New School 2

Rajeet Guha New School Homework 2 (Synopsis of Readings) Andre Dubus, in his short story titled ‘A Father’s Story’, has penned down a classic in the genre of realism. Dubus’s short story is embedded deeply and unequivocally in the mode of realism. Dubus has gotten down to the nitty-gritty and laboriously described the physical setting and location. He has dirtied his hands and precisely drawn out a painstaking picture of the surroundings, landscape, habitat and vegetation. The naturalism is palpably apparent in this yarn. Dubus has written vertically to produce a masterpiece. Dubus has clearly practiced what he preaches to the choir. The vividness and meticulousness to detail evident in the story vindicates his dictum of writing vertically. I am sure Hemingway would lionize his short story. Reading the story is like watching a movie. Dubus is a master at presenting a visualization of the story to the reader. You feel like you are witnessing the story. The story unfolds before the reader’s eyes. Reading the book is like watching a dream though not a pleasant one. But that is what life is: an unpleasant dream where often things are not picture perfect. It shows that life does not always fit into neat compartments. John Gardner, I daresay, would be proud of such a story. This is fiction and not metafiction. Dubus has developed psychologically intense, strong and consistent characters. The plot of the story is without a shadow of doubt in my mind been made consummately subservient to the well-developed characterization. This is a full-bodied story, which would surely win the approval of literary critics. I am confident and certain that even Rust Hills would be a fan of such a story. The back of beyond, rural, small town location of this splendid short story resonates very well with denizens of such areas. The plot is realistically congruous with rural, relatively deserted areas that have low density of population. The same story would be ludicrously incongruous in a metropolitan city. The ambience and culture of this rural, insular, small town has been captured aptly. The father’s compassion and empathy at his daughter’s sorrow and emotional breakdown could not have been captured better. The father’s dilemma of whether his daughter’s unintentional hit and run accident should be reported to the police has been resolved well. The father’s lingering depression after his daughter leaves has been portrayed superbly. The father’s bonding and relationship with the priest has been painted to perfection. The story also shows that even a devout Catholic man is first and foremost a father to his daughter and only second a practicing Christian. The story also demonstrates that life is never a bed of roses. It is always full of thorns. There are few moral absolutes and it is the quandaries of life that fosters the creation of catch-22 situations. Life does not fit into neat compartments. People are conflicted with emotions and it is never easy to resolve a dilemma. Neither instrumental rationality nor religious morality always guides people. It is rather different mixtures of the two that compel people to act the way they do in specific situations. The other piece written by Dubus is not a short story. It is a succinct work of literary criticism. In this little jewel of an essay, Dubus spells out what it takes to be a good writer of fiction to a large extent with some relevance to writers of non-fiction as well. His essay is not turgid. It is written in simple, lucid prose. I found it simply gripping and devoured it in one reading. Dubus’s ‘The Habit of Reading’ is an absolute must for every writer of any genre. Dubus says that writing should never be planned in advance. It should never be thought of in a systematic and rehearsed manner. Writers should resist the temptation of playing out the plot of the story or conclusion in their minds. It is this hands-off approach to the story without consciously thinking about it that goes in making the story a sublime one. Dubus believes that stories are smothered when writers consciously put their rational thinking caps on. Using one’s rational intellect when conscious to continuously contemplate of, direct, plan, coordinate, manage and produce the story and then immediately scribbling the story is called horizontal writing. Horizontal writing has limited value according to Dubus and detracts from the quintessential beauty, spontaneity and essence of the story. Coercing continuously one’s mind and intellect when conscious to think about and meticulously pen down a structured story can be counterproductive. Thinking should not be clearly circumscribed to rational, planned, conscious and structured thought. Thinking should include intuitive thought. Intuition and flow of thought is crucial to any work of art including fiction writing. Ideas, themes, symbols, conflicts and plots that are latent in one’s subconscious mind should come to the fore and manifest itself in the author’s