Rambling Thoughts (and second-week monetary report)

First, really quickly, the monetary report. Well, ahem, I made nothing. Not a book sold.

Onward.

Well, I’m close to finished with John Barth’s Lost in the Funhouse. It’s a pretty wild ride, and I can see why it was ground-breaking at the time. I did like many of the stories – including some of the meta-fictions. “Night-Sea Journey”, “Water Message”, “Petition” and “Title” were among my favorites. Interestingly, the two longest stories are at the end. “Menelaiad” is from the point of view of Menelaus, and he’s explaining what happened with him and Helen after the Trojan War. It’s funny and playful, but it makes me wonder, too. Why write a story that, before you can read it, you have to be quite familiar with the Iliad? Why do that? Part of me thought that it was smarty-pants posturing – a “look at how smart I am” kind of thing. But, as I thought about it, I decided that Barth wrote it because that’s what he wanted to write. That’s what he was inspired to write. And, thusly, that’s what he should have done – and did. It doesn’t make it great literature (and I don’t think it is), but it makes it true to what Barth needed to do at that time.

Of course, “Menelaiad” was never published in some great magazine like many of his other stories (Esquire, The New American Review, Southwest Review, Atlantic Monthly, The Yale Review), and I can see why. The story is over thirty pages long and not as experimental or new as the others. “Anonymiad,” the last story (which I haven’t read yet), weighs in at 29 pages and, given the title, I’m guessing that it’s more of the same. No magazine ever published “Anonymiad” either. Of course, without “M” and “A,” Lost in the Funhouse would only be 125 pages. Were those stories tacked on so the thing would look more like a book? I don’t know.

What I do think now is that it’s good that Barth wrote them. He obviously needed to, and the care shows that he did not write them hastily. They meant something to him – and maybe to a few readers. So, yes, experimenters press on. Be odd. Be cutting-edge. Be obscure. Of course, at your own risk. Just because you’re experimenting doesn’t mean you deserve an audience. I hear many lament the state of fiction, but given the state of fiction, I’m not surprised that it’s suffering. Experiment all you want – I still think it turns most readers off. Still, you gotta do what you’re going to do (unless, of course, you’re only doing what it seems like everyone is doing – and many are doing it, except for no real readers). Writers writing for writers. Much of what’s out there is Menelaiadesque. Meaning, it meets few reader’s needs and, also, it’s really no great shakes to begin with. No meat. Often the experimental and stylized writing is empty, where the simple and plain-told just gets at more. Not always, but often. The experimental just looks and feels like it’s doing something new but, underneath, there’s no “there there”.

That doesn’t mean don’t write it. Of course, write what you have to write (as long as you’ve explored all the options and know that what you feel you have to write is actually what you need to write). But, do it. Just don’t expect an audience. Being cutting-edge and getting read (really read) is rare. Barth was rare. Honestly, Lost in the Funhouse probably wouldn’t be published today -- only because it would be competing with its own children, who seem sassier by comparison. Barth was just doing something new (and doing it well) at the right time. Kind of like Pollack. He wasn’t just dripping paint – he was doing it well. Those who have studied Pollack’s paintings in depth have determined that he was probably a mathematical genius, which is why his dripped paint looks so damn good.

But, do keep experimenting, and cutting edges. Just don’t expect much to come of it.

In the most recent issue of The Spoon River Poetry Review, there’s an interview with Ted Kooser. He talks about how the workshop environment gives young writers a false view of the world. In workshop, their stories and poems are taken so seriously (even if they’re horrible), and Kooser feels this gives students a false sense of how their writing will be received in the “real world”. Having other students discuss your poem or story for a half an hour gives one the sense that the writing warrants the time – when the students may only be discussing it to fulfill the requirements of a grade. Kooser ends with, “Intentionally obscure or obfuscatory writing may be accepted in creative writing workshops, where the attendees are rewarded for being there to ferret meaning from what may be nonsense, but it won’t find a single reader among those hundreds of men and women breezing past the classroom door.”

“Well, I don’t want those hundreds of idiots reading my work, anyway.” Okay, that may be your answer. But, like Pollack, I think in the end the majority of us crave an audience – an audience that goes beyond our little cluster. (Clusters of like-minded thinkers . . . artists of any kind really shouldn’t spend much time in such clusters – virtual or otherwise.)

So, do you have to write to the average American? No. The average American doesn’t read. Only twenty percent of us ever even buy a book in a year. So, the average reader is probably pretty smart; I mean, they do read after all. You can still write some complex, important but also ACCESSIBLE stuff.

Or, don’t. Experiment. Stylize. Write from right to left. Do what you feel you have to do. Seriously. I mean, be true to yourself, but go into it knowing that it probably won’t be well-received, nor should you expect it to be. You’re going into writing just begging for a small audience.

Anyway, if you read this far, thanks for reading.