New reading from The Lizard and Other Stories.
Draft Reading Series, april 18 @ 3 p.m. at the Blue Moon Pub, 725 Queen St. E. Toronto.
This reading will be part of National Poetry Month, though I’m reading fiction…
First reading of the new decade!
Pivot Reading Series – next Wednesday! (with Bill Kennedy and Faye Guenther)
Faye Guenther has written for Broken Pencil and the Danforth Review, and works as Joyland.ca’s editorial assistant. She has preformed her poetry at reading series in Toronto and Montreal. Her short story “Bicycle Dreams” was published in Dandelion Magazine in 2009.
Bill Kennedy is the co-author of apostrophe with Darren Wershler-Henry (ECW, 2006). He has been the artistic director of the Scream Literary Festival since 2002, as well as a poetry editor for Coach House Books and a co-organizer of the Lexiconjury Reading Series.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
8 p.m. at the Press Club
850 Dundas Street West
Hosted by Carey Toane
PWYC.
This interview first appeared on the Lemon Hound blog, Dec. 23, 2009.
*
LH: What do you think the purpose of a review is? If you also write about books on a blog, why? What does blogging let you do differently?
MB: I think the purpose of a review is to provide an honest response to a book. One must admit up front that one brings a host of expectations to a book, so the review can only be one’s own personal response to the book. Each of us has a particular education, particular tastes, and particular preferences. That said, some responses are guttural and impulsive and others are abstract and hard to articulate. Ultimately, a review needs to communicate to an audience beyond the one “responding.” Here is where things get more complex. The review is one person’s response to a book, but to have value to a broader community of readers it needs to explain itself to that community … and that community is diverse in the extreme. One can assert an isolationist stance (i.e., I think what I think and I don’t need to justify it to anyone), and sometimes those reviews are excellent (i.e., interesting to read). More often, the interesting reviews take a more self-consciously humble approach. Whatever wisdom each of us possesses, it is only a fragment of the whole. Each voice, each opinion is legitimate, but those that enhance the “conversation” (and don’t divert it tangentially) more often have long-term value. (I hedge and include the qualifiers because sometimes the one-offs, the lone wolfs, say things that are invaluable.)
Second part. Yes, I write a blog about books. Why? It helps me keep my sanity. I need a place to write, clarify my thoughts, throw words out into the void. Besides, it’s fun. Why not?
LH: If you write reviews, how would you describe your approach, or method? Do you offer or engage in exegesis, theoretical, academic, reader response, close, contextual or evaluative readings? If you don’t write but read reviews, what aspects of reviewing do you notice?
MB: I’ve written and published book reviews for 20 years. I don’t think I belong to any “school” or “approach,” but I’m open to being proven wrong. I write about what I like about the books, what I dislike about the books, and I try to provide examples to back up each of those opinions. Writing reviews has helped me to understand what it is that I like about books. It has helped me clarify my own opinions and tastes. In that sense, it has been a selfish enterprise. It has been about my own self-discovery. I used to think that I needed to be as clear as possible in my opinions, but I confess that often resulted in something close to cruelty. (In my defense, I would say that I never thought my opinion to be “the last word,” only the truth that existed in my own feeble brain.) At the same time, I was always aware of (at least trying to) be(ing) evidence-based. I always knew there was a writer out there who would (possibly) read my review and wonder what the heck I was going on about. I always wanted to say: Look! This sentence here! This plot point here! It’s problematic because X or Y. I’ve never thought reviews should rescue the ego of the writer, but I am now much more self-conscious about foregrounding the subjectivity of my opinion. I don’t think that undermines my opinion. I just hope it makes it easier for the writer to hear it.
LH: What do you think makes for a successful review? Is there an aspect, a stylistic choice, or perspective that necessarily produces a more significant document?
MB: Evidence. That’s my one-word answer. Reviews should provide quotations and evaluation. Here’s what I think, and here’s the evidence to back up my opinion. The reader of the review should be provided enough substance to make up their own mind about whether they trust the opinion presented, or whether they conclude their own tastes and assumptions invalidate the conclusions of the reviewer.
LH: When you review, do you focus on a particular text (poem, story), the book at hand, the author’s body of work? Do you think this choice of focus influences criticism, or your own criticism, and if so, how?
MB: Usually when I review, I focus on the book. I would often love to be able to explore the broader themes and implications of a book (and the body of work of the author), but it’s beyond what I have time for. There is a difference between what the “review” can do and what the “essay” can do. Reviews can be weaker and still okay. Essays have a higher standard. These categories can obviously overlap, but I’m comfortable with the generalization. Reviews can be a simple response to a book, and a variety of responses and approaches can be valuable. If one wants to provide a deeper, larger, more valuable evaluation, then expectations rise. Deeper proof is required.
