To supplement your reading, I ask you to read this recent article published in the Guardian in which author Hari Kunzru discusses, among other things, Coover and his interest in "the possibility of non-linear narrative architecture." Characterization is important to Coover, but it works in the service of epistemological and ontological goals.
Let me start out by saying that I had an impossible time trying to read both "the convention" and especially "The Brother." Although I was eventually able to make my way through the stories, the fact that they lacked punctuation, and in the case of "The Brother" lacked any sense of structure what so ever really distracted me from trying to read this story and trying to follow what was happening. Once I made it through them, I found both of the stories to be interesting but thought that it would have been much more accessible if they had at least included quotations in the case of "the convention" and any sort of break or spacing in "the Brother." I found that I really had a hard time following who was speaking and I think that it really goes to show just how important the use of normal conventions in writing are. If these stories were both written in such a way that was easily accessible I think they would have been much more affective and I would have enjoyed them more rather than being annoyed by them and reading the same lines more than once because I couldn't follow the breaks.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I think one thing I can take away from Coover is to do the exact opposite. While I think his experimental approach has value and would work for some people, it's not for me. I think what I will take away from this most would be to make sure that my own writing makes use of these things and is easy for the reader to follow rather than trying to copy Coover's style.
Well, these Robert Coover readings are probably unlike any readings we’ll ever do again. I doubt anyone else will write enjambment-prose or one-sentence stories—and, well, there’s a reason for that. Coover is obviously experimenting with the form of a short story, and I can appreciate his willingness to do that, but I’m not sure if I’d be able to any more than we had to. Experimentation this extreme is like red wine or an issue of McSweeney’s— it’s an acquired taste.
ReplyDeleteOne thing Coover utilizes (almost too well), is the Burroway-ian idea of prose rhythm. In “the convention,” Coover treats each line like that of a poem, though the story as a whole is undoubtedly prose. The fragmentation of lines makes the reader feel rushed, and it’s compounded by the fact that sentences, ideas, thoughts, reflections, and descriptions are all left unfinished. Coover stands behind a literary strobe light, letting us see flashes of scenes and characters, then moving on to something different in a matter of seconds.
Obviously, the rushing and flashing are done intentionally, as Coover is trying to capture the essence of a “convention,” or a hotel party. We almost feel drunk ourselves reading the story—and like any night of heavy drinking, reality begins to blur, our awareness of time takes the backseat, and without realizing it, we find ourselves bouncing from one location to another without any logical transition. Dialogue is intertwined with narration, and Coover writes things like “hey fella whaddaya say hey howzit going man they shake hands say/ things like that glancing around it’s happening can’t miss it they go/ to the bar for a drink how’s yer ole tomata” and we could try to read and reread in order to distinguish the two, but it’s more accurate to let it mix. Thoughts, actions, words, and the filters separating the three become convoluted when drinking, and a reading of “the convention” is no different.
Similarly, in “The Brother,” Coover rushes us along, in a seemingly unintelligible manner comparable to the characters in the story. We see the vernacular surface in the second line of the story, when the narrator says “and so me I says ‘how the hell you gonna get it down to the water?’” The whole story continues onward, in one drawn-out sentence, and we get pushed along in a flood-like rush. However, Coover manages to weave in characterization throughout, so while the narrator may not be the “brightest crayon in the box,” we can visualize the scenes and the people in them. For instance, he describes the narrator’s wife, saying “I come home from haulin timbers around all day she’s got enough left to rub my shoulders and the small of my back and fix a hot meal her long black hair pulled to a knot behind her head and hangin marvelously down her back her eyes gentle but very tired my God.” There’s a lot loaded into that one section, and we learn about the narrator, his wife, and their relationship in just a few lines.
I feel that both of these stories were somewhat difficult to read at first. I quickly got used to "The Brother" and found it a whole lot easier to understand. I never really got the hang of being able to understand "the convention" fully. It just felt like jumped around to me and many times I had a hard time trying to figure out what was really going on.
ReplyDeleteOf these two stories, I liked "The Brother" a lot more. I feel like the way Coover twisted a well-known story and brings in a totally different approach to it was amazingly well done. I have to admit, I had a hard time getting used to it and I felt like I had an extremely hard time at the end also.
I feel like Coover's storytelling style in "the convention" was a lot different but was not without its own advantages. The way this story was told, I was really able to notice the humor a whole lot more than in the other story.
Overall, I feel like both of these writing styles are extremely intreguing and might be worth trying out in particular circumstances.
