The joys of non-homeownership! This morning intermittent gusts of wind are sending colonies of leaves past my windows in hasty deployments. They must see what I saw yesterday - that hoards of their brothers in arms have been swept off the battlefield and gathered into plastic bags where their natural powers are rendered impotent. These are the reinforcements, tumbling bravely and blindly into the fray.
In another leaf metaphor, in Shelley's Ode to the West Wind, leaves are "pestilence-stricken multitudes," which seem "like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing". The movement of fall!
Last night at the U there was a conversation on stage between Zadie Smith and Michael Chabon. I went because I was familiar with Zadie Smith's fiction in the New Yorker, though I haven't read any of her books. I'd never heard of him.
I was at first surprised when the women next to me turned out to be a former English teacher at the high school level. What are the chances? I thought. Then I realized I was at the Tanner Humanities Lecture on Human Values. Probably 60% of the people in that room have been English teachers at one time or another.
Ms. Smith was great to listen to. Chabon had little of value to add, it seemed, but she brought the conversation to new points, kept it on track, and said things that were worth writing down. I didn't write any of them, but people around me took copious notes.
Now that I've thought about what was said, and the audience questions that were asked ("How do you deal with anger in fiction writing? Does the anger poison the object?" "How has this political moment influenced your work?" "Tell us about the virtues of being a night-owl.") I'm thinking about the format of the evening. They just spoke off the cuff - there was no moderator, and the questions they received were written on cards then submitted to them. It was very informal, and it was up to them to choose the direction of the conversation. Thank goodness for Ms. Smith, because she kept the conversation worth having, and thank goodness for Mr. Chabon, because he kept people smiling and the atmosphere light-hearted.
This balancing act - between humor and profundity, must be foremost in the minds of even organizers. The first talk like this that I went to like this was at the Italian House on Columbia's campus in 2009. The female author was Jhumpa Lahiri, and the male was Gary Shteyngart. The exact same thing happened - she was the one who kept the conversation literary and worthy of an audience. He was the one who wove humor through the evening and seemed responsible for group moral.
In both cases, the woman (of color) did not hesitate to question what the man was saying or to build fearlessly on his idea. Last night Ms. Smith frequently said "Yes, but it's not just that," or "But I don't think we can see it in terms of left and right / white black," and continued to make points which essentially pointed out the limitations of her interlocutor's statements. It is very satisfying to see women do this so unabashedly. These women writers know what they're talking about. They have written and thought and talked about what they're saying, which doesn't always seem to be the case when you hear from the men, who seem to be saying things they haven't necessarily thought of before. Sometimes the evident spontaneity of what they're saying is the source of its humor.
Chabon spoke, for example, about the stories he loved as a child about the boyhoods of the founding fathers. "And it turns out they're all fabricated. Yes, 'Young Thomas Jefferson played with the indians in the woods, and they made ice cream out of snow!' I wanted to make ice cream out of snow like Thomas Jefferson." Now, perhaps he's told this story a million times before on stage, but it came off as if he hadn't, and that sense of improvisation is an important element of this kind of public performance.
But Smith kept us grounded on the other end of the spectrum, speaking about how characters in novels are so much more reflective of our lack of center, our lack of actual consistent or coherent substance as people, than what we read about people in the news or even in plays. A novel can show us as falling apart, as having no whole, as entities on the brink of non-existence, in a way that more concrete forms can't. When she spoke on this point one had the sense that she has spoken and though (and written) a great deal about this. Which was just as important to me as an audience member as the idea that Chabon was saying things he's never thought of before.
What a strange format though, really. For all 700 of us to come and watch them talk with each other. At one point they spoke about the fonts they use, and the computer programs, and the hours that they write. I was of two minds. At first I thought "I don't care about this. Why do I need to know that you write in Georgia?" On the other hand, I was enthralled, because the writer's practices are so hidden, and I was secretly thrilled to hear that Chabon uses Georgia and Smith uses something similar, because I write using Georgia when I'm doing my private writing on the computer.
