Supposedly Mark Twain said, “Write what you know.” But what if you don’t know much, or what if what you do know isn’t worth writing about? Well, here’s one solution. Read “13 Ways of Looking at the Novel” by Jane Smiley. This 570 page book isn’t a quick read but it’s much easier than actually reading one hundred novels, which is what Smiley did. I didn’t major in English literature so reading this book was a great way to fill in that gaping pothole in my education.
Half of the book is Smiley’s notes on the one hundred novels she read - which is as hard as it sounds to read. Sort of like trying to digest concentrated versions of a hundred great movies. But reading her notes is like reading movie reviews by Siskel & Ebert. Smart, opinionated comments that save you the trouble of analyzing difficult novels (like Ulysses). The first half of the book is much easier to get through. Smiley’s thoughts on how to look at all the different ways men and women have told stories over history. I thought this part was great fun.
Here are the chapters of Smiley’s ways of looking at the novel:
Introduction
What Is a Novel?
Who Is a Novelist?
The Origins of the Novel
The Psychology of the Novel
Morality and the Novel
The Art of the Novel
The Novel and History
The Circle of the Novel
A Novel of Your Own (I)
A Novel of Your Own (II)
Good Faith: A Case History
Reading a Hundred Novels
Smiley’s introduction hooked me. Even after winning the Pulitzer Prize in 1992, she hit the wall in her writing in 2001. The World Trade Center had just been attacked and the world seemed to be falling apart.
She said, “All those years of guarding my stuff — no drinking, no drugs, personal modesty and charm, good behavior on as many fronts as I could manage, a public life of agreeability and professionalism, and still when I sat down at the computer to write my novel, titled Good Faith, my heart sank… I had wandered into a dark wood. I didn’t know the way out. I was afraid.”
This book was her attempt to find her way out of the dark wood. To re-inspire herself and get back to writing. In the midst of writing my first novel, this book has helped save me from overwhelming despair — I’m never going to be a real writer! Smiley reassured me that all these great novels were written by humans. Men and women with fallibilities. She points out the weaknesses, as well as the strengths of writers from as long ago as a thousand years ago (Lady Murasaki who wrote Genji Monogatari) and as recent as 2002, (Jennifer Egan and her novel Look at Me).
Although Smiley’s book is about novels, it’s easy to apply her lessons to short stories, too. She says, “A novel is a hypothesis. … Both novelist and scientist say “what if?” What if some uneducated country people were to set out on a journey by wagon to take the corpse of their mother back to her place of origin?” (As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner)
A common hypothesis deals with how a woman tries to make meaning of her life. What if a married woman has a scandalous affair? (Madam Bovary by Flaubert)
Or someone weak has to confront the powerful. What if a fifteen year old orphan girl is attacked by her employer? (1740 novel Pamela by Richardson)
Other novels ask what goes through the mind of a deviant: What if a literature professor kidnaps and sexually abuses a 12 year old girl? (Lolita by Nabokov)
Some try to prove a moral point. What if a farmer facing debts sells the child of one of his workers? (Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe)
In any case, the stories are always about people and the challenges they face in life. Characters and personalities are what draw people in to read novels (and short stories).
Smiley dives deep into analyzing the psychology of the novels. Here’s your chance to see how delicious, rich words like schadenfreude, bildugsroman, and roysterer are used. (Schadenfreude = pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune. Bildugsroman = a novel dealing with one person's formative years or spiritual education. Roysterer = Someone who revels, a partier. merrymaker.)
Unlike a movie, music or visual art, a novel (or short story) requires a reader to invest her efforts to read and interpret the work. Writing fiction is the simplest yet also the most difficult art form. All of a writer’s weaknesses are on display in a writing workshop (like in Chuck Palahniuk’s workshop). Sort of like standing naked on the stage. A beginning writer has to have a thick skin to go on. Smiley notes,
“If living is to progress, if you are lucky, from foolishness to wisdom, then to write novels is to broadcast the various stages of your foolishness.”
Every writing workshop reveals my foolishness but there’s a purpose to this regular humiliation. The rewards for trying this most difficult craft are many. I do believe that writing fiction has forced me to grow in so many ways.
Smiley says, “The novel integrates several forms of human intelligence - verbal intelligence (for the style), psychological intelligence (for the characters), logical intelligence (for the plot), spatial intelligence (for the symbolic and metaphorical content as well as the setting), and even musical intelligence (for pacing and rhythm.”
So in the end, writing is not writing what you know, writing fiction is writing to know. To learn and expand your understanding of yourself and others. To step out of your comfort zone and ask - What if…?
I'll check out that Jane Smiley novel. Sounds good. Another great book about writing is John Steinbeck's "Journal of a Novel". It's a journal he kept while writing East of Eden. It shows his struggles, even as an acclaimed writer at that time.