The line I'd like to draw between all three essays we read for this week--Murray, Doyle, and Atleework--is genre and what it means to us a readers, but most of all what it means to us as writers. Murray observes that one thing writers recognize is a "signal" to write is genre. "The writer sees experience as a plot or a lyric poem or a news story or a chronicle. The writer uses such literary traditions to see and understand life" (33). But then he adds a warning: "Genre is a powerful but dangerous lens. It both clarifies and limits" (34). Then Doyle throws open the door on the personal essay, a genre he describes as the "widest fattest most generous open glorious honest endless expanding form of committing prose" (11), one that is " not only closest to the speaking voice but the maundering shambling shuffling nutty salty singing voices in our heads." Before Doyle exits, h concludes, "As a general rule the essay is a clap on the back, a hand outstretched to be grasped, a blunt voice in your ear" (17). Then we have the essay itself, "Charade," one that presumably embodies the exuberant qualities that Doyle celebrates in the genre--its digressiveness, its throbbing speed, its flexibility, its brevity and voiceyness. How do these two things match up--Doyle's description of the essay and Atleework's execution of the form? Also, as you reflect on your experience writing essays and/or Doyle's description of the form, what do you sense the genre is inviting you to do? What does it invite you to write about? How does it invite you to write? In what ways is it a "dangerous lens" that both "clarifies and limits?"
Let the conversation begin!
Atleework’s piece definitely works well as an example of what Doyle discusses. She plays with time, digressions, and language, but she also has a “traditional” essay in the sense that it wouldn’t be placed in an “experimental” category. It mostly follows linear time, it has a few characters, its shape is what we expect. So, on the one hand, it’s playful, but on the other, it’s a pretty solid example of what a traditional essay might look like. (Plus that final line – holy shit.)
ReplyDeleteThis discussion of genre reminds me of all the listicles I’ve seen in the past year or so that discuss “genre-bending” books. Usually they feature Anne Carson and Haruki Murakami and Italo Calvino, and occasionally there’s the addition of Maggie Nelson’s Bluets and/or The Argonauts. But I don’t remember ever seeing any essay collections or other memoirs or much in the way of nonfiction period.
I would guess that, aside from the fact that larger literary discussions mainly focus on fiction, essays are hard to “bend” as a genre because there really aren’t that many hard and fast “rules,” at least not that anyone talks about. Whenever I read anything that “defines” the essay, it never really specifies that it must be a certain way (other than maybe “truthful,” whatever that means). There are a few sub-genres, I guess, like the lyric essay or flash nonfiction, but mostly an essay is an essay. This makes the invitation to write it, for me anyway, very open and exciting.
But there are some unspoken rules that make it a bit limiting. The traditional essay is largely privileged, making some forms of risk-taking a little more, well, risky. There’s also the persistent requirement of “self-awareness” that no one ever really defines. This self-awareness is very rhetorical, in that if there is too little, or too much, or the wrong kind, the piece ultimately “fails” in the genre. And, abstractions are mostly frowned upon unless they are heavily anchored by metaphor or scene and story.
I think that some of the rules or expectations – that the writer must be “self-aware” and show a universality that comes from the personal experience – stems from the relentless idea that personal writing is egocentric, which writers of the essay are simultaneously embracing and pushing against. In “Charade” we can see that the writer is “self-aware” (whatever that means), and that there are universal themes in her experience, making this, again, a solid example of the genre, here because the reader doesn’t think she’s full of herself AND because we can identify with the themes in our own way.
FYI, Emery. There is a recent book titled Bending Genre: Essays on Creative Nonfiction. It's pretty uneven, though we're reading one essay from the collection this semester. I'd like to take up the question about "self-awareness" that you mention here in class. It's really interesting, especially in the context of the idea that really we're constructing an "I-character" in our work. A self aware I-character?
DeleteThe "Charade" essay I found had an underlying structure. Using then and now narrators the essay set-up the joined and parallel lives of her and Elizabeth, and how parental figures affected their futures. It did this through a linear fashion, with a great attention to descriptive detail, but also the creation of a somber mood and tone. From the beginning, its clear some strange and bleak things are going to happen.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of genre, perhaps "Charade" would be termed narrative nonfiction or a personal essay or a slice of memoir. To me, at the moment, these terms bleed into one another. In particular, the sorting out of the features of the myriad sub-genres of creative nonfiction seems a useful but self-defeating (?) task. As Doyle notes that the essay is many things.