I had a very hard time reading both “the convention” and “The Brother” by Robert Coover because of the lack of punctuations, spaces, and formal paragraphs. I do appreciate the fact that he experimented with writing by not including punctuation, spaces, and paragraphs but I found it hard to see which was a sentence and what was happening next. I think I would like “the convention” if he only put in punctuation. The format of that story didn’t bother me and I thought it was very interesting but it was the fact that the sentences overlapped each other that bothered me. “The Brother” although it was short as well was a lot harder to get through than “the convention” I thought because he didn’t separate anything. I really liked the story of “The Brother” because it took a classic tale and rewrote it in his unique way. I think that one of the reasons why Robert Coover can be seen as a great writer is that he makes you want to read his stories in a way because you are curious to see what the story is about. Of course not everyone will like the stories or his style but I found that just by looking at how it is arranged on the page, I immediately wanted to read it. I found the character of Noah in “The Brother” to be very well written in that at least when the reader first saw him he was very dependent of his brother, constantly asking him for help. Yet after the boat is done, Noah ignores his brother’s plea to let him in because he thinks that his brother is ignorant and a fool. That interested me because when I ever heard of Noah’s Ark, the story always makes him seem like a good-hearted person yet in Robert Coover’s story he isn’t so.
ReplyDeleteI don’t know if Flannery O’Connor influences Robert Coover but in “the convention” the narrator talks about a woman/stripper with a wooden leg. All I could think of was Hulga from “Good Country People” and I thought it was an interesting connection in that the stripper with the wooden leg is the exact opposite of Hulga in that she lets herself go and from what it looks like isn’t as smart as Hulga. The thing I would take from Coover is the fact that he experimented with his writing in writing a different format and I will use that in my own writing by just experimenting the format until it fits the story. Yet I think of Coover as an estranged literary family member because although he has good techniques I would never really read him again.
I enjoyed reading Coover. These stories were refreshingly strange, and I liked trying to piece the meaning together in my head. The Noah's Ark rendition, "The Brother," really moved me. Telling the story from one of Noah's brother's points of view provided such fascinating context. In a way, Noah becomes evil to the reader, because what a good, kind man the brother is, and what a good, kind wife he has. However, all the times the brother mentions God -- usually to thank him or eventually to use it in vain -- tick off the lines to the inevitable, the already known fact that Noah took none of his brothers onto the ark, despite how desperately they wanted to join him, and despite how desperately Noah wanted them to join him. One of the images which really struck me was the hand motions Noah gave to his brother ("my brother he looks at me standin there in the rain and still he dont say nothin but he raises his hand kinda funny like and then puts it back on the rail" p187) and then again (...and still he don't say a damn word he just raises his hand in that same sillyass way" p188). Was Noah blessing him? Trying to apologize? It's funny how after reading this story, I feel the weight of Noah's burden much more than the painful demise of the brother, his wife, and their unborn child.
ReplyDeleteI think perhaps that's one of Coover's tricks of the trade: he allows the reader to see one point of view, and then kind of turns it on its end and shows you something very real and very intimate about someone else in the story.
I would like to consider Coover as one of my literary family members because I love the poetic aspects of his prose. "the convention" reads almost like a Ginsberg poem without the litany...I didn't quite know what to make of or do with this story, so I won't write much about it (I'm eager to see what people have to say on this blog and in class). I'll just say that "the convention" has this strange flow. I read it out loud to my boyfriend, and both of us found this consistent hum to the piece. And then that flow would be interrupted, but by a line that you could tell held a lot of significance for the story (i.e "that's how it is" or "Tom knows"). These short phrases left on lines by themselves seem as though they should mean something to the reader -- I'm just not quite sure what that is yet.
Like most everyone else, I had a pretty hard time reading both of these stories, though I found "the convention" to be harder to understand than "The Brother." Once I started reading "The Brother," I got into a kind of flow, and it didn't matter as much that it didn't have punctuation. With "the convention," because it was so choppy and the story moved around so much, I had more trouble piecing together what was going on.
ReplyDeleteHowever, even though I didn't like it very much, I think that is what Coover is going for in "the convention." Like Alex said, we feel confused, and almost like we're drunk too when we read it. It's almost like we are becoming the main character. We are just as clueless at the end of the story as he will be when he wakes up the next morning after drinking that much.
What I can take from Coover is that it's important to experiment with different writing styles to help get points across. I wouldn't try writing without punctuation, as he did, unless I had a reason to and it tied in with the action or emotion in my story. It does give me confidence though that unnatural writing styles can appeal to readers.
