Author Archives: arijitsen

My Literary Confession

*today’s guest post comes to us courtesy of Hannah Baxter. Hannah  is a recent graduate of The University of Missouri with dual degrees in English and Theatre. She currently works as an assistant at The Missouri Review and anticipates winning the hearts of TLC’s Secret Princes very soon.*

In regards to writers, there are two things about which I am absolutely sure: We are liars and we are lazy. That’s part of what makes us so delightful; however, it is not always the best combination for churning out meaningful literature. Yet when we do, the vast majority of us want to exclaim and host parties where food is portioned in such a way so that it fits on top of a crusty piece of bread and wine is liberally, sometimes carelessly, poured. After that, the words seem to flow effortlessly out of our otherwise lazy mouths. And do you know the most common topic of conversation at these cheese platter soirees? In my experience it is, and has been for some time, all of the impressive and oftentimes obscure texts we have on our shelves. Notice I did not say what we have read, because that, I’m afraid, is a very different thing. But don’t expect us to admit that freely.

As I write this, I have a rather old, stately looking bookshelf staring back at me, overflowing with a wide variety of novels, anthologies, and literary magazines. Most have been collected since I was about thirteen and stopped reading so many Sabrina the Teenage Witch box sets (they’re almost word for word with the shows!) For the superior I have Falkner and Kaufka, for the culture conscious I have Larsson and Palahniuk. For myself I have Schappell and July, and for hiding under my pillow I have Bourdain and Rowling. In short, my assortment is rather varied for the average twenty-something, but not compared to the virtual shelves of some of my more literary-inclined cohorts. There is, as I have recently discovered, a website by the name of Goodreads which acts as a sort of online anthology of every book you will ever admit to reading, and perhaps every book you’d never admit to liking, for which you can give it a dismal one out of five stars. Or, if you’d rather, every book you’ve ever claimed to have read and had it absolutely rock your world oh my god run out and buy this right now it will change your life I promise you I will never be the same again I just died. This, my friends, is the literary Facebook, a forum for scholarly judgment and mockery, another skill at which writers are so adept. I will admit I have roamed the shelves of my Goodreads friends, prying and judging their acknowledged online catalogue. Some I have met with undeserved, in most cases, disdain, while others have shamed me to the point of hurriedly clicking on my Amazon shopping cart and adding every book by every author whose name I didn’t recognize. Aside from my own feelings of intellectual inadequacy, what does this tell us about the average literature consumer? It proves, like I said, that all writers, and in this case readers, are liars.

Well, I’d read it, but Elijah looks so comfortable.

I have talked to several of the people I work with at The Missouri Review, an established magazine with a supply closet full of every published issue, which I have of course read, and we all rather freely admit that we have not cracked every book that we have, or claim to have, on our bookshelves. For some, we might never complete this somewhat daunting task, while others promise that they are just waiting for the perfect rainy day. I like to align myself with the latter, although as I enter the workforce as not so blissfully naïve college graduate, I see those open afternoons slipping away with the imaginary rain. Is it more so that I find my staggering bookshelf a mere novelty to those who visit my house and exclaim, “Dear Lord you have a lot of books,” followed quickly by, “Why don’t you have a T.V?” or is that the shelves stand as a quiet reminder to get off both the real and literary Facebook and start reading all of these works that I spent my hard earned table-serving money on instead of shoes or food? I will admit it is probably a teensy bit of both.

Aside from the books which may or may not serve as intellectual decoration, I find it more troubling that so many of my friends and colleagues, self-included, often have trouble finishing the novels and essays that we do find the time to start reading. Not to say that my peers and I rarely finish a book once we start it, especially as I have a rather fool proof selection process, but every once in a while there is a piece that no matter how hard we try we just can’t seem to make it to that last paragraph. Of course everyone has certain tastes when it comes to literature just like music or fashion, but what is it about those of us who are more apt to pick up a novel instead of the remote that makes us so highly critical so quickly? I said that I have a nearly fool proof selection process; that is mainly for whether or not I purchase a book. It does not necessarily pertain to whether or not I read it (see above). I flip to a random page in the text and see if it can hold my attention long enough so that my eyes don’t glaze over by the time I reach the bottom. Now, I feel that this is a more accurate and fairer method than the more traditional first page verdict, which, as any good writer knows, is often the hardest and most intimidating part of the writing process. I mean, how would you feel if a person decided to just walk away based on the first ten words out of your mouth during a conversation? It’s tremendous pressure to hook a reader and keep them, which is why I find it so difficult to understand why we, meaning fellow writers and devout readers, are so harsh in regards to our fellow artists and enthusiasts when we should be the main source of support. It’s like the first page has become the literary world’s cover, and we just can’t seem to stop judging it with our upturned noses.

