English 587  Theory of Fiction:  The Lonely Voice

W 4:00-6:30

Spring 2004

Greg Martin

 

Office:  Humanities 257

Office Hours:   Wednesdays and Thursdays 2:30-3:45 and by appointment

Phone:  277-6145

E-mail:  gmartin@unm.edu 

Course website:  www.unm.edu/~gmartin

 

Texts 

Books:

  1. Howard Norman’s The Bird Artist
  2. James Welch’s Winter in the Blood
  3. Willa Cather’s My Antonia
  4. Robert Olen Butler’s Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
  5. Dan Stolar’s The Middle of the Night
  6. Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio
  7. Crafting Fiction:  In Theory, In Practice  Ed.  Diogenes & Moneyhun

Stories and Interviews:

  1. Frank O’Connor’s “Guest of the Nation”
  2. Frank O'Connor -- Paris Review Interview
  3. Anton Chekhov’s “Lady with a Dog”
  4. Joyce Carol Oates "Lady with a Dog"
  5. Joyce Carol Oates -- Paris Review Interview
  6. Alice Munro’s "Family Furnishings"
  7. Alice Munro's “Cortes Island”
  8. Alice Munro -- Paris Review Interview
  9. Sherman Alexie’s  “What You Pawn I Will Redeem”
  10. Andre Dubus's "A Father's Story"
  11. Susan Sontag’s “The Way We Live Now”
  12. William Gass’s “In the Heart of the Heart of the Country”
  13. William Gass -- Paris Review Interview
  14. Pam Houston’s “The Best Girlfriend You Never Had”
  15. Richard Ford's "Great Falls"
  16. Richard Ford -- Paris Review Interview

Note:  All stories and interviews are available on e-reserve at Zimmerman library.  To access them use the following path:

Hardcopies (for Luddites) are also available on reserve at Zimmerman library. (Packet #1:  Eng 587 Stories.  Packet #2  Eng 587 Interviews.)

 

Overview

 

Frank O’Connor writes in his critical study of the short story, The Lonely Voice, “In discussions of the modern novel we have often come to talk of it as the novel without a hero.  In fact, the short story has never had a hero.  What it has instead is a submerged population group—a bad phrase which I have had to use for want of better…  Here it does not mean material squalor, though this is often characteristic of submerged population groups.  Ultimately it seems to mean defeat inflicted by a society that offers no goals and no answers.  The submerged population is not submerged entirely by material considerations; it can also be submerged by the absence of spiritual ones.  Always… there is this sense of outlawed figures wandering about on the fringes of society…and…an intense awareness of human loneliness.” 

    This is a literature course designed for fiction writers, and the course readings, both novels and short stories, in some way relate to O’Connor’s idea of the lonely voice.  Each week, we will read either a novel or pair of short stories, and ask ourselves how this idea of the lonely voice shapes other craft considerations (structure, image, point of view, characterization, etc.)  

    The goal of the course is, at bottom, practical, to each week look at stories and ask the questions:  How was this made?  How does this story work?  How does a growing understanding of these stories shape my own work?  Finally, another goal of the course is, like O’Connor, to develop theories of our own sensibility. 

 

Course Schedule:  Calendar of Readings & Responsibilities

 

Course Requirements

 

Reading Responses:  (50%)  One 2-3 page critical response will be required each week.   These responses should be composed and focused, not tossed off, written off the top of your head.  On weeks dedicated to two stories, you have two choices:  (1) write two independent responses of approximately two pages each, or (2) in some meaningful way, compare craft features in the two stories.  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 week.  Late reading responses will not receive credit, with one exception for each.  (See handout on website for more details.) 

 

Student Led Discussion:  (20%)  Each student will lead one 30 minute (+/-) discussion on a novel or story in which you direct the class to what you think is important.  The discussion should begin by focusing closely on one prominent craft feature, and then move on to discuss several other craft features before opening up the time to a larger discussion.  So, the first part of this discussion should be teacherly--persuade us with your commentary and your close examination of the story.  (The painter Mark Rothko said that his task as an artist was to make others see his way, not their way.)  Other considerations:  what risks does the story take--formal, emotional?  What are its ambitions?  What would you have edited, cut, developed?

 

Extended Response:  (30%)  Each student will write one longer critical response (approximately ten pages) on a story or novel of their choice.  Creative work (a short story, a novel chapter), with an accompanying discussion of craft influence, may be substituted for the final paper.  (More on this later.)

 

Note:  If you miss class more than twice it will affect your grade .