Magicians are not normal, not conventional. They believe the world is a container of mysteries, deep misunderstandings or areas of chaos that can, if spun in the right way, feel connected to transcendence. Unlike people who choose to turn away from the depths, or those who go into the depths through introspection or meditation, magicians act outwardly on their passions. Some magicians perfect old tricks, learning to amaze and inspire through the perfection of a wondrous form. Others invent new tricks entirely.
Robert Coover is one of the new-makers. He does not sit content with accepted forms of short stories. Instead, like Noah, who "just focuses me out sweepin the blue his eyes rollin like they do when he gets het on some new lunatic notion," Coover, who teaches creative writing at Brown University, has made a career of being, in his own words, "not a traditional tale-teller."
In order to see the current day relevance of Coover's approach to the traditional Noah's ark story, I suggest that you visit this site about a Dutchman named Johan Huibers.
For "the convention," you might consider watching a few episodes of Mad Men, Matthew Weiner's award-winning drama series set in the 1960's, in a fictional New York City business world. It will give you a taste of what Coover's narrator is living through: "everybody laughs Pete blows out his pink cheeks pats his soft belly what are we out of ice people are getting angry shouting taking sides Mike Oxonphire Les Gitlade Chuck S. Assout."
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| Mad Men Drinking at Work |
Even though I didn't watch an episode of Mad Men this time, the convention--with it's unconventional format, reminded me the boy's club one can assume business sometimes becomes. I cheated a bit and read the explanation at the beginning of the Coover section, and my eyes widened at the possibility that prose can use the same functions as poetry when it comes to line enjambments. Right now I am reading a book of poetry that is written like a novel--it contains a story arch and character development--it is exciting to find fiction that does the opposite, employing the forms of poetry to prose. I know I would gravitate towards such a writing style, but I question if the form would work in the context of other subjects. The convention works so well because the fragments of sentences work, a) in the context of a scene so disjointed as this, and b) the enjambment allows for the lack of punctuation.
ReplyDeleteThe Brother also has absolutely no sentence punctuation except when a question is asked, essentially when it was important to the story. I guess we get more stream of consciousness with this form of grammatical errors. Again I am interested to read a story where Coover uses punctuation and obeys the “practical” grammar of fiction. I do believe that not using the usual forms does nothing to harm the writing. I like him.
At first glance, I was a little worried about Coover's pieces but 1) I need to stop second guessing professional writers so much and 2) once I trained my brain to read his work, I really enjoyed it. I love that the disjointed, fragmentary nature of "the convention" is reflected in the writing style. What I really loved about this story is the humor. I was laughing about two seconds in when I read, "the doors are all open hey look who's here big slaps it's great." I love the buffoonery that Coover manages to create with snippets of dialogue and bits of observed behavior that would otherwise seem ordinary. I think we can all agree that there is nothing ordinary about Coover's writing. I'm also a huge sucker for writers who take on fabled, commonly known stories in ways that are new and refreshing, like he does with the narrative of Noah's Arc. Although I do like this take on the story, I'm not sure that the employment of this kind of writing strategy had the same positive effect that it did on "the convention." As Christine pointed out, this style of writing may not positively affect every story as much as it does for "the convention." I do agree, though, that the stream-of-consciousness effect did add something to the story.
ReplyDeleteI think the most difficult part of reading these pieces by Robert Coover was getting past the unconventional form and then realizing that this form was part of the narrative. The first is made up of half-formed glimpses of scenes, imagery, and anecdotes of a "gentleman's convention", and the second is a continual run-on sentence based on the story of Noah's Ark. I found myself most drawn to "The Brother", because I think I realized what was happening from the very beginning, mostly because of some subtle cues Coover used to let the reader know what would happen before the narrator did. The first hint I got was when the narrator asks the brother "how the hell you gonna get it down to the water?", which really made me feel that soon the water was going to come to it. It's interesting to me that the narrator never truly mocks his brother, in fact, he supports him pretty extensively by helping him build the boat everyday and sacrificing his own livelihood and relationship with his life, only to be turned away when the floodwater starts to rise. But it's still not clear whether or not Coover subverts the moral of the biblical story. Is the narrator or the brother the sinner? I think it's spectacular that Coover can even force us to ask this question, because the story of Noah seems so straight-forward. And yet Coover successfully allows us to feel sympathy for those left behind in the flood and feel resentful of Noah.