Understanding, and perhaps exploiting, genres and their boundaries is a good place to start. Doyle's essay, a playful segmented one, perhaps a manifesto of sorts, is a good primer on the idea that essays can take many forms and can grapple with many types of ideas and situations and characters. There are perhaps as many sub-genres of the essay as sub-genres of literary fiction. It would be interesting--and I've never thought of this before--to see if there are parallels to genre fiction??
"Charade" is a perfect example of why I feel inadequate writing in the personal essay genre. It's dangerous and poignant and huge and sad, but it’s still so goddamn pretty. I'm really interested in what Emery said above: "The traditional essay is largely privileged, making some forms of risk-taking a little more, well, risky." The subject matter of "Charade" feels risky to me; its style, while it seems to be one version of what Doyle calls for, doesn't actually seem as risky. In many ways it's what I expect from the genre, but am not sure I can execute. I feel compelled to write about the stuff that makes people gasp or cry (like Atleework does), but only in a way that makes those same readers say "ooh...that sounded nice" (also like Atleework does). It's like shelter from the weight of the content can be found in extended, poetic description...perhaps the piece wouldn't be bearable for either writer or reader if that style wasn’t there. Basically, I don't feel invited to say things that I can't quite make pretty yet, and I'm not sure what to make of that (mostly self-imposed) limitation.
ReplyDeleteAnd I can't believe that Atleework made some of the most embarrassing features of my middle school years feel romantic and important. If I was writing, I'd probably leave them embarrassing and try to make them important. That's why I found Doyle's article so comforting--Murray intimidated me in some ways, made me feels like there are some fundamental writerly experiences that I'm missing out on, but Doyle told me to do whatever I want. Unfortunately, Shia Labeouf's "Just Do It" video comes to mind and I wish I had something less horrible to describe what I’m seeing as the importance of freedom in writing creative nonfiction, but that’s the approach to the genre I need to start taking to essay writing. I’ll admire everything I love about “Charade”, but won’t worry about replicating it.
I guess I'll have to watch the Labeouf video?
DeleteTo first speak to Bruce's question. If there is a signal via genre to point into a direction of what it is we should or could do, then could the signal be when pointing to creative nonfiction to do as Doyle suggests and do whatever you please while adhering to the truth? If the genre of non-fiction is kind of a melting pot of devices and tricks and voices and entries then it says do that, do all of that just as Doyle suggest. So, the warning I think to be wary of genre and the limits it might apply should you take this signal, to me makes more sense in regards to other more limiting genres. Although, I think at times it is more terrifying to have no rules, a do what ever you please invitation is intimidating. Are there more rules beyond, tell the truth? I think what I'm doing here is mostly agreeing and repeating what Emory said above.
ReplyDeleteThe Doyle essay was fu, a permission slip with a dose of hype. It was easy and I enjoyed it. And I agree it's a mix a lot genre. I love it for that.
What I did find really interesting in the Write Before Writting essay was more speaking to my teaching self and the importance of prewriting and giving my students time in that space to think things out. That and I also found some weird gratification for my writer self who walks to the coop twice a day and somehow insists that lying in the backyard is part of the process. I've found someone to agree with me. ha!
I think Charade was a pretty perfect example of how this genre can bend and lean and look like fiction. And I think that's a grace of it. You get to be retrospective and have all this insight without being an overbearing narrator. It's simply the law of the land. And yet there is a world to be created and characters to love and subtle moments to think on. Aside from the last few lines I think the whole piece was well executed.
Genre has always been a wildly interesting aspect of writing to me. I love the idea of writing within a genre and then adding more or breaking roles or molds to create a multi-genred mosaic of words and ideas. I think the reason why this is appealing to me is because I have only ever been told to write in a particular genre: academic writing, article, and essay—separately. Constantly interested in why and how we do what we do, combining and changing the ordinary is elusive, attractive, and intriguing to me. Because of this background I am inclined to feel less restricted by genre and more empowered to be able to use the rules of a genre in a way I want and then deviate as necessary. As mentioned both by Emery and then Madison, though, I am concerned about privilege and risk… and the ways they interact with genre in general as well as particular genres. I don’t think I know enough about the field to be able to know where or why I feel this beyond anxiety for sharing particular experiences through writing in certain intentional or creative ways.
