September 7th, 2020 - Flashlight
Dear TNY,
“Flashlight”. What is there to say?
I think the concept behind this story is good. I love that it’s essentially two scenes (one heavy with flashback). Short stories shouldn’t be whole lives or cover years of a person’s life. That is, maybe with the exception of such wonderful stories as “The Prophet From Jupiter” by Tony Earley or “The History of Everything, Including You” by Jenny Hollowell or any other story that totally betrays the rules of literary short stories and does so so spectacularly that one cannot do anything other than step back and gasp in awe. I like the complexity of the little girl. I felt like she was best characterized by her dialog, which, on its own, could have been more than enough to establish her fully.
And that’s the rub. Why all the other shit? Why does this have to be limited omniscient? Why couldn’t the psychic distance have been outside her head? Like, it doesn’t add anything. Actually, I find that it takes away from the gravity that this little girl could have had. Because we can hear her opinions on everything, we never get to intuit them for ourselves through her actions. It’s a writer’s cheat; the author is skipping out by just telling us everything. Yeah, something bad happened to her and she’s acting out about it. That’s real. Cool. But then you give it all away by continuing to harp on us, the reader, by jam packing guiding data such that, at least for this particular reader, feels like you expect that I cannot ascertain what she is thinking and feeling on my own. And that’s shit. That’s the writer not having confidence that the story is working or the writer feeling his or her voice is necessary (or both). That’s the editor disrespecting the reader and the writer by not trimming all the fat. And that’s the main character, this little girl, once again reaching out for help in the only way she knows how, and being betrayed by both the writer and the editor as they put their own priorities over hers.
Because you, TNY, push articles on me without asking (I use your site for free, and am grateful for it, so I should probably not get so annoyed with this), I couldn’t help but see the author interview for this story. Specifically the title about leaving things out. And I normally never read these because a great short story needs absolutely no fucking explanation as the story itself should carry everything on its own. But, because of the girth of this story and my opinion of it, I dipped in. Here’s a quote:
How much can you leave out? Now, instead of adding more and more, I keep taking things away, up to the point at which, I hope, the story still has that tensile quality of holding together but nothing extraneous.
And, I guess what I’m thinking is…what the fuck? Earlier in the article, she talks about how she used to pack in all this material, but then, later in her career, she lit on the above theory. That’s got me thinking, how much other bullshit would have been in this story had she not lit upon this theory? As of now, there are at least 1k too many words, in the form of introspection. I’d actually put it closer to 2k. Maybe that’s me, though, you know? Because the author is of the opinion that this story is so close to the bone that hope is all that’s left to maintain the tensile strength. And I’m saying this story is a saggy baggy elephant.
But isn’t that literature today? A bunch of spoonfed garbage for readers who believe they are smarter than they really are?
I worked at Amazon for a bit. Before the article by The New York Times. And, I remember thinking one part of that article was very, very accurate:
Amazon is where overachievers go to feel bad about themselves.
I worked there for about five years over two different stints and I’ll tell you this: The above quote was the only reason to work there. Because as the years passed, it became the place where underachievers went to feel good about themselves. I think that’s what your literature symbolizes, TNY. I don’t see anything magical in your pages anymore. In a world where everyone believes they are a writer and their writing is good, and you support said garbage writing by publishing it, and the readers believe that because you published it that it’s good, the real fucking believers out here get to watch as the artform we love circles the drain, lower and lower, becoming nothing greater than a certificate for graduating from 4th grade. And in America, unfortunately, the masses believe in false praise and special snowflakes right now.
Maybe the author had it right. Writers who still bleed for this art and their stories—the kids that deserve the compliments—don’t get to be published in your magazine. It’s only the kids who don’t deserve it, the kids who will belly up to the idea that they matter as given from a magazine that believes it matters, only they get to grace the pages. Underachievers all snuggling together, happy, like delusional pigs on the truck headed to slaughter. Don’t worry; it’s all going to be okay.
But, Art will outlast your fucking ass. It always has. Always will. It’s out there in the dark, where people still bleed for it. And it’s so beautiful it hurts.
Nick
