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mallorys_cameraBack-to-back social encounters. Should I call them dates? Well, they involved men who are very attractive, food, animated conversation, multiple literary allusions, and a kind of buzz in the under-firmament that resulted in three hours of sleep the first night and four hours of sleep the next.
Alan is much smarter than I am, which in itself is kind of a novelty because I am pretty damn smart.
He's also aggressive in a very strange way. (When he told me later in the evening he plays competitive bridge I thought, Of course you do.)
We're doing a writers group. I write much better than he does. Nonetheless, when he strode into the restaurant wearing a charming embroidered denim jacket – which I guessed and he later confirmed was a relic of his Columbia undergraduate days now 40 years gone – he immediately took over the critiquing.
"I read what you sent me," he announced. I'd emailed him what I guess is the prologue to my Steinbeck novel. I finally realized that rather than whinging about underutilization, existential angst and the inevitable disappointments of the human incarnation, I should actually look at the next 10 months as a fucking gift from the Universe – it's (largely) untenanted time, right? I could use it to write.
"Here's the deal though," Alan continued. "You continually violate the first tenet of all good fiction, which is show, don't tell. Also, while each of your sentences individually are very well written, their cumulative effect is monotonous because you never vary their rhythm."
I blinked five or six times and focused my attention on my glass of Pinot Noir. How sophisticated I'd felt before he'd entered the restaurant, sitting at the bar in this restaurant with its fabulously restored tin ceiling and its mirrored walls! But really, really, really, I need to cut my hair! I'm starting to look positively witchy.
"Fair enough," I said evenly.
The second criticism, at least, was probably accurate. I recently finished a book called Cooked by Michael Pollan, which I'd desperately wanted to like, but in fact had loathed for reasons I couldn't quite put my finger on. The best I'd been able to come up with was the thought that each individual sentence had too much Béarnaise sauce, which meant I could not read it in my preferred fashion -- which is basically to lock myself in a room for three days and read it straight through. At a certain point, the complexity of Pollan's sentences started to make my eyes glaze over. Of course, one could argue that Pollan did not intend this book to be read in three days straight, that he wanted it to be -- well -- savored. That perhaps my inability to appreciate this book owed more to my inadequacies as a reader than to Pollan's inadequacies as a writer.
Nonetheless, when I finally finished the last intricately fashioned sentence in Cooked, I wanted to book the first flight to Oakland, hop on Bart, get off in Berkeley, hunt down Michael Pollan's house, show up in his kitchen and bitch slap him.
Overwriting is even more of a problem in fiction than it is in nonfiction, particularly if you're using a third person POV. If the story is strong enough, you really want it to be the star. This almost always demands simple writing. Object-verb-subject. Object-verb-subject. Maybe every five sentences or so, you can throw it a zingy metaphor.
(First person POV is much more forgiving since you are essentially acting as a guide on a tour through an interior landscape, and people do think rhythmically and disjointedly.)
Then there was the business about the wine. I know absolutely nothing about wine and have never felt my life to be any the poorer for it. But I know wine is a Big Deal for many people so maybe he's one of them.
He demanded a taste of the house Scheherazade.
"How do you find it, sir?" asked the sylph-like young waitress.
"I can't tell you how much I dislike this," he said smiling. "[Your esoteric grape type goes here] should only be used to make [your esoteric wine type goes here.] Do you have any of the [Hey! I had it at that 2-star restaurant in Paris?]"
"I'm sorry, sir. We don't."
"Okay, well then, I guess I'll have a glass of the Pinot Noir."
After we had established that Alan is sufficiently insightful to eviscerate me critically and knows far more than I do about the finer things in life, we got along like a house on fire.
No, I mean, we really did.
He is the first person I've met since I met Ben over 20 year ago with whom I have that mental telepathy thing going.
We literally thought exactly the same things at exactly the same moment.
I knew it because the things I was thinking kept coming out of his mouth. Even unto the relatively obscure literary quote fests from Yeats and Auden --
"About suffering they were never wrong, the Old Masters. How well they understood --"
"-- the torturer's innocent horse scratching its innocent behind against a tree and the children who ddid not specially want it to happen --"
We laughed delightedly.
"You know, I stood in front of that very painting quoting that very poem to myself," he told me.
Of course, you did, I thought to myself. Because I did too. But I didn't say that. I just smiled.
It was a fucking trip, I'll tell you.