I have often contemplated this conundrum throughout my adult reading life, but the magnitude of its severity did not hit me until I seriously considered making writing my occupation. As naïve as that dream might appear given the current economic climate, I am nonetheless determined to find out whether or not I can hack it, or if waiting tables will get the best of me and I’ll join the regular workforce like a responsible, sane human being. Yet when I consider these tendencies I, my friends, and colleagues often display towards unknown works, I grow increasingly concerned as to the possibility of my success. To this end, I increasingly make a point of taking the time to stop and read several pages and varying sections of books that even briefly peak my interest, and more ardently promise to complete it if it ends up coming home with me in a small plastic bag. Maybe it’s my own selfish fear of failure, maybe it’s my now public admittance to not having completed, or started, every single book on my Goodreads account, but I hope that it is a small realization of the effort it takes to write anything at all, and the dream that someday, someone will put forth the same courtesy to me if I manage to create a small little paperback that sits on the overstuffed shelves of a new, struggling writer.

Sugarland, Texas

*today’s blog comes to us via Carly Dyer who will graduate with an English degree in May 2013 from the University of Missouri. She has never read Infinite Jest, enjoys eating Humboldt Fog cheese, and watching trashy television.*

presumably, Texas

While visiting my hometown of Sugar Land, Texas during this past summer’s break, an acquaintance who happened to be getting her hair bleached while I was getting a trim, inquired of my plans following my final year at the University of Missouri. I went for my script explaining that a precious year off would lead to applying for MFA programs, probably focusing on creative nonfiction. “Well isn’t that the same thing as journalism?” she asked, snorting at the unconcerned hairdresser. “How long will you have to live at home before you become the voice of your generation?” Simply shrugging my shoulders, it became apparent that the fight was not worth having, and I left the unfortunate run-in feeling rather lukewarm. Truth be told, I am an English major because I like to read, simple as that. I figured that as the years of study progressed, fields of work would show themselves to me and I would just have to choose.

hypothetical English major/ intern

There is nothing ground breaking or even interesting in discussing the economy or rather, the lack of jobs. On any given day at any given area on campus, conversations involving not being able to find work or being forced to move home to coddle and hide away from the big, scary, real world are constantly taking place. And this, of course, is the issue that seems to define our generation – being groomed to do something that does not lead anywhere. Students of English, in particular, struggle with this impending doom with nervous chuckles drenched in a lack of certainty. Per usual, the first profession others assume we will take on is teaching. But even after the competitiveness and endless hours of work in graduate programs, highly educated students still struggle to scavenge jobs, especially in desirable locations.

After having considered teaching for quite some time I began to think about getting into publishing, which is apparently not something that one just gets into. After a disheartening discussion with one of my professors regarding futures in publishing, I discovered that there are thousands of fresh, soon to be college graduates who are just as or more accomplished than I am. So now I am facing the options of unpaid internships and competitive publishing programs that might lead to interviews that might lead to terrible paying jobs if I happen to be persistent and lucky enough. See where I’m going here? Just like many of my fellow English students, I am plagued by loving a subject that leads to few and, more often than not, unappealing “opportunities”. Choosing a route for the future is like choosing a politician to vote for—the person you dislike the least.

A picture I found when I googled “practicality vs. passion”

We are given these prescribed methods to success involving either following one’s passions or taking a more pragmatic route that will surely lead to comfort. This dilemma arises in that each one of these options has its pros and cons and we are therefore asked to decide what we hold value in. Many say that they don’t care for material wealth, that doing something they are passionate about is all they need to be happy. But this does not often accompany financial stability/comfort. On the other hand, some find that material wealth brings them great happiness, but this is not without sacrifice. The real choice, for most of us, comes down to struggling in order to pursue something we love, or abandoning these things, often placing them in our hobby boxes, and finding more practical jobs. I just want to read and nosh on goat cheese and crackers all day.

career option #1 for a “soon to be” writer

Whether English is your area of study, or if it is humanities or a foreign language, employment opportunities are dwindling, leaving a sour aftertaste. This brings me to the sentiment that I’d assume every college student comes to eventually, wondering what is the point of continuing if it’s not going to lead anywhere? Should we all go backpacking through Europe? Why not just get out, get a job (possibly at a family member’s place of work) and get on with it, trying to live as financially comfortable as possible until we can send our own children to school, expecting them to do something more productive with their degrees? If no one else ever comes to this feeling then I am a failure and I didn’t even know it. But surely, I have to hope, that this fate will not befall unto me if I keep at it long enough. Maybe everyone else will quit and there will be jobs a plenty left for the last remaining few, right?

Fingers crossed.