LH: If you also write non-critical work, how different is the way you approach reviewing or critical writing to the way you approach your own “creative” writing?
MB: Wow, what a question. First, it comes from a different place in the brain. At least it seems to. Both can be intuitive, but the review is a response to a real thing, a book. When I write narrative, it is emerging out of nothingness. The review needs to remember that it is based in reality; it needs to be evidence-based. But any narrative I write is not evidence-based. It is following an often unexplainable logic. Or so it seems at the moment of creation.
LH: Have you been in a position where you have had to write about a book that you don’t care for, or a book that is coming out of a tradition that you are perhaps opposed to, or resistant to on some level? How do you handle such events? Or how have you noticed others handle these events?
MB: Yes. I would identify two kinds of problems. The most difficult books to review are the ones you expect to like, but once you read them you find that you don’t. There is both the problem to articulating your response to the book, and the problem of trying not to amplify your response by also communicating your disappointment. This is the most difficult problem I’ve had reviewing books, and I haven’t always handled it well.
The second problem is as you’ve indicated. The work is coming out of a tradition that you find difficult to access. I’ve reviewed some books like this. These are less problematic for me than the previous category, because I feel a kind of “out.” I just say, this work is coming out of a tradition that I can’t for the life of me comprehend. I remember writing a review about a spoken word CD and using the example of a Bob Dylan concert I went to. Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead had opened for Dylan, and it was such contrast of styles that night. Lesh was unstructured, and Dylan was highly structured. I prefered the structured, and said so. The spoken word CD was more like Lesh. Obviously, there was an audience out there for this material, but it wasn’t me. The spoken word artist actually emailed me later and thanked me for the review and expressed regret that her work hadn’t connected with me. I regretted it, too. I felt maybe I was missing something. On the other hand, we shouldn’t apologize for our tastes.
LH: What is the last piece of writing that convinced you to a/ reconsider an author or book you thought you had figured out, or had a final opinion on or b/ made you want to buy the book under review immediately?
MB: I don’t think I’ve ever bought a book based on a reviewer’s opinion. Sometimes I’ve been made aware of books that I didn’t know existed and then sought them out. I read a number of reviews of Margaret Christakos’s poetry and then saw one of her books in a store and was inspired to pick it up. After flipping through it, I bought it. I trusted the voice of the poetry, but not the voice of the reviewer. I’m a skeptical reader. I want a direct relationship with the book. I like reviews that challenge my thinking, that make me reconsider my assumptions, but ultimately I only trust the book itself.
LH: Is there a quality you are looking for in a review that you haven’t found?
MB: Am I still waiting for the perfect review? No. I don’t expect reviews to be perfect. There are too many possible variations of opinion. I want reviews to be clear. To express an opinion and back it up with evidence. I think a variety of opinions are possible about a book, and that they could all be “true.” At the same time, it’s important to acknowledge that reviewers can often be wrong. Only constant re-evaluation and sorting will ensure the enduring literary works will rise to prominence.
LH: Critical work is increasingly unpaid work; will you continue to do this work despite the trend? Do you see this trend reversing, or changing course?
MB: I will continue to do this work for the reasons noted above. I don’t know how to stop.
Second question. No, I don’t see this trend reversing. I see it connected to a larger trend. Creative work is valued for how well it can sell, not how well it is written or how interesting it is or how well it extends or responds to a particular tradition. What does criticism mean in the context of capitalism? If sales are the performance measure, what does “reviewing” contribute?
LH: What do you hope to achieve by writing about writing? Do you believe that reviews can actually bring new readers to texts?
MB: I need to believe that life is meaningful. I write about writing to help establish meaning. As noted above, it helps me maintain sanity. It helps me orient myself against something that isn’t superficial. (I confess that I might be delusional about the stability of this thing called literature, but I cling to it nonetheless.)
Second question. Can reviews bring new readers to texts? Absolutely! They can open texts to a broader community of readers. Reviews don’t provide a final rendering, a final interpretation, a closing of meaning, though; they open to mystery. On this I must insist. They open one text into another, into another, and into … infinite possibilities.
They remind us to keep reading, I hope. One new book after another.
_____
Michael Bryson began reviewing books at the University of Waterloo in 1990 or thereabouts. He has written more reviews than he can count. His new book of short stories is The Lizard (Chaudiere Books, 2009). He keeps a blog. From 1999-2009, he was the publisher and editor of the online literary journal, The Danforth Review (indexed here) He has an MA in English Literature from the University of Toronto, but doesn’t use it much.
The title of this post is the title of a story of mine that will be appearing soon in the relauched PURITAN magazine, online.
Here’s a direct link to the story (pdf).
