On Libraries

I was in the Fountainbridge library last week. It's not as large as the central library on the George IV bridge, in fact, it's so small I look for books by inspecting every spine on the Fiction shelves. One of the books that stood out on this last visit was Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk. It stood out because:
A) it's quite new (Chuck was at the Edinburgh Book Festival in August to launch it) so I was surprised the library stocked it and it was not on loan.
B) because it's a shiny hardcover book that once withdrawn from the shelf features a bare breasted woman covered by what may be a sheet of plastic (the picture, left, is of a less explicit cover).
C) because I went through a Chuck Palahniuk phase. In fact, I have read all of his books except the two which preceded Snuff: Haunted and Rant... I am halfway through Snuff and feel a 'Why I Used To Like Chuck Palahniuk Novels But Don't Anymore' post coming on... Watch this space.

But what I want to talk about today is another aspect of why I picked up Snuff in the Fountainbridge library and why I risked sideways stares from the librarian when I checked out a book with boobs on the cover. My period of Palahniuk appreciation (I would not call it an obsession) dates from the ages of around 17-19. Like a lot of Palahniuk's audience, I first encountered his name in the credits of David Fincher's film version of Fight Club. The next time I visited the Palmerston North City Library (probably the following weekend) I searched for Palahniuk and discovered not only Fight Club but three more novels (Beautiful Creatures, Survivor and Choke) were stocked. I decided to proceed chronologically, but Beautiful Creatures dampened my enthusiasm. It was not until I was away in Wellington for University the next year that I got around to Survivor and Choke. The latter  (it's been made into a film starring Sam Rockwell) would not be bettered as I worked my way through to Diary, and at the lobster chapter in Survivor let me forgive any and all of the book's shortcomings. Despite the fact I was living in Wellington, I think I got both of these books from the Palmerston North library. That building, bemoaned by locals as expensive, ugly, impractical, was the locus of my learning as a late teen. A year or two before Palahniuk, I churned through Douglas Coupland. It was from the Palmerston North library that I read my first Vonnegut, DeLillo, Murakami (the first two were referred to on Coupland covers, I think). Just as I was coming into my own as a reader (and fostering my first literary ambitions) the Palmerston North Central Library was there for me.

Libraries allow people to read widely without sending them to the poor house. For a teenager living at home, you can get away with reading almost anything if its a library book, whereas if you went and bought a copy of Snuff from Whitcoulls or Mein Kampf from the internet, there may be parental strife. I like bookstores, but if you hang around there long enough, someone will come and ask you if you need help (i.e. are you going to buy something?). In a library, you can dither and drift as much as you want.

I love libraries, and I love the Palmerston North library above all others.

To think of Palahniuk now, I can't help think of that library. That feeling of being a late teen, with a world of choices only just opening up to me, being let loose in a world of books. Of reading about Norse mythology and Jungian psychology. Of consulting a book in the reference section to make sure I wasn't missing any major point in relation to sex and reproduction. Of borrowing CDs by Bob Dylan and Mudhoney and Fountains of Wayne (long before they wrote songs like 'Stacey's Mom').

When I returned to do my MA in Wellington in 2006 (an eight month breather from full-time work in Brisbane), my Palmerston North library card was still valid and proved invaluable in tracking down several books on my reading list that were either perpetually checked out or not stocked in Wellington libraries (Arc d'X by Steve Erickson, Vollmann's Europe Central, Coupland's jPod...).

It seems strange, in retrospect, to think of the books I studied as part of my BA (D.H. Lawrence, Jane Austen, The Vintner's Luck), while in the room at my hostel I had a Fight Club movie poster around the edges of which I stuck Tyler Durden quotations (from the book) handwritten on post-it notes. I was only just finding out how to appreciate a book like Howard's End: something which wasn't drenched in NOW, and didn't kneed that adolescent bruise. But wherever my reading tastes have gone in the last howevermany years, I can still trace it back to the general fiction shelves on the first floor of the PN Library, the large windows looking out over the quiet corner of the square. Whenever I feel excited by fiction, or the possibility of fiction, I feel as if I am re-enacting a scene from that same space.

Failure Will Not Be Tolerated: Why Writers Shouldn't Be Given Any Free Passes

Yesterday I argued that novelists should be allowed to warm up in the public eye; that by publishing their promising but ultimately flawed books, it might increase the chances they will write a Mr Pip or a White Noise, and give fanbods something to search for in secondhand bookstores.

But.

I can just as easily argue the contrary: that only the crème de la crème (to borrow a phrase from Miss Brodie) of novels should be published. In fact, there are three pretty good lines I could, and will, run.

