all the news that print will fit.
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| notes from underground - societal whispers all the news that print will fit. |
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Saturday, January 17, 2004 np: the geraldine fibbers - butch if you are from the south and don't mind that fact, you often have a certain affinity for intelligently written southern fiction. yes, i do mean people like faulkner, welty, o'connor, capote, etc. but there's the contemporary writers as well. since you might count capote as contemporary, i'm stressing the fact that they're still alive and writing today as a pre-requisite for being contemporary. there's a lot of dangerous ground that is tread by intelligentsia in the south. both by writer and reader. much in the same way that gram parsons took heat for not exactly being from the 'simple' background that his music exalted. alt-country music in general treads that line gently. country music is based in the music of farmers, working mountain and lowland folks. its very roots go back to irish and scottish music that came across the ocean ever so long ago. a pure pedigree of egalitarian, peasant class stock. so when writers attempt the same thing, delving into the every day episodes and antics of modern, small-town south, they face the same problems. writer A is a professor of literature at such and such university and has crafted a charming book of folk tales that focuses on the simple nature of life in the rural south in today's age. he currently resides with his wife and their yorkshire terrier in los angeles. this doesn't exactly smack of integrity. but then..does it matter? are critics nitpicking over things like this? certainly not if a writer is giving a very false impression about the southland. then it's just bad writing. unless they are purposefully skewing the results. then i don't know what to think really. i'm currently reading a book called the half-mammals of dixie by george singleton. (p.s. click to purchase) singleton teaches writing at the south carolina governor's school for the arts and humanities and lives in pickens county, south carolina. (yes, i copied that straight from the back cover.) so, his credentials seem sound. in a way, he kind of reminds me of one of my favourite professors from guilford, tom huey, who is a playwright in addition to part-time teacher. in that he's distinctly southern. and i enjoy that. this book is a hilarious and very affecting series of stories that all center around the town of forty-five, south carolina. although it doesn't hold true after the first three stories, those first three all mention characters from the other stories. in that, it is reminiscent of the short-story-as-novel idea crafted by sherwood anderson in winesburg, ohio. (and also, to a different extent, by ray bradbury in the martian chronicles.) aside from recommending this book, i don't have much of an extra point to make. the credentials of writers are, to me, an interesting idea and the question of whether or not it really affects someone's writing is interesting as well. i'd ask what you think, but aside from jeremy, no one posts in my comments on a regular basis. and if i want to have a conversation with him, i'd rattle up the hall, bang on his door and wake him up. hmm. maybe i'll go do that now. posted by J. Neas | 1/17/2004 12:16:00 PM
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