the craft of your own writing does not necessarily make for a stronger piece of fiction. Though they may be unconscious signs of where you need to go deeper.
"I have a further issue to discuss about your writing." (Alexander writes) "Why do women love your grandfather because of his dead arm? Do they love it because it enables them to feel strong over him? Do they love it because they are commiserating it, and we love the things that we commiserate? Do they love it because it is a momentous symbol of death? I ask because I do not know."
Alexander has read Foer-the-character's story and has questions and even qualms. These sorts of passages provided me some initial relief: "aha! Foer-the-author sees exactly what is going on and is consciously choosing either not to expand or is planning to expand in some yet-unknown way." And, as I said, I'm not done with the book so the latter may be true. But there is also a way in which this feels very much like cheating. I remember a teacher once saying something about how if a character has to comment on how cliche something s/he is doing, then it probably is cliche and the author needs to just write it better. This came back to me while reading this passage. Commenting on something not being very deeply written does not excuse the fact that it is not.
I still love the idea of commenting on the process of writing within the writing. But it's interesting to see an example of it being done not so well, too. In this case, I would tend to agree with my old teacher. Calling out faults in the craft of your own writing does not necessarily make for a stronger piece of fiction. Though they may be unconscious signs of where you need to go deeper.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
california
I am trying to understand what it is California means to me. Getting back from Vermont always makes me think about this. Getting back from the East Coast in general. I've lived here in Northern California my entire life. I know: foxtails, redwoods, flakiness, a crazy beast of an ocean, dry heat, dust, wine, neuroticism, narcissism, traffic, judgement, produce, psychobabble, probing talk about everything... EVERYTHING... except money (but including real estate). Everything in California is all talk. Did I mention the wine?
I visited my sister when she was in New Jersey a few summers ago. One morning there was a ridiculously huge praying mantis on the front windshield of the rental car window. Bigger than my hand. In the summer, the landscape bleeds chlorophyll. There is grass everywhere, growing the way the yellow-gold weeds do over here. We decided to go to the ocean. I wanted a burrito. There were no burritos. We drove by a little boardwalk and sat down in the sand, which was the wrong color. Then we found a burrito at a little stand and I asked for salsa. The lady gave me the strangest look. "You mean sauce?" "What?" "Sauce?" "...Okay?" She gave me marinara sauce. It was the worst burrito I've ever had.
We kept driving. We came to some part of the shore where people build monstrous houses overlooking the water. The water was more pond-green than blue, the waves kind of listless. Hotels. People. Paddle-boarders. What threw me off was the direction of the sun. In New Jersey, the sun doesn't set over the water.
My earliest memories are of water. My earliest memories are of California. This sounds kind of stupid, but I honestly don't know who I am without California. Maybe because I moved so much, I learned to attach myself to the state rather than an individual city; the landscape rather than people. I took my dog on a long, long walk along the bay the other day. This is what we saw:
I had dinner over the water a few hours later. Outside the sailboats looked like slow, ancient beasts grazing in the sunset. I'm not even trying to be artful. They really looked like that. God, the wine was so good. I walked on the pier until it was too cold and I couldn't feel the ocean anymore. I've seen it all so many times. Sometimes I just wonder what else I would know.
I visited my sister when she was in New Jersey a few summers ago. One morning there was a ridiculously huge praying mantis on the front windshield of the rental car window. Bigger than my hand. In the summer, the landscape bleeds chlorophyll. There is grass everywhere, growing the way the yellow-gold weeds do over here. We decided to go to the ocean. I wanted a burrito. There were no burritos. We drove by a little boardwalk and sat down in the sand, which was the wrong color. Then we found a burrito at a little stand and I asked for salsa. The lady gave me the strangest look. "You mean sauce?" "What?" "Sauce?" "...Okay?" She gave me marinara sauce. It was the worst burrito I've ever had.
We kept driving. We came to some part of the shore where people build monstrous houses overlooking the water. The water was more pond-green than blue, the waves kind of listless. Hotels. People. Paddle-boarders. What threw me off was the direction of the sun. In New Jersey, the sun doesn't set over the water.
My earliest memories are of water. My earliest memories are of California. This sounds kind of stupid, but I honestly don't know who I am without California. Maybe because I moved so much, I learned to attach myself to the state rather than an individual city; the landscape rather than people. I took my dog on a long, long walk along the bay the other day. This is what we saw:
I had dinner over the water a few hours later. Outside the sailboats looked like slow, ancient beasts grazing in the sunset. I'm not even trying to be artful. They really looked like that. God, the wine was so good. I walked on the pier until it was too cold and I couldn't feel the ocean anymore. I've seen it all so many times. Sometimes I just wonder what else I would know.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Friday, July 10, 2009
what i learned from residency...
...is that you can talk about the ineffable, but you can't use it in writing. It's sort of like saying something is beautiful. So I apologize for using the word ineffable in my last post. Oh, and the word beautiful. Nooo!
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