David Shields and the death of the "Novel"

1. I just finished reading David Shields' Reality Hunger: A Manifesto for my Experimental Memoirs class. It was written in numbered points like this. What follows are a few of the endless thoughts I had while reading his personal manifesto:

2. Why is it that everyone insists the novel is a dead form? There are obviously those who still practice it; there are still published books, and there are still writing classes offered here and at other Universities. Forms change, yes, expression changes,  but does it ever die completely?  I think it's more of a continual morphing/evolution than a death.

3. Does this mean I've just wasted the last four years of my life on a so-called "poverty degree"?

4. Shields: "Memory: The past rewritten in the direction of feeling." What is memory, really? What is fiction? "Consciously or unconsciously, we manipulate our memories to include or omit certain aspects. Are our memories therefore fictions?" Can we make a distinction between what we remember and what we imagine? When we retrieve a memory, to we ever really see it again, or merely percieve it in terms of what we experienced and how it affected us? "It is difficult to separate what happened from what seemed to happen." Difficult certainly. But is it possible at all? Is there any reality left in the world?

5. No, I haven't squandered my time with this degree. As I prepare to convocate, I reflect on what I have learned. What has shaped me, what has transformed me, and what has been gained and lost in the process. There are pieces of information, bytes of data that I have so internalized that they have become a part of me. If I had never been exposed to this information, I would not be who I am.

6. What does Shields mean when he says "True essayists rarely write novels"? Can someone not write both? Or even more than both? I enjoy and (if I may say so) am quite accomplished at writing essays; does this mean that all the stories I have written, have conceived of, and have yet to conceive of, are utter crap?

7. Do what you want to do, they say. Don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise.
    I want to write novels for a living.
    Oh, well don't do that.

8. What am I to do when I graduate University if I had dreamed of writing a novel and the novel has perished in the bitter, scorching flames of the scatterbrained postmodernist? Am I to adapt? Survival of the fittest, you say, change and flourish? I know. I'll write all my ideas in short, choppy sections, forming a veritable, highly sensationalized collage of my percieved reality. Oh wait, that's called poetry.

9. Isn't poetry supposedly dead, too?

10. What is the purpose of everybody writing their own unique realities now? No one seems intent on taking anyone else's side at all.

11. There is no point or plot to this post at all. If you are looking for one, you will be disappointed. I should have told you sooner.

12. I have always known that I am not going to be wealthy in my life. When I was younger, I wanted to be an artist, and live in a (most beautifully painted) box on the streets of Regina. Later, I wanted to travel the world and stay in hostels, albeit hostels in beautiful, culturally rich places. Currently, I want to write idea to idea in a rented room I can barely afford, lit by candles, sipping cheaply bought Walmart brand espresso, looking out a dingy window at the beautiful sunsets of Saskatchewan. What I have gathered from writing these wishes down is that I am on some sort of epic quest in search of Beauty that is doomed to fail before it begins (how exactly does one hunt down and caputure an ideal?). I am never going to follow the prototypical life path for a successful person. I will most likely live in some form of a box. I will be happy anyway.

13. Why can't something evolve into something else without everyone causing an uproar about it? What's so remarkable about consistancy?

14. It seems to me that writing in any form, from novel to essay to poem to memoir to sentence to word, to painting to performing to walking down the street to ordering your favourite coffee at your favourite coffee shop, is just a series of behaviours that reach a level of meaning (different meanings) in context (different contexts). We are all in the midst of writing reality according to how we want it to appear. We script and direct ourselves into roles governed by rules and conventions on a daily, mainly unconscious, basis. But, at any point, there is a chance to break free of those scripts and take off in an entirely new direction, unforeseen by any previous to ourselves. We should embrace this novelty, this idea that we are full of potential and possibility. We must evolve. We must adapt.

15. I am not sure I like who I am right now, but I am less sure I would like who I would be if  had  gone in a different direction with my life.

16. Right now, I intend to do what I feel that I must do.

17. I must write.

Some fun stuff...

The absolute funniest animal classification I've ever encountered, given to us by Doctor Johnston in Eng349:

Borges' Animals

In "The Analytical Language of  John Wilkins," Borges describes 'a certain Chinese Encyclopedia,' the Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge, in which it is written that animals are divided into:

1. those that belong to the Emperor,
2. embalmed ones,
3. those that are trained,
4. suckling pigs,
5. mermaids,
6. fabulous ones,
7. stray dogs,
8. those included in the present classification,
9. those that tremble as if they were mad,
10. innumerable ones,
11. those drawn with a very fine camelhair brush,
12. others,
13. those that have just broken a flower vase,
14. those that from a long way off look like flies.

