Pete Lit

"We Who Are About To Breed"

The group blog We Who Are About To Die has graciously published my guest post, in which I share my thoughts on the intersection of writing and parenting. My sincere thanks to Patrick Wensink for the opportunity.

"But I don't want anything more than I've had."

The following passage illustrates what's so tantalizingly good, but also so infuriatingly wrong about Jude the Obscure. Jude has suddenly encountered his estranged wife Arabella, who is now working as a barmaid in Christminster.

"What shall I treat you to this afternoon? A Scotch and soda? Come, anything that the house will afford, for old acquaintance' sake!"

"Thanks, Arabella," said Jude without a smile. "But I don't want anything more than I've had." The fact was that her unexpected presence there had destroyed at a stroke his momentary taste for strong liquor as completely as if it had whisked him back to his milk-fed infancy.

Jude's line of dialogue is perfect: first, "without a smile" is an odd but telling clause, its negative tone clearly showing Jude's complete lack of enthusiasm over seeing Arabella again; and second, "But I don't want anything more than I've had" has a subtle double meaning, specifically that he doesn't want any more to drink but also, implicitly, that he doesn't want any more of their relationship. A modern or more economical writer would have simply left it at that, ending the paragraph at the end-quote. That line says everything that needs to be said.

But Hardy doesn't end it there. Instead he goes on to redundantly elaborate on what he just finished telling us. As if he doesn't have enough faith in readers to figure it out for themselves. It's just this sort of overwritten excess that prevents this very interesting story from being a great novel.

The cover copy of my edition of Jude the Obscure says that the book was so controversial and shocking in its day that it created a virulent public backlash which ended Hardy's career as a novelist. But even through the filter of conservative Victorian mores I'm having a very hard time figuring out what's so controversial and shocking about it. One reason I'm continuing to read this less-than-satisfying book is the hope that I'll finally discover what all the 1895 hubbub was about. But I'm strongly considering setting the book aside for good, even though I'll be far from finishing it, on August 31st as the Summer of Classics formally comes to an end. Hardy's going to have to suddenly wow me, and very soon, for me to see this one through to the end.

"...only one reader in mind..."

In The Believer Book of Writers Talking to Writers, Edward P. Jones (in conversation with ZZ Packer) has these thoughts about writing (or not writing) to an audience.

A writer can't sit down and think about what everyone else is going to think - I never thought what someone in Jackson, Mississippi, might think, or someone in Oakland, California. When I sat down to write The Known World, I had only one reader in mind: myself. I was trying to make it as good as I possibly could. So it's best not to sit down and anticipate the reaction down the line. You have to just tell the truth as you know it.

Preach it.

Contrary Magazine

Contrary Magazine editor (and online friend) Jeff McMahon has graciously invited me to become a regular contributor at that magazine's blog. I gladly accepted, and my first post (about what I've learned during my annual Summer of Classics) is up there now. I'll be posting every week or two (or three) about anything literary that comes to mind. Looking forward to joining the conversation over there.

Happy birthday, you old dog... woman... baboon... eh, whatever the hell you are...

Chicago's famous (/infamous) Picasso statue was unveiled on this date in 1967. I was too young to remember the event, but fortunately Chicago's bard Mike Royko was there, and his resulting Chicago Daily News column is one of my favorite of his.

They had wanted to be moved by it. They wouldn't have stood there if they didn't want to believe what they had been told that it would be a fine thing.

But anyone who didn't have a closed mind - which means thinking that anything with the name Picasso connected must be wonderful - could see that it was nothing but a big, homely metal thing.

That is all there is to it. Some soaring lines, yes. Interesting design, I'm sure. But the fact is, it has a long stupid face and looks like some giant insect that is about to eat a smaller, weaker insect. It has eyes that are pitiless, cold, mean.

But why not? Everybody said it had the spirit of Chicago. And from thousands of miles away, accidentally or on purpose, Picasso captured it.

I've never heard what Nelson Algren thought of the Picasso, but at least in terms of what the statue represented about Chicago, I'm sure he must have agreed with Royko. Those final paragraphs of Royko's piece really echo Algren.

