Not "Influences" But "Acquisitions"

Mavis Gallant on influence and style:

There is no such thing as a writer who has escaped being influenced. I have never heard a professional writer of any quality or standing talk about "pure" style, or say he would not read this or that for fear of corrupting or affecting his own; but I have heard it from would-be writers and amateurs. Corruption--if that is the word--sets in from the moment a child learns to speak and hear language used and misused. A young person who does not read, and read widely, will never write anything--at least, nothing of interest. From time to time, in France, a novel is published purporting to come from a shepherd whose only influence has been the baaing of lambs on some God-forsaken slope of the Pyrenees. His artless and untampered-with mode of expression arouses the hope that there will be many more like him, but as a rule he is never heard from again. For "influences" I would be inclined to substitute "acquisitions." What they consist of, and amount to, are affected by taste and environment, preferences and upbringing (even, and sometimes particularly, where the latter has been rejected), and instinctive selection. The beginning writer has to choose, tear to pieces, spit out, chew up, and assimilate as naturally as a young animal--as naturally and ruthlessly. Style cannot be copied, except by the untalented. It is, finally, the distillation of a lifetime of reading and listening, of selection, and rejection. But if it is not a true voice, it is nothing.

From Mavis Gallant, "What is Style?" in The Paris Notebooks (1986).

Next Up at the Short Story Discussion Group

The story selected to serve as the focus of the next discussion at A Curious Singularity is Kelly Link's "The Specialist's Hat".

The discussion will begin on Tuesday, October 14th; participants are invited to begin posting their thoughts on the story at the A Curious Singularity blog then. Click on the title of the story above to access it online.

If you're not yet a member of the short story discussion group and you would like to join, please e-mail me. New members are always welcome! Of course, anyone can contribute to the discussion through the comments sections of the posts without officially joining the group.

Upcoming Discussion of Emily of New Moon

Over at Blogging Anne of Green Gables, we will shortly be turning our attention to another of Lucy Maud Montgomery's novels, Emily of New Moon. The discussion of Emily is scheduled to begin on October 15th. If you would like to participate but are not yet a member of that blog, let me know and I will send you an invitation to join. I'm looking forward to a lively discussion of my childhood favourite Mongomery heroine.

Audiobooks Worth Listening To

I was slow to embrace audiobooks. I take things in much better by reading than by listening so I had decided that audiobooks just weren’t for me. I’m much too apt to drift away while listening and lose the thread of the thing. But then I moved and my commute to work got substantially longer, plus I started spending a fair bit of time on the stationary bike or on the treadmill at the gym. And I recognized that both my commute and my sojourns at the gym would be enhanced if I could find audiobooks that would hold my attention. Through a bit of trial and error, I figured out that either a suspenseful plot or an engaging narrative voice does the trick (or, better yet, a combination of both), and I have since spent many a pleasurable hour listening to books. The very best of my discoveries, listed below, are the ones that have been sufficiently riveting to prompt me to applaud subway delays, or to extend my workouts by a few extra miles:


1. Anything by Terry Pratchett read by Stephen Briggs (the list includes Going Postal, Making Money, Thud!, Monstrous Regiment, The Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky, and Wintersmith): I didn't think it would be possible for me to love Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels any more than I already did, but listening to them read by Stephen Briggs adds a whole new layer of enjoyment to the experience. The tone of his narration conveys Pratchett's wry humour perfectly and the voices that he creates for the various characters are marvellous. I hadn't given much thought to how a golem might sound until I heard Briggs' rendition of one—booming, echoey and, well, clayey, just as it ought to sound. And there's the precise, chilling tone of Ankh-Morpork’s Patrician, Lord Vetinari. And the inimitable diction of City Watchmen Sergeant Fred Colon and Corporal Nobby Nobbs. I could go on and on, but instead I’ll just urge you to listen for yourself.

2. Shannon Hale’s The Goose Girl, read by Cynthia Bishop and others: This one is a product of Full Cast Audio, a company that produces unabridged recordings of children’s books using a narrator and a full cast to bring to life the voices of the various characters. The formula works brilliantly here. I still experienced The Goose Girl as a book rather than as a play (there’s no abridgment or adaptation apart from the removal of the “he saids” and “she saids” rendered unnecessary by the format), but I think that the range of voices more effectively conveyed the depth and nuance of Hale’s novel than a single reader would have done. Listening to it not only prompted me to seek out more novels by Hale, but also more audiobooks produced by Full Cast Audio. I have no doubt that I will discover more excellent authors this way.