Of course, I would never get romantically involved with Alan in a billion years. Why? There is just too much disparity in our respective economic positions. He's got a ton of money. I, as faithful readers know, am just this side of destitute. This would almost certainly relegate me to second-string girlfriend position sooner or later, should I jump on the bait -- never a particularly comfortable position to be in.
Nevertheless, it was quite intoxicating to be around someone with whom I felt that mind meld thing going. BB, my other favorite male pal of the moment, has a completely different brain than I do, so while we also have long, quite delightful conversations, we tend to speed-rap in a series of digressions. Over, around and through each other. Not with each other.
Toward the end of the evening, Alan said something quite interesting to me.
"You know, I've observed something about you."
"Do tell."
"I'm not really sure how to articulate it --"
"I have braised kale on my teeth?"
He laughed. "You formulate your encounters almost as though they were short stories. For example, you keep bringing the conversation around full circle so that we're talking about the same things we were talking about at the beginning of the evening but from a startlingly different perspective. It's like the repetition of a leitmotif with a distinct beginning, middle movement and ending. It's very intriguing."
"Very perceptive," I said. "You're right. I do do that. That's because I'm writing it in my head while it's happening."
At the end of the evening, he seemed to lose interest in me rather abruptly. Not sure whether that was because I'd started to bore him or because he was contemplating the 30 mile drive back to the mansion in horse country. He did insist on picking up his manuscript, which I had printed out - he hadn't printed out my manuscript -- and covered in red pen line edits.
At the beginning of the evening, I'd told him, "I think you need to reread E.B. White's The Elements of Style --"
He'd cast me a dismissive look. "I supported myself through college as a copy editor."
Well, that may be, thought I to myself, but you've obviously forgotten much of what you used to know or you'd remember that when you use a dependent sentence after a colon you always capitalize the first letter.
But, of course, I didn't say anything. I did the multiple blink thing again and sipped my wine. Maybe I played with my hair (which needs cutting.)
So I was kind of surprised that he wanted to read my edits. Which were filled with stuff like, Bad word choice -- what you mean to say here is "discursive" not "dismissive" and You've repeated the word "ineffectual" 15 times in a row -- vary your adjectives!
He is really gonna bristle when he reads my critique, I thought. No doubt, snort and think, Well, what can you expect from a woman who really needs to cut her hair?
Ah, well. We are not scheduled to meet again for another ten days. During that time he will have plenty of time to be minorly annoyed and put on the defensive by many other people. All he'll remember about me is that I know the words to Musée des Beaux Artes.
Oh, and I also want to mention how ecstatic I am that Alice Munro won the Nobel. One of my very, very favorite writers. Good show!
Alan is much smarter than I am, which in itself is kind of a novelty because I am pretty damn smart.
He's also aggressive in a very strange way. (When he told me later in the evening he plays competitive bridge I thought, Of course you do.)
We're doing a writers group. I write much better than he does. Nonetheless, when he strode into the restaurant wearing a charming embroidered denim jacket – which I guessed and he later confirmed was a relic of his Columbia undergraduate days now 40 years gone – he immediately took over the critiquing.
"I read what you sent me," he announced. I'd emailed him what I guess is the prologue to my Steinbeck novel. I finally realized that rather than whinging about underutilization, existential angst and the inevitable disappointments of the human incarnation, I should actually look at the next 10 months as a fucking gift from the Universe – it's (largely) untenanted time, right? I could use it to write.
"Here's the deal though," Alan continued. "You continually violate the first tenet of all good fiction, which is show, don't tell. Also, while each of your sentences individually are very well written, their cumulative effect is monotonous because you never vary their rhythm."
I blinked five or six times and focused my attention on my glass of Pinot Noir. How sophisticated I'd felt before he'd entered the restaurant, sitting at the bar in this restaurant with its fabulously restored tin ceiling and its mirrored walls! But really, really, really, I need to cut my hair! I'm starting to look positively witchy.
"Fair enough," I said evenly.
The second criticism, at least, was probably accurate. I recently finished a book called Cooked by Michael Pollan, which I'd desperately wanted to like, but in fact had loathed for reasons I couldn't quite put my finger on. The best I'd been able to come up with was the thought that each individual sentence had too much Béarnaise sauce, which meant I could not read it in my preferred fashion -- which is basically to lock myself in a room for three days and read it straight through. At a certain point, the complexity of Pollan's sentences started to make my eyes glaze over. Of course, one could argue that Pollan did not intend this book to be read in three days straight, that he wanted it to be -- well -- savored. That perhaps my inability to appreciate this book owed more to my inadequacies as a reader than to Pollan's inadequacies as a writer.
