Matt Cahill's blog
“I said, ‘Saul, I am a novelist, and many of my friends are novelists and good ones, but when we talk I keep feeling we are in two very different businesses. What makes me feel that way?’
Six seconds passed, and then he said, ‘It’s very simple. There are two sorts of artists, one not being in the least superior to the other. But one responds to the history of his or her art so far, and the other responds to life itself.'”
– Kurt Vonnegut, from A Man Without A Country
I caught an entry on the popular literary blog/magazine Book Ninja, highlighting an article by writer Clive Thompson, revealingly titled “Why Sci-Fi Is the Last Bastion of Philosophical Writing“. I wanted to respond on Book Ninja, but I realised that I wasn’t responding to the article so much as forking the argument in an unrelated direction. That, and, well, when I tried posting my response the bloody “security phrase” was wrong and when I clicked the Back button on my browser my eloquent, finely-crafted response was gone. Consider this a means of channelling my sorrow.
Thompson contends that the strength of science fiction over so-called “literary fiction” is that the latter, in regards to ideas, has become so mired in everyday realism that it’s become less interesting as a result.
While that is debatable, there’s a bit which I thought contentious:
“So, then, why does sci-fi, the inheritor of this intellectual tradition, get short shrift among serious adult readers? Probably because the genre tolerates execrable prose stylists. Plus, many of sci-fi’s most famous authors — like Robert Heinlein and Philip K. Dick — have positively deranged notions about the inner lives of women.”
Firstly, let me get the following off my chest: I hate the term “science fiction”. [Note: Thompson rubs salt in this irritation by including dragons into the mix. Dragons? Methinks he has his genres confused]. “Science fiction” is a left-brained label which conjures 50’s-era Youth Adventure stories with rocket ships and lasers. In other words, the connotation of “science fiction” is that it is a lesser, more utilitarian form of fiction than the hallowed halls of “literary fiction”. Nothing could be further from the truth. Of course, you can’t blame people for thinking this when they step into the Science Fiction section of their neighbourhood Book Behemoth. Row upon row of monochromatic, serialised “space and laser” stories. Blame the capitalists, I say. If you’re a publisher and you know that 16-year old kids will devour clichés so long as they involve space travel, you won’t care about quality.
However, to directly address Thompson’s contention, I would like to know how “execrable prose” and “deranged notions of women” are the sole providence of science fiction? Are we talking about a genetic disorder from which our precious “literary fiction” is immune? Are you telling me that one is cleaner than the other – do you really want to go there, Thompson? Eh?
I do stand in agreement though: science fiction (for lack of a better term) historically represents the bleeding edge of philosophy. What people who shun the genre don’t realise is that it often transpires without a space ship, laser, or tight-pantaloon’d woman in sight. Need I mention the likes of Stanislaw Lem, Eugene Zamiatin, or the Strugatsky Brothers? Some of the greatest sci-fi writers produced their best-known work under political tyranny (it should be stated: the one convenient thing about writing in a genre that the establishment doesn’t take seriously is that one can communicate vast, revolutionary ideas without getting caught).
What bugs me is that when authors of “literary fiction” dip into the conceits of science fiction, there is often praise for their bold move (as if they were writing in a foreign language), yet – outside the likes of William Gibson – there is scant recognition for the science fiction author who transcends the confines (or expectations) of his or her genre.
In truth, as a writer, I’m torn between the gravitational pulls of both “literary fiction” and “science fiction”. I think an otherworldliness can make the everyday more captivating for the reader, but it takes skill to balance both so that you’re neither stretching believability nor betraying the wonder of the other by miring it in mundanity. I respect both strains of fiction yet I consider it tragic that so many good books and stories remain unread because of nothing more than a problem in perception.
It would seem that the world is going through some disruption lately. Both the microscopic world that is my creative life and the world-at-large.
The novel is coming along, but I found I’d written as much as I could. It couldn’t get any further in its current draft without a “state of the nation” – the necessary point at which the writer must ask tough questions before proceeding. So, I decided to distill each chapter into cue card format, with the thought of posting them on a corkboard – the main idea was to be able to glaze over the thing and look at it objectively; this is something that’s impossible to do when you’re building the thing chapter by chapter. After completing the summary of the last-written chapter of the current draft, I realised that the draft was anaemic.