This classification has been used by many writers. It "shattered all the familiar landmarks of his thought" for Michel Foucault. Anthropologists and ethnographers, German teachers, postmodern feminists, Australian museum curators, and artists quote it.
http://www.multicians.org/thvv/borges-animals.html


What one of my friend's siri iphone app said when he asked "where to hide a body":




And finally, the awesome picture I just dug out of that time in high school that I dressed as a boy (it was Halloween, and it was awesome). I dig the attitude:

I have been neglecting my blog in favour of more research time. This semester I am working toward the proposal for my creative project for Honours; I am also doing a massive literary history project on Lewis Carroll's "The Jabberwocky" as it appears in Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There. Since I am spending so much time immersed in history, I am discovering a lot of interesting things...letters, photos, original editions, and newspaper articles from hundreds of years are just some of the things I've been collecting.
It is interesting how original documents can retain value intrinsically for so much longer than copies. More than a societal fascination with history and our roots is at play in these projects. I feel a strong individual curiousity towards these unique artifacts, a powerful desire to know myself in relation to the mysterious figures of the past. Every time I find something new, I learn more about Carroll as a person, the Victorian time period, and the ideologies of the day. But I also learn new things about myself and our own society. Things like how we have changed and evolved since the Victorian time. Things like, even though we live in different times and write in completely distinct styles, Carroll and I share a love of imagination and whimsy, and a love of art and photography. After seeing his original copies of Alice in Wonderland, Alice's Adventures Under Ground, and Through the Looking Glass, I really desperately want to start illustrating my own works as I compose them. I think I might try it.
I do wonder, though, if "readers" (not that I currently have any) would be disappointed in being given the images rather than inventing them as they read. I am thinking of Harry Potter here. I remember when it came out as a movie, and my whole imagined world of Hogwarts and Harry's appearance was shattered. Now, I can't even remember what I originally thought of Harry; all I can see is Daniel Radcliffe staring out at me from the pages of The Deathly Hallows. I wouldn't want to ruin that imaginatory exercise for anyone else...

***

My Honours project focuses partially on my Nana's experience as a German civilian in World War II. The most exciting event of the entire month of October was finding original notes and scraps of paper she had jotted on that contained details of her childhood life in Germany (which she NEVER discusses with the family) and of the bombings she was in during the war. I did a little happy-dance around the room when I found them. So cool. Finding those original "documents" to me was like finding buried treasure. I don't know why they seem so much more valuable than what I have heard about my Nana through her stories or stories from my relatives. But they do. And I'm excited about them. Perhaps that is a good enough reason to justify my desire to doodle on my creative work. Perhaps someday someone will find them and be excited as I was to find hers (and Carroll's). Who knows.

Just for fun, I thought I'd include a few Carrollian items I've found with this post. They are rather cool little artifacts...

This one is a picture of Lord Alfred Tennyson, taken by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (AKA Lewis Carroll). I am reading Tennyson's In Memoriam currently, so I was intrigued to know that they were friends.

This one is a picture of the "real Alice", Alice Liddell, the daughter of a family friend. One of the original copies made of Alice in Wonderland was signed to her as a Christmas present from Carroll, and thanked her for her inspiration in creating his famous children's story.

Finally, this is a picture of the text of Jabberwocky, from a collection of online book images. I was super excited to find this one:

websites:
http://people.virginia.edu/~ds8s/carroll/dodgson.html#ALICE

http://rarebookroom.org/Control/mcmali/index.html

UR Proficient

School is well underway, and the Writing Services over at Student Success are in full swing. It is my second semester of working as a writing tutor...so far, I am enjoying it as much as I did last year, despite how busy it is. However, I repeatedly come across the same problem. It seems every student that comes in thinks I know the secret to what "good" writing is. They desire this information above all else. But am I really qualified to say what "good" writing is in every situation? Am I quaified to speak on it at all?

Sure, I may know better than most what those "evil" English 100 profs are looking for in their papers. That knowledge simply comes with the amount of time I have spent studying in this area. Almost any english major can inform you of grammar rules, of theses and problem-solving techniques, of structuring essays. Fewer, but still most, can tell you how to build your arguments gradually, how to cite every kind of source, how to make your ideas seem fresh and original. But are these things what make writing "good"? Isn't it true that a paper could be grammatically sound and still essentially a failure? What, then, makes a piece of writing, whether fictional or non-fictional, work?