Nonetheless, when I finally finished the last intricately fashioned sentence in Cooked, I wanted to book the first flight to Oakland, hop on Bart, get off in Berkeley, hunt down Michael Pollan's house, show up in his kitchen and bitch slap him.
Overwriting is even more of a problem in fiction than it is in nonfiction, particularly if you're using a third person POV. If the story is strong enough, you really want it to be the star. This almost always demands simple writing. Object-verb-subject. Object-verb-subject. Maybe every five sentences or so, you can throw it a zingy metaphor.
(First person POV is much more forgiving since you are essentially acting as a guide on a tour through an interior landscape, and people do think rhythmically and disjointedly.)
Then there was the business about the wine. I know absolutely nothing about wine and have never felt my life to be any the poorer for it. But I know wine is a Big Deal for many people so maybe he's one of them.
He demanded a taste of the house Scheherazade.
"How do you find it, sir?" asked the sylph-like young waitress.
"I can't tell you how much I dislike this," he said smiling. "[Your esoteric grape type goes here] should only be used to make [your esoteric wine type goes here.] Do you have any of the [Hey! I had it at that 2-star restaurant in Paris?]"
"I'm sorry, sir. We don't."
"Okay, well then, I guess I'll have a glass of the Pinot Noir."
After we had established that Alan is sufficiently insightful to eviscerate me critically and knows far more than I do about the finer things in life, we got along like a house on fire.
No, I mean, we really did.
He is the first person I've met since I met Ben over 20 year ago with whom I have that mental telepathy thing going.
We literally thought exactly the same things at exactly the same moment.
I knew it because the things I was thinking kept coming out of his mouth. Even unto the relatively obscure literary quote fests from Yeats and Auden --
"About suffering they were never wrong, the Old Masters. How well they understood --"
"-- the torturer's innocent horse scratching its innocent behind against a tree and the children who ddid not specially want it to happen --"
We laughed delightedly.
"You know, I stood in front of that very painting quoting that very poem to myself," he told me.
Of course, you did, I thought to myself. Because I did too. But I didn't say that. I just smiled.
It was a fucking trip, I'll tell you.
Of course, I would never get romantically involved with Alan in a billion years. Why? There is just too much disparity in our respective economic positions. He's got a ton of money. I, as faithful readers know, am just this side of destitute. This would almost certainly relegate me to second-string girlfriend position sooner or later, should I jump on the bait -- never a particularly comfortable position to be in.
Nevertheless, it was quite intoxicating to be around someone with whom I felt that mind meld thing going. BB, my other favorite male pal of the moment, has a completely different brain than I do, so while we also have long, quite delightful conversations, we tend to speed-rap in a series of digressions. Over, around and through each other. Not with each other.
Toward the end of the evening, Alan said something quite interesting to me.
"You know, I've observed something about you."
"Do tell."
"I'm not really sure how to articulate it --"
"I have braised kale on my teeth?"
He laughed. "You formulate your encounters almost as though they were short stories. For example, you keep bringing the conversation around full circle so that we're talking about the same things we were talking about at the beginning of the evening but from a startlingly different perspective. It's like the repetition of a leitmotif with a distinct beginning, middle movement and ending. It's very intriguing."
"Very perceptive," I said. "You're right. I do do that. That's because I'm writing it in my head while it's happening."
At the end of the evening, he seemed to lose interest in me rather abruptly. Not sure whether that was because I'd started to bore him or because he was contemplating the 30 mile drive back to the mansion in horse country. He did insist on picking up his manuscript, which I had printed out - he hadn't printed out my manuscript -- and covered in red pen line edits.
At the beginning of the evening, I'd told him, "I think you need to reread E.B. White's The Elements of Style --"
He'd cast me a dismissive look. "I supported myself through college as a copy editor."
Well, that may be, thought I to myself, but you've obviously forgotten much of what you used to know or you'd remember that when you use a dependent sentence after a colon you always capitalize the first letter.
But, of course, I didn't say anything. I did the multiple blink thing again and sipped my wine. Maybe I played with my hair (which needs cutting.)
So I was kind of surprised that he wanted to read my edits. Which were filled with stuff like, Bad word choice -- what you mean to say here is "discursive" not "dismissive" and You've repeated the word "ineffectual" 15 times in a row -- vary your adjectives!