One: Financial

Why should publishers subsidise writers who haven’t yet mastered their craft? What guarantee is there that a mid-list writer will ever break out? I would be wary of any publishing house (or agent) that accepts work that they do not believe in. The novel emerged as a commercial form pretty much from its inception - - and a popular form to boot. The worst thing we could do to the novel is remove it from the marketplace completely.

And, now that I’m well into my devil’s advocate role, what’s the role of all those writing workshops if it isn’t to get all of those amateurish, imperfect, unsellable books out of the way before a writer thinks about publishing?!?

Two: Market dilution

There are already too many books being published. Far too many to read. And some of these books, I’m sure, are responsible for turning people off reading. It’s commonly bandied around that reading a book beats immersion in any other media, but it’s not easy to write something -- to use words and words alone -- and create a believable world. One word out of place or out of character can be as damaging as the projector chewing film in the cinema.

As Douglas Coupland said:

We live in an era of genuinely diminished attention spans. I'm competing with reality TV and with shows written by 24 to 30 professionals per episode. If I have something to say, it had better be something fucking important, and it had better be said in some new and unexpected way.

[Aside: the novel he was spruiking when he said this, jPod, isn’t exactly the best example of writing, or storytelling, but I still agree with what he said.]

Three: The Writer’s Responsibility

It might have happened, somewhere, perhaps in a small town, one where tractors are still a common sight on the main street: the townsfolk ask the resident genius, “Please become a writer.” He politely declines. They pull out their pitchforks. He changes his postion.

But for everyone else: No one is forcing you to be a writer. You chose this path, knowing full well it was a difficult one. If you can’t toil away without payment or praise until your book-length manuscripts are good enough to receive payment and praise, then maybe you don’t deserve it?? Maybe this is Literature’s form of hazing new-comers? Maybe it’s the constant kicks to the abdomen that build the killer six pack, which, years down the line, will make the fanbods swoon?

…

The thing that I’ve noticed while trotting out my arguments for and against writing apprenticeships in the public eye is that it’s difficult, either way, not to romanticise the act of writing and the result. Perhaps this is because I’m a wannabe, currently in the kicks-to-the-abdomen-phase, who, in his weaker moments, lets his thoughts drift to the swooning fanbods stage.

[I imagine becoming a novelist is difficult for those who are immune to romanticism.]

So, to keep this on a personal level for a moment longer, what do I really think? I have submitted two novel manuscripts to publishers (NZ and Aus) and agents (UK and US). I have written portions of two more novels this year, one of which I will complete in 2008, Scouts honour. Would I like to have had one or both of my unpublished novels published at the time?

Well, in case you hadn’t noticed, there are pros and cons. As Rachel King mentioned in a comment to yesterday’s post, if your first published book bombs, no matter where you publish it, the hill is that much harder to climb the next time. But if you aren’t given the option to publish, the hill is still a daunting thing to stand before. What if I spend all this time on a new book and nothing comes of it? What if I really am just fooling myself? Very real fears, my friends. (I would worry about any writer who does not have these moments, because it would suggest they don’t care enough about readers and/or that they are a robot, and based on current technological constraints I’m sad to say robot’s do not make good writers).

Being a writer is about conquering the fear and writing. The best writing is fearless. These statements are difficult to mesh. It is a complicated game. Sometimes you don’t know you’ve won until after you’re dead (let’s not get into the metaphysical debate my poor phrasing just threw up).

With regards to me, personally, this is all moot. When I send something off to publishers and agents, I want it to be published / believe it should be published. When I stop sending it out (as happened with both "complete" manuscripts) I don’t want it to be published anymore. There’s no great theorising going on about apprenticeships and capital-L literature. When I finish something, I either believe it’s the best thing in the world and submit, or I don’t believe and know that it’s not really finished.


Footnote:
These arguments are for novels. Although creating a book of short stories is a difficult task, it’s a very different proposition. The key to a good short story collection is good stories. Overarching themes and interconnections between stories help sell books, so I’m told, but you can link and overarch all you want: if you’re stories suck, your book sucks. As with any form, you learn to write good short stories by writing and reading a lot of them. But the investment is not normally as big as with a novel. It’s easier to write off a short story as flawed and move on than it is with a novel. It’s easier to draft and redraft and redraft and redraft a short story than it is a novel. You can submit short stories to competitions and litmags and websites and get published, do your apprenticeship in public, so to speak, before thinking about anything as daunting as a book-length collection.

The novel and the short story are different forms; thinking of short stories as baby novels is like calling a dog a baby elephant (though they both walk on for legs, the wee one will never grow into the big one). But still, to continue my dodgy simile, if you are good at training dogs, some of the skills will be useful if you find yourself coaching an elephant football team.