At any rate, parts of the conversation felt very voyeuristic, as if we were looking in on someone else's conversation that we were decidedly not a part of. But in fact, if conversation is an important part of the life and practice of the humanities, perhaps watching people do it who do it well is exactly what we should be doing. I learned about how to carry a conversation last night, about the importance of spontaneity and humor (my weakest points by far!) and about the benefits of brevity (the conversation was 1:15). Also about the role that benign subjects can take in a conversation. It doesn't have to be 100% groundbreaking all the time. I suppose I knew these things, but it's good to be reminded of them and see them played out on stage by people (or at least one person) I admire. Here is what the Alexandra Schwartz of the New Yorker said about Smith's most recent book.
In another leaf metaphor, in Shelley's Ode to the West Wind, leaves are "pestilence-stricken multitudes," which seem "like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing". The movement of fall!
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I was at first surprised when the women next to me turned out to be a former English teacher at the high school level. What are the chances? I thought. Then I realized I was at the Tanner Humanities Lecture on Human Values. Probably 60% of the people in that room have been English teachers at one time or another.
Ms. Smith was great to listen to. Chabon had little of value to add, it seemed, but she brought the conversation to new points, kept it on track, and said things that were worth writing down. I didn't write any of them, but people around me took copious notes.
Now that I've thought about what was said, and the audience questions that were asked ("How do you deal with anger in fiction writing? Does the anger poison the object?" "How has this political moment influenced your work?" "Tell us about the virtues of being a night-owl.") I'm thinking about the format of the evening. They just spoke off the cuff - there was no moderator, and the questions they received were written on cards then submitted to them. It was very informal, and it was up to them to choose the direction of the conversation. Thank goodness for Ms. Smith, because she kept the conversation worth having, and thank goodness for Mr. Chabon, because he kept people smiling and the atmosphere light-hearted.
This balancing act - between humor and profundity, must be foremost in the minds of even organizers. The first talk like this that I went to like this was at the Italian House on Columbia's campus in 2009. The female author was Jhumpa Lahiri, and the male was Gary Shteyngart. The exact same thing happened - she was the one who kept the conversation literary and worthy of an audience. He was the one who wove humor through the evening and seemed responsible for group moral.
In both cases, the woman (of color) did not hesitate to question what the man was saying or to build fearlessly on his idea. Last night Ms. Smith frequently said "Yes, but it's not just that," or "But I don't think we can see it in terms of left and right / white black," and continued to make points which essentially pointed out the limitations of her interlocutor's statements. It is very satisfying to see women do this so unabashedly. These women writers know what they're talking about. They have written and thought and talked about what they're saying, which doesn't always seem to be the case when you hear from the men, who seem to be saying things they haven't necessarily thought of before. Sometimes the evident spontaneity of what they're saying is the source of its humor.
But Smith kept us grounded on the other end of the spectrum, speaking about how characters in novels are so much more reflective of our lack of center, our lack of actual consistent or coherent substance as people, than what we read about people in the news or even in plays. A novel can show us as falling apart, as having no whole, as entities on the brink of non-existence, in a way that more concrete forms can't. When she spoke on this point one had the sense that she has spoken and though (and written) a great deal about this. Which was just as important to me as an audience member as the idea that Chabon was saying things he's never thought of before.
What a strange format though, really. For all 700 of us to come and watch them talk with each other. At one point they spoke about the fonts they use, and the computer programs, and the hours that they write. I was of two minds. At first I thought "I don't care about this. Why do I need to know that you write in Georgia?" On the other hand, I was enthralled, because the writer's practices are so hidden, and I was secretly thrilled to hear that Chabon uses Georgia and Smith uses something similar, because I write using Georgia when I'm doing my private writing on the computer.
At any rate, parts of the conversation felt very voyeuristic, as if we were looking in on someone else's conversation that we were decidedly not a part of. But in fact, if conversation is an important part of the life and practice of the humanities, perhaps watching people do it who do it well is exactly what we should be doing. I learned about how to carry a conversation last night, about the importance of spontaneity and humor (my weakest points by far!) and about the benefits of brevity (the conversation was 1:15). Also about the role that benign subjects can take in a conversation. It doesn't have to be 100% groundbreaking all the time. I suppose I knew these things, but it's good to be reminded of them and see them played out on stage by people (or at least one person) I admire. Here is what the Alexandra Schwartz of the New Yorker said about Smith's most recent book.
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