The Elegant Variation

WHERE WE GO NEXT (PLUS, OF COURSE, BANVILLE)

What is to become of TEV?

I’m not entirely sure yet. The benign neglect that has characterized the last year or so might well be an indication that it’s time to pack things in. Yet there’s something in me that stops me from pulling the plug. I continue to value the intelligent discussion with smart, committed and opinionated readers and, despite the overwhelming number of book-related sites, I continue to find that sort of dialogue in strangely short supply.

In recent weeks I’ve read a number of posts at lauded sites, sites I admire, written by folks I like, and I’ve been, well, dismayed at how lousy they can be. But that’s nothing, in and of itself – we all have our off days, we’ve all written things we probably would like to take back.

What I found more troubling was the chorus of commenters who would invariably leap in after each post declaiming its virtues. And I’ve come to believe that perhaps the problem with the internet isn’t that it gives voice to every crank with a keyboard and a broadband connection. No, it may be that the insidious thing is the insularity of the waiting chorus of those who champion mediocrity, who validate self-indulgence or unoriginal thinking.

So, what I can say is that the days of daily updates of literary news are probably over. That sort of thing is crazy time-consuming but, more importantly, I’m just not as interested in this prize and that obituary as I once was. Plus I have some considerable life changes to navigate, not to mention a novel to finish.

What I will continue to do is to run interviews with authors of note; to point out books I think are worthy of your attention and to wave you off the overrated ones; to take this piss out of the occasional blowhard; to draw your attention to especially thoughtful essays and discussions online; to continue to post about teaching and share some of my writing lessons; to post longer, random train of thought essays (like this one) and to discuss second novel travails. (A new post on that subject is in the works.)

And, of course, I will continue to advise you on all matters Banville-related.

Speaking of which, I’ve been asked several times about my failure to discuss Banville’s latest novel The Infinites. Some people have taken my relative silence to be somehow damning. Not the case. There are three reasons why I haven’t talked as much about the novel as I might.

First, I’ve come to realize that there is an assumption among my readers that a Banville novel is a pre-sold quantity to me. I’m not sure that’s entirely inaccurate, but at a minimum, I suspect no TEV reader would have been much surprised to see me endorse the novel. (Which, incidentally, I do.)

Second, many of you are likely to remember that Banville was kind enough to blurb Harry, Revised. And so I found myself perhaps a bit oversensitive to accusations of logrolling and the like. On the one hand, I’ve seen enough about the ecology of blurbs that I’ve come to understand they are, as often as not, gestures of friendship as they are of critical respect. (Think of the familiar round-robin of names that routinely surfaces on the back of any novel by Believer alumni.) On the other, a good book is a good book, whether written by a friend or foe, and I’ve come to see it seems excessively fastidious not to say so. Still, I continue to pick up books hopefully, gambling each time against experience that a blurb will be meaningful, and so I’ve been a bit reluctant to further undermine an already debased form.

Finally, and most relevant, I hadn’t actually read the book until last month.

How on earth is that possible? Let me explain. MOTEV called me some weeks ago to inform me that her book group had turned to The Infinities, and she was loving it. She was eager to discuss it with me, when I had to shamefacedly admit I hadn’t read it yet. I had started it when it came out, but I’d set it aside and now I couldn’t remember the reason. The last year really has been tumultuous, and amid my personal travails and focus on my novel, much has fallen by wayside.

So I picked up the book and began it again, and was thrilled anew as I always am by Banville’s prose. After a dozen pages or so, I remembered why I’d put it down. My novel is, among other things, about a character dealing with the death of his father. Which is one of the main themes of The Infinities. I decided that I wanted to avoid any additional Banville influence – as it is, anyone who has read The Book of Evidence will immediately see that my book is a rip-off, um, homage to this earlier work. So I decided to wait.

Unfortunately, Novel 2 has taken much longer than planned – subject of the future post – and I realized at this rate, it might be years before I could read it. And I remembered something Joseph O’Neill said when I interviewed him:

TEV: Do you read fiction while you are writing fiction?

Joseph O’Neill: I do. And I might do a couple of quick laps, and that’s it. It depends. Obviously, I can’t go seven years without reading a book. If I’m stuck for juice, I will go back to certain writers or investigate new writers and find out what’s going on.

TEV: Will there be any risk of seepage when that happens?

Joseph O’Neill: I hope so. I mean, you want a little bit of that. You know, you’ve got be grown up about influences. I think you’ve either got it or you haven’t. By ‘it’ I mean the knack of writing something valuable that’s your own. So if you are worried about being influenced, it’s almost a pointless worry. Either you’re going to be influenced or you’re not going to be influenced—it doesn’t change anything, it’s all about whether you have the knack. Anyway, the alternative is to not read anything. And no one can be a writer without being familiar with other writers.

And so I decided to bring it, and I’m glad I did. The Infinites is superb, and O’Neill is right, it makes a difference. Which makes it a timely moment for Harold Bloom’s latest to land on my desk. About which I intend to say more in the future. For now, I leave things here in a state of fragile equipoise, and I assure you posting here will continue, as the form struggles to make itself known to me.

BANVILLE, MEET KAFKA

However sporadic my posting might be these days, you can always count on me for a Banville Bulletin - he's won the Kafka Prize.

