Love the Literary Critic

Question of the Week

Do I need to think about appealing to literary critics?  

Friends will often mock my ardent love for a slightly different type of bible and a less-than-Christ-like character. His name features in almost every literary essay (and several philosophy papers) since I was awarded his book for my accumulation of the Most Random Facts About Authors. The book was 'How Fiction Works' and although I first eyed it with awe because it was selected by my charismatic tutor, that awe swiftly passed onto the authorial voice of the book. The Guardian describes how 'by examining the minutiae of character, narrative and style in a range of fictional works that starts with the Bible and ends with Coetzee and Pynchon, he fondly and delicately pieces back together what the deconstructors put asunder'; Vulture satirises him as the 'new literary sheriff in town, [for whom] you'd better walk the stylistic straight and narrow. Too many adjectives in your first novel, and you'll be strung up, cowboy'; my personal favourite comes from The New York Magazine:

[He has] established himself as one of the strangest, most vivid critical characters on the scene. He’s been, by now, pretty much universally acknowledged—grudgingly, fawningly, eagerly, nervously, warningly, or mockingly, depending on which journals you subscribe to—as the best book critic currently classing up the back end of America’s magazines.

Doesn't he sound intriguing? Exciting? Strange? Different? Indeed, he does, and I'm sure this is why his allure is so compelling. His name is James Wood, he looks rather like the stereotyped artist who belongs behind the click-clacking keys of a type-writer. Or in other caricature guises: a dictatorial pen-wielder or a lackadaisical journalist. He's the much lauded 'best literary critic in the world', which I won't cast aspersions on but which, even if I do agree with the sentiment, I will note with a raised eyebrow (in the world... how do they know?). 

Writing critically is now punctuated with the question: What Would Wood Think/Do/Say? Reading is incomplete unless I've compared the content to what he has said of other works. Criticism is read with his voice agreeing or disagreeing in my head as I juxtapose ideas against ideas. This is not to say that I hold no original thoughts, I like to think that I do, but that when I read I hope to convey my ideas with similar charm and insight. I admire him. As a literature student, it is nice to come across a critic whose voice holds the enthusiasm you thought was lost in page upon page of poorly translated Derrida; whose approach is to collect the 'dewdrops' of text into a kettle full of water. 

But when I'm trying to write something creative, am I drawn towards Free Indirect Style because of his praise or do I appeal to the transient laws of high-realism? This is unlikely - having taken a brilliant course on Realism with Dr. Marsha Collins (UNC), I found contextualising Wood against the Realist movement intriguing, exciting and illuminating.Writing about Hegelian dialectics in Dostoevsky, Zola and Dickens can only be described as a pleasure. However, I would argue that it is not because of Wood that I would adapt to the style of any of the authors studied on the course - it is because we are hysterical as a race, our instinct is to dramatise the life that we lead. Expressions from songs: 'she keeps her face in a jar by the door, who is it for'; telling facebook that you 'just had ate three apples'; declaring that we are 'starving', that we 'hate' this or 'love' that, that a headache feels like a man 'drilling a hole in your skull' etc etc. We like to create monsters under our bed, extremities of emotion. Authors such as these appeal because they capture our insincerities, insecurities and idiosyncrasies. Raskolnikov rambles on and on about his desire to be Napolean, a man historical; Therese Raquin is bound by the 'blood and horror' to a man she once imagined being 'happy' with 'forever and ever'; the 'metallurgical Louisa' wants to 'burst out' of her imposed 'character' whereas Bounderby wants to 'burst into' his portrait and 'futurity'. There are idiosyncratic parallellisms that appeal to us as readers, struggles that we impose upon literature through interpretation. 

As a writer, these sort of things appeal to me. I'm interested in psyche and the interpretation of the real. Did you know that any more or less than a 30ft distance and your vision is distorted beyond true 'reality'? Wood appeals to me as a critic because of his tone, his authority, his characterised narrative but most of all because of his reading list. Saying of himself in an interview for The Morning News:

If one were [ask]ing, “Well what is Wood’s taste based on?”—a certain level of intellectualism. Certainly verbal exuberance and complexity. Updike. Bellow. Roth, too. A certain love of voice. 

