Write what you know.
If everyone wrote only what they knew then all novels would be in the first person.
I want to write some notes on some thoughts I've been having while reading The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. Unfortunately, it's past midnight, and I really want to try and get some sleep if I can, so I'll just jot some notes here so that I don't forget, and hope to expand on them later.
The thoughts I've been having centre around a number of things: My wondering exactly what the appeal of this novel is to me when it appears to be an ambitious, realistic, topical novel of a kind that usually does not hold especial interest for me. The criticisms of McCullers's treatment of the 'mute' character, John Singer. The politics of the characters Dr. Copeland and Jake Blount. The character Mick Kelly, and her ideas of 'the inside room' and 'the outside room'. The same character's interest in music.
First of all, I have to ask myself, exactly why shouldn't I like ambitious, realistic, topical novels? This is something that has become an assumption on my part, and should be questioned, if for no other reason than to recapitulate how I got here.
There was a time when I was learning how to write stories. It extends as far back as I remember to the present day, in fact. As far back as I remember? Maybe not quite. I do remember one or two things that probably came before learning to write, such as, sitting in an empty passage, in a pram, alone, waiting. Nonetheless, I was conscious of the idea of having to learn a craft of storytelling from at least my teenage years, and had been writing stories for some time before that. In other words, the desire to write, to express something, came before I had had very much experience in the world at all, and early enough that some people might think I had nothing to express.
I think I did have something to express. I just happen to think that it was NOT OF THIS WORLD.
I expect I shall write more on this matter, but now I am tired, and I hope this tiredness shall bring me sleep.
Justin Isis writes:We should probably read more middlebrow white-man novels. These are novels where white men with university degrees explain things about society. Examples include The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen, Beautiful Children by Charles Bock, and Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. Salman Rushdie is another example.
Justin Isis writes:We should probably read more middlebrow white-man novels. These are novels where white men with university degrees explain things about society. Examples include The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen, Beautiful Children by Charles Bock, and Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. Salman Rushdie is another example.
Justin Isis writes:
For some reason that posted twice.William Gaddis should probably be added to the list, and William Gass.Anyone named William, David, or Jonathan is usually white.Novels written in English about Indian immigrants anywhere are also another great genre.In my head it’s like “Cosmic Horror” and “Military Science Fiction” and “White-Man Novels” and “Indian Immigrants Anywhere Novels,” as far as genre goes.
For some reason I didn’t see these comments before. Yeah, I pretty much hate White-Man Novels. Fortunately, I think I’ve always been far too silly to write any. They must owe something to people like Ralph Waldo-Emerson I suppose and others of the League of Wise Old White-Haired White-Men. You can just see them, standing expansively, with their thumbs in the pockets of their waistcoats, from which dangle gold fobwatches, drafting new spiritual constitutions and speaking entirely in aphorisms, “Well, consistency is the fobwatch… er… hobgoblin of minds tinier than our huge, Mount Rushmore-type wise old white man minds…. ha ha ha… so, we needn’t worry about the pettifogging little details. Ha ha ha. Gentlemen, for we are large. Large enough for a few more whiskeys. Damn it, we’re bigger than the goddamn Beatles.”Etc.Anyway, if I ever manage to get up early again, I hope to continue with my notes on Carson McCullers.