28 April 2010
Firstly, thanks to Karen Tei Yamashita (author of three novels and the just released I Hotel, a collection of 10 novellas about the birth and rise of Asian American arts/activist movements) with whom I shared the stage at the Voices from the Asian American Literary Review Symposium this past weekend — for reminding me of the Galeano quote that is this week’s “quote of the week.” Here is the full quote:
Why does one write, if not to put one’s pieces together? From the moment we enter school or church, education chops us into pieces; it teaches us to divorce soul from body and mind from heart. The fishermen of the Colombian coast must be learned doctors of ethics and morality, for they invented the word sentipensante, feeling-thinking, to define language that speaks the truth.
— “Celebration of the Marriage of Heart and Mind,” from Galeano’s The Book of Embraces
When I started this blog, over a year ago now, I found the whole “online presence” thing to be obligatory, awkward, and a bit burdensome. But I’ve been surprised by how much I’ve missed posting here while on the road doing book events. I very much write to put my pieces together…
Ed Lin and Srikanth “Chicu” Reddy, yukking it up on stage
The Symposium was terrific, and I was honored to spend the weekend with not only Karen, but six other writers whose stunning work and generous spirits inspired me: so thanks also to Ed Lin, Peter Bacho, Srikanth Reddy, April Naoko Heck, Kyoko Mori, and Ru Freeman. I hope you’ll google these folks and check out their work. (And let me add here Marie Mutsuki Mockett, intrepid novelist-traveler, who came down from NYC with 4-month old baby boy, and whose work appears in the inaugural issue of the Review.) Our fearless leaders and moderators Lawrence-Minh Bui Davis, Gerald Maa, and Terry Hong also deserve a round applause.
Hyphen Magazine did a nice, and detailed, blog report on the event, read it here.
Lawrence-Minh Bui Davis & Gerald Maa, Co-Editors of the
Asian American Literary Review
Karen Tei Yamashita, giving a multi-media presentation on I HOTEL
Ru Freeman, novelist and essayist, author of A DISOBEDIENT GIRL
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By the time the Symposium events had ended, I was pretty pooped out. I had three classroom visits ahead of me, and I confess that a part of me wondered why the heck I’d agreed to do all of these appearances — did I think my introversion would somehow melt away and that some kind of literary-adrenaline would kick in? Not to mention the fact that transporting oneself around the DC area is kind of a nightmare; every Point-A-to-Point-B journey involves traffic, significant distance, expensive gas, parking, ugh. Spoiled New Yorker, I am.
But I am happy to report that each of the three visits — one to Montgomery College, two to the University of MD — was encouraging and energizing. I met revved-up and deeply caring teachers; smart, engaged students; bright-eyed, aspiring writers. A highlight was visiting a class that had read Long for This World and spent two full class sessions discussing it (my visit was to the second session). Hearing a group of intelligent, interested students talking, and even arguing, about the novel’s themes, intentions, meanings, as well as the characters’ motivations and transformations — was such a treat. I loved especially hearing students express conflicting allegiances to the characters. That’s exactly the kind of experience I would have hoped for the reader — to feel ambivalent about the characters, to understand them as both victims and perpetrators (and everything in between), to be immersed in the complexity of a polyphonic, polycultural family.
The report on Part 2 of my visit — the Border’s reading in northern Virginia, where I read for an almost-all-Korean audience! — forthcoming.
21 April 2010
Joyce Carol Oates writes in The Atlantic about mourning the loss of her husband, Raymond Smith, in 2008 after 48 years of marriage. It’s a beautiful essay, and I was particularly struck by her revelation of the way in which teaching — her alternative life, her non-personal life — became a way of getting through that painful time.
Devote myself to my students, my teaching. This is something that I can do, that is of value.
For writing—being a writer—always seems to the writer to be of dubious value.
Being a writer is like being one of those riskily overbred pedigreed dogs—a French bulldog, for instance—poorly suited for survival despite their very special attributes.
Being a writer is in defiance of Darwin’s observation that the more highly specialized a species, the more likely its extinction.