This was no surprise – or rather , it shouldn’t have been a surprise. The whole purpose of summarizing the novel into cue card form was for the fact I couldn’t see the forest for the trees anymore (pardon the cliché). You find yourself telling a story filled with characters and ideas, yet at times it ends up being a bunch of ideas posing as a story – at worst, neither…just a bunch of semi-articulated characters talking in order to necessarily further the plot so that the fucking thing can keep moving forward the way you thought it would.
In any case, justified or not, I was disappointed.
The next day, I took a long walk – the saving grace for the creative mind. I rolled the book’s problems and inefficiencies around my head like rocks in a laundry dryer. I then found myself sitting in a familiar coffee shop and proceeded to spend a couple of hours writing down the resulting thoughts from my medicative stroll. In the end, it wasn’t as bad as I’d thought. While not every individual issue got solved, I found myself with a solution or two which addressed my doubts. However, the long road seems longer – there’s still a lot of work to be done before I can consider the current draft complete.
And the rest of the world, you ask? What of that macroverse you’ve avoided telling us about? Well, one bastard got kicked out of office. Another promises to step down. One did everything possible to halt any significant movement on climate change. Another continued to arrest anyone who questioned his hand-picked successor’s path to election.
The moral of the story lies in the immortal words of Charles Bukowski: perseverance is greater than strength.
Hello all. For the last two years, I’ve been an organizer and participant of a Toronto-based writers group, called “Carpe DM”. We are poets and prose writers: we come from different backgrounds and disciplines. As of late, due to various natural circumstances (school, life, work), our membership has dwindled down from 12 to 6 active participants.
We’re looking for new Toronto-based writers to join our group.
If you’re interested, here are some take-a-look-in-the-mirror recommendations:
1) We are only interested in people who are serious about writing (in that writing is an ongoing process, which involves labour and dedication).
2) We are not interested in writers who are looking solely for congratulations on their work, but who instead desire honest, constructive feedback. On this note, you will be expected to provide the same for the other members.
3) We are looking for people who can attend monthly meetings (it’s in a bar, so it’s not like we’re stuffy or anything).
4) You are over the age of 25.
5) We are not a star chamber; we do not encourage preciousness, though to be brutally honest we also believe in meritocracy. We are good writers who want to become better writers. Adding poor writers is not something we are interested in.
Still there? Good. If this sounds like something you’re interested in, please leave a comment or drop me a line (by removing the word “NOSPAM” from this address): apostata@NOSPAMrogers.com.
You cannot write anything about yourself that is more truthful than you yourself are. That is the difference between writing about yourself and writing about external objects. You write about yourself from your own height. You don’t stand on stilts or on a ladder but on your bare feet.
– Ludwig Wittgenstein (manuscript note, 1937)
I recently made the acquaintance of someone who works as a literary agent for TV and films. I didn’t know this when we’d been first introduced, just as she was unaware that I wrote fiction. In these sorts of situations I tend to play it cool, because the last thing I want to do is come across as a “desperate unpublished writer” (insert images from Dawn of the Dead) and thus endanger the non-professional relationship. Still, she nonetheless asked if I’d be interested in sending her some work to read. I obliged and, happily, she liked it very much.
We got to talking about writers and influences, and she asked whether I’d ever read Raymond Carver. I hadn’t (insert sound of audience hissing), though I’d heard of him. [It occurred to me later that I’d seen Robert Altman’s Short Cuts – which (very loosely) strung together several of Carver’s short stories into one long, dark ensemble piece.] It was when she mentioned that one of my stories reminded her of Carver that I figured I might as well find out for myself.
So, I picked up Cathedral, a collection of short stories at Babel Books & Music, a local second-hand bookstore and immediately proceeded to satisfy my curiosity.
Firstly, I was thankful. Yes, there was a similarity, but I found that the “world” Carver inhabited as a writer (I use the past tense because he passed away in 1988) differs from mine. This may sound selfish, but I still sometimes suffer from an irrational fear that everything I’m writing has been done by someone else, and that it’s only a question of time before I find out, like some sick Twilight Zone episode. But I digress…
And what, pray tell, is Carver’s world? It’s a sparsely urban, godless place, inhabited with people who find ways to ignore the mounting problems facing them. This doesn’t speak for all the stories, but it certainly summarizes the atmosphere. He paints as a writer what Edward Hopper writes as a painter (though I would argue that Carver’s characters probably aren’t as well-dressed, and if you’re wondering why I’ve switched from past-tense to present-tense, it’s that I’m trying to wittily suggest that the product of an artist can survive its creator’s demise). And yet, this world isn’t one that has gone to hell. There is love, though it is often tempered by the cool water of circumstance. There is even a sense of magic lurking in the shadows, albeit a neutral magic; one that can spell enlightenment or tragedy at the slightest moment.
