ENG 487 Greg Martin
Advanced Studies in Genre
The Reading Response
"…I have no illusions about the likelihood that some of my specific appraisals are wrong, that I have, say, overestimated or underestimated the merit of certain works I have discussed because of a passionate interest in some problem raised by the work. Which is to say that, in the end, what I have been writing is not criticism at all, strictly speaking, but case studies for an aesthetic, a theory of my own sensibility."
Susan Sontag, from the preface to AGAINST INTERPRETATION
When there's a "problem" in a story I have a passionate interest in, there's often something I envy. When I read something really good, it causes me problems--I'm jealous. Why didn't I think of doing that? Exploring this "problem" is attempt to itemize, closely, why I'm so jealous. (Why does this point of view work so well? Why does this structure work so well?)
"Problem" can be taken another way. Some stories I'm not ready for. They don't make me jealous; they make me defensive. Generally, as a writer I feel defensive when my aesthetic is being challenged. Exploring this problem is the attempt to get up to speed (reading commentaries on the story or other stories like it, biographies, interviews, etc.), so that I can more fully appreciate the story, even if I don't envy it yet. My hope is to someday envy it. To move from a lower state of neuroses (petty defensiveness) to a higher state of neuroses (coveting). Wynton Marsalis, in speaking about Igor Stravinsky and Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk, says that when you are in the presence of a new art form--when you are in the presence of innovation in art--you have to go to the innovation; it will not come to you. You have to allow yourself to be changed. You must humble yourself and make yourself vulnerable--you have to be open aesthetically. Lots and lots of critics hated Stravinsky and Parker and Thelonious Monk, at first. Now, they're all dead and wrong. To take an analogy from literature: not all poems have to rhyme. Don't be stuck in the 19th (or 20th) century.
"Problem" can be taken yet another way. Sometimes, I find that I actually know something, that I'm not merely coveting or defensive. Sometimes, I have a strong opinion about why a story, which I admire, is still, nevertheless, dissatisfying. Exploring this problem is about editing the story the way it should have been edited so that it would have been both admirable and satisfying. But there's neuroses here too. Exploring this kind of problem is preventative. I don't want to make that kind of mistake. For example, I admire Lucy Grealy's Autobiography of a Face a lot, but the final third is really flawed. It rushes the material and compresses the narrative time (about 15 years) far too quickly. Grealy wasn't content to tell a memoir of her childhood. She wanted to tell a memoir of her whole life, to the detriment of the integrity of her book as a whole.
The Reading Response for this course isn't a scholarly effort, or book review. It's not written by a student for a teacher to complete a requirement. It's not notes, tossed off the top of your head. It is composed. But it's not a paper. Very few people want to read a paper. Your reading response should look something like a personal essay on craft. (Like Richard Ford's "Reading") It's one writer writing to other writers about another writer’s work and how this relates to their own work in progress. It should be about a problem, taken in any of the above senses. (The Notes on Craft handout should help some.) The tone should be conversational, not detached or scholarly or stiff or unfunny.
Be autobiographical, if you like. If there's an apt analogy to be made which involves your dog and the mail carrier and bared teeth and how the mail carrier dropped the "F" bomb in your front yard thirty times and then cancelled your mail and you had to get a P.O. Box for a while, but now, almost a year later, you and the mail carrier are almost friends, as close as people and their mail carriers should be, then by all means, go ahead and make your analogy. Tell me a story. And then relate it (somehow?) to the work being discussed that day or your own work in progress.
Or write about what remains mysterious to you about the book or story or essay, or what questions you have about it but which you can't yet answer.
Or write about how this book or essay or story is influencing you and your daily work. Go ahead: tell me a little bit about the piece you're working on. Articulate the influence you feel on this essay/story/poem. Be specific as possible about craft.
Or carefully analyze one passage (sentence, sentences, paragraph) that compels you.
Or imitate the work you just read. Turn in a two page or four page imitation. What are you imitating? Form? Tone? Voice? Subject? That's up to you. If you choose to do a creative imitation, you must also include a 1-2 paragraph discussion of this imitation.
Most importantly, be really smart. I'm going to read it, and so is one of your peers. We want to approach your response with anticipation. We prefer to not be bored. One easy way to not bore us is to avoid unnecessary summary at all costs. (We've read it carefully, too, and we'll catch the references.) Another way to be unboring is to abandon any notion that there's some schizophrenic split between your analytic and creative selves. Be creative in these responses, have fun. Read the material well in advance so that you don't merely slap down a few thoughts at 9:45 in the morning. There are some who always do this and these people tend not to like their grades much.
Finally, try hard not to be smart about theme. You've always been smart about theme. Be smart about stuff that you're not so used to being smart about. Be smart about narrative design or time management or conflict or characterization, diction or imagery or point of view.
Reading Responses should be double spaced, typed and compellingly titled. Reading responses must be edited conscientiously, with attention paid to clarity, economy, and grammar. Even spelling! Bring two copies of your response to class each week, one for me and one for another person in class. Give your response to a different person each time.
Responses must be turned in on the day that the work under consideration in the response is being discussed. We have 30 class meetings. You have 15 responses. You choose which books or stories or essays you want to write short or long papers on. You choose which books or articles you don't want to write about. If there are two or more pieces under discussion for that day, you choose whether you want to write on one or two or all of them. Write your responses on the essays or books that intrigue and compel you the most.
Good Luck!