3. Meg Rosoff’s How I Live Now, read by Kim Mai Guest: This stunning novel by Meg Rosoff is set in the near future, or perhaps an alternative present, in which the bombs of an unknown enemy begin to rain down on England shortly after 15-year-old Daisy arrives there from Manhattan to stay with cousins she’s never met before. Reader Guest nails Daisy’s first person voice, beautifully conveying her teenage blend of cynicism, bravado, and vulnerability. The plot would have kept me glued to this one regardless, but even if it hadn’t, Daisy’s voice as rendered by Guest would have held my attention.

4. Henning Mankell’s Faceless Killers (first in his mystery series featuring Inspector Kurt Wallander), read by Dick Hill: It could be a dicey proposition, performing a work in translation, trying to make the characters sound Swedish in English (when, of course, in actuality they would just be speaking Swedish) without descending into a caricature of a Swedish accent. But Hill manages to strike the right balance here, ably conveying the atmosphere of Mankell’s novel as well as the voices of his characters. The only quarrel that I have with Hill’s reading is he makes all of the female characters' voices sound the same and rather shrill and sing-song at that. But Inspector Wallander’s universe is a mostly male one, so that discordant note didn’t often interrupt the flow of the book.

5. James Joyce’s The Dubliners, each story read by a different Irish actor: I wasn’t sure at first how I would respond to a single book read by multiple readers. It’s a short story collection, of course, but a linked short story collection, and I thought I’d prefer to hear it read by a single voice to add a thread of continuity, just as the author's voice does on the page. But, then again, the stories are told from the perspective of a variety of different characters, so why not represent that variety by employing different readers? Ultimately, I concluded that it worked. There’s a bit of unevenness. For example, Colm Meaney’s reading of “Araby” is oddly flat (oddly, given that Meaney is a talented actor and “Araby” a brilliant story). But for the most part, the stories are beautifully read. I particularly relished hearing each one read in an Irish accent that brought the rhythms of the language to the fore.

6. Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything, read by the author: I’m going to read this one for myself as well, as I couldn’t take it all in in one listen. But Bryson, who has an engaging conversational tone even on the page, has a very companionable voice and I very much enjoyed the feeling as I listened of being guided through that welter of information by the author first hand.

The U.S. Election Campaign through a Literary Lens

There's a very interesting article in the current issue of the New York Review of Books by Colm Tóibín which draws parallels between James Baldwin and Barack Obama. Click here to read it.

And so long as I'm recommending articles related to the U.S. election, don't miss James Woods on "the Republican War on Words", or George Saunders' brilliant satire of Sarah Palin's war on words.

The Immodesty of the Short Story

Steven Millhauser on the short story:

The short story concentrates on its grain of sand, in the fierce belief that there — right there, in the palm of its hand — lies the universe. It seeks to know that grain of sand the way a lover seeks to know the face of the beloved. It looks for the moment when the grain of sand reveals its true nature. In that moment of mystic expansion, when the macrocosmic flower bursts from the microcosmic seed, the short story feels its power. It becomes bigger than itself. It becomes bigger than the novel. It becomes as big as the universe. Therein lies the immodesty of the short story, its secret aggression. Its method is revelation. Its littleness is the agency of its power.

To read the rest of Millhauser's essay on the short story and the novel, click here.

Toby Litt's Advice to New Writers

Toby Litt's advice to new writers:

Don't write what you know. You don't know what you know. Surprise yourself.

For the rest of the Guardian interview from which this nugget comes, click here.

Running as a Creative Activity

Kathrine Switzer on running as a creative activity:

People always ask what you think about when you run, and to runners, it's a weird question because our heads are full of so many thoughts. Running is not a boring activity to us, it is a creative one.

From Kathrine Switzer, Marathon Woman: Running the Race to Revolutionize Women's Sports (2007).

Haruki Murakami on Running and Writing

Haruki Murakami on Running and Writing:

Right now I'm aiming at increasing the distance I run, so speed is less of an issue. As long as I can run a certain distance, that's all I care about. Sometimes I run fast when I feel like it, but if I increase the pace I shorten the amount of time I run, the point being to let the exhilaration I feel at the end of each run carry over to the next day. This is the same sort of tack I find necessary when writing a novel. I stop every day right at the point where I feel I can write more. Do that, and the next day's work goes surprisingly smoothly. I think Ernest Hemingway did something like that. To keep on going, you have to keep up the rhythm. This is the important thing for long-term projects. Once you set the pace, the rest will follow. The problem is getting the flywheel to spin at a set speed--and to get to that point takes as much concentration and effort as you can manage.

From Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running: A Memoir (2008) (translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel).

On the Road Again

I'm off to Scotland for three weeks. I may check in occasionally to report on book purchases and other literary adventures, but likely things will be quiet around here until my return. In the meantime, enjoy your summer reading!