From Lev Grossman’s blog, “A Brief Taxonomy of Writers”: “As far as I can tell there are two kinds of fiction writers: those who read no fiction while they write, and those who constantly read fiction while they write. Let’s have cute names for them. We’ll call them Soloists and Thieves.”
Fiction Writers: Soloists or Thieves?
He Found Himself Changed
Happy(ish) birthday, Gregor Samsa! Here’s a piece from NPR commemorating the 100th anniversary of the publication of Franz Kafka’s masterpiece, The Metamorphosis. Kafka insisted that the story’s insect should never be drawn, but of course Vladimir Nabokov had his own ideas about that. To round out the Kafka news, here’s a review from The Millions of Reiner Stach’s Kafka: The Decisive Years.
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Welcome, Kate!
This week we are delighted to announce that Kate Gavino is joining The Millions as Social Media Editor! Kate is a writer, illustrator, and creator of the website Last Night’s Reading, which was compiled into a published collection by Penguin Books in 2015. Her second book, Sanpaku, was published by BOOM! Studies in August of 2018. She most recently worked as a social media editor at Brooklyn Public Library.
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Lost Steinbeck
“With Your Wings,” a lost Steinbeck story from the 1940’s, has just been published for the first time by literary magazine The Strand.
This Slim and Slippery Thread of Hope
“The day after we elected Donald Trump, I told my daughter the truth: This was the wrong choice. I am devastated. I am furious. And I am sorry, because you deserve better.” Nicole Chung with some beautiful words over at Buzzfeed (q.v. also Mira Jacob (“Here’s What I’m Telling My Brown Son About Trump’s America”) and Manuel Gonzalez (“I Will Teach My Children To Survive The New America”).
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Pain Extinguishes Itself
“Not infrequently I unravelled what I had done, continuously tormented by scruples that were taking tighter hold and steadily paralysing me. These scruples concerned not only the subject of my narrative, which I felt I could not do justice to, no matter what approach I tried, but also the entire questionable business of writing.” On W.G Sebald and unsatisfactory communication from The Nation.
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Cal Massey Shows
Legendary jazz musician and composer Cal Massey receded from active performance in the 1950s in order to concentrate on composition. His works went on to be recorded by John Coltrane, Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard and many other greats. To honor his indelible mark on jazz music and African-American culture, Fred Ho and Ben Barson will present a series of concerts in Harlem’s Red Rooster restaurant. Barson also wrote a lengthy introduction to Massey’s life and legacy.
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Fair enough, but are you saying their are writers out there who don’t read books? That’s pretty amazing. How good can these ‘soloists’ be? There’s not really that much in the way of truly original characters/plots etc in the world; whats interesting and original is typically a handful of so-so ideas combined in a very clever way. People who read alot of fiction might have more ‘soso’ ideas (borrowed) from which to pick.Then again, most of what we write is heavily influenced by our own lives. So the soloists could be just writing from their own life. Not exactly fiction.
Bottom line: I don’t think we should chastize those who ‘borrow’ ideas, as I think originality is kind of overrated. The point is not to be clever or cute, but to be good. The thing with writers who read alot of great books, they tend to absorb not only writing styles (what you might consider influencing styles) but other people’s ideas for plot/characters, subconsciously. Writers who read alot tend to be much better writers.
It’s amazing to me too, but I met a novelist at a literary festival once who claimed he never read books. I haven’t read his work yet, but he was shortlisted for the Giller prize (one of the top awards in Canada) so I’m assuming he must be good.