From "‘I’m Easily Bored by Books,’ Says Writer of 22 Novels/The latest from the aptly named Francine Prose is 'The Vixen,' a surprisingly funny tale involving Ethel Rosenberg and the C.I.A." (NYT).
Notice that she's talking about inhabiting the head of the characters and the head of the readers. Those are 2 very different processes, but she's set on doing both things. If you had to choose one or the other, which would you pick? Do you want to read things written by writers who assume you have no patience at all? I'd rather be trusted to absorb what is actually good and also trusted to cast off what is bad. Write well, and earn our patience. Write badly and credit us with the sense to throw it off no matter how desperately you worked to grab our attention. So of the 2 processes, the better one is to get inside the characters' own stream of thought. Do that right and the problem of reader boredom should take care of itself.
By the way, how funny is Ethel Rosenberg? Ethel Mertz funny?
FROM THE EMAIL: Paul quotes my long paragraph — the one that begins "Notice..." — and offers this quote from Umberto Eco's "Post-Script to The Name of the Rose" (1984):
My friends and editors suggested I abbreviate the first hundred pages, which they found very difficult and demanding. Without thinking twice, I refused, because, as I insisted, if somebody wanted to enter the abbey and live there for seven days, he had to accept the abbey’s own pace. If he could not, he would never manage to read the whole book. Therefore those first hundred pages are like a penance or initiation, and if someone does not like them, so much the worse for him. He can stay at the foot of the mountain.
ALSO: EDH sends this (and why have I never heard of it? I love Jermaine Clement!):
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Temujin writes:
To me the process of writing is about inhabiting the character's mind, thinking as they do, speaking as they do, and acting out as they do. It's a process, much like acting I think, where you have to separate from yourself and become that character. I'm working on it and it's very hard to stay 'on'. Especially given the interaction of multiple characters. So I've started a story over multiple times as I have strayed away from the character's essence and found myself showing up, instead of that character I had built earlier on. I've taken to writing up notes to help me stay on course as this thing moves forward. If I catch myself moving off character, I read through the notes that are like a compendium of personality maps. The notes are getting more detailed as I write. But I'm trying to find that spot that I hear about from writers where the character finally takes over, and it (the story) takes on a life of its own.
I have zero regard or thought about what is going on in the reader's head. That would have the same effect as when someone asks me what I'm writing about. If I tell someone the storyline, then that is going to affect how this all plays out. Instead of the story taking on a life of its own, I've now committed to this storyline I just told people about. If I do that, then I don't need maps of the characters' personalities. And as you know in your own lives- you cannot predict life, or any of the characters you might meet, or the circumstances that you run into, or how you react to those circumstances. If I write what I think you're expecting, it's less real than if my characters have an unexpected life- like all of us actually have. THIS is what the reader (hopefully) is attracted to.
That, and car crashes, money, sex power, and heavy drinking.
Just kidding. All that said, the writer the article is about, Francine Prose, is very accomplished. Your know, Radcliffe, a PEN prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, multiple books, essays, and short stories that lead to more awards and acclaim of the sort that well connected, strong Leftist living in Manhattan tend to get. She is also noted for being part of a penned idiotic comment about the Charlie Hebdo attacks that only someone so thoroughly out of touch from the regular folk on the street could utter. She is not of 'regular' folk. No matter. She has apparently written a book about writing. And though my 'To Read' list is impossibly too large, I may have to read her book on writing because I like to read different author's books on writing.
As for Ethel Rosenberg, I'd have to say she is nowhere to be found on any list of people who make you think of comedy. I mean, being convicted and put to death for treason- whether that should have happened or not- has never been considered one of the go-to categories for a sure laugh. But, reading the info about the book on Amazon, it looks like it's a stretch of a story that might work- for those who are already fans of hers. It does apparently include money, sex, and power, so there's that. Maybe she's looking for a hit. Nothing wrong with that. Though I'd rather read something about Vivian Vance and her working years with Lucy.
Mark writes:
Well, maybe not Ethel Mertz funny, but Bob Dylan funny:
"Eisenhower was president, Senator Joe was king
Long as you didn't say nothing, you could say anything"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irnm-brnbEA">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irnm-brnbEA
Ernest writes:
I love and am guided by this bit of advice on writing from C. S. Lewis:
“I sometimes think that writing is like driving sheep down a road. If there is any gate open to the left or the right the reader will most certainly go into it.”
C. S. Lewis in an interview by Sherwood Wirt, 7 May 1963, in God in the dock: Essays on theology and ethics, C. S. Lewis, ed by Walter Hooper (Eerdmans 1970), 263."
Ted writes:
"The article on Francine Prose credits her high literary output in part to her husband of 45 years, who -- apart from splitting child care when their kids were growing up -- handles "everything else" in their lives (including chauffeuring his non-driving wife everywhere). He calls it
"Leonard Woolfing" her, in reference to Virginia Woolf's "famously nurturing" husband. Compare that to other famously hard-working writers and artists, whose spouses were said to be made miserable by similar expectations that they would devote their entire lives to supporting the Great One's output -- claims that often damage the artist's reputation in retrospect. (Granted, many of these artists were also unfaithful, or in other ways bad partners.) I wonder if both Philip Roth and Claire Bloom would have been happier if, instead of being with an actress with her own literary ambitions, he had married someone who actually enjoyed handling the everyday details of their lives while he dove into his writing for weeks or months on end. (Also, I wonder if in 2021, we're more comfortable thinking about a man supporting his wife this way, rather than a woman doing it for her husband.)"
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