Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Guides Should Be Taken With A Handfull of Salt
I'm really thrown by Prose's comment: "Part of a reader's job is to find out why certain writers endure" (15). In any linguistics class you learn that speech is preserved by the powerful for their ends. Look at the changes in language in comparison to the geopolitical history. Anyway, I enjoy some of the classics as well, but could it not be equally said that "you are doing yourself a disservice if you confine your reading to the rising star..." as if you confined yourself to the classics or anything else for that matter? But what if you just really liked whatever you were confining yourself to? Is that a disservice or a great passion? If you really liked a particular sport and some sports announcer said you were doing yourself a disservice by confining viewing to that sport, (but in reality there's only so much time for things and... you get it)- would you not think that guy was a total deuch-bag for telling you what to do?!
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I'm there with you all the way. I couldn't help but think to myself while reading Prose that this book is written for her sake, and her sake alone. She gives those cheesy accounts of her experiences about her writer friends and their reverence for Tolstoy and Dante and Shelley and...I don't mind it so much when she analyzes certain methods in story but by the time she gets there I can't help but think that maybe she should of revered some writers who wrote better guides to writing.
ReplyDeleteI agree as well, I am enjoying her Reading Like a Writer, but at the same time she always brings up something I don't agree with, or some personal story of hers I don't find particularly relevant. While she has good comments on how to read, points out good sections of stories, and I do agree with her that it is good to read different styles and authors and everything, but if you really like a certain genre, and that's what you want to write or read, then who cares?
ReplyDeleteTaking your example of watching a sport. What if instead of just watching a single sport you wanted to become the sports announcer. If that announcers advice was to watch other sports and listen to the announcing would you think of the situation any differently?
ReplyDeleteI think the comment you mentioned is more about how to find literary elements that have the greatest resonance with people and less about speech patterns or inflections. Prose may not be the most elucidating commentator, but she does have a point here: making a habit of noticing the successful aspects of any work can only serve your creative process in the long run.
ReplyDeleteI must agree with prose; the endurance of a writer must have happened for a reason? Perhaps you may not agree with the reason but it is still useful to know why.
ReplyDeletewhen you said deusch bag, I was thinking" what some kind of German bag, but then I got it. I think we all need to follow our own path and interests. If we show interest in something we should explore it. But at the same time, I know writers draw on anything and everything (at least I do). So they want us not to confine us to help us grow. But then again, we are in a society where we specialize, so go figure.
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