"Independence from syntax and spelling and attention to design and detail don’t strike me as freedoms worth fighting for."

At The Next Best Book Blog, Steve Himmer (whose novel The Bee-Loud Glade is high on my watch list) has a long and thoughtful essay on what it means to be an indie writer. To me, being indie has nothing to do with who your publisher is or how your book is delivered to the reading public. Instead, being indie is writing what you want to write and staying true to yourself. And each is equally possible whether you publish with Random House, Graywolf or Lulu.com. Or equally impossible.

"...just generate the same feeling in the reader that this writer generated in me..."

In The Believer Book of Writers Talking to Writers, Ian McEwan professes great admiration for Philip Roth and John Updike. He has this interesting take on how the two writers influence him:

But it's about reading something while you're working and your heart is just longing for your project, and the joy of reading this book by someone else is actually what makes you turn up at the desk next day in the broader sense, you see. If I can just generate the same feeling in the reader that this writer generated in me then I'll have succeeded. And that is probably the biggest influence.

I love the idea of striving to make the reader feel as moved as some other writer made that writer feel. Almost like paying forward the gift of literature. To me that's much better than a writer simply aping his hero's work.

Ernest Lawrence Thayer

Today is the birthday of Ernest Lawrence Thayer, born in 1863. He was a columnist for the San Francisco Examiner for just a few years, but immortalized himself with one of his final pieces, "Casey at the Bat". I was infatuated with the poem as a child and could recite it from memory at age eight, and can still recite most of it now. One of my first short stories, "Mighty Casey" (published at Zisk Magazine in 2006) retells the Casey story from the perspective of the long-suffering owner of the Mudville Nine. Thank you, Mr. Thayer, for years of joy and inspiration.

"Corporations are people, my friend."

When politicans spew ludicrous comments like this, do they truly believe them? Or are they just pandering to their overlords?

Campaigning in Iowa on Thursday, Mitt Romney told a heckler, “Corporations are people, my friend”—words immediately seized upon by Democrats in what they termed as a possible defining statement by the presidential candidate.

Romney, speaking to a crowd of hundreds at the Iowa State Fair, was being pressed about raising taxes to help cover entitlement spending. When one mentioned raising corporate tax rates, Romney responded by saying corporations were no different than people. The line earned him a sustained round of applause from the crowd.

No mention there of whether or not it was a crowd of CEOs. Just for the record, Mitt: people are people, but corporations are nothing more than artificial legal constructs. What a frigging tool this guy is.

"How much you know!"

I love the subtle humor of this passage from Jude the Obscure. Jude and Arabella are at a country inn, waiting and waiting for the tea they ordered, the innkeeper apparently being more accustomed to serving booze instead of going to all the trouble of making tea.

It began to grow dusk. They could not wait longer, really, for the tea, they said. "Yet what else can we do?" asked Jude. "It is a three-mile walk for you."

"I suppose we can have some beer," said Arabella.

"Beer, oh yes. I had forgotten that. Somehow it seems odd to come to a public-house for beer on a Sunday evening."

"But we didn't."

"No, we didn't." Jude by this time wished he was out of such an uncongenial atmosphere; but he ordered the beer, which was promptly brought.

Arabella tasted it. "Ugh!" she said.

Jude tasted. "What's the matter with it?" he asked. "I don't understand beer very much now, it is true. I like it well enough, but it is bad to read on, and I find coffee better. But this seems all right."

"Adulterated -- I can't touch it!" She mentioned three or four ingredients that she detected in the liquor beyond malt and hops, much to Jude's surprise.

"How much you know!" he said good-humouredly.

Nevertheless she returned to the beer and drank her share, and they went on their way.

Jude seems clueless here with how innocent he presumes Arabella to be, which is somewhat inconsistent with his earlier assessment of her ("It had been no vestal who chose that missile for opening her attack on him", the missile being a pig penis she threw at him when they first met). Then again, during the period between the vestal comment and the country inn scene, he becomes totally infatuated with her, so maybe by then he was no longer thinking clearly. Or thinking with the wrong part of his body, if you get my drift.