The Death of Narrative
by Jake Barnes
I'm sixty-five years old, and this spring I went back to college just for kicks. I had a heck of a good time. I enrolled in a creative writing class, and my fellow students sat there open-mouthed when I was asked to read. The consensus was that I was a throwback (to the age of mastodons and saber toothed tigers) and my tales were antiquated. “Why, you tell a story,” one young fellow said. The expression on his face said “How gauche, how passé!”
Several of the students volunteered to bring me up to speed. We would sit in the sun on the quad, and I would read my stories to them. Then they told me where I had gone wrong.
A youngster with freckles on her nose said chronology in fiction was a thing of the past. So and so did this, then so and so did that. How boring! A blonde who wore her hair in her face like an Afghan Hound said the narrative arc was dead.
A boy from a Catholic high school in St. Paul said that what he did was write a narrative, then jumble the sentences, making the last sentence first, the first last. Another fellow said that he wrote sentences and later plucked out words at random and discarded them.
One day we got to talking about content. “Memories?” I offered. The young people hooted. “No, no!” they said. “Sex, drugs, and rock and roll!”
Okay, I said. I think I've got it. I read from my notebook. “Long on word pictures, short on coherence. No narrators. Scenes chronologically mutilated for maximum profundity. The quest for meaning replaced by a frantic pursuit of wonder.”
The students looked at each other. “Well, yeah, sorta,” said the girl with freckles.
Need I mention that after a couple of weeks I dropped the class? One day I woke up and decided to spend the day reading a novel by Joseph Conrad instead.
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Author's Note
A true story. Sort of. Well, not really.
Inspired by an article in the New York Times Magazine by Steve Almond. The quoted material in paragraph six are Mr. Almond's words, not mine .
True doesn't have to be true to still be true.
Jake, this piece. *
That Conrad was mired in time and arc.
no, no, go back to class. take some speed. nail that girl with the freckles, or at the very least the Afghan Hound! get thee some larnin' in ya! oh, and just take out all the verbs, would you. verbs are, like, so yesterday.
fave, by the way. *
Nobody told me the narrative arc was dead! Well hell.
I enjoyed this. And actually, it sounds like fun being surrounded by that weird youthful energy for a while!
Ah nice -- and returning to Conrad is the perfect ending!
Keep searching for the narrative. It's alive and well in some places!
My first creative writing class was very old-school--Carver, Hemingway, Checkhov, stuff that, you know, had a narrative.
That was 11th grade.
The creative writing class I had to take in college had little to no interest in straightforward narratives and concentrated mostly on experimental, postmodern fiction. Even though I'm around the same age as everyone who "caught you up to speed", I feel like I understand where you're coming from.*
"Okay, I said. I think I've got it. I read from my notebook. 'Long on word pictures, short on coherence. No narrators. Scenes chronologically mutilated for maximum profundity. The quest for meaning replaced by a frantic pursuit of wonder.'"
Effective writing. Good pacing. I like the appearance of Conrad here--
". Another fellow said that he wrote sentences and later plucked out words at random and discarded them."
Ah, so that's their secret. Enjoyed this!
Thank you, thank you all for your generous comments. I needed to get that one out of my system. Long live The Story!
Awesome job. "Okay, I think I've got it" such great irony in one line. Thanks!
only one problem. "They" won the war, and now run all the creative writing programs, and make all the money, and we're pushing shopping carts on the street. good place to find discarded pennies, by the way. and cigarette butts with a few shreds of tobacco left, which "They" discarded.
I suggest you read The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars to find out how we lost the war.
Like the postmodern irony. The narrative seems to lead to Conrad, only there is no explicit causal link. One day i woke up & read Conrad. What delivers the reader to narrative is literary theory. Good one!
Jake I was vibrating out of control in sympathy. Great narrative.
Nice one, Jake!
*, Jake. Such a good telling here. Great job. By the way, the Catholic high school kid just may have invented flash fiction.
Very learned, and well narrated.*
Thanks you Gary, David, Christian, Daniel, guy, Jerry, Joni. Much appreciated!
Damn straight. I think the problem with narrative these days is that when writers don't know how to make He did this, then he did that compelling, they resort to tricks. Often these tricks can also be compelling, even brilliant, but let's hope it never replaces solid narrative.
I read this at 12:45pm Central Daylight Time. No, make that CDT. The day is cloudy and a large clay pot sits on a wooden stump outside my window. Backyard kittens rollick. The delivery might come today. My brother fixes lunch, but does not offer me food. Smiling, I fave your story.
Ha! What about the 'deconstructed arc' ala Diane Williams. She can do it. Not I, quoth the raven. "Not I."
*
Long live the narrative arc!