A Plea for Interaction

 *Today’s blog post comes via Andrew Mangan. Andrew is an intern at The Missouri Review and will graduate in May 2013 from the University of Missouri Creative Writing Program with an emphasis in fiction. He only buys paperbacks anymore.*

This is an interactive article.

Think of your home library. Its volumes. Their contents. But more so, their pages. Have you written in them? Annotated? Underlined?

Yes? You aren’t likely going to learn much from this article. Go do something else.

No? Why not? Think of a reason. I’ll wait. I’m only text. You can stop and start reading this autonomously. Think of a reason? Good, hold on to it.

I would be willing to bet that the majority of people that don’t mark up their books don’t because it feels quote-unquote “wrong” or “inappropriate” or something similar. But why is that? Are they rare books? First editions/first printings? Okay, that makes sense. It would be ridiculous to deface a first edition of Gravity’s Rainbow or of To Kill a Mockingbird. Those books hold aesthetic value beyond their ideas and words. But what about your non-rare trade paperbacks? Why aren’t those marked up? Do they, too, feel inappropriate to scribble in? What unnerves you about coloring-in the margins? underlining the text? The author clearly had no problem spraying words onto the page, why should you?¹

Shakespeare’s most famous play

2.

Infinite Jest was the first book I ever had the heart to scribble in. I internally debated for nearly three months over whether or not to, until I realized that, hey, other copies of the book exist, and if I absolutely needed a pristine one, I could buy another.² If the book would truly hold such sentimental and aesthetic value, so much so that if I couldn’t bare a few on-page markings, then I shouldn’t have much of a problem buying a second copy. Thus: I caved, and subsequently underlined and annotated all over its thousand-plus pages. And, well, doing so helped that veritable landscape of a novel make sense. More so than I believe it would have if I hadn’t marked it up: for I was able to jot down conclusions I had drawn or connections I felt existed; it forced me to read in an even closer manner than I already did, because I did not want to miss a single thing to underline or annotate; I could underline some really beautiful passages that I might want to read later; I could tell my future self, upon re-reading the book, what my past self thought the first time through the book, which would aid my future self in further comprehension of it, maybe drawing more parallels or what-have-you. As such, my scribbling functioned not only as a means of deeper interaction with the work in the immediate sense—i.e. as I read—but also as a means of pseudo-diaristic correspondence; I can quite literally see what I once thought, what passages elicited certain emotions, what parts and sections, at the time, mattered to me most.

Annotation and underlining allows for a persistent experience with a book—to be able to re-read the book later and confront your bygone thoughts, the person you were and what you thought. It’s all quite introspective. Not to, of course, get all painfully saccharine and everything.³

Andrew’s copy of Infinite Jest

What I am asking the person who does not mark in their paperbacks is this: what internal barrier have you created surrounding a book that has fostered such unease at the thought of jotting down a thought or note or underlining a really striking passage? Why are you choosing to create barriers between you and something you are attempting to connect with?

Fundamentally, what you must realize is that your books are not holy. They are not something you should starve of your interaction. They are something that begs you to interact with them, and the best way I have found is to do so is to scribble all over them. Not indiscriminately, of course, but with intention and purpose, as an act of textual communication and interface. Because once you have written off writing in books, you have made the choice to limit your interaction with that book—emotional or otherwise. You have internally determined that there is something about that book that should not be interacted with, that there exists a barrier inside the book that you have decided you mustn’t cross, and that is where the problem transpires: books necessitate your communication with them.

See, there exists an idiosyncrasy within literature that does not and cannot exist in other mediums. Films, more or less, happen to you. You can take notes and think critically and do other things, sure, but a film does not need you. It exists as a file or on a reel already 100% conceptualized. It can play on a loop with no one watching and it does not change. The same is true, in other ways, for music and paintings and photographs and artistic installations: a song does not require ears for it to exist and be played, and a photograph is still a photograph. They are all trees falling in woods and making sounds. The thing about literature, what makes it so absolutely special and wonderful, is that it requires—nothing less than requires—an effort from you to imagine the characters, the setting, the conflicts, the everything. Books require you for them to mean anything. Without readers, they are not but ambiguous markings on paper. Without readers, they don’t happen.

 3.

So, what I am intending to say here, what I suppose is the inherent value and moral purpose of this article is, is nothing more than to convince you—the non-annotator, non-under liner of books—that you should not do anything that might inhibit your ability to interact with a novel, but instead, you should do your human best to actively interface with it. Do something that really forces you to close read, something that changes every time you read the books, something that makes reading an exponentially enjoyable experience. My something, and the only something I can guarantee will improve your relationship with literature is to take a pen it, doing to your books the same thing they are doing to you: connecting.

Amused by note taking