Now that the semester is ending, it is time for retrospects and reflections, forms of analytical nostalgia. I enjoyed much of the class. The assignments were very helpful, intending to evolve us from the writer i was when i first entered the class. The blogs were also very useful in trying to collect and create ideas for stories or see what others are working on and what their aesthetic and writing are all about .I think i must have grown as a writer after this class. I had never written nonfiction before, it was my first attempt at trying to write stories that are true or based on "true events." I had mostly written short stories, fictional stories, that were more or less "me" on the page.
I like to write about the darker side of america: the poor, the damned, the depressed, the ones who have given up hope or are stuck in some physical/psychological/emotional rut. these characters were usually of the less reputable players of society: junkies, dealers, working girls, con men, gangsters, hobos, wanderers, commies, nihilists and others i consider dionysian martyr/saints of our great, blessed nation of the united states.
usually my stories are tales of people stuck in a place and delving into the things that will ultimately hold responsibility for their demise (a depressed catholic who drinks himself to death when the woman he loves won't return his love) i would make characters that were basically extensions or exaggerations of myself, once i picture a character in a setting, i attribute different emotions and feelings i have to that character and have them either solve their problem or martyr and die eventually. that used to be the closest to nonfiction i ever got to in my stories, the actual true emotions and feelings, mentality i have.
After this class, i started writing about the one person i really understand and know the most - myself. Now instead of fictional drunks and junkies or fictional depressed nihilistic love sick wanderers; it was me on the page documenting events in my life that actually inspired the feelings for my prose fiction.
i found myself having to recall dialogue and details i didn't really think i could remember, and conceiving a story out of that.
Of all the writing i enjoyed the most would have to be capote's in cold blood. i became fascinated with capote after i read a quote by him where he said that jack kerouac's on the road was not "written" but merely "typed." After that the hoffman movie came out; i was familiar with robert blake and studied in cold blood in a film class; i wanted to read capote but never got to it. After a class where his novel was described as the first non fiction novel i got really antsy and started reading. My fascination with the text is not really the content but his creative process. He actually interviewed people to get his story. For some reason i always pictured the great writer at a desk, at 2 in the morning, chain smoking cigarettes and taking a swig of whiskey or wine, and just hammering down on some type writer, a very introverted, almost hermit like existence. I pictured great writers being misanthropes who exile themselves from society and write the true story of life on earth. Capote changed that and showed me the benefits, and verification and authenticity you can achieve with just being a little friendly and opening up. i think that’s what the most important thing i learned from this class - to let others tell me a story, their story, and make art out of it.
excerpt from Walking Catholic
By this point my father began to argue with my mother, accusing her of raising a dissident or free thinker. “You don't take him to church; you don't check up on him, you do nothing.” My mother was a gentle, loving and tolerant person. I'm sure she felt the same as my father about the communist tendencies I held, but she wouldn't be the
same as him. I hated hearing the yelling, my mother arguing with him for also not doing anything. I heard the thud of something hitting the wall. When I saw what it was I balled up my fist – the Manifesto.
As they argued, I picked up the book and put on my jacket.
“Where the hell are you going?!”
“Although you need it more than I do, I'm going to church.”
I left the apartment and they continued, he probably thought I was trying to be a smart-ass. I went down the stairs and down the street; I forgave them though; they knew not what they said, thought and did. I lit a cigarette and sat on the steps of St. Anthony's cathedral. I rolled the Manifesto into my coat pocket and reflected on what just happened. Would my father be cool by the time I came back, does he really think I'm a communist, would he really treat me like a degenerate if I was...Was I a communist?
I always felt at peace when I was inside of the church, the stain glass windows, although depicting acts of torture and death, i.e. the passion of Christ, were beautiful to me. The music was always so majestic and calming, a gentle and somber tone throughout the Lord’s house. I went in and as my mind's ear overheard my father calling be a bastard commie, mocking me as another Che Guevara, I lay down on one of the benches as mass begins and I read the Communist Manifesto.
No comments:
Post a Comment