I liked reading Coover's stories, and appreciated how different they were from the long, drawn out style we've been reading. It's nice to see an example of a successful short-short story represented in Doubletakes. I find it almost hard to believe that Coover's work is as old as it is, I suppose because experimental pieces always seem "newer" to me, even if they're not.
ReplyDeleteI actually found it harder to get into a rhythm with "The Brother" than I did "the convention." I found that the poetry-esque line breaks and indentations in "the convention" made it easier for me to follow along and to take a breath. In "The Brother" I feel rushed, like I have to read it all in one continuous breath, that I can't stop for anything. Even if that's the intent of the experiment, it was exhausting for me, and seeing a wall of text filling an entire page is daunting.
As a few people have mentioned earlier, the flow of "the convention" gives it that feeling of being drunk, which really works well for the story. Another thing I think I enjoyed about Coover was his sense of humor. The names in "the convention" are just kind of hilarious. These are obviously not their names, but with the crazy party going on around Tom, is he really going to remember their names anyway? Putting these (mostly crude) labels on the other convention-goers is just another way of showing Tom's personality and the way his mind is working in the story.
As a person who hasn't written that much fiction and frankly is a bit afraid of the genre, reading the works of Robert Coover was a pleasant surprise for my spirits. Written nearly as a poem, the convention, chronicles what seems to be an out of control business convention of some sorts. With no punctuation and barely any capitalization, the convention rips through the page very quickly, but also demands the reader to slow down because it's hard to see where one simple sentence starts and another begins. The convention's form also mirrors the content which is fast moving as well. Drinking, arguing, fighting, and oral sex are all going on around Tom, his drinking buddy, and a rather loose handicapped woman.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I wouldn't want to write exactly the way Coover does in these pieces, I feel as though I can borrow a bit from him. For example, I really love the way he exemplifies the fast-moving content by using simple sentences in a machinegun-fashion. The way he goes from thing to thing so rapidly paints a very vivid picture for the reader. I can't say I've seen many writers accomplish this style so well (not even in poetry) and it makes me want to read more of his work and then even try my hand at it.
I really enjoyed both of Coover's stories. The were very unconventional but I liked the twist away from conventional writing. The lack of punctuation made both stories difficult to read at first, but I quickly found myself very intrigued by them. In "the convention," I seemed to take particular notice to the fact that the only capital letters were at the front of names. I also found Coover's subtle use of humor greatly enhanced his writing. "his friend wears a nametag I. M. Horney." It is simple things like that that I really love about some authors.
ReplyDeleteI think this style of little to no punctuation or grammar is interesting it that we, as students, have frequently been taught grammar through our noses, to a point that I have never even considered this style of writing. For Coover, it works phenomenally, however I'm not sure I could pull off that type of writing. It would be interesting to try sometime, and I like the somewhat random followups to sentences that don't end because of no periods, but for now, I think I'll hold off on this style.
Like most others in the class I too at first had difficulty reading the stories. the conference never got easier but looking back it makes sense cause looking back on any night of heavy drinking is pretty similar to the feeling the reading gave to me. The Brother on the other hand had no issue reading, the flow of it was much easier and more logical it also helped that the story was at least somewhat familiar even if it was from a unique perspective.
ReplyDeleteThe two techniques that Coover uses from Burroway's that jumped out at me were characterizing dialogue and vernacular. Characterizing dialogue is used best in the convention. "we fucked all night he says and her mother brought us breakfast after" It's lines like these that bring us into the world of these men, they really draw us into the way they think, their humor, and the things they find important.
"you come and help now the rest don't matter" This style of vernacular is used throughout The Brother and it is very effective. It shows us that they are farmers, they are simple, and in the brother's case he is determined. The phrase used a couple of times "don't matter" refers to his obsession with the boat (dare I call it an ark) and it's importance while showing us who he is and where he comes from. Coover also does a very good job of not overdoing it, something Burroway cautions us about.
I have mixed feelings about Coover and the experiments he has attempted with "the convention" and "The Brother." For "the convention," I thought Coover's idea to remove punctuation and make the story flow without pause was an inspired choice. The fuzzy narration and lack of distinction between one scene and the next, as well as the non-linear progression of these scenes throughout the story, are a wonderful simulation of a man who is far too drunk (and possibly high) trying to get through his night. After the first terrified glance, I found that "the convention" was fairly easy to get through with this in mind, as I could understand the point behind the form.
