Friday Night
Looked at postmodernism with the first years this morning. However does one start? Well, I used a serendipitous extract from Jasper Fforde - serendipitous as it's K's book but just what I needed to start a class exercise. You can't really do much better than Fforde's 'Thursday Next' books for intertextuality in action. We looked at the reappearance/ appropriation of Alice in Wonderland's Cheshire Cat in Fforde's 'The Eyre Affair'. There he informs Ms Next that she will shortly be apprenticed to another fictional one-off, Miss Havisham - most memorable of all Dickens's characters, ready to accost anyone from her jilted house of cobwebs and decayed wedding cake.
I had students write about meeting a favourite character from fiction - or TV, film. Hannibal Lector, Viktor Frankenstein, Norman Bates, Humbert Humbert all made an appearance. They're a cheerful lot! Then in an effort to introduce the concept of metafiction I had them write about this fictional character questioning his (or her) own nature as an appropriated fictional construct. Or something like that. Used a bit of Dave Eggers to speed that bit along; it seemed to go ok. I got the distinct feeling though that about half of the class thought the playfulness and parodic elements of a postmodern fiction could be a highly entertaining project, while the other half remained cynical to say the lest - let's get on with the proper stuff, the readable stuff, the money-making stuff. The core of the creative writing business.
Jasper Fforde introduces that too. In Cheshire Cat terms, of course:
'...Who knows, you may even glimpse the core of the book, the central nub of energy that binds a novel together.'
'You mean the spine?' I asked, not quite up to speed yet.
The cat lashed its tail.
'No stupid, the idea, the notion, the spark. Once you've laid your eyes on the raw concept of a book, everything you've ever seen or felt will seem about as interesting as a stair-carpet. Try and imagine this: you are sitting on soft grass on a warm summer's evening in front of a dazzling sunset; the air is full of truly inspiring music and you have in your hands a wonderful book. Are you there?'
'I think so.'
Okay, now imagine a simply vast saucer of warm cream in front of you and consider lapping it really slowly until you whiskers are completely drenched.'
The cat shivered deliriously.
'If you do all of that and multiply it by a thousand, then perhaps, just perhaps, you will have some idea of what I'm talking about.'
Yes, it seems like a pretty good metaphor for a kernel of creative pleasure to me.
Creative cores aside, I am looking forward to Wednesday when, as this morning's trip to the vet (for Donner, accompanied by K-) decreed, the buster collar can be removed and our sad, but healing, kitten can resume playing and grooming as nature intended, and hopefully will be just as happy as if he got the huge saucer of creative cream.
Meanwhile I was reading this evening at Camden's Buck Street UR church, with Martin Anderson, Janet Sutherland and various readers-from-the-floor. All went ok though a small audience and I was tired and not feeling very prepared, to be honest. Read poems I thought were vaguely spiritual. 'like your poems, very....sensual,' was the first comment. Right then. Kind of thinking I want a real break from writing poetry at the moment - perhaps, on reflection, that's usual when a collection comes out. Still, different saucers of cream seem more attractive. I'd really like to get back to the short stories I was writing in the late summer, when there's a minute. Meanwhile, I'll keep blogging.
I had students write about meeting a favourite character from fiction - or TV, film. Hannibal Lector, Viktor Frankenstein, Norman Bates, Humbert Humbert all made an appearance. They're a cheerful lot! Then in an effort to introduce the concept of metafiction I had them write about this fictional character questioning his (or her) own nature as an appropriated fictional construct. Or something like that. Used a bit of Dave Eggers to speed that bit along; it seemed to go ok. I got the distinct feeling though that about half of the class thought the playfulness and parodic elements of a postmodern fiction could be a highly entertaining project, while the other half remained cynical to say the lest - let's get on with the proper stuff, the readable stuff, the money-making stuff. The core of the creative writing business.
Jasper Fforde introduces that too. In Cheshire Cat terms, of course:
'...Who knows, you may even glimpse the core of the book, the central nub of energy that binds a novel together.'
'You mean the spine?' I asked, not quite up to speed yet.
The cat lashed its tail.
'No stupid, the idea, the notion, the spark. Once you've laid your eyes on the raw concept of a book, everything you've ever seen or felt will seem about as interesting as a stair-carpet. Try and imagine this: you are sitting on soft grass on a warm summer's evening in front of a dazzling sunset; the air is full of truly inspiring music and you have in your hands a wonderful book. Are you there?'
'I think so.'
Okay, now imagine a simply vast saucer of warm cream in front of you and consider lapping it really slowly until you whiskers are completely drenched.'
The cat shivered deliriously.
'If you do all of that and multiply it by a thousand, then perhaps, just perhaps, you will have some idea of what I'm talking about.'
Yes, it seems like a pretty good metaphor for a kernel of creative pleasure to me.
Creative cores aside, I am looking forward to Wednesday when, as this morning's trip to the vet (for Donner, accompanied by K-) decreed, the buster collar can be removed and our sad, but healing, kitten can resume playing and grooming as nature intended, and hopefully will be just as happy as if he got the huge saucer of creative cream.
Meanwhile I was reading this evening at Camden's Buck Street UR church, with Martin Anderson, Janet Sutherland and various readers-from-the-floor. All went ok though a small audience and I was tired and not feeling very prepared, to be honest. Read poems I thought were vaguely spiritual. 'like your poems, very....sensual,' was the first comment. Right then. Kind of thinking I want a real break from writing poetry at the moment - perhaps, on reflection, that's usual when a collection comes out. Still, different saucers of cream seem more attractive. I'd really like to get back to the short stories I was writing in the late summer, when there's a minute. Meanwhile, I'll keep blogging.
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