Since this is a collection of short stories, providing a synopsis for each (or any) would probably spoil the pleasure of reading them – and despite the picture I paint of Carver’s literary universe (or at least that contained in Cathedral), it is a unique pleasure to read them. Carver is a model of tight writing – he takes the “why say in 30 words what you can say in 10?” mantra and says it in five. Most recently, an article in the New York Times highlights an ongoing controversy about the editorial authority of some of Carver’s published work, with speculation that some of this tightness may have been the work of an over-zealous editor.
In short, I clearly understand why Raymond Carver is praised as one of the great American writers: his vision is clear, even when the lives of his characters are muddied, and his writing style is immediate and bracing.
Cathedral, by Raymond Carver (ISBN: 978-0679723691) is available at an independent bookstore near you, new or second-hand. You can also purchase it at any number of online vendors.
I’m a fiction writer.
This is what I tell people, which is often followed by digging my fingernails into my palms, hoping they don’t ask me if-
“Have you been published?”
No. The answer is no. And no, you can’t tell them that a poem you wrote in high school was published in the local paper – you’re over 30 and nearly twice the age of that (wonderfully talented) kid.
“Um…not yet.”
This is about as affirmative as it gets. It’s like telling someone you’re a bus driver, and when they ask a perfectly normal question like “Oh, where? For what company?”, you reply: “Actually, I’m not driving a bus right now…I’m hoping that someone will allow me to drive a bus soon.”.
I’m a bus driver without a bus, albeit with a route of sorts and sufficient credentials to do the work without injuring passengers (save for their sensibilities at times). I’ll let that analogy fizzle like a wet campfire. Needless to say, telling people you’re a fiction writer without having anything to show in terms of published work, one feels like an impostor after a while. Gladly, writers naturally feel like impostors so it’s not that bad.
The reality is not quite as depressing as it appears tm. I’ve only been at this seriously for a few years, having spent a few years before that working on a novel which I ultimately decided to shelve, lest I spend years more perfecting something I’d outgrown and was really tired of staring at. Since then, I’ve crafted several solid short stories and have started a new novel. The more I work on short stories, the more improvements I see in my writing overall which then reflects in the novel. It’s a nice arrangement, save for the fact that the time/energy I devote to the short stories are subtracted from what’s going toward the book.
My strategy is that the short stories – the good ones, not the ones I hand people and preface with “It’s an experiement!” – are “easier” to get published, if only because they require less time to write/revise than a novel. Thus, with some sort of publishing precedent, it would be easier to attract a publisher for the novel.
Of course, I’ve yet to have anything of note published. I’m trying to keep at least two submissions outbound at all times, but even that’s tricky because you want to gear the right type of story (stylistically, etc.) to a publisher who will be most receptive to what you’re offering. Add to this that waiting for acceptance or rejection (the latter being all the rage these days) can take anywhere from 3 weeks to 6 months with ethical penalties if you submit the same piece to more than one publisher at a time. So, let’s say you spend two months on a short story – from ink on the page (I still do my rough drafts by hand) to “rev. #12f” on my laptop. If the publisher you submit to (assuming, like what happened to me and the magazine Maisonneuve, the post office doesn’t return it claiming they can’t find the address) takes 3 months to get back to you, that’s almost half a year spent with no dividends to show (aside from the aforementioned improvements in your writing, which, when you receive a rejection letter, isn’t very compelling at all).
Fun.
Yet, if I didn’t think my work was good, I wouldn’t bother. If I didn’t see improvements in my skill, I wouldn’t bother. I have to remind myself that, although I don’t have anything to show for my efforts as regards to getting published, I do have the work itself, which is no small accomplishment by anyone’s measurement. In any case, it’s all I have at the moment – that and will.
And the moniker, “fiction writer”.