ReplyDeleteDoyle’s piece was liberating and whimsical, making me feel like the essay is the perfect genre to begin with and alter. Murray’s piece, though more prescriptive, still made me feel at ease as he wrote about time to process, find ideas in the minute aspects of daily life, etc. As others have also said, “Charade” is the exemplar example we are given this week to consider genre and the invitation to write. Beautifully written and crafted, perfect word choice, and successful execution of tone and voice, I was sucked into the piece immediately. Tending to lean toward humor myself, the undertone of loss and angst coupled with some level of dark acceptance was very important for me as a reader and writer to read. As Madison said, I am happy to admire this piece, but do not want to wallow in my inexperience, and appreciate the exposure. I look forward to reading more work that differs from the little I have written so far in order to grow and broaden my range of knowledge—and hopefully gain some new skills, too.
The three pieces as a series of readings for one week made sense to me. Overall they have ignited more interest and excitement—and apprehensive nerves for my own workshop weeks—in me for writing. Doyle’s piece coupled with the example “Charade” makes me want to take risks and do them as much justice as possible. While I love laughter, I want to explore more vulnerable aspects of me and people as a whole. I want to believe Doyle and take his advice to heart that we can in fact write about what we want and how we want it through means of the essay. In order to do this I know that I must continue to overcome worry about what is or isn’t right and confront topics that I would otherwise shy away from.
On my first reading of "Charade" I found myself lost in the description of Swall Meadows, and the frequent zooming in and zooming out of Atleework and her friendship with Elizabeth. When Atleework announces that her mother had cancer and died, I went back to reread the essay from the beginning. During this second reading, I found significance in those details that at first seemed scattered and loosely arranged on the page, like "the skeletons of silver poplars, peaks bristled by evergreens" and the description of autumn rain "resigned to an approaching freeze" (22). These first pages of "Charade," I think, align well with Doyle's example in the first section of his article. Doyle uses multiple beginnings in one story, much like "Charade" does. I imagine the multiple beginnings of "Charade" operating to avoid and postpone the line, "On November 17 my mother was diagnosed.." (25). Throughout "Charade," Atleework's narration scarcely lingers upon mention of her mother, and when it does Atleework quickly jerks back to memories of Elizabeth and her father, Russell. I also think Atleework's essay demonstrates Doyle's description of the essay as "the closest form to the human voice" (15). The honesty of Atleework's voice, makes her essay all the more moving, in its bluntness. As Doyle notes the honesty of an essay "is good, because we listen easily and naturally to voices" (15).
ReplyDeleteWriting about myself makes me incredibly nervous. I talk about myself a lot, sure, but writing sticks to the page. When Doyle describes the essay as "the most naked" I read that as a feeling instead of a way to understand its lack of genre conventions. I think this genre invites me to feel vulnerable and along with that maybe a little naked. I think the essay also invites me to allow my experience and feeling to shape the structure and direction of an essay rather than a set of predetermined conventions. In terms of content, Atleework's essay inspires me to consider revisiting a younger version of myself with maturity and a range of new experiences. I also, liked Atleework's mix of showing and telling, and her carefully placed directness toward the end of particular scenes. I'd like to try something similar in my own writing. I think the essay could be dangerous in the sense that it's known to be true. I'm limited by the real people involved in what I write, and what information about them I can include and really shouldn't.
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ReplyDeleteThese three selections seem to be at odds with each other and themselves, though, standard caveat, maybe it is my inexperience with and ignorance of the genre of the personal essay that leads me to think so.
ReplyDeleteDoyle claims that the essay form is very free, but then advises that it shouldn’t be too “scholarly,” “a parade of facts,” “too stern and instructive and scoldacious,” “too spitting mad and uncontrolled,” “too uncontrolled and wandering…” It seems to me that Doyle’s concept of an essay has many limitations, and his extolling of the virtues of the essay “without much artiface” is kind of inaccurate, like he is failing to register the borders and expectations that he is himself placing upon the genre.
Madison in her response said “I don't feel invited to say things that I can't quite make pretty yet, and I'm not sure what to make of that (mostly self-imposed) limitation.” I think that Doyle’s exploration of the playfulness of the essay fails to recognize what’s going on in that playfulness. I think that this idea of making these ideas “pretty” kind of suggests an aesthetic conventionality that Doyle misses entirely, and the failure the operate in that register is a failure to meet the expectations of the genre.
I also think that Doyle makes too many assumptions about who I am as a reader, and what my ideas look like “naked.” I get the impression that Doyle's idea of playfulness in writing is not mine, and that it is some performance of the expected playfulness that is demanded by genre conventions. Like maybe the persona that is enacted through essay writing is not just consciously constructed by the author in an attempt to communicate their ideas effectively, but is instead a compromise between the author and essay writing orthodoxy?
