I must begin this blog entry by saying that I have not yet read Stacey Richter (but I will, later or tomorrow). I just finished Lorrie Moore and was so struck with things to say that I just came here to write it all down.
I'm kind of amazed by her carefully crafted stream of consciousness style. I mean, when I write a stream of consciousness from my own mind it's a lot of word vomit, which is why I say "carefully crafted," because none of this is word vomit. Even when it seems like she is going off on a huge tangent, she always brings it back around to what she's trying to say, and I feel like she's trying to say so much all of the time.
I also think it's fascinating the way she as an author is in conversation with these stories as a writer. (That's not a typo or redundant, that's what I mean.) She's writing about being a writer, sometimes even just within the context of a larger story. Obviously "How to Become a Writer" is speaking about writing, and I wonder how many times she herself was told because of her style that she has no sense of plot. What most stuck out to me, though, was in the first story, on page 441.
Moore seems to be both the Manager and the Mother, if only just for this scene. The Manager says, "the whole idea that people have a clue as to how the world works is just a piece of laughable metaphysical colonialism." He's the skeptical side, the one that says to us that we don't really know anything, that our conclusions are laughable. But it's so interesting to see the Mother there reacting to this, the part of the author ("I write fiction. This isn't fiction.") that wants so much to believe that figuring something out about the world is possible.
After considering whether I'd like to praise Richter or hate on Moore, I've decided the latter. I really, really didn't like the stories she has in Doubletakes. I think what she's trying to do, and in particular, with the "People Like That Are..." I believe her angle of story-telling is to tell a serious, emotional story in an absurd, unexpected, fairly emotion-less way. I honestly just had no patience for it, and it was a struggle for me to read through it -- and not the good kind of struggle. End rant.
I must begin this blog entry by saying that I have not yet read Stacey Richter (but I will, later or tomorrow). I just finished Lorrie Moore and was so struck with things to say that I just came here to write it all down.
ReplyDeleteI'm kind of amazed by her carefully crafted stream of consciousness style. I mean, when I write a stream of consciousness from my own mind it's a lot of word vomit, which is why I say "carefully crafted," because none of this is word vomit. Even when it seems like she is going off on a huge tangent, she always brings it back around to what she's trying to say, and I feel like she's trying to say so much all of the time.
I also think it's fascinating the way she as an author is in conversation with these stories as a writer. (That's not a typo or redundant, that's what I mean.) She's writing about being a writer, sometimes even just within the context of a larger story. Obviously "How to Become a Writer" is speaking about writing, and I wonder how many times she herself was told because of her style that she has no sense of plot. What most stuck out to me, though, was in the first story, on page 441.
Moore seems to be both the Manager and the Mother, if only just for this scene. The Manager says, "the whole idea that people have a clue as to how the world works is just a piece of laughable metaphysical colonialism." He's the skeptical side, the one that says to us that we don't really know anything, that our conclusions are laughable. But it's so interesting to see the Mother there reacting to this, the part of the author ("I write fiction. This isn't fiction.") that wants so much to believe that figuring something out about the world is possible.
After considering whether I'd like to praise Richter or hate on Moore, I've decided the latter.
ReplyDeleteI really, really didn't like the stories she has in Doubletakes.
I think what she's trying to do, and in particular, with the "People Like That Are..." I believe her angle of story-telling is to tell a serious, emotional story in an absurd, unexpected, fairly emotion-less way. I honestly just had no patience for it, and it was a struggle for me to read through it -- and not the good kind of struggle.
End rant.