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The Lemur and Lazy DescriptionPosted by John Woodington on May 22nd, 2010

A couple weeks back I finished reading a book called The Lemur by Benjamin Black, and one thing stood out in this short novel (novella, actually) that basically made me hate it.  Well, two things.

1) This book is a mystery novel, and as such, bases a large portion of its narrative force behind the “whodunnit” aspect of the plot.  Who killed the Lemur?  That’s what we’re reading for.  Now, of course, most good writers would make the story about more than just whodunnit, and Black tries to do that with his main character John Glass, an Irish American living in New York City, preparing to write the biography of his father-in-law, a New York bigwig in the cable industry.  Black goes to great lengths to make John Glass seem intelligent and sympathetic, despite the fact that he openly cheats on his wife, smokes, drinks, is afraid of heights, and stereotypes the very city in which he lives (more on that in point 2).  Throughout the novella, however, Glass does not change in any way that I can ascertain.  He is still the same person at the end that he was at the beginning, the only difference being that he’s figured out who the killer is.  Shocker.

Genre novels of this nature (mystery genre, here) that base their driving narrative force on something other than characters (whodunnit, who will get the girl, who will kill the dragon, who will die in the end) never leave a lasting impression on me.  They end and they are over and you never need to think of them again because you already know the main crux of the story (who did it, who got the girl, who died).  They are not character-centric, and thus remain shallow to the reader in the long term.  You might get a lot of temporal enjoyment out of a mystery novel like The Lemur, but there’s no reason to think of this story ever again after you’ve read it.  It has no lasting resonance, because the characters do not change in a way that reflects anything in a greater human sense.  Those things that speak to humanity itself are the ones that leave resonance.

2) Benjamin Black made a very conscious decision in writing this novella, and that was in his choice of setting.  It is set in New York City.  Surprise.  He uses this setting in a way that I think speaks to bad writing in general, and that is by relying on past narratives to set the scene for his characters.  I realized he was doing this when I came across the following passage in the book:

Playful gusts of wind swooped along the street.  A DHL delivery man, talking rapidly to himself, wheeled a loaded pallet into an open doorway.  A dreadlocked derelict in a St. Louis Cardinals sweatshirt was arguing with a fat policeman.  Beside a storm drain three ragged sparrows were fighting over a lump of bagel as big as themselves.  Glass smiled to himself.  New York.

Nearly closed the book right there.  I reality, when I read this passage, I see not only John Glass smiling to himself, I see author Benjamin Black smiling to himself in front of his typewriter/computer.  This is basically a smell-your-own-fart-because-you-love-the-scent-of-everything-you-do description, and it comes off as false and lazy.  Black is relying on the fact that everyone should know what stereotypical New York City looks and feels like, and what he is doing in this passage is trying to bring about some sort of nostalgic reminiscence in the reader for this setting that they’ve seen so may times in books and on TV.  He’s saying, “You know what New York City is like.  Fill in the blanks.”

Maybe this rubs me the wrong way because I’m a lifelong Midwesterner, but that can’t be all of it.  There’s bad writing here, and while Black’s vocabulary is somewhat daunting, his command of craft is lacking.  He’s fallen into a trap of using a much-overused setting with the hope that readers will automatically drop into that setting, because we are all so familiar with it.  I’ve never been to New York City, but I’ve seen enough TV and read enough books to know that you want to live in Manhatten, not Harlem, that the hemp-wearing, make-you-own-clothes-out-of-recycled-fabrics, paint-portraits-in-well-lit-studios, drink-beer-only-if-it’s-not-domestic people hang out in Greenwich Village.  I know about Central Park: by day you jog and maybe play chess; by night you stay home in order to be alive the next day.

One thing I hate almost as much as preaching in fiction is laziness, and it shows itself all over the place in The Lemur.  There are far too many stories set in New York City (and London), and The Lemur is a great example of why a writer should avoid overused settings (or plots, or characters, or themes).  After a while, they ring false.  The description lags, the writer knows they are in New York City and knows that everyone already has a preconceived notion of New York City, and, in truth, is banking on that preconceived notion.  Benjamin Black didn’t want to show a different side of New York City that is rarely seen in media, he wanted to write a book set in the New York City all of us see on Friends every friggin’ day of the week.  And he did that.

And it came off very unsatisfactory.

Does No TV Equal No Connection?Posted by John Woodington on May 14th, 2010

I haven’t watched a TV show in 13 days, and the lack of advertising bombardments and white noise and the extra time afforded to me has been wonderful.  I’ve read two books (Fight Club and The Lemur), worked on a short story culled from a section of my novel-in-progress Alien Nation, and overall have felt that my time has been better spent.  If I could pinpoint the one thing that I miss the most about TV, it would be some sort of ethereal connection with the rest of the country.