He is really gonna bristle when he reads my critique, I thought. No doubt, snort and think, Well, what can you expect from a woman who really needs to cut her hair?
Ah, well. We are not scheduled to meet again for another ten days. During that time he will have plenty of time to be minorly annoyed and put on the defensive by many other people. All he'll remember about me is that I know the words to Musée des Beaux Artes.
Oh, and I also want to mention how ecstatic I am that Alice Munro won the Nobel. One of my very, very favorite writers. Good show!
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Feel free to screen if this is too pragmatic
Date: 2013-10-11 12:13 pm (UTC)I wouldn't assume that he's out of your league: my guess is that you keep up with him in a way that doesn't happen often. And frankly, you were a model -- if he wants a glossy, gorgeous girlfriend, you know how to make it happen, with the resources. Which it might amuse him to provide.
Of course, the real question is whether you want to deal with his constant oneupsmanship. I came from people like that and I'm not marrying one for a reason :)
Re: Feel free to screen if this is too pragmatic
Date: 2013-10-11 12:27 pm (UTC)The oneupsmanship could get tiring, I agree. At the beginning of my relationships with men I'm attracted to, I almost always do the geisha thing -- some kind of instinctual posture, go figure -- so if we started sleeping together, it would begin to annoy me around the three month mark, I reckon. And it would annoy me a lot. And I would get bitchy.
'Nother reason, then, to keep the friendship platonic.
Funny thing is I can't figure out why he's so into that oneupsmanship thing. He had no older brothers. And he's really, really smart and pretty attractive. Maybe it's preemptive.
no subject
Date: 2013-10-11 12:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-11 12:55 pm (UTC)When I first started writing fiction, I wanted to be a stylist. It was the language that delighted me, not the story. In the subsequent 50 years or so, my priorities have done a 180. These days, I think it's the story that's most important. The narrative. But probably because I'm such an entrenched diary-keeper, and I write that diary for my own entertainment, and language is still what entertains me, I find it difficult to keep myself from embellishing any story I tell.
My pal Lucius (a pretty great writer) used to tell me that I should just forget about writing in the third person. That my first person voice was fascinating, that my third person voice needed, uh, work. :-)
no subject
Date: 2013-10-11 01:54 pm (UTC)That's not to valorize "literature". I've recovered sufficiently from intellectual snobbery to know that within the aficionado, the experience of "Moby Dick" is emotionally no different than the experience of Tinker to Evans to Chance.
no subject
Date: 2013-10-15 11:13 am (UTC)It's a rather unsatisfactory explanation to me.
You're right that at an essential level, style and substance are indistinguishable. And yet the best books have structures that somehow mirror their content. I know that's an imprecise summation, but I can't really articulate it any better than that. I suppose I feel about literature what Justice Potter felt about pornography: I know it when I see it.
no subject
Date: 2013-10-11 09:18 pm (UTC)Being thrifty, cheap and frugal, I would fill the oak vat with wine from his very own wine cellar, mixing reds and whites with gleeful abandon...
no subject
Date: 2013-10-12 01:28 am (UTC)Ha ha! I may have to steal that for a scene in a short story. Although I could see myself digging him on some level...
I re-read his opening remark after katestine mentioned it, and it made me think of the Pick Up Artist "negs" (some loser hits on you by complimenting/insulting you at the same time, like, "I love your hair, when you wear it that way, I can hardly see the split ends" or some bullshit like that). I don't think that was his intention, but it reminded me of that.
no subject
Date: 2013-10-15 11:24 am (UTC)In fact, these days I am less and less interested in getting involved with men just to get involved with men. I've always been perfectly fine spending time by myself since I'm so self involved that I find myself utterly fascinating. :-) And between my FWB and my vibrator, I really don't need a guy for sex.
no subject
Date: 2013-10-15 11:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-11 09:52 pm (UTC)I really enjoyed this entry. I am not smart, but enjoy a good conversation.
"you keep bringing the conversation around full circle so that we're talking about the same things we were talking about at the beginning of the evening but from a startlingly different perspective" I really like that way of describing a conversation. In a way that is how I talk to someone when I am really talking/having an extended conversation. To really talk to someone it takes a life time of sitting down and really listening/hearing the other person/seeking to understand/not just hear ones own voice. True communication is mystical.
no subject
Date: 2013-10-15 11:29 am (UTC)