Hey hey!
So, as you are all aware, novelist Andrew Croome will be coming in to speak to both Lit classes tomorrow (22/07/10). Period 2 for Lit B and Period 3 for Lit A.
Andrew won the Australian/Vogel Award in 2008 for his novel, Document Z. He also won the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing in the recent NSW Premier's Literary Awards, coming in ahead of The Age Book-of-the-Year Winner (2009), Steven Amsterdam (Things We Didn't See Coming) and 2010 Miles Franklin Award-Shortlisted, Craig Silvey (Jasper Jones). He was named 2010 Best Young Australian Novelist by the Sydney Morning Herald and was shortlisted for the
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Andrew will be speaking to us about the process of writing fiction and the conversion of historical data and records into compelling literary fiction. There will be time for a bit of Q & A at the end. Exciting!
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What else?
We're going to do some close text analysis on the Hemingway and Chekhov stories. There will be some blog time. More writing. We'll be checking the homework. We'll be giving you some more of it, too. It's important. Unfortunately there's no oral exam for Lit. Therefore we're going to have to turn those in-class epiphanies into coherent, well-written, high-VCE-standard essays. We'll have fun doing it, though. Promise.
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Thanks to Isabelle for adding a (great) photo (taken by her friend, Sally-Anne) to the last post. Would you like to add a photo/picture to this photo? That would be great. Do it!
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Loving the insights into the stories we're doing. Keep it up. Remember how alien Richard III was when we first started and how expert you all were by the end of it? Same thing will happen with the stories. We need to study them inside-out. Pull them apart. Start asking ourselves why the authors used particular words and phrases over other ones. Why certain details were included / excluded. The key word is 'deliberate'. These guys are craftsmen. Nothing is left to chance. Nothing is in there by accident. Everything-for-a-reason DOES apply here.
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Ok. See you tomorrow. I'm looking forward to it. I hope you are, too!
'A Little Cloud' -
ReplyDeleteIt's horrible to read this story, simply because of the parallels one can draw to real life, and real people. There are so many people out there who, like Chandler, feel themselves able to express ideas, to do things, feel inspired to change and to grow, but never put it into practise. It is such a waste - every single person who has sat at home, fuming with jealousy over the success of another who may not be nearly as talented (in their own view, at least) but possesses the motivation to use their talent. The short bursts of inspiration and motivation are not nearly enough - Gallaher inspires Chandler to go home and read poetry, to try, but frustated by the bad reaction (baby crying) he gives up. He will give up, again and again, because it is a matter of far too little, far too late.
'Melancholy.' He feels this, and instead of admitting to himself that something must be done, he enjoys the sensation, feeling that it gives him the air of a poet - because, after all, aren't all poets - the good ones, at least, the ones we take seriously - melancholy? It reassures him that all is not lost, that there is still a little hope of fame and fortune, and so he revels in his sadness, contrary to all commonsense. More content to do nothing and feel justified in his superiority than to try and - possible - fail, he will never win anything.
'if only', 'perhaps', 'if' - Chandler would rather weigh his temperament up and decide whether or not he has 'a poet's soul' than actually write. 'How useless it was to struggle against fortune.' But even so, he ignores his fortune, and it ignores him right back. His wife, his child, both are forgotten in place of imaginings and 'if only's - chasing after the life Gallaher has, his carelessness, his success. He could, if he wanted to - if - find happiness in his home, but some people are not made for happiness, and who is he to 'struggle against his fortune'?
Chandler is ultimately deeply fearful. Fearful of failure and of rejection, the only way to avoid moving in the wrong direction is to stop moving completely. Stuck in his head, playing out scenarios, he would be happy - melancholy - to go through his whole life in theory and bow to imaginary applause than to put in the work and get the real thing.
And if that isn't saddening, the waste of life and of talent for ideals and 'if onlys', than what else is?
--Isabelle
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