An international jury which included German literary critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki and British publishder John Calder selected Banville for the prize, which is awarded annually and includes $10,000.

 

INSERT VIRAGO PUN HERE

I've had my head down the last week or so cleaning up the first half of my novel, so I managed to miss the news of both Philip Roth's winning of the Man Booker Prize, and Carmen Callil's absolutely idiotic comments in the wake of that victory. 

 "I don't rate him as a writer at all. I made it clear that I wouldn't have put him on the longlist, so I was amazed when he stayed there. He was the only one I didn't admire – all the others were fine. Roth goes to the core of their [Cartwright and Gekoski's] beings. But he certainly doesn't go to the core of mine . . .Emperor's clothes: in 20 years' time will anyone read him?

I mean, yes, OK, The Humbling - embarrassing.  But come on.

Putting my head back down.  Nice to see you all survived the Rapture.

L.A. EVENT: SCOTT O'CONNOR AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS

Scott O'Connor first came across my radar with his sharp little 2004 novella Among Wolves. Since then, we've become pals - he's acknowledged in Harry, Revised for assisting me in the mechanics of throwing a punch - and I'm terribly excited to read his debut novel Untouchable.  It's described thusly:

It is the autumn of 1999. A year has passed since Lucy Darby’s unexpected death, leaving her husband David and son Whitley to mend the gaping hole in their lives. David, a trauma-site cleanup technician, spends his nights expunging the violent remains of strangers, helping their families to move on, though he is unable to do the same. Whitley – an 11 year-old social pariah known simply as The Kid – hasn’t spoken since his mother’s death. Instead, he communicates through a growing collection of notebooks, living in a safer world of his own silent imagining.

His publisher has set up a nice page which includes a trailer and a first chapter download, but I'm writing to advise you he's reading at Skylight this Tuesday evening, and although I am sick as a dog, I'll be there spreading my germs through the crowd, and hope you can come by and check it out as well.  Scott is an engaging reader, smart and witty and a splendid time is guaranteed for all.

SECOND NOVEL WOES

I am, understandably, obsessed with tales of second novelhood, like this one in Slate.  (Thanks to Katherine Taylor, who bested me!)

My first novel had gotten good reviews and sold, for a first novel, reasonably well; I wanted to do better this time. At the very least, I wanted not to go backward. This novel's success would also impact my next book deal—hell, it might determine whether there would be a next one. And then there was Deborah. She works as a high-level editor at a major magazine; I didn't want to put her in the position of walking into the office the wife of second-rate novelist. The prospect of embarrassing her—of being anything less than a husband she might feel the urge to brag about—was even worse than the prospect of embarrassing myself.

The unfortunate use of impact as a verb notwithstanding, it's worth a read.

A LATTERDAY GRAND TOUR

John Banville reviews James Attlee's Nocturne for the Guardian.

Nocturne – a term taken over by Chopin from the Irish composer John Field, but frequently employed by painters, too, particularly Whistler – is written in the relaxed, ambulatory tone of an 18th-century rambler's tale. Attlee conducts us on a latterday grand tour that takes in, among many other places, Turner's Thames, Basho's Japan, Pliny's Vesuvius and Rudolf Hess's solitary cell in Spandau prison. We learn little about the author, not necessarily a bad thing in these confessional times, although he does throw us hints as to his predilections and anathemas; for instance, he has a keen interest in painters – Samuel Palmer, Joseph Wright of Derby, the aforementioned Whistler – and in Japanese poetry; he deplores the seemingly unstoppable spread of light pollution yet considers Las Vegas at night one of the wonders of the world; he is not too happy about noise pollution, either – "Why aren't we ever content to just shut the fuck up?" – and declares "a particular hatred for wind chimes, hanging bells and all such paraphernalia".

CAN WRITING BE TAUGHT?

The Guardian rounds up several notables to address this apparently undying question.

Will Self: I'm still not convinced creative writing can be taught. Perhaps you can take a mediocre novelist and make them into a slightly better one, but a course can't make someone into a good writer. Ian McEwan and Kazuo Ishiguru both did the UEA MA, but they were both innately good anyway. Some people swear by creative writing courses. I say, go and get a job, a fairly menial one instead. Otherwise what are you going to write about? Writing is about expressing something new and exploring the form in new ways. So unless you want to churn out thrillers or misery memoirs, you can't work from a pattern book. You need to autodidact.

As my students at UCLA already know is, my answer - maddening as always:  It depends.

ERNEST SABATO DIES

Ernest Sábato, one of the giants of Spanish-language literature, died on April 30.

Over subsequent decades “el Maestro”, as his compatriots came to refer to him, wrote thousands of influential essays, short stories and magazine articles. But he published only three novels. Those were enough, though, to win him the Cervantes Prize, the most coveted award among Spanish-language writers, in 1984. His lack of published output, he explained, was because he had a tendency to burn in the afternoon what he had written in the morning – it was not that he was making a point of “being existentialist”. He suffered from depression – nothing really mattered, good or bad. “It may be because I considered that all my work was imperfect, impure, and I found that fire was purifying,” he once said.

GOING MANE-STREAM

There's nothing quite like a photo feature on "writers' unruly manes" to directly feed one's own insecurity about thinning hair ... assuming, you know, one suffered from such an insecurity.

(One does.)