A critic's awakening.
When I was a girl I was given a book of short stories for one of my birthdays. I confess, it was a book I hesitated to read; the cover was decked with a pit-stained, tattooed, chin-stubbled, angry-eyed fry cook flinging greasy potatoes around an equally greasy-looking diner kitchen. I was disgusted by it. The grease seemed to seep out from the book jacket. The jacket is long lost, but the copy I own has brownish grease marks up and down both cloth covers. I can't explain it.
I didn't read it. It sat, a greasy eyesore on my bookshelf, next to Roald Dahl and Island of the Blue Dolphins for months, maybe even years before I took it out, doffed the jacket, and started to read.
The book confused me at first. I read one 'chapter' and found that the next didn't make any sense along with it. First I was reading about the adventures of a detective and a greasy fry cook, next I was reading about a group of boys and their dying fish - scales flecked with white, eyes popping - "Ick" they called it. But the characters were all different. There was no more fry cook, no more detective, just boys and a fish. The next chapter was the same way - this time it was about Jim and some boat called "Billy Bones." I kept wondering why the author didn't finish the first stories before moving on to the next ones. It frustrated me, but I liked the little drops of narrative while they lasted. Sometimes they lasted longer than I cared to put in, so I'd skip to the next chapter, unworried that I didn't finish the one before.
That was my first encounter with the short story. I remember being both captivated and fascinated by what stories I did finish out of Lord of the Fries and other stories. They were bizarre and didn't finish like other stories did - they were sometimes dark, sometimes confusing, and sometimes they just felt unfinished, like the ending was an afterthought rather than a destination.
Just now I re-read the last story found in Lord of the Fries. It's the longest and perhaps most sentimental story in the whole collection and it's entitled "Chinese Babies." I remembered almost nothing from the first read. This time through I was at least curious enough about the plot and characters to finish it, and it left me with a wholesome, pleasant feeling.
My memory of the book was better than this brief rereading. I should go back and read more of these stories - I particularly remember liking the story of Luc, the fallen angel. But now my mind is active with subtle critiques: too many cliches, too few character descriptions, too little conviviality between characters, and dialogue that is sometimes stilted, sometimes artificial.
It's true, you can never go back to childhood (as Michael Jackson* showed us somewhat awkwardly). But I think the effect on me now is bittersweet. My readerly tastebuds have evolved; stomaching literature that is less than truly brilliant has become harder and harder. But not only this - I find myself thinking not only I could do this, but, I could do this way better.
So I have decided to do what every writer must at sometime decide to do (and must do well). It's time to put my butt in the chair.
This semester there are five contests which I plan on entering. Such a mercenary motivator, but I think these will encourage the butt + chair hours that need to happen. I'll try to say that not placing in any of them is still worth the effort, but heck, an extra few twenties lying around the house wouldn't hurt either (or an extra few hundreds).
I keep saying "this is it - now I'm working hard." But so far it hasn't really been it.
But heck. This is it.
* I had to blog about Michael Jackson. Everyone is writing blog posts about the lately departed moonwalker - so many that there are newspaper articles about how many bloggers are blogging about him. Now bloggers are blogging about the newspaper articles about how many bloggers are blogging about him. To be quick, I'm hip now!