Method Monday: Go Back in Time

Before you get too excited, I’m not writing about actual time travel today. Until someone gets the physics figured out, your best chance for time travel is finding a spacial anomaly. Of course that’s risky. You may not end up at your desired point in time, and it may cause a dimensional shift instead of, or in addition to, time travel.

"The Time Tunnel" 20th Century Fox

The time travel I propose involves looking back at your previous writing. I do this most often when I’m having trouble writing new material. I get out my old notebooks (even the ones from back in high school) and flip through the pages. I don’t think my writing was as good back then (at least I hope I’ve improved), but sometimes I stumble across something I can use now.

I’ve written before about my slush pile of lines that don’t yet have poems in which they belong. That’s often how these old poems work. Even if I’m embarrassed by the work of young Randall, I find individual lines that work well. I then use these lines as a prompt for a new poem. Sometimes it isn’t a line but an idea. I may find that I inadequately approached a theme 10 years ago that I’m now ready to try again.

You don’t always need such a utilitarian approach. Sometimes I just look through my old notebooks to remember. It takes me back to that time but with the knowledge and experience I now have. It can be fun to relive those times. It can be frightening. No matter what emotion(s) arise, sometimes one just needs to remember from whence he/she came.

At 28, I’m not the same writer, I’m not the same person, I was at 18. At 38, I’ll be yet again a different person. Life is a journey, and there are moments when interrupting the linear flow of time is exactly what we need.

Open Letter to V.S. Naipaul

I had a Friday Favorite post ready to go, but I’ve decided to instead post an open letter to V.S. Naipaul regarding his recent assertion that no female writer is his equal.

Dear Mr. Naipaul,

Let me first say that I enjoy your writing. I’ve read several works and found each quite moving. You are certainly deserving of the Nobel prize in literature and other awards you’ve won, but it seems this recognition has led to arrogance instead of literary statesmanship. Arrogance is a particular damaging vice; it takes those who have previously displayed intelligence and shows that they are instead quite stupid.

And that is what your recent comments about women writers has done. You have made yourself a fool.

Your argument relies on two supports, that women writers display “sentimentality, the narrow view of the world” and “inevitably for a woman, she is not a complete master of a house, so that comes over in her writing too.”

Allow me to respond to these points in order. Much has been said about sentimentality, and it is often considered a weakness in writing, but I disagree. I will concede that too much sentimentality can be detrimental to a work, but so can complete denial of sentiment. Someone who doesn’t feel, who isn’t emotional moved by people and places, isn’t fit to be an author. Maybe he or she would be the perfect journalist, just reporting the facts, but that person is not fit to be novelist or poet. I guess this leaves the question of whether women are more likely to be too sentimental in their writing. I’ve read enough to know that some are too sentimental and some aren’t. Some men are too sentimental, too. Assuming that all women are too sentimental implies that women lack rational thinking processes. This assumption is terribly misguided and shows that you are the one who has a “narrow view of the world.”

Regarding your “master of the house” argument, let me remind you that you are often classified as a “postcolonial” writer. You write from a perspective and about issues pertaining to a culture that is oppressed. How is this different than women writing about oppression by patriarchy? The oppressed always will and always should write about their oppression. It is part of the process by which they are empowered. You, of all people, should understand this process. I hope that you realize this and, instead of continuing their oppression, join their struggle.

By the way, even though women often write about their struggle against our male-dominated society, that isn’t all they write about. If you actually read them, you would know that.

If this letter finds you, I hope it finds you well, and I hope that you reconsider your previous statements. You, sir, have much to learn from women.

Regards,

Randall Weiss

Friday Favorite–Kurt Vonnegut

I first read Kurt Vonnegut a couple years into college, probably 2003. We had already invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, and I was becoming cynical about American politics. A friend suggested I read Vonnegut’s World War II novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, but I came across a free copy of Cat’s Cradle first. A few pages into Cat’s Cradle I knew that I would read everything I could written by this dark but hilarious figure. I only have a couple novels left.

Kurt Vonnegut taught me about humor. So many of his books show us the terrible side of humanity, the side that firebombs a city just to try out a new weapon, but they are always funny. He shows us that the best way to talk about the things that no one wants to talk about is through humor. Often I’ve read a line in a Vonnegut novel that made me laugh aloud but immediately filled me with guilt for laughing. It’s that sort of uncomfortable, challenging experience that makes him worth reading. He’s an author who tells us the truth, even when we aren’t ready for it.

A few quotes:

“Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter could be said to remedy anything.”

“True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.”

“I say in speeches that a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit. I am then asked if I know of any artists who pulled that off. I reply, ‘The Beatles did’.”

“1492. As children we were taught to memorize this year with pride and joy as the year people began living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America. Actually, people had been living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America for hundreds of years before that. 1492 was simply the year sea pirates began to rob, cheat, and kill them.”