writing. These thoughts that are dormant and hidden in the recesses of one’s subconscious mind have to be awakened, activated and brought to light in one’s writing through sensory perception, interaction with the environment, surroundings and people. Walking, jogging or sprinting outdoors can often spring to life these hidden, obscure ideas and thoughts. Being immersed in the culture of one’s place and geography, observing flora and fauna, watching movies, plays, playing sports, or anything other than the work of writing brings to the forefront ideas, themes, motifs, characters, symbols, storylines one never knew existed in the subconscious and these are then reflected with the passage of time in an author’s writing. This is what makes the writing a fine work of art. The forces of flow and intuition that are generated by activities outside the domain of writing to make the written work of fiction a piece de resistance is known as vertical writing. When writing flows incessantly like a river without constraints that the writer or artist reaches the acme or apogee of his work. This contributes to the magnificence and grandeur of the work. This act of writing without consciously thinking or writing intuitively and going with the flow of thought makes a piece of fiction a true work of art. This is known as writing vertically. Even Ernest Hemingway endorsed this method of writing vertically. John Gardner, in the second chapter of his book namely ‘The Art of Fiction’, says that rules are relevant but they are only a means to an end in fiction writing, not an end in itself by any stretch of imagination. No writer’s imagination and the proclivity to spin yarns should be stifled by the excess baggage of rules hanging around his neck. Rules are only a compass, navigator or guide in any journey, not the journey itself. It would be a cardinal sin for a fiction writer to let a putative master class of a work become stultified by an obsessive adherence to technique fundamentalism. Such fixation to technique or rules is deleterious to the writer and also writing, the artist as well as the practice of art. Sticking compulsively to rules detracts from the beauty of a work of art. The writer’s work of art mirrors a dogmatic streak. The malodorous marriage of fiction writing to technical purity tarnishes the writing and blemishes the reputation and stature of the writer. Rules are crucial for introductory or beginning writers of fiction. The elements of writing like grammar, syntax, punctuation, diction, sentence construction, sentence variety, paragraph structure, etc. have to be known like the palm of one’s hands. Later on plot, character development, dialogue, environment, setting, theme, symbols, etc. must be mastered. Writers who are no longer novices and have already been initiated in the writing process previously need not be tied to the yoke of techniques or rules. They can plunge headlong into uncharted waters. They can break the fetters of rules and techniques with bravado and forge their own techniques, script their own rules that bear the lasting imprint or mark of their unique style, their distinct voice. Like bohemian and extraordinary artists they can transcend old frontiers, scale daunting heights, chart new boundaries in their quest to make the impossible possible. Writers of fiction like other members of their artistic tribe can fuse, borrow, modify and adapt elements from other genres into their work or oeuvre. Great artists from time immemorial have been practicing such an amalgamation of different styles in their work. Gardner, a doyen of literary criticism, believes that any writer of fiction regardless of whether he writes realistic fiction, metafiction, science fiction, farce, yarn, or tale must make his written work visually vivid, lucid and appealing to the reader. The reader should be able to visualize the book the way he watches a movie in a movie theatre, a cartoon on cartoon network, a sitcom or soap opera on television, a play or musical on stage or a sports event in a sports stadium. The reader should feel like he is in the middle of the action, he is one of the dramatis personae, he is participating in the story, and he should able to feel the whole gamut of human emotions that the characters in the story have or arouse in others. Any fiction writer worth his salt should be able to create a dream in the minds of the readers. This fostering of a dreamlike situation or a moving dream in the minds of the readers is the barometer for judging the work of any fiction writer. Imagery is important; so is the use of subtlety. In a realistic story, the writer should be able to convince and persuade the reader into accepting and buying the story. In a tale or yarn on the other hand Gardner says that an indispensable thing for a writer is to produce a suspension of disbelief and make the reader live in that state. Making the reader live in such a dreamy state is the hallmark of any fiction writer of caliber.