The title comes from Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, of course, the final line of the book. I started writing the story with a challenge to myself to end the story with that line. That proved too hard, but it still worked as a title.
At least, it’s pretty to think so.
The story is included in The Lizard (Chaudiere Books, 2009).
The story begins in the third person narrative voice and switches to the first person, something else that was tricky to make work.
Merry Christmas (from John and Yoko). And me!
See a video of me at the TREE Reading Series in Ottawa, from Nov 24, 2009.
Finding That Middle Place: Writing The Lizard and Other Stories
By Michael Bryson
How did The Lizard and Other Stories (Chaudière Books, 2009) come together? How do I feel about it, now that it’s out? What is the behind-the-scenes story of the book?
Well, the 16 stories in The Lizard were written largely between 2001 and 2006, though there are some bits as old as 1995 – and I was tweaking right up until the month before publication.
So it came together – slowly.
The book is a follow-up to my previous two collections: Thirteen Shades of Black and White (Turnstone Press, 1999) and Only a Lower Paradise (Boheme Press, 2000). The earlier books were loosely constructed, and I wanted this book to be more cohesive. I also wanted it to be optimistic and fun.
The Lizard represents the completion of a trilogy of books that share a common set of concerns: the process of growing up, the tension between order and chaos, interpersonal relationships and the backdrop of contemporary Toronto.
It seemed to me that a lot of my stories were about the lives of boys and men, and I wanted to dig as deep as I could into that theme. That’s how it started, anyway.
Perhaps, fortunately, I’ve never been good at keeping my writing aligned with a plan. It always has a way of pushing me off course and reminding me that the world is full of complications and any attempt to simplify is doomed.
This might be the true big theme in the book, actually; that unpredictable disruptions are often the key elements that shape our lives. Of course, September 11, 2001 is a huge metaphor for this type of event, and the final three stories in The Lizard all have that day as a central plot element.
Other stories address that theme of chaos in a more personal way. For example, in “Sandwich Factory,” a husband finds himself abandoned at home after the birth of his child. His wife takes the baby and moves back home with her parents, an action that surprises everyone.
In “Hit,” one character tries to right himself after his wife’s affair. He re-connects with a high school buddy and tells him, “The world is fucked up.” His life-long friend replies, “It has always been fucked up.” In other words, why are you so surprised? Did you think that everything that happens makes sense?
In contrast to this sense of the unpredictable ruling our lives, many of the stories explore “love” as the saving force. Some of the characters even asking outright: What is love? Why do we work so hard to get it? Why is it so painful and hard to find?
In “Live Bait,” a young man is struggling to deal with the suicide of his sister and the subsequent depression of his father, when the old man suddenly announces that he’s in love with the memory of a 16-year-old girl he met a half-century earlier.
Yes, this might be a book about finding the balance between craziness and bliss.
There’s a lot of humour in this book, too. A peculiar kind of humour maybe, but humour all the same. Laughter, of course, is another saving grace. Humour often results from the collision of contrasting incongruous things. When all else fails, and life doesn’t make sense, laugh it off.
So the book drifted from its origins as a collection of tales about the lives of boys and men. Yet, it is possible to still read it that way; the structure of the book, for example, is linked by four vignettes about an unnamed boy. The first vignette captures him as a two-year-old. In each of the others, he gets progressively older – and his world becomes more complex.
The book isn’t above penis jokes either. I count at least two.
How did the book come together? Haphazardly, is the most truthful answer. I kept writing in the direction that seemed correct, then realizing I couldn’t go that way any more. Then I would try something else until I got stuck again.
Many of the stories in my earlier books are what I call “heartbreakers.” Ten year ago, I often found myself writing little odes to sadness. It was about the only thing I was half-good at, capturing a kind of Keatsean tragic beauty, even though my stories have always had funny bits.
These new stories, however, often end on up-beats. The story “Hercules,” even, was a self-conscious attempt to write a happy story. Martin Amis said only Tolstoy made happiness interesting, but I gave it a shot.
The new stories are also longer than my previous ones. There’s more plot development, but my style still tends toward minimalism. I like to suggest, rather than explain. I like short sentences. It’s not an approach agreeable to everyone, but I prefer to trust readers to work out the stories for themselves. (I even wrote an essay, “Fiction is Mystery.” A spark from Douglas Glover provided the basis for this piece.)
I worked on the endings of the stories most diligently. (They’re hard, man!) Some endings changed over and over. Some are even different from the endings of the same stories when they were previously published in literary magazines. For the book, I wanted to make sure that the fit together the best way. So some of the stories needed to be modified to make the relationships between the stories either closer or more distant, depending on what seemed right.
