Against Cleverness
by Brad Felver
Depicting inarticulate speech patterns in fiction should be easy, right? Somehow, it isn’t—but it’s necessary, because humans are generally an inarticulate bunch.
Depicting inarticulate speech patterns in fiction should be easy, right? Somehow, it isn’t—but it’s necessary, because humans are generally an inarticulate bunch.
“The energy in the room was urgent, generous, palpable”: Jennifer Solheim on the first gathering of The Conversation: a Chicago literary series.
Debra Spark on what’s funny in fiction—and what’s not. “The humor that works in literary fiction, the humor I like, is female. I mean ‘female’ in a pretty stereotypical way here. I don’t mean that the literary work is by women, per se, but that it is relational.”
Mindy Misener on truth, counsel, and the missing man in recent fiction about the Iraq War.
“Perhaps the greatest benefit of writing about kidhood from a kid’s point of view is the dramatic possibilities of trapping a protagonist or narrator in his/her present, in his/her right now, without reference to the broader, more reflective environs of adulthood.”
“Ozzie’s sacrificial journey is a typical Rothian romp. It’s also meticulously made”: Michael Byers on how Philip Roth pulls off allegory in “The Conversion of the Jews.”
“The writer’s first tool—even more important than language—is empathy”: Michael Byers on ZZ Packer’s “Brownies” as a story about becoming a writer.
“How do we navigate, and then translate, the past’s lost and often foreign landscape?”: Mary Volmer on taking a traveler’s approach to writing historical fiction.
“By mid-career, Richard Russo, always a spellbinding natural storyteller, had written and read his way (he is a voracious reader) to a technical mastery enabling him to create, in his small towns, complete artistic universes.”
“The most important part of a character’s Wounding Event is the darkness and fear it represents, a darkness that the character will soon have to face head on—as will we”: Michelle Hoover on stories that put characters’ flaws and fears to the test.
“What is the purpose of one culture translating another? One reason Slavic departments thrive during political crises would seem to be so that we can better understand the cultures of the post-Soviet East. Another reason, though, may be something more akin to the motives of the CIA in translating Doctor Zhivago.”
“But what happens if the author walks into the story and turns up on the page?”: Maggie Kast discusses narrative distance in Coetzee’s Slow Man.
