April 20th, 2020 - The Media

Dear TNY,

I know I normally hit these stories up every Monday, as you know (just kidding; you don’t know who the fuck I am), but now it’s Tuesday and I’m responding to “The Media”.  The reason I’m responding one day late is that I wanted to sleep on it. 

Up front, I’m admitting this is not my preferred style of fiction, and I also don’t “understand” this style of fiction.  That is to say, I’ve read a number of these prose-laden pieces and the narrative arc, such that it is, is hard to follow.  I feel a poetry critic would be more well-equipped to comment on this piece.

All that being said, this is my project and I’m going to do my best. 

Upon the first read, I was confused.  The second read, I read aloud, slowing down, using the commas.  Still confused.  The third read, I was heavy chemicals and read aloud.  Still confused.  And the fourth read this morning was read aloud, still confused.  I did get less confused over time.  I was able to identify the narrative arc that’s happening in the background (maybe, who knows).  But I need to talk about another story first.

That story is “The Indian Uprising” by Donald Barthelme.  You should be familiar with it because you published it in 1965.  I read that story last night.  Again.  Also aloud.  Also chemicals.  And although I have always been unable to ascertain exactly what the narrative arc is, I was moved.  I felt something.  There was conflict.  And the mouthfeel of the words on the page was good, flowing, almost whimsical in its flare.  And the language has to work well like this if one is going to write this kind of fiction.  Because most readers aren’t going to “get it”, so it should at least sound perfect.  Lolita being a prime example of a book that has such perfect sound, it could be about quantitative measurement techniques in business and it would still slay dragons.

But what I’m saying about risk, conflict, raw fucking emotional turmoil, “The Indian Uprising” has it.  It’s moving.  And every time I read it I find a new way to look at it.  A new thing to see.  New beauty I didn’t see before (also, for me, that story is about a break-up and it’s fucking heartbreaking).

Back to “The Media”.  Mouthfeel first.  Barthelme was magic on the page.  This story, though, didn’t have that.  Was it technically proficient?  Yes.  But it was too proficient.  It almost felt like one of those song generators that’s designed to make the perfect song.  Or the machines that paint the perfect picture.  And even though I thought some of the descriptions were exceptional (migraine carpet), the story lacked the kind of artistic flares and whimsy seen in Barthelme’s piece (the whole interview part was the most whimsical, which I thought was commendable).

Conflict.  Risk.  It was much harder to see that in this piece.  The MC seems to be talking to someone who was struggling with someone else.  Fine.  But who these people are to each other and what that struggle is isn’t clear.  It’s confusing.  So, this piece doesn’t achieve the same level of movement in this reader because the characterizations and arc are too light (I would have said “weak” a few weeks ago; Saunders’s has got me saying light).

This is what took me until this morning to articulate.  This story, really, is like any other.  It must read well and it must move.  But because it leans so heavily on prose, like heavy fucking prose, it must read very, very well.  I believe it did not.  It was too mechanical, as if I could see the scaffolding.  So if it does not read at the top of the writing game, it must at least move.  I believe it did not.  Because the arc and characterization were hidden behind what I’m going to call “authorial cleverness”.  I imagine the author believes they have given a plethora of information necessary for us to see their beautiful brain baby the way they see it and maybe they didn’t think about the idea, or didn’t want to, that we could not see it the same.

I went hunting for Forrest Fenn’s treasure with my sons once.  His poem seems pretty straightforward.  Like anyone can do it.  But after putting legs on the ground, and applying it to the world, it isn’t easy.  In fact, my sons and I concluded that he either didn’t hide any treasure at all or, and this is why I’m bringing this up, that Forrest doesn’t understand that none of the readers have the information that he has, so when he says it’s a simple map that anyone can figure out, he’s saying that from the perspective of someone that has solved the riddle (wrote it or solved it, either way he’s the only one that has the answer).  And if he never considers that he didn’t do a good job, meaning he can’t do the simple task of putting himself inside the shoes of another (a writer’s bread and butter), then the poem is only something he gets to hold and understand.

I’m yammering now.  I’ll conclude.  This isn’t my forte, this type of reading.  I do like Coover and Barthelme and Powell, but I’m not steeped in this sort of thing.  So I’ll leave you with something that Powell told me that Barthelme said to him (and conveniently is online here, which I didn’t know until now): 

Okay, we have wacky mode.  What must wacky mode do?

Break their hearts.  Class dismissed.

Nick