John Steinbeck

[Image: Jim Henson and Bert, circa 1971]

From whiskey river:

Sometimes a kind of glory lights up the mind of a man. It happens to nearly everyone. You can feel it growing or preparing like a fuse burning toward dynamite. It is a feeling in the stomach, a delight of the nerves, of the forearms. The skin tastes the air, and every deep-drawn breath is sweet. Its beginning has the pleasure of a great stretching yawn; it flashes in the brain and the whole world glows outside your eyes. A man may have lived all of his life in the gray, and the land and trees of him dark and somber. The events, even the important ones, may have trooped by faceless and pale. And then — the glory — so that a cricket song sweetens his ears, the smell of the earth rises chanting to his nose, and dappling light under a tree blesses his eyes. Then a man pours outward, a torrent of him, and yet he is not diminished. And I guess a man’s importance in the world can be measured by the quality and number of his glories.

(John Steinbeck [source])

…and:

Should we finally and willingly cease to understand? I have often said I would rather wonder than know. Is that a youthful stance, a Keatsian stance? Is that — could it be — negative capability? Should one mature beyond it? I don’t know. Rilke advises the young to “live the questions now,” because the answers can only be revealed in time, the extension of which they do not possess. Much like Keats himself says, in a letter, that certain lessons can only be learned on the touchstone of the heart, that is, through direct experience.

What has life taught me? I am much less afraid than I ever was in my youth — of everything. That is a fact. At the same time, I feel more afraid than ever. And the two, I can assure you, are not opposed but inextricably linked. I am more or less the same age Emily Dickinson was when she died. Here is what she thought: “Had we the first intimation of the Definition of Life, the calmest of us would be Lunatics!” The calm lunatic — now that is something to aspire to.

(Mary Ruefle [source])

[Read more…]

Today’s the birthday, per The Writer’s Almanac, of an author named Gary Soto. I haven’t read anything by him, but the Almanac provided an interesting quotation. This is the whole thing, including the question which prompted it, from a 2007 interview with papertigers.org:

Are there issues which you think are particularly relevant to young adults and which you try and get across in your writing?

In my writing I don’t even think about issues. In fact, I think that fiction which sets out purposely to exploit a particular contemporary issue is not a good enough reason to exist. If I read a review that says something like “a timely issue handled with sensitivity,” I would know to avoid it. The book will be awful, yet awarded with prizes!

(He got himself into a little bit of grammatical tangle there in that second sentence, but the point is plain enough.)

What’s the dividing line between exploiting an issue and, well, I don’t know — maybe springing from one? Don DeLillo’s Falling Man could not have been written — possibly at all — if the 9/11/01 World Trade Center attack had not played out a certain way: it depends on 9/11. Does it exploit it? Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner doesn’t just take place in a generic Afghanistan; it takes place in an Afghanistan familiar to us because of current events. What about, uh, well, The Grapes of Wrath (at the time it was published, anyhow)?

Or maybe I’m focusing too much on events rather than issues. Looking through Amazon’s current list of “blockbuster spring fiction,” for example, #8 is Jodi Picoult’s Sing You Home. Some review excerpts:

Popular author Picoult tackles the controversial topic of gay rights in her latest powerful tale. When music therapist Zoe Baxter’s latest pregnancy ends in a stillbirth, her husband Max decides he can’t handle any more heartbreak and leaves her. As she picks up the pieces of her life, Zoe is surprised to find herself falling for a school counselor who happens to be a woman.

(Booklist)

Picoult treats all sides of this complex morality tale with honesty and dignity, which is what readers have come to expect from her.

(St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

I guess those would be red flags for Mr. Soto. But what about you? Do you read “issue fiction”? For myself, sure, I don’t exactly seek out fiction which is flat-out didactic or argumentative in nature. But I don’t think it would put me off, either.

(Btw, note that I’m not trying to refute Mr. Soto or challenge his taste in fiction, just curious. )

Remembering What You’ve Forgotten to Be

“Issue Fiction”