pongo
Real men bake bread.
Sep 30, 1999, 11:20 AM
Post #215 of 2528
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Looking for Grads & Students of Low-Residency MFAs
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Ultimately, you will have to write a transcript of your program, so it
might help to think about that at the beginning. I established clear
goals for each semester, which could be translated into "courses." For
example, I was interested in reading criticism, so for two semesters I
had one annotation in each packet (that is, one book that I read out
of each three) was criticism. One semester I did a unit on the margins
of genre fiction -- things that were not quite standard Westerns,
fantasy, etc. I read a lot of books that drew on the author's
experience (not necessarily autobiographical). I did a unit on poetry.
In each of these I was helped a great deal by my advisors, who
recommended books and approaches. Here's the packet-by-packet
breakdown for my second semester. GHOSTS is the working title of my
thesis novel. This is the semester I did the unit on the margins of
genre. First Packet: GHOSTS, chapters 1 & 2 POETICS, Aristotle THE
NOVEL-MACHINE, Walter M. Kendrick/AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY, Anthony Trollope
STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, Patricia Highsmith THE GHOST WRITER, Philip Roth
Second Packet: GHOSTS, revisions and new material THE ART OF THE
NOVEL, Henry James FOR A NEW NOVEL, Alain Robbe-Grillet THE INFERNAL
DESIRE MACHINES OF DOCTOR HOFFMAN, Angela Carter Third Packet: GHOSTS,
revisions and new material Long critical paper, first draft SIX WALKS
IN THE FICTIONAL WOODS, Umberto Eco THE KILLER INSIDE ME, Jim Thompson
HUMPTY DUMPTY, Damon Knight Fourth Packet: GHOSTS, revisions and new
material Long critical paper, revisions THE BOOK OF IMAGINARY BEINGS,
Jorge Luis Borges AUNT JULIA AND THE SCRIPTWRITER, Mario Vargas Llosa
SLOWNESS, Milan Kundera Fifth Packet: GHOSTS, revisions and new
material Long critical paper, revisions WELCOME TO HARD TIMES, E. L.
Doctorow CARMEN DOG, Carole Emshwiller CRASH, J. G. Ballard Of those
titles, the Ballard, Kundera, Llosa, Thompson, Carter, Highsmith, and
Roth were suggestions from my advisor. The Aristotle was a suggestion
from my advisor of the previous semester. So I would say that while
you can pick up a lot of structural stuff from reading good writing,
it is a good idea to read good critical writing as well. For one
thing, you will need to write some serious criticism to get the
degree, and you should have a some models. For another, you can learn
from it. I also did a unit on 'how-to' books, to see how writing was
being taught, and most of them are useless, but the few good ones are
very valuable. If you want to get a head start on the critical
reading, I would start with John Gardner (not infallible, but very
good where he's good) and David Lodge. They're both writers and
approach criticism from that point of view. The Eco on my list above
is also very good for writers. And it can't hurt to have Aristotle
under your belt. But don't assume that what you read now will count
toward your reading for the program. It will only count toward your
education. Oh, and for craft I recommend CREATING SHORT FICTION, by
Damon Knight. Much of what it says applies to long fiction as well,
and it all makes sense (rare in these books). It's actual instruction,
rather than pep talks (Natalie Goldberg and her ilk). dmh
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