Again, pointing to my inexperience with personal essays as a potential culprit, “Charade” defied what I thought was a somewhat definitive convention of essay writing: some attempt at analysis, of making sense of what is presented. Instead Charade tells a brief story, with some poetic elements to it, with a one line realization that I think falls flat considering everything that was building up to it. “We were not as beautiful as we were permanent?” What does that mean after spending several pages examining impermanence and the attempt to make meaning through the aestheticization of our impermanence and suffering? I felt a bit incredulous and shortchanged reading that line.
Granted that Murray was looking predominantly at fiction writers, in examining how authors know when to start, the signals that are brought up largely point to something that the authors thought told a story, whether it is an image, a plot, or a character that seems lifelike to that author. This focus on particular elements that fit together in ways that are made coherent by the genre in which they are written is how I’m able to make sense of Murray’s argument that genre signals to the author some “closure” to their concept, some idea that their writing makes sense as a unit, which is part of why I find these readings troubling, and not as others have said inviting to be free with my writing.
I am confronted by one article that suggests that my knowledge of the genre is what will tell me when my ideas are ready to write (does it get any more artifice than that?) and two other pieces that show me that my previous assumptions about the genre are at least potentially incorrect. Simultaneously I’m getting the message that my writing should be playful and relatively free from the constraints placed on other genres; it should be an exploration that doesn’t worry too much about orthodoxy.
I'm curious about the idea of genre as a signal, especially this bit from Murray in the section Bruce highlights : "The writer and the student must be careful not to see life merely in the stereotype form with which he or she is most familiar but to look at life with all of the possibilities of the genre in mind and to attempt to look at life through different genre" (34). To me, this serves as a great reminder of the limiting nature of my default mode of operating in the world, my habitual way of seeing things. Doyle champions the essay as an opportunity to writing freely in the voices that most resemble our selves, and Murray suggests we might grant ourselves permission to see differently.The combination of these ideas suggest infinite possibilities i.e. the essay as anything is possible.
ReplyDeleteMadison and June inspired many thoughts on beautiful language. What do we recognize as beautiful language and how do these conventions change over time? I have begun to prefer less beautiful writing or perhaps my idea of what is beautiful has changed. There is a lovely passage from 'Charade' that speaks directly toward this idea of beauty vs. utility (bottom of 26) and I look forward to hearing the thoughts of all in class.
The notion of paying attention jumped out at me as common ground in all of these pieces. Clearly, close attention is the only means through which a piece like 'Charade' comes into being, both attention to the moment and attention to the act of writing. Murray advocates attention to the process and warns that if we're not careful, we'll always be paying attention to the same old things. Doyle gets right to the heart of the matter on the bottom of 14, speaking of Annie Dillard's essay, "which begins like any old 'nature essay'...about paying attention to that which we hardly pay any real attention to (this being the subject of all essay, really)."
I began thinking about what I would write in this post by focusing on Bruce’s first question: “How do these two things match up--Doyle's description of the essay and Atleework's execution of the form?” As I pondered this question, I imagined being Kendra Atleework and writing “Charade.” I found myself wondering what first prompted her to write this essay. Was she thinking about Elizabeth? Was she thinking about her mother? Or was she thinking about the rain in Swall Meadows? Perhaps she was sitting with pen in hand or fingers over keys, staring out at the rain and not sure what to write, as stuck as we have all felt before. Or perhaps images and memories and thoughts came to her over time until she realized they were all connected. Where Doyle comes in—and this is what amazes me about the essay genre, as well—is that Atleework’s essay could have stemmed from anything really, even a memory of Hitler the guinea pig. The essay form allowed Atleework to connect rain, Elizabeth, her mother, and even little Hitler in a work that is full of other digressions that show how important the minor details of our lives can be in our memories and therefore our stories. I think Murray is right that it takes time for our thoughts and memories to connect so we can write these stories out in essay form. As we take that time, though, I think we have to be open to anything and avoid sitting down to write an essay that will say what we already think we think (as we discussed last week). This is the most confining limitation we seem to put on the essay: that it must be perfectly coherent and sensible despite our being told that we can play by writers like Doyle. At least, this has been one of my problems in the past. But we don’t really know which details will be important to our essays when we first begin writing them, and making those judgments in the thinking-drafting stages (not writing something down, deleting something that seems insignificant so it is lost to us) could cause us to miss out on some interesting opportunities. This is why I like to wait as long as possible to decide on form.