Some people would point to the use of the personal. Others would vehemently oppose it. Some would look at the timelessness of the pieces, the essential canonical works that have outlasted their creators. Still others would point to what new techniques or insights the pieces have brought forward. So what is it? Is it shock value? Is it individuality? Is it complete and utter madness?

These things make my head hurt. How, really, can we decide which kind of writing is better than another? Is Shakespeare better than Milton? Is Munro better than Atwood, or Poe? Is a poem better than an autobiography? The academic essay really a better form than the personal? We as students are constantly getting mixed signals from profs telling us to "fit in" to one form or another, to adopt voices and styles and even ideas that are not our own. In one class we are to be literary historians, in the next, radical post-modernists. Why is this chameleon-esque view of writing seen as better? Why is it more important to plug the thesis and supporting points into the age-old five-paragraph essay format, than to build on and explore our own original voices and ideas? Since when is a grammar proficieny any indication of how powerful someone's writing is?

I think, somewhere along the way, we have lost the appreciation of writing as an art form. We have shucked off the ideas of uniqueness and personal agency in favor of fill-in-the-blank sentence structures. And we have made students feel that writing is a discipline of error and correction rather than expression. It is small wonder that so many students come into the Writing Services worried and afraid of their writing, feeling as though it will never be acceptable, wondering if there is some great secret that they have yet to discover.
Well, I say, the secret is that there is no secret. Anyone can write. We were born communal, and we have the skills to communicate ourselves in our own unique ways. Grammar is only one very small part of a "writing proficiency". Students, if you really want to write better, find yourselves again. Go searching for yourself amidst the Shakespeares and Munros of the world. Be true to yourself, and true to your experiences, because that is where your true voice and true power lies.

We English majors and writers, we master craftspeople of words and wit and creativity, we have all discovered our originality and have brought it into every single sentence we write, so that a Jayne sentence is always just a little different than another's sentence, so that the flavour and tone of our paragraphs is always a little unique. How can we hope to impact others unless we know what it is we are trying to say? Unless we understand it on a personal level? If more people strove to believe in themselves and their abilities, we would find what writing proficiency is. We would find that writing "good" is, simply, writing ourselves.

"Camera Walk"

 It's 8:30 in the morning on the first day of autumn. Our assignment is to go for a walk around our respective neighborhoods with a camera, documenting the physical space and time we move through. I'm pretty excited because the weather is gorgeous this morning and photography is a hobby of mine... 

This is my front door, as I am leaving to begin my walk. Everything is still along my street, but one lot down at our corner, a few cars move past. Everyone is probably on their way to work or school now. It's very quiet, and peaceful, as it usually is. I make my way around the corner, heading towards the park...

 As I walk, I'm very aware of the wide open space surrounding me. Saskatchewan is famous for its endless prairieland and brilliantly blue sky: Even within the city there is so much room and space and nature; it is easy to tell where we are located. There is nothing threatening to me about being exposed in this way. It becomes surreal, like I am the last person alive. The openness makes me want to fling my arms out, make myself bigger in some way, as if I could fill the entire landscape. I wonder how people, after living here, could move to a crowded city. I wonder if they are ever claustrophobic, compressed... 

Here I am walking along a paved path in the park; I think the shadow of a tree must have cropped up as I was attempting this picture of my own shadow. It looks really neat, superimposed as it is. Almost like fire. The leaves are likewise dressed in autumnal, fiery colors. I am going to miss the greenery out of my back window, even more so when the snow starts to fall...

There are geese literally everywhere on the lake today. During migrating season I sometimes wake up to the sounds of honking, screeching, and splashing. Today they are particularly raucous and I steer far clear so as not to alarm them...

They do sometimes chase  people, and as amusing as that is, a high speed chase scene simply doesn't fit into my walk today. The serenity and harmony of the natural setting makes me want to walk slower, to enjoy the trees, the taller grass, even the birds...

I've reached the other side of the park. In order to get back to my house, I have to walk along the street again. Taking this picture, I was reminded of Shel Silverstein's Where the Sidewalk Ends, a favorite book of mine as a child. I wonder where it might have gotten to, as I haven't seen it for years.

There is much more traffic along the road now than there was before, and I am finding it jarring compared to the peacefulness of walking under the trees. Even the cacaphony of geese seemed less obstructive to my thoughts. The world is closing in again around me...

I look back to take one last picture of the still lake before turning down my street and returning fully to reality.