The manuscript also evolved over the years, as I submitted it to publisher after publisher. Each time, after the book was rejected, I wrote some more and re-arranged the stories. Finally, I got to a point where I couldn’t write any more. I knew I had to abandon this book and move on to a new project. At that point, Chaudière accepted it.
Even then, I dropped two stories from the manuscript, rewrote a number of passages, and re-arranged the order of the stories to what it is now.
How do I feel about it? Both exhilarated and exhausted. I think the book has finally achieved its best form, and I’m glad that readers will now be able to see it. I’m exhausted that it took so long. It was a tough journey, and I wish it had been easier.
Over the course of time to write this book, I had a number of significant changes in my life, went through a number of significant relationships.
Most significant is the fact that two years ago I married and became a step-father to two wonderful kids. This stage of my life isn’t represented in the book, though there are male characters in the book with children. That is, all of the stories were initially drafted before I got married, before I met my wife even.
Perhaps this is why many of the stories are about characters anxious to settle down. They are only too aware of the disruptions of life. They are not grounded by family, though some of them want to be. The protagonist of the story “Flight,” however, clearly doesn’t want to be tied down. His life is all about process, perpetually moving on.
My feelings about the book, therefore, tend to be nostalgic. The book is a (metaphoric) record of a time in my life that has passed. At the same time, it’s a book that is new to the rest of the world, which is funny/strange to me.
I just hope readers find the stories to be fun, interesting, entertaining, and memorable.
What is the behind-the-scenes story of the book? I think I’ve covered this off in my ramblings above. Maybe I could just add that the story “Six Million Million Miles” appeared in Best Canadian Stories 2005 (Oberon) and two other stories in the book won writing contests.
Six million million miles, if anyone is wondering, is the speed of light. One of the known limits of our universe and that rarest of things, an absolute.
The stories in The Lizard sometimes playfully reference silly ideas of this sort. It’s one of my tics, which may either please readers or dissuade them from proceeding further. I’ve been drawn to different schools of story writing in the past 15 years – everything from the absurdist realism of Raymond Carver to the absurdist fabulism of J. G. Ballard.
Actually, there’s call outs in the book to Mordecai Richler, Saul Bellow, Milan Kundera, Richard Van Camp, and of course Hemingway. The final story is called “Isn’t It Pretty To Think So,” which is the final line from The Sun Also Rises. Believe it or not, I was trying to write that story in such a way that I could legitimately use that line as the last line of the story, but I couldn’t pull it off. I thought it worked okay as a title, though.
I’d also like to point to the work of Mark Anthony Jarman, Douglas Glover, John Lavery and Greg Hollingshead as being strongly encouraging to me. I also want to thank Richard Van Camp and Harold Hoefle for being early readers.
The title story first appeared in Grunt & Groan (Boheme Press, 2000), a fiction anthology about “work and sex” edited by Matthew Firth and Max Maccari. Firth asked me to submit something, and I didn’t have anything that fit that theme, so I tried to write something, and it turned into “The Lizard,” which is still a strange, funny, and subtle little story after all these years. Readers should pay attention to the line about dogs being comfortable in cages.
Another story written on a dare is “The Book of Job.” Richard Van Camp challenged me to do a re-write of the biblical tale (he was going to do one, too). Mine brings back the trickster Crow, who appeared in my collection Only A Lower Paradise, where he taught “City Boy” a few tricks. In this story, Crow learns about the limits of love. What it has to do with the Bible story, I’m not clear about, but that is the honest origin of the story, and I thought the title should stay. The challenge happened because Van Camp and I were discussing how Yahweh in the Book of Job is trickster. He offers Satan a chance to torture his disciple. It’s also interesting to note that Borges called the Book of Job an early precursor of Kafka. My story doesn’t end as a “heartbreaker,” though.
The story “Flight” was first published as a chapbook and contains what one early reader told me was his favorite hand-job scene in literature. This is the book’s Philip Roth moment, though more generous to the woman than Roth would be. There are actually two hand-jobs in that story, though: one for him, and one for her.
The attempt to find balance, reciprocity, and fun is at the core of this book. Maybe Aristotle (and Annabel Lyon!) had it right, talking about The Golden Mean. In any case, I’ve always been interested in trying to find that middle place, the shades that exist between black and white.
The middle is a challenging (and therefore interesting) place to be, which may be why the lizard says grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. On the other hand, one of my characters asks, “Is that all there is to it?”
The answer? “You bet.”
Here’s the real cover of The Lizard.
(Previously I’d posted a couple of the prototypes.)
I took this photograph, using Owen’s skateboard and plastic lizard. So, thanks, Owen!
I took about five dozen images until I got this one, which balanced the angle, light, and depth of field.
I wasn’t sure how the font would work out, though, and I’m very pleased at how the designer has made this work.
A compelling introduction to the book!