ReplyDeleteI also find myself dwelling on Bruce’s last question: “In what ways is it [genre] a ‘dangerous lens’ that both ‘clarifies and limits?’” This made me think about my genre decisions. When I make the decision to write either a short story or an essay on a topic or idea that has been on my mind, my choice of genre certainly shapes my thinking about it. When I decide to write a short story, I seem to become an observer of the subject, someone who is watching the story unfold and trying to do it justice by recording it. When I decide to write an essay, I stay very personally connected with the subject, and I do tend to focus on how I feel about it rather than imagining it. As a result, my essays tend to be about ideas rather than stories. Maybe I am limiting myself too much by creating such a strong division between the process I use to write stories and the process I use to write essays. I’ll be keeping this in mind as I write this semester.
In the most general sense, if genre were a retail store, I have always considered it would have to be like a Sunglass Hut—a space filled with different lenses waiting for customers to peruse, try on, consider their reflection, and fall in love with how they see the world through said lenses. Everyone is welcome to try on every single pair available, but not every pair will work…just like we’re encouraged to keep an open mind about writing in different genres. But not all make sense, given the person involved and the contexts with which they are trying to write.
ReplyDeleteWith Doyle’s laments of essays being glorious because of their unfilterdness and naked form I have to rethink my metaphor. Perhaps this is why essays and I battle. I feel like I keep trying to change my perspective by changing my ‘lenses’ or clothes or whatever persona-esque metaphor seems fitting to you. I understand now that I take full advantage of that pre-writing idleness and OVERTHINK all of the things. I am terrible at being mindful to keep myself physically busy, so that my subconscious can think about what I am going to write about, totally against Murray’s advice. I try too hard to make essays “look” a certain way. When really, what I should be doing is strip away the costume, the jewelry, wash off the layers of caked on makeup that I perceive as beautiful and likeable. Essays = stripped. And this scares the shit out of me.
As far as Atleework’s piece, I felt that “Charade” offered a voice that felt exposed to me as a reader. To be honest, I felt that how she weaved her caregiving of her terminal mother within the sleep-over bears narrative felt less like asides, but like the meat of essay. As a reader, I found myself hunting for these. Like Doyle’s arrow metaphor, Atleework’s lines about her mother, “She looked a lot like me” (26), “…most mornings she slept late, against the rasp of the oxygen tank” (27) pierced me. The narrative that follows in a mostly chronological order as Emery pointed out, could be seen as taking a safer route, for sure. However, the autumn nights that the girls would cake on makeup and sneak out to walk in the rain were what ultimately destroyed me.
I love the opening metaphor!
DeleteI read Atleework's essay after Doyle's and, to be honest, I think I was a little disappointed with how little freedom she took with the form. Of course it was a beautifully written essay and I don't want to sound like I'm disparaging it, but I didn't feel that Atleework's essay lives up to the promise of Doyle's. To read an essay that is so free and liberating as Doyle's was, to be given essentially free reign, was exhilarating, but Atleework's, like Emery says above, follows a mostly traditional structure. There were times throughout where I thought she would incorporate more "experimental" (for lack of a better word) aspects, like text messages or lyrics, just to throw something out there, and I found myself just a little let down when she didn't.
ReplyDeleteThen again, it's probably hypocritical of me to praise a piece for granting us freedom and critique another for what I feel is failure to take advantage of that. The format that Atleework chose for this essay really works - it's a little formal, tinged with both the joy of fond remembrances and the sadness of what is to come. And that more than anything is what we embrace in the genre of nonfiction - the freedom to choose any format we want, be it wild and exuberant like Doyle's or somber and distant like Atleework's.
In many ways I don't think of nonfiction as even being a genre. I tend to see visible divisions between the others (as fiction and poetry and newswriting are generally pretty easy to distinguish) but everything else gets lumped into nonfiction. I suppose I see it as being somewhat like the Island of Misfit Toys from Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer. Everything that doesn't belong somewhere else accumulates in the nonfiction essay, as we writers, as the winged lion king, love it all and give it a home in our work.
I suppose that's a highly personalized answer to a general question. I can see how genre could be limiting if you declare something too fictive or too news-y (?) for your essay, but I ultimately think that on a personal level the writer has to define how clear-cut they want the divisions between genres to be, and if they're comfortable letting those bleed into each other.