Teaching—even the teaching of writing—is altogether different. Teaching is an act of communication, sympathy—a reaching-out—a wish to share knowledge, skills; a rapport with others, who are students; a way of allowing others into the solitariness of one’s soul.
“Gladly wolde he lerne and gladly teche”—so Chaucer says of his young scholar in The Canterbury Tales. When teachers feel good about teaching, this is how we feel.
That writing as a vocation is a kind of teetering on the edge of regular-life survival… I am only at the beginning of this journey, so given Oates’s prolific output and long teaching career, I am heartened by how she puts her finger on it and articulates it so honestly. Yes, I thought as I read; this — not just the stable income — is why writers keep teaching.
20 April 2010
There’s a new film that will premiere at Film Forum in NYC next week — THE DUEL, based on the eponymous novella by Chekhov. It’s one of my favorites (the novella, that is) — although, with Chekhov, it’s hard to say what’s a favorite, because everything he’s written just seems miraculous to me.
I’ll attempt to write more about why Chekhov inspires me — as a writer, and as a flawed and ridiculous human being — in a piece for The Millions. For the moment, I’m chewing on the film, which I just saw (sneaky preview).
Something about the film makes me ever more appreciative of the humor in Chekhov’s stories, and also has me considering how The Literary Absurd works.
Chekhov’s talent strikes me as being of a piece with his humanity, i.e. he doesn’t “do” what he does in his stories, but rather he somehow “is” this intelligent, compassionate, incisive, bathetic, hilarious view of humankind. John Gardner writes about how bad writing is born of bad character; and someone else recently said, “What’s wrong with your story is what’s wrong with you.” Ouch.
More soon. Read the novella, go see the film (opens April 28) if you can; then let’s talk about it.
15 April 2010
I’m working on a syllabus for a seminar course this fall called “The First Person.” It’s been fun to pull together a list of books that use first-person narration in interesting ways. Here’s what I’ve got so far (this is the brainstorm list):
Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson
Kate Vaiden by Reynolds Price
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Everything in This Country Must by Colum McCann
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Ours: A Russian Family Album by Sergei Dovlatov
Last Evenings on Earth by Roberto Bolano
A Sport and a Pastime by James Salter
Our Kind by Kate Walbert
And Then We Came to An End by Joshua Ferris
The Sweet Hereafter by Russell Banks
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
“Notes to my Biographer” by Adam Haslett
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon
King by John Berger
Any Human Heart by William Boyd
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Additions? Comments? Memorable first-person narrators that come to mind? Why are there so few women authors on this list?! Help, my friends.
14 April 2010
I have something to say: which is really just that Deborah Eisenberg has something to say. When Deborah Eisenberg calls a novel “perfect,” it seems we’d do well to pay attention. About the novel Skylark, by Hungarian writer Dezso Kosztolányi, she writes:
“This short, perfect novel seems to encapsulate all the world’s pain in a soap bubble. Its surface is as smooth as a fable, its setting and characters are unremarkable, its tone is blithe, and its effect is shattering.”
Read the full review, at the New York Review of Books, here. (Skylark is a recent NYRB Classics release.)
Dips and Valleys
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13 April 2010
I’ve started a few different posts here but can’t seem to finish anything. Something about this book touring experience does deplete. What exactly is depleted I’m not quite sure. No perspective on it yet. I want to compare it to Broadway actors, performing the same show over and over (though it’s nowhere near that demanding, of course); and I wonder what the wisdom is among those actors, about finding your center, your energy, your will, to externalize, night after night. From whence comes the nourishment, the repletion?
All this to say that I do feel a weird responsibility to pop in here and say Hey, I’m still here, but somehow explain my present inclination to retreat and speak not.
9 April 2010
Back from a packed, whirlwind Seattle-Portland tour. I could write pages and pages about it — the events, the new people I met, the old friends I reconnected with. Think about all that happens in a life over 14 years — I lived 7 years in Seattle, and it’s been 7 years since I left — and all that catching up to do (there were even a few people I hadn’t seen in nearly 20 years).
My friend Elisabeth summed it up, at the last reading event of my trip (an Elliott Bay Book Co. reading at Hugo House on Wednesday night): she looked at me and smiled and said, “So… how’s it been.. doing all this… as an introvert?” My eyes grew wide, I nodded my head, and nothing else needed to be said. Except that we agreed we would catch up properly another time.