ReplyDeleteI cannot say the same thing for "The Brother." The form in this case was altered slightly so that, in addition to the lack of punctuation, Coover also saw fit to remove line breaks. I have never before attempted to read a giant block of text as a single sentence before, nor do I wish to do so again. I could barely focus on the story until I understood where it was going, at which point I found myself furious at more than one religious figure for dooming a somewhat likable narrator and his pregnant wife after a great deal of sacrifice on their part to fulfill God's plan. The block certainly did seem to flow as quickly as a deluge, and I suppose I get the metaphor now that I've read the previous posts, but at the same time the story itself takes place over the course of weeks and months, making the narration of the building of the ark very rushed in my opinion. I admit, though, that it made the narrator's sudden silence as the water overcame him a lot more dramatic than it otherwise would have been. I am just not sure if that is enough to justify the form.
When I began reading Coover my first thought was that I was jealous of him. His style of writing was so clever, and simple that I felt that I could have done it. I like the thought of a writing style so different, that it takes the foreground over what was acctually happening in the story. The fact that "The convention" didn't begin with a capital letter caught my attention, and made me want to keep reading. The way the stories were written made them hard to get through. Since they were almost rambeling I felt like I never got a clear idea of what the stories were supposed to be entirely about. but I think that was what Coover was getting at. It worked for the sake of what theese stories were about, but I hope he dosen't do it in all his other works.
ReplyDeleteI noticed in "The convention" that there is only one period in the whole story. This jumped out at me. I felt like Coover was trying to draw attention to the one line that had a period, because even though punctuation is normal in everyday writing, it was unusual to see it in that story. That could be something I could take from Coover. The idea that you can alter the way regular english is read, but when you want to catch the reader's attention, you can go back to normal for a bit.
I had a difficult time reading 'the convention.' To me, the enjambment felt like form for the sake of form in this piece. Making the reader's eyes constantly move with no concrete pattern messing with how well the reader actually understands the story. With my own personal interest, particularly in the areas of grammar: I need it. I will admit it, I am a bit of a grammar fiend. Thus any piece lacking grammar is already not the best in my mind. The five page run on that 'The Brother' is does not favor itself to the reader either. Eyes need to have a break, especially when reading for that many pages.
ReplyDeleteI guess when talking about my family in the writing community, Coover is that relative no one talks to. Both of the pieces in Doubletakes seem to be form for the sake of form. I can see these stories as being interesting to listen to but actually reading them on the page does the farthest thing from endearing me towards them or Coover.
this guy Robert Coover looks like Grandma Death and he thinks he’s so cutting edge for ignoring the conventions of writing and he writes about conventions in prose Coover uses the word convention to allude to a scenario in which hedonism is embraced by the masses Bart Simpson’s phony phone call names are written on everyone’s nametags and they’re double entendres or sexual inuendos and these stories must be nightmares for editors and readers alike God and Lord are present in the second story and it seems to be a reoccurring trend Coover only capitalizes proper names so he frequently uses them to separate his thoughts and the whole thing seems kinda gimmicky to me Tom is a undeveloped lead who is on the receiving end of an oral affair and the woman burying her chin in his trousers has a peg leg Flannery O’Connor wrote about a peg legged broad and who knows if Coover’s using this handicap to develop a character or to define a character because no one can even tell what the hell is happening
ReplyDeleteTo start off, "the convention" and "The Brother" were both difficult reads. The lack of traditional sentence structure and more defined quotations make both stories appear as though they were one mammoth sentence. From the viewpoint of a reader who's beginning to read or from a foreigner's, both stories can lead to confusion and misinterpretation of how literary pieces are written in the English language. However, the former is more significant than the latter. To some, it may take more than one thorough reading to understand both stories.
ReplyDeleteThe former passage ("the convention"), a fast-paced story concerning the lively, and suggestive, habits of a convention, seemed to me to be rushed. It might be the illusion of the entire story being one sentence, or perhaps the suggestive subjects covered, accompanied with the graphic descriptions.
Although both stories may be difficult to understand at first, the second story ("The Brother") may prove to be an easier read, if taking into account the continuous religious connections. The unnamed brother is described to be building a mammoth boat, much to annoy the narrator and the narrator's wife. Following the completion of the boat, the couple then comment jokingly about the occupants aboard the vessel -- the brother, the brother's sons, the wives of the sons, and various animals. Connect the occupants, the boat, the open land, and then the developing rain storm, one could make the assumption this is a modern day adaptation to the Biblical story of Noah's Ark.