Comments for The Missouri Review

Comment on The Infinite Library by BG

BG — Mon, 12 May 2008 12:23:23 +0000

Good post regarding the brain and language. Reading it, I was reminded of one good piece of advice someone once gave me: meal time is never a good time to use words that end in the suffixes otomy or ostomy.

Comment on Metaphors and Mammograms by Leah2288

Leah2288 — Mon, 05 May 2008 01:49:43 +0000

It is rather entertaining when you sit back and consider how much we rely on silly phrases and metaphors to discuss those topics that are more…unpleasant… thinking that our use of those euphemisms will actually make the process more tolerable. Honestly, if I were “mowing the lawn” and found a “peanut” instead of “gummi bears,” its association with food wouldn’t make it any less scary. Maybe the idea is to get so wrapped up in metaphors that you outright forget the actual subject you’re talking about. I wonder if other countries have this obsession with figurative language? Who knows, maybe the “euphemism” will soon take its place next to apple pie, baseball, and “freedom fries.”

Comment on Refreshing One’s Recollection by ryan

ryan — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:45:43 +0000

I’ve been having a slightly similar experience with books that I loved in junior high and high school but am now revisiting as a soon-to-be college graduate.
The Catcher in the Rye is one of those books. I remembered it as this searing screed against parents, teachers and the uncontrollable forces acting on our lives that seem to accumulate as we age - not to mention its containing one of the best fart jokes in American literature. Until, that is, I looked at it again recently: the prose was dull, the voice repetitive and more whiny than screed-like. Ditto for the poetry of Allen Ginsberg and most of the Vonnegut I’ve read. Which, contra this post, goes to show that there is in fact some truth at the heart of Salinger’s novel regarding living and aging, though that doesn’t suffice to make it as impressive a read for me as it used to be.

Comment on Guest Blog: Tara Yellen on Mentoring by Leah2288

Leah2288 — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 23:56:20 +0000

Though I am not a teacher, I’ve found, also, that as much as we like to take pride in our individual efforts and the creative genius of our own writing, so much rests upon the community of people around us. I think that is why writing workshops have become so popular, even vital, to the writing process. People need a place to bounce their ideas off one another, to be humbled through constructive criticism or empowered by honest praise. Whether you are daring yourself to be awful or good, what it comes down to is daring to live: to have the courage to reveal a small part of yourself through your writing.

Comment on Guest Blog: Tara Yellen on Mentoring by Patrick Lane

Patrick Lane — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 07:22:35 +0000

I’ve also found that reading and commenting on students’ stories is actually a wonderful stimulant for my own writing. I don’t get ideas from students’ stories, for the most part, but the act of engaging with them really seems to prime my own creative engines. I’ve heard some others complain that teaching workshops drains their energy (and also time — that much, at least, is true). I’m sure for some this is the case, and if I thought I could work out the psychological mechanism that makes teaching work for my own writing, I’d start making my living selling it in weekend seminars in seedy hotel conference rooms around the country.

Comment on New Site Design by Annie

Annie — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 12:04:21 +0000

Hooray, new website! It looks spiffy. Good job Patrick!

Comment on TMR Podcast: Audio Winners Series: 10-Minute Play: Kris Saknussemm “Memory Wound” by lawless_lulu

lawless_lulu — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 06:30:22 +0000

this piece is absolutely fantastic. the music works perfectly with the reading, and the reading itself is enthralling. definitely worthy of first place.

Comment on TMR Podcast: Audio Winners Series: Voice-Only Poetry: Todd Boss by Marc McKee

Marc McKee — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 19:25:28 +0000

After listening to these poems, I’m struck by the way sound seems to produce within us a reach to that sound’s phonetic kin. It’s pretty incredible when such an intuitive desire can be made to perform the meditative explorations of “To Wind a Mechanical Toy” and “Yellowrocket.” Well-met, Mr. Boss.

Comment on Hoax Reactions: Authenticity vs. Truth by melwest

melwest — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 22:20:55 +0000

There is a demographic argument sounded by Philip Lopate as to our disaffection with contemporary fiction. “The older I get, the less I can tolerate fiction’s contrivances.” It’s not known what kind of traction this argument has among the boomer generation (the most populous in U.S. history).

We are constantly bombarded by literary agents who tell us they must be passionate about the fiction they agent. I read a review in Publishers Weekly about a novel featuring, in the magazine’s words, “buckets of blood” and “cat torture”. If you are passionate about buckets of blood and cat torture, you are not a literary agent. You are a psychopath. Contrivances of contemporary fiction. Impossible to abide by.

I also say the publisher who claimed the most recent fraudulent memoir was a personal and a professional betrayal is being disengenous. That same publisher engaged, only it knows how long, in a global quest to find the latest victim fiction of the “woe is me” variety and it seems poetic justice that they get hoisted on their own petard. For me, a matter of the chickens coming home to roost.

Comment on Hoax Reactions: Authenticity vs. Truth by Patrick Lane

Patrick Lane — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 23:58:41 +0000

I suppose it’s somewhat bad form to comment on your own post — like laughing at your own joke — but an particular exception to the situation painted above occurred to me: historical fiction.

A lot of people seem very invested in research-derived authenticity even in fictional narratives when it comes to talking about the past (at least the past that is beyond living memory). I remember sitting in the audience at an AWP panel about research, where one audience member became politely irate when one of the panelists (alas, I recall not who) said that if a particular historical fact (like a precise date or weather condition or location of a particular historical figure at a particular time) didn’t serve the larger narrative purpose, then the writer should feel perfectly free to fudge that fact. “After all, we’re writing fiction,” the author said (or words to the like effect). The audience member responded with a moderately impassioned plea that the because the reader is relying on us for an accurate picture of the past and because it’s our obligation to do justice to the dead by rendering their time period with rigorous correctness therefore the fudging of facts is a kind of artistic crime.

Here, truth isn’t linked to the authenticity of the author’s personal experience, but instead to the integrity of a kind of journalistic research. But in both cases, “truth” is dependent upon some form of measurable and recorded “actuality.”

In fact, thinking about that, authenticity itself isn’t to blame for this shifting understanding of artistic truth — it’s the idea that the need for “authenticity” has bled over to the need for “actuality.” After all, James Frey has “authenticity” on his side as someone who genuinely battled addiction — his story is authentic (and true) to his own experience, but it was not “actual” (or “true”) according to the objective record of the events of his life.

–Patrick