It was a great 7 days, though (boy, what’s with the magic number 7? Didn’t even register until just now). Readings, talks, friends, food, coffee coffee and more coffee. A little fish ‘n’ chips, too, of course. I read 4 times in total, and in honor of Lisa, who lovingly accompanied me to each reading, I read a different passage each time. By that final reading, I felt emboldened to try a section I’d never read before, one that included a scene that takes place in Korea. It went well, and now I’m having a brainstorm — to record an audio pronunciation guide, a companion to the “List of Main Characters” in the front of the book. It would seem that hearing the characters’ names spoken is very helpful to readers for whom the Korean names are challenging.
Now, I just have to figure out the tech side of DIY audio recording. Suggestions welcome.
Scatterbrained for most of the time, I failed to arrange for consistent photography on this trip. I have these two pics, provided by new friends Ben Wirth (one of the UW grad program readers at Castalia, where I read on Tuesday eve ) and Karen Maeda Allman (of Elliott Bay Books).
Castalia Reading Series (UW graduate writing program)
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Book signing following the Elliott Bay Book Co. reading at Hugo House
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And here are a few lousy ones I took with my Blackberry.
Hugo House exterior, Capital Hill neighborhood
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At Evergreen Radio Services, my first radio interview – with the lovely Rachel Glass (whose 8 year-old daughter has written 120 single-spaced pages of a fiction adventure).
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Shawn Wong, reading from a new novel he is working on, entitled The Ancient and Occupied Life of Greg Li
2 April 2010
A thoughtful review up at Fiction Writers Review, by Celeste Ng.
Because of [the] collage-like structure, the novel offers the same pleasures—and challenges—of a photography exhibit. Reading, we leapfrog across space and time, from a kitchen in a small South Korean town to a village in Darfur to a gallery in Paris, and we must put together the pieces. What’s the significance of this moment? Why is this snapshot placed beside that one? How do these all fit together?…
Chung presents each scene with confidence and trusts us to make the necessary connections, to see what the characters are saying by allowing themselves to be seen. And in fact, one of the joys in reading this debut is connecting the pieces, then stepping back for the big view: the intricate and nuanced family story that emerges… a portrait of the way the Hans are both fractured and then relinked in unexpected ways. Its quietness belies the deep emotions within.
Read the complete review here.
Catching up and gathering up photos that others have sent my way — thanks to all! Unfortunately, I a) don’t have a real camera (just the Crackberry) and b) don’t have the picture-taking instinct, so often miss the moments. So truly, I am indebted.
These first ones (courtesy of novelist Sung J. Woo) from the Asian American Writers’ Workshop reading with Nami Mun (who is a genius, by the way, and so much fun):
This event was wow. Incredibly fun and engaging for us the authors, and (attendees have expressed) very memorable and inspiring for the audience — the Q&A must have gone on for over an hour! The whole thing was videotaped, so I look forward to revisiting and possibly posting somewhere for all to enjoy. My favorite comment from an attendee, who wrote me a note the next day: It was nice to listen to your words leaping out of your book as you read. Thank you for sharing your work.
Speaking of leaping, this next one makes me stupid happy:
Long for This World has gotten some wonderful review coverage in a couple of women’s magazines; and one reading attendee even pointed out to me in the Q&A that the readership for the book seems potentially very female. Which is all good! But here, at City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, the book is face out, sharing shelf space with Roth, Vonnegut, Hwang Sunwon, and Dave Eggers. It’s saying, “Read me, men!” The cover obviously highlights a female character, but there are a number of male characters in the book who are dear to my heart and, in my absurdly non-objective opinion, as complex and engaging as the female ones.
Ok, last — from friends Sarah and Jane:
Border’s at Time Warner Center; and B&N Court Street, Park Slope, and Lincoln Center.
Why is it so delightful to see one’s book on the shelves at a bookstore? I guess it’s the real-worldness of it. You labor in the dark for so long, every glimpse of incarnation is a kind of mini-celebration.
SONYA CHUNG 