A few thoughts about this past summer in relation to this class:
I'd once figured that interning at a Random House Inc. (more specifically Knopf-Doubleday) would perhaps involve a few hours of tedium and terror (photocopying manuscripts, mailings books) each day, followed by however-many hours of reading already published books by their many fantastic authors. Sadly, internships are designed to pull our dreamy heads out of the clouds and put us on the right track.
With that, I spent half of my summer reading unimaginably bad writing. In the beginning, writing malicious reader's reports on manuscripts and consequently crushing the hopes and dreams of various unknown authors was all too fun. The novelty of critiquing poor writing wore off in a week's time, leaving me sad, guilt-ridden, and doubtful that I'd ever be dealt reading material that I'd actually like.
It occurred to me that, while an editor's job isn't entirely characterized by running books to the ground, that is apparently untrue of an editorial intern's job, which is marked by slush piles and unlikely candidates, all who deserve no less than the kindest rejection letter.
Thinking about what's good in writing is entirely more pleasant than thinking of what's awful. That is why I am especially happy to be taking this course.
As of now, my favorites in the realm of non-fiction/criticism are Pauline Kael (for her clever diction, sharp wit, and her arsenal of film facts ) and Roland Barthes (Mythologies is beyond brilliant).
In fiction, I'm interested in Nabokov's writing for obvious reasons (it is beautiful, for one). I'm interested in breaking it down much, much further, because when I'd read Lolita a few years ago, I felt too consumed by how musical and pretty the prose was to ever stop and fully realize what was going on inside of it.
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