| Date: | Tue, 20 Jun 2000 11:20:23 -0700 (PDT) |
| From: | Imbas Forasnai <forasnai@yahoo.com> | Block address |
| Subject: | "Nostalgia...(They Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To)" |
| To: | Acorn Live <acornlive@dublinwriters.org> |
|
|
Dear John,
Ah, yes, the real "good old bad days," with those
messy carbons et al...
I studied with the late novelist John Gardner
when he
was the reigning honcho outta NYC at State
University
of New York at Binghamton, (upstate) New York...
To get into his Graduate Fiction Workshop, one
had to
pass "The Interview." He had a reputation for
"speaking his mind," and, though he wasn't Irish,
certainly came off as curmudgeonly as our Shaw or
Yeats at times...
I was a just a few years outta my undergraduate
days
at U.C. Berkeley, Ca., and thought myself a wee
bit of
a journalism "hot-shot" from the work I'd been
doing
in Manhattan--of which I told him, when asked,
"So,
what have you been writing?"
--CUT to shot of a white-haired man removing his
wireframe glasses, tossing them onto his desk,
rubbing
his eyes and saying in disgust, "What *serious*
work
have you been doing..."--
Though with a chip on my shoulder still, I
proffered
several short stories...
He filled and lit his pipe (sometimes considered
equivalent to the Pauline Kael/ Dorothy Parker
maneuver of "bring out the bottle of brandy," in
that
the "fit was about to hit the shan"...).
Then he picked up one of several stubby and
well-used
pencils that he used for editing...
--CUT: to same white-haired but youthfully
vigoured
man exhaling grunts of what sounds like
displeasure as
he furiously attacks paragraph after paragraph
with
pencil marks and comments...--
--REACTION SHOT: Mr. "Hotshot," sinking gradually
lower and lower into his chair, thinking
ominously,
"It doesn't look good for The Kid..."--
After what seemed like an eternity he actually
finished both stories, in toto, puffed on his
pipe and
looked out his window at the already gloomy Fall
landscape...
"Not bad," he said, still gruffly, as he handed
them
back to me. "Class is Wednesday night, be there
and
have them corrected..."
I did my best at maintaining my "tough guy"
composure,
nodded in agreement and ducked through the
door...
As--still not able to speak--I passed the queue
of
hopefuls assembled, comments along the lines of,
"Jesus, he tore up another one," whispered forth
as
each stared at the sheaf of papers held in now
trembling hands...
Swear to Heaven, seems so funny thinking back,
how
easily intimidating the concept of "Graduate
Student"
could be...
Gardner, by the way, holding forth at one of his
notorious parties, told the tale of how he'd
ridden
his Harley-Davidson (one of the classics, not the
new
"yuppie bar" models) into Manhattan (New York
City,
quite a stretch of highway from where he was
teaching
in the Midwest) and walked into the publisher
Alfred
Knopf's building--clad in his full-riding
leathers and
holding a cardboard box containing three rather
lengthy novels. Brushing his way past the
receptionist--he had no appointment--he found the
office of the editor he'd picked and dumped the
box on
the agape-mouthed man's desk. "Here," he said,
"I
want you to read these and get back to me on
Monday."
It was Friday. Then he walked out and, one might
say,
rode off into the sunset...
(Not only did the editor read them over the
weekend
but on Monday called John to tell him that Knopf
wanted all three: including "Grendel," Beowolf
from
the "monster's" point-of-view, and "The Sunlight
Dialogues," a remarkable piece of "philosophical
fiction")
"So don't grumble about your writing until you
have a
body of work they can't refuse," he'd conclude.
Not only visiting writer Joyce Carol Oates, who
never
seemed to have any difficulty getting her immense
works published, but too the late Ray Carver
said,
"True story, man"; Carver, one of his students
from
long ago at Chico State (Cal.), even added in his
deadpan way that the story was "the most
inspirational
thing he'd ever heard..."
Best,
Imbas
=====
--"For, wondrous though the gift of knowledge is,
it has little moving power over the
happening..."
***Arthur Koestler, The Gladiators (Macmillan,
1939, 1965 Danube ed., trans. Edith Simon), p. 232
--"...don't feel like Satan but to them I am...",
Neil Young
"Well, he could walk down the street and girls
could not resist the stare, and, unlike you, nobody
ever called Pablo Picasso an asshole," Jonathan
Richman and the Modern Lovers
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Send instant messages with Yahoo! Messenger.
http://im.yahoo.com/
Privacy Policy-
Terms of Service
-
Guidelines
Copyright © 1994-2000
Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