I haven’t given myself the stipulation that I can’t watch a DVD once in a while, and while I have a couple seasons of The Office on the shelf, I don’t get the same sense of satisfaction watching them on DVD as I do when watching them on TBS or NBC.  When I watch a show on DVD, I feel like a loser, isolated in his house, watching a TV show on DVD (which is what I am at that moment in time; at other times I am awesome).  When I watch The Office on TBS, however, I know I’m watching the same thing as a million other people, and it gives me the sense that I’m not alone in what I’m doing, even though I’m sitting on my couch in an otherwise empty living room.  There’s a feeling of something greater occurring, a collective decision being made by others across the country, hundreds of thousands of us, all tuning in to the same channel at the same time.  Even though we’re wasting our hours by watching TV and being as unproductive as possible, at least we’re doing it together, and that, in some strange way, feels good.  And that’s what I miss most about TV.

That, in turn, got me to thinking that maybe some sort of collective feeling of connectedness could be achieved through writing, or, more accurately, reading.  If hundreds of thousands of people across the country read the same thing at the same time, would they feel a sense of connectedness with the other hundreds of thousands?  Right now, Twitter folk are reading Neil Gaiman’s fascinating novel American Gods.  I’ve read it before, and have other reading plans at this time, so I won’t be participating.  But I’d be interested to hear from people who are participating, to see if they feel a connection with a greater populace of people, even if they never come into contact with those people.

In college, I read plenty of novels at the same time as my other classmates, though I didn’t feel a connection with those classmates until we actually discussed the novel together in class.  My hypothesis, therefore, is that this whole One Book One Twitter thing will not successfully achieve a feeling of unity among its participants unless they utilize Twitter (or some other form of communication, like talking face to face) to discuss their thoughts and experiences of the novel.  There’s plenty to talk about in American Gods, and I hope that those reading it continue to discuss it after they’ve finished reading it.  How many times do we read a book, close the back cover at the end, and never think of it again.  The books I value the most in my collection are the ones that I’ve discussed in depth with other people.  Those discussions have given me a much greater sense of appreciation for the texts themselves, as well as the authors who wrote them.

Turning off the TV has proven quite beneficial to me, but I know that if I don’t make up for that lost connection with other people, I’ll feel the pull of the TV trying to suck me back into hours of wasted semi-entertainment, not so that I can see Jim and Dwight on The Office, but so that I can feel a connection with a hundred thousand other people who laugh every time Jim pops Dwight’s fitness orb with a scissors.  Every fricken’ time.

A Novella Rejection and Still No TVPosted by John Woodington on May 11th, 2010

I mentioned not long ago a new publication that specializes in novellas called Short Sharp Shock.  I submitted my novella “Goodwill” to them and they asked for more and more of it, but in the end rejected it.  I thought I’d share their rejection here, as it was very nice and also helpful and enlightening for me as a writer trying to get stuff published:

Hi John,

Sorry, but we’re going to pass.

You can write. I’m sure you know that. Goodwill is smooth and the voice is clean and engaging. It’s a character study and a well done one at that. I think it would be a better fit for S3, though, if you took that same interesting character and put him in a plot-driven book. I have no idea if you wrote this before or after the appearance of the show Dexter. I think the success of that show – I haven’t read the books – comes from interweaving the character’s development with an unfolding plot.

A smaller, detail point: I still think the beginning would be stronger if you didn’t spill the beans right at the start. Let Gabe’s obsession reveal itself a little more slowly.

One person’s opinions.

Feel free to submit another manuscript whenever.

Best,
Eric

I really like what Eric et al are doing at their publication, ‘nough said.

I didn’t think that editors would be comparing the submissions they receive to television shows they watch, but I suppose it’s inevitable.  I’ve not personally watched the show Dexter at all, but I have seen the DVDs for the first season on sale at Target, and I believe they have blood on the cover, which I take as a good sign.

It’s also worth noting that I will not be watching any episodes of Dexter in the future, since my wife and I are giving up watching TV.  We officially removed the TV from our main family room, and I will try to post a picture of the beautiful vacant space it has left.  We are currently looking for new bookshelves to fill in said space.

It’s been 8 days since I’ve watched a TV show, and in that time, I’ve read all of Fight Club (brief review to come) and begun reading a novella called The Lemur, which looks to be a crime/mystery story, which is a new genre for me.  This is significant because I am a slow reader, and have not read an entire book in a single week since college.  My hypothesis that TV sucks up the best parts of your life is now further strengthened.