ReplyDeleteI didn’t think I’d like ‘em see I reckoned that his lack of grammar punctuation and all that sorta stuff would drive me crazy god dammit it’s the slowest reading I don’t know when to take that breathe or my rhythm of sound of words my mind overlapping trying to jump along skim the words but I can’t I have to read each one each one next one slow steady like southern drawl strung out and even still reading so damn slow maybe ‘cause I’m so tired the clock on the stove is fuzzy blue my eyes tired trying to pull it together sharpen its not even midnight sleep slow sleep next word next one dammit slow like heavy feet rain soaked shoes pulling my mind along the stream of consciousness ‘bout boats and babies and I reckon you best not drank that wine with a kicker in your oven still raining damn lots of rain must be building that arch here in PA rain and hold up I’m done but I know I’m missing something so I read again not so slow but as slow too I guess just different and hey oh man that guy what a kidder yup Sunday School never made me think this much smirk this much hey real people this much the convention trying to analyze trying to find the details of the character at the first paragraph man no age Tom setting character development plot sequence structure oh god dammit structure what structure all structure so important so allusive think like a writer when you read trying slow next word next word feeling dizzy sex men in suits formal business men behind closed doors doors of elevator close drink drink drunk feeling drunk confused only picking up pieces of the plot trying to piece together the night the narrator the scene all slurring together Tom observer naïve new pressure drink drink feeling drunk get head losing his head losing mine third party describing scene details but losing them still Tom drunk, narrator drunk, me drunk yes yes of course drunk metaphors perception development theme overarching meaning apply take it as a whole words run out got it lost it feel it enjoy it sinks in want to be able to say it class discussion tripping thoughts there hand up mouth opens flops slivers Rubic’s cube words how do I say this type this I get this this it’s what Coover are all about
ReplyDeleteJust like Abby, but unfortunately with a lot less flair and fun, I also found these stories to be a flurry of frustration and annoyance. They were very difficult to read, let alone to focus on the words that were on the page. The sentences would just drag, so by the time I finally finished a thought/sentence, I would frequently forget what was said toward the beginning and have to, regrettably, re-read it. This. Got. Annoying. I also found myself just skimming the words without actually reading them, as I felt no real connection fueling my interest or reading. The structure of the sentences was also very disjointed and a tad irritating. It was really hard for me to like the stories, unfortunately, as I could barely follow them. I look at the other entries, besides Abby's haha, and I see MUCH different analyses and feelings toward these pieces than my own. I liked the different take that Coover had taken with the "Noah's Ark" story in The Brother, but it was hard for me to really get a taste of it as far as I was from the piece due to the language. I wanted to like it, as I like the original from hearing and reading it many times, but his seemingly random jargon made this new take feel kinda hokey. I wish that I could have been able to follow/comprehend the story more closely because I appreciate what he was trying to do. These stories did show me, though, that stories can be good, to a lot of people, by taking very daring risks and doing something new and very unconventional, which kind of goes against what we've been reading/learning. Hopefully I can put some of these daring risks into my own work and have it be as successful.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with Breeyon and Abby, Coover is no easy read nor does he allow his readers to skim through quickly. Instead, one must rub sleepy eyes and break apart the piece fragment by fragment to gain any strong intonation of the meaning behind the whimsical words. Of the two, I enjoyed "the convention" more as I did indeed see a Mad Men connection. "the flash of cufflinks in the elevator collars white and crisp a man with gray hair speaks of Suzie and laughs Tom laughs they all laugh" Words such as these truly are the product of a gifted writer as they both paint the scene for the reader while leaving room on the slate for one's own interpretation. As Christine put it, you walk away from this piece with a vivid idea of "the boy's club" wealthy, privileged, old white men out for a joy ride "on the job" and begrudgingly, I have to give Coover due credit for his success in eliciting these emotions. While these stories were not among my favorites in the book, they did teach me about rhythm in a piece and how one can show without giving too much away.