Hello all,
I’m working on adding some more photos soon and I’m incubating some ideas for articles. Work has been going spectacularly well (in the sense that I’ll be employed full-time until October, and it’s a big-assed feature film too), but of course it keeps me away from this little piece of cyberspace (does anyone use that term any more? Has it been retired?)
Some things to note:
1. Bandcroft, the improv/jam band I joined will be appearing twice this month at the venerable Cloak & Dagger. We will be playing May 8th and May 29th (both are Tuesdays). Come for the drinks – stay for the music. The fun starts at 9pm.
2. Behind The Garage – our first gig, last Saturday, went wonderfully. It seems we got the best crowd reception and aside from some early sound issues we played very well together. I guess that’s what happens when you practise regularly. I’m not sure when our next gig will be, but I’ll post it here when I know. You can always check out our MySpace page here for updates.
3. Writing…as some of you know, I’m a fiction writer. I’m going to start a new round of submissions soon (I took a bit of a blow in January – three rejections in as many weeks, and one of them was very, very close). As well, I’m extremely happy with how The Novel is coming. As I said before, “I guess that’s what happens when you practise regularly”. Things get better.
Lastly, Facebook. Is it me or did e v e r y o n e in Toronto join in the last month? Apparently, Toronto is the most represented city right now, which is kinda neat. I must say – and this is not a plug – compared to, say MySpace, Facebook is such an elegant, simple community. And so few bloody ads.
They don’t write books like this anymore.
The Magus was published in 1965, after the success of John Fowle’s The Collector. However, The Magus was written first. As a writer – especially as a novelist who has placed his first novel on a shelf so that he can focus on new work – I can empathize. The Magus is big, ambitious, and in many ways (especially for its time) controversial – this in spite of the fact that it largely takes place on a Greek island and features only a handful of characters.
Meet Nicholas Urfe, an English Oxford-educated drifter whose parents died when he was young. It’s 1953, and with nothing holding him to the ground (neither a sense of mortality nor morality), he spends his time hooking up with women and moving without direction. Needing a job, he happens upon a teacher’s position on an obscure Greek island, called Phraxos. He takes to it as any man in his mid-20’s would: with abandon and a sense of escape from duty. But there’s something to take care of first – the girl he just met, Alison. Despite feeling closer to her than anyone previous, he tells her he’s off and thus ends a relationship whose occasional torridness masked a begrudging love.
In Phraxos, Nicholas learns quickly – due to the desolate environment, the stale classroom, and the lack of female comfort on the island – that he’s made a huge mistake and feels he’s reached a virtual and philosophical cul de sac. It’s at this point when he happens upon Maurice Conchis, a shadowy European millionaire who lives on the far side of the island. What at first begins as a budding acquaintance based on Nicholas’ curiosity of the old man’s life, slowly turns into a devilish (and dangerous) game.
Enter Lily – a mysterious young guest of Conchis who at first appears to Nicholas like an erotic Siren projected from his host’s nostalgia. He becomes obsessed with her, first sexually and then emotionally, and begins to spend his free weekends with Conchis as the old man relates, bit by bit, the fascinating and sometimes horrific story of his life. Conchis soon reveals an elaborate live theatre which he has put on for Nicholas’ benefit. All is comfortable (in the most guiltily voyeuristic way) until he discovers that the theatre doesn’t end on the weekends, and every calculated move he makes to thwart Conchis’ control over his life on the island and his attraction to Lily, he finds himself pulled deeper into an intellectual and emotional labyrinth.
The Magus deals very specifically with the raw rebellion of youth – in this case, a generation of post-war well-educated British men – and those who disingenuously eschew the seeming hangman’s noose of middle-class responsibility in favour of an existential aloofness. The book is beautifully written, blackly funny in the right places, and – considering it exceeds 650 pages – makes for the one of the fastest and most voracious reads I’ve had. There is so much going for this book: a story that slowly wraps around you, characters you can clearly visualize, a sumptuous eroticism, and plot twists which don’t feel tacked-on or pretentious. Sprinkle with a dash of the occult for good measure.
The Magus, by John Fowles (ISBN-13: 978-0316296199) is available at a friendly independent bookstore near you. Or online at any number of vendors
One last note: this review concerns the 1977 revised version. Yes, it was first printed in 1965, but the author wanted to clear up a number of elements that he felt were either ambiguous or, well, messy. First novels, eh?
