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selkie at 10:41pm on 21/02/2006
selkie at 10:41pm on 21/02/2006So. I got off the bus at the bookshop (don't ascribe me any physical-fitness virtues; I got on the bus again for the three stops after the bookshop when I was done) and by around 8:30, I started reading Gentlemen and Players.
I've just finished Gentlemen and Players.
I think it's the Brandeis graduate's version of a beach novel.
It's disconcertingly modern, for a Joanne Harris novel -- usually she needs a good running-up distance of a quarter century to land in medias res -- and takes place in the general present day, with e-mail and references to pop culture and other things mildly unusual for her.
And it's based completely, entirely on a great big large huge conceit. I had to go back and check, in dialogue and in description, that she carried it off, and she did. And I was fooled. Gentlemen and Players doesn't have the alluring (to me) subject of Chocolat, and its plot isn't as good at the core as Five Quarters of the Orange, but Harris wins, this time, wins big at doing what she set out to do. She picks her conceit and is entirely, rigorously faithful to it.
If you liked Donna Tartt's A Secret History, you'll like Gentlemen and Players. And not just for such gems as Hic magister podex est. There is a decaying, traditional, uppity school; there's an astute Classics master.
There's also a GREAT WALLOPING PSYCHOPATH WHO GOES AROUND KILLING PEOPLE WTF Joanne Harris. She's done morally ambiguous, unreliable protagonists bunches of times, but never someone this cheerfully industrious about knocking people off.
I don't know if it's an enduring pillar of literary genius, but I liked it.
I've just finished Gentlemen and Players.
I think it's the Brandeis graduate's version of a beach novel.
It's disconcertingly modern, for a Joanne Harris novel -- usually she needs a good running-up distance of a quarter century to land in medias res -- and takes place in the general present day, with e-mail and references to pop culture and other things mildly unusual for her.
And it's based completely, entirely on a great big large huge conceit. I had to go back and check, in dialogue and in description, that she carried it off, and she did. And I was fooled. Gentlemen and Players doesn't have the alluring (to me) subject of Chocolat, and its plot isn't as good at the core as Five Quarters of the Orange, but Harris wins, this time, wins big at doing what she set out to do. She picks her conceit and is entirely, rigorously faithful to it.
If you liked Donna Tartt's A Secret History, you'll like Gentlemen and Players. And not just for such gems as Hic magister podex est. There is a decaying, traditional, uppity school; there's an astute Classics master.
There's also a GREAT WALLOPING PSYCHOPATH WHO GOES AROUND KILLING PEOPLE WTF Joanne Harris. She's done morally ambiguous, unreliable protagonists bunches of times, but never someone this cheerfully industrious about knocking people off.
I don't know if it's an enduring pillar of literary genius, but I liked it.
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Hic magister podex est.
*snerk*
(no subject)
Although I just bought 15 books and have only read four of them so I should wait a bit. Plus you know there is all the school reading I need to do.
How was the program at Brandeis? I imagine it is very different than Sarah Lawrence.
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Also not a lot of bullshit exercises that seem like busywork. I appreciated that.
Getting into the program was demanding -- you had to present a novel in progress or thirty poems with proof more was on the way. i.e. a game plan for the rest of your years in the program, and they were stiffly selective, taking only about six people in the year I tried for it.
Made it either cosy, or incestuous. Fiction writers was cosy, but I heard poetry was cranky and incestuous. :)
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I'm so confused. I thought that you did an MFA program. Did I get that wrong?! And back when we were first talking I thought you went to Brown. I know Brandeis is a great school, but I didn't even find anything about their program in my research. Do they offer an MFA?
I am amazed that you got a novel published after an undergrad degree. That is so awesome. I still need to pick it up and read it. (I suck!)
We do get a lot of writing exercises at SLC which does feel weird as grad students. But so far they have been really fruitful for me and helped me start two or three stories and also a novel. They did not feel like busy work at all -- but that could because they were so specific. But I know what you mean. And they one prof at Harvard who gave us exercises drove me nuts and they did feel like busywork.
I really love Sarah Lawrence. I am teaching a lot and if we move back to Boston after I graduate I may be looking for teaching jobs at colleges, Brandeis being one of them! I'll have to apply everywhere and hope that I get hired somewhere! Of course having publications would probably help.
Are you interested in teaching at all?
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I think exercises can be great if they're more deeply thought-out than 'Imagine your character is on a desert island for a day', and if they show some signs of tailoring to the person, the class, the point of the class, or your style if you're working one-on-one with an advisor. I recommend Brandeis, by the way, for a possible teaching job because it's still such a tiny program, but I'm afraid I couldn't tell you what they pay. They have writers in residence, and plain faculty.
I am interested in teaching, but I'd like to do it at a community college. Couldn't tell you why. It seems like the people I met tutoring at the local community college just seemed to reap more from sitting in class, even when the subject matter sometimes flew beyond them.
(no subject)
Have you read Tobias Wolff's "Old School?" I just finished it and it seemed pretty wonderful to me.