ReplyDeleteI actually didn't find Coover's stories particularly difficult to read -- but I think to find natural places for pauses to make sense of the phrases is a skill acquired from reading a lot of poetry and working in a foreign language. Also, the writing style reminded me of Frank McCourt's Angeala's Ashes, except Coover's style is a lot more fragmented. I like this stream-of-consciousness-esque style of writing because it's fast and chaotic, and it works very well in the context of "the convention," especially. It's a big hotel and everyone is drinking and yelling and just completely wasted -- it's crazy. I can hear the dialect and accent of the men in the room. The feeling of reading "the convention" is a lot like the feeling when you've been separated from your friends in a huge crowd, and you're frantically searching for them.
ReplyDeleteThe Brother is a little more difficult because there's a more defined narrative to pull away, and in trying to make sense of the one ridiculously long sentence, it's easy enough to forget to connect the dots as you read. The narrative voice in my head as I read it sounded like an enthusiastic story teller, like, "Here lemme tell ya this story you'll never believe it!" And I really liked that. This, I can only imagine, is an extremely difficult structure to pull off stylistically because of the risk of losing or frustrating a reader with the unconventional style, but when it works, it works well. I enjoyed both of these stories and could really appreciate the stylistic approach and quick pacing of both of them.
Reading Coover's set of stories, I soon realized that his writing isn't something you can just take it but instead something that must be read with care. His language was beautiful, poetic even, and for that the reader must think critically while the characters in "the convention" act whimsical in their drunken state. If there is one thing in this class that I learned, it's that the most inspirational pieces are the ones that make you unravel them and discover the layers. I love the layers that Coover presents within his text- I wasn't frustrated by the narrative at all, it felt very real. Very raw. In comparison to "Mad Men", the hustling and bustling style of the piece worked well with Coover's narrative. I loved how the character talked and how the setting was portrayed, especially within the first paragraph of the story. Each reread was easier than the last and before long, I was lost within the story!
ReplyDelete(Look who is finally posting on the blogs she forgot about!)
ReplyDeleteAnyways, I'm surprised that I forgot to do this one, as i was actually super interested in these two stories, especially "Convention." What I found most amusing about "Convention" was how the title makes you think of traditional things, but the story itself was about something very not traditional and the form it was in was very not traditional. I just like when a title kind of plays with form and all that jazz. Second, I really liked that this piece was almost poetry like. I'm actually not 100% sure why it isn't considered poetry other than the author saying it is fiction (which I guess might be the reason, and can be said for some poetry too). It's refreshing to read something that is experimental, though it usually isn't always my favorite, mostly because a lot of experimental work that I've come across was very hard to understand and wasn't exactly user-friendly. This, however, with the exception of the difficulty to read it out loud (line breaks screw with me sometimes) it was very easy to understand. Other than the form, it was basic in its language and story (sort of?).
The second story "The Brother" was more interesting in how it revealed certain aspects of the characters. My favorite scene was when the family played the card game and we got to see first hand what the family dynamic was truly like. Also, this was the scene that really told me that I didn't really stand on the same side of the argument as the narrator. The narrator made claims about the brother, then would actually do exactly what he claimed to hate about the brother (like assuming you know what other people think, then assuming to know what his brother is thinking). While this story wasn't quite so obvious in how it was experimental in form, it still was in character development, and how it actually pushed me away from siding with the narrator.