Carolyn Forche, "The 'New' Literature"

Forche quotes Kapuscinski:

"As a writer you have experienced this event in your own skin, and it is your experience...that gives your story it's coherence"
(p 112)

I think this quotation really gets down to what creative nonfiction embodies that journalism cannot. The writer is always present--they have voices that are clearly subjective, even if they try to be as honest as possible.

Beverly Lowry, "Not the Killing but Why"

"On the way, I sat on the back bench of the bus, got sick from carbon monoxide fumes, threw up on my skirt...That was about all I knew of Oklahoma."
Beverly Lowry, "Not the Killing but Why" (pg.99)

I love what Lowry is doing with this description. In addition to using it as a basis for: look at how little I knew about this place; she is also creating a bond with the reader. By sharing something embarrassing with us, she shows us that we can trust her. Trust is very important in nonfiction.

Alan Cheuse, "Finding a Story, or Using the Whole Pig"

May favorite thing that Cheuse does in this essay is located in the penultimate paragraph (I never get to use that word! How exciting!). Cheuse writes: "everything I've said in this piece is true to the best of my knowledge, except that my mentor...did not make the following statement, which, in the spirit of his advice, I am about to ascribe to him" (Writing Creative Nonfiction 37) . This is great! It's a perfect example of how to make things up in creative nonfiction: you can only do it if you let the reader know what's going on and if it furthers your essay in some essential way. So, in using this technique, Cheuse creates a narrative circle--he unites the intro with the conclusion and makes us smile at the same time. Wonderful!

Gerard Ch 1

So, I finished reading the first chapter of Philip Gerard's book Creative Nonfiction and I wanted to draw attention to my absolute favorite line from what I have read so far. On page eleven, Gerard describes what is almost impossible (well, maybe just difficult) to produce. He says: "Good writing is elegant--cleanly arresting rather than gaudy or merely decorative." Which, in itself is a clean, concise way of writing. Ah, the simple ease of reading elegant prose. Isn't that the goal? But then, it is so difficult to actually do--you leave too much out and you sound like a seven-year old. But you put too much in and you sound like an arrogant ass hole. What we need is a poetic balance. Something that is work to produce and complete ease to read. Nicely said, Gerard. That's definitely food for thought.

Reading "A Private Landscape" by Melissa Pritchard

Wow. I just finished reading this piece of short fiction ("A Private Landscape" by Melissa Pritchard) and all I want to do is talk to someone about it--which, for me, is a sign that this is an excellent piece of literature. I guess this blog will have to do.

It felt like every single line worked tirelessly to give the reader an understanding of the protagonist and her surroundings. God, it's fabulous. This writing is fabulous. I want more than anything to be able to produce this type of writing someday. Okay, so the plot is that basically this woman feels totally old, useless, and unneeded by her husband and only daughter. Her daughter is starting to "come of age" (as we say in the literary world) and her husband is confused by seeing his wife diminish while his daughter blossoms in her sexuality. For her daughter's fourteenth birthday, the narrator picks out a white horse with a gray underbelly (like the moon) to give to her. Through the descriptions of the horse, how it is treated, and what it means, we get a better understanding of the protagonist's inner thoughts. She narrates "The horse, sapped by domesticity, confined by fences, has disillusioned me. I expected more from it" (131). Clearly (and this is the author's amazing ability shining through) the narrator is "talking" about the horse, but she is thinking about her own life. She is disillusioned by the ideas of marriage and family. The text is flawless in its use of different layers of meaning. Pritchard does this so fluidly that while reading this piece, I was aware of my jaw dropping--staring open mouthed--at the pages. God, I want to do that. This is seriously, like, the best thing I've read in a long time.

Reading "Lust" by Susan Minot

Oh my gosh, this is such an awesome piece of fiction. What Minot basically does is, in tons of little and extraordinarily vivid snapshots, chronicles the desperation and emptiness that one woman feels after carrying on countless lustful encounters with different guys. Throughout the story (if you can call it that, because it reads more like an essay), snippets of strict exposition give us an idea of what is going on internally while her "body" does its thing. The reason I use the word "body" is that she, early on in the text, describes herself in this way: "he got up again to close the door, then came back to me, a body waiting on the rug" (218). These portions of exposition are typically written in the second person. I thought it was interesting that the narrator could explicitly describe her sexual encounters with the pronoun "I," but then, when she started talking about the feeling of emptiness that comes with them, she had to switch it to "you." This is a subtle, but powerful technique. Another thing that I found interesting is that she referred to the guys she messes around with as "boys." Not men, not guys, but boys. This gives them a certain immaturity in a really subtle and implicit way. Awesome writing.

Nancy Mairs "On Being a Cripple"

I really have respect for Nancy Mairs. This woman, pardon my French, has gohones. In this essay, she paints a real portrait of who she is now, living with a debilitating disease. With painful, embarrassing truth and comedic relief, she unblinkingly tells it like it is. I think the introduction to this essay is particularly poignant because Mairs begins the essay with an antedote about falling in a public restroom. Along with this, there are certain other detail that make the essay seem really honest.

I love the line, "One may also lose one's sense of humor. That's the easiest to lose and the hardest to survive without" (91). She uses other powerful techniques such as when she makes an interesting list of what/who she "is." Along with being a writing teacher and a "superb, if messy, cook," she also can "do italic writing and, in an emergency, bathe an oil-soaked cat." These details are effective because they give us a good idea about the kind of person this woman is--about what is important to her. It's really a fantastic essay. If you haven't read it yet, you should.