So yes, I would want to appeal, in some way to what he demands of his favourite writers and adhere in part to the style of those novels he praised. This choice though is not to do with him - it is to do with my own preference. I like what he likes. He's written the things that I want to say when I can't find the words. Don't try and fit the critic, fellow Scribblers. Seek a critic that fits you - find one, love them and take what they offer to heart. If you admire someone but realise that your novel is the epitome of all that they loathe, either respect your different values or use the techniques that apply to your work and only use those. Your style is your own, let yourself grow into it by interfusing it with ideas from those you admire. Accept criticism, accept that not everyone will favour you and that you cannot appeal to everyone, and lastly: keep learning. You can never have too much craft. 


Je serai poète et toi poésie, 
SCRIBBLER

Of DOs and DON'Ts

 Prompt of the Day #3

Think about the worst mistake you've ever made, or the worst mistake you think someone you know has ever made. What was it? Was it highly embarrassing or did it hurt somebody? What happened afterwards? How did you feel when you did it? How did it feel afterwards? A thousand emotions can stem from looking back at a moment but it's harder to remember the exact emotions of the actual experience. 

Try writing two versions of the same scene, one in the present and one in the past. Contrast what the immediate experience is like compared to the feelings that run through one's head in hindsight.

Oscar Wilde said: If at first you don't succeed, redefine success. When you think about it, this is all literature is about. Shakespeare redefined the sonnet, Laurence Stern redesigned Sentimentalism, Descartes revamped philosophy, Pope reconstructed English Nationalism. In fact, not to reinvent the wheel, but if we go back to considering Shakespeare - he rewrote dozens of stories, turned them into miraculous plays that most of us literature students still have to study today. I've even heard him called 'the Father of Fanfiction', which I suppose if you consider plays such as King Lear or Romeo and Juliet then you might just see what they mean. 

If you look at history you can see the effects of literature on the psyche of societies. In the 18th Century, Bardic writers were trying to convey the sense of a new, powerful, affluent England and in order to do so, like Pope, they used Classical mythology to imagine that once upon a time this is what our country was like. You see it in America too - the creation of a sense of identity through literature, for example in the Jack Tales. The idea of Sage writing, including the criticisms of Ruskin and Arnold, or perhaps simply the didactic works of Dickens, were similarly about evoking a sense of literary identity and society. When you come to writers such as TSEliot and James Joyce, what were they doing if not showing how literature and how we think about literature needs to adapt and challenge and engage with the modern man?  

How about Realism? Realism with a capital R, is supposedly a movement that started in France circa 1800 appealing to lofty ideals such as verisimilitude and poetic mimesis. Yet these are ideas that Aristotle and Plato debated whilst they reclined and had grapes fed to them by small boys. When you actually try to read some of the novels produced through this 'movement', you have the extremities of Balzac, Flaubert, George Eliot and Dostoevsky. The fact that there are so many differences between them - Balzac claims to be a 'historian', Flaubert to have written about 'nothing' etc - only emphasises how even with those who desire to appeal to the same ideal, in actuality are simply redefining what came before. 

If we break it down even further, we can inspect Christopher Booker claim that there's only Seven Basic Plots. So whether you're a writer of crime fiction or romance, fantasy or drama, poetry or prose, all you're doing is redefining what is already written. But that doesn't mean that your story is any less important, there will be different characters, different styles of writing. 

When you write, think about the story and its predecessors, think about where you're coming from and what you're recreating. Think about the way you think you can improve upon what's come before, or how you think you can offer something unique. Don't be afraid to draw upon the works of your literary ancestors, as long as it's not full-on plagiarism then, if they're not dead, they should be flattered (for example, if you have a favourite poem, write a response as I did in 'Dear Mr Eliot'). 

To end, Albert Eistein said:  He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice. 

Don't be a satisfied pig, fellow Scribblers, and don't march in line like sheep. Even if your writing adheres to convention, play with them. Sometimes all it takes is a little, deliberate mistake to turn your writing into the extraordinary.  

Je serai poète et toi poésie,
SCRIBBLER