Blog Essay Week 15

I think that Hartsock has the right idea in this newsletter – sort of what we have been struggling with all semester, the question of “is this journalism?” It’s not one specific thing and it doesn’t have to be, it all exists on the continuum and has varying levels objectivity and meaning. We don’t HAVE to define literary journalism in concrete terms and we have to accept it in all the shades it comes in. I like that idea. Not labeled, not committed to any one meaning, but rather a blanket term that can describe many different things.

 

As far as the readings this week, I wasn’t crazy about “Day of the Fight.” It seemed almost cheap to me, I felt like it relied too heavily on dialogue. I “got” the story and I liked it overall but the way it was told didn’t really sit right with me. I thought it could have used more commentary, though I see what Heinz was doing by allowing the readers to make their own assumptions without inferring them from him, but it still felt kind of empty to me in that way.

 

I liked “Lethal Lightning” quite a bit, I thought it was very beautifully written. Almost every sentence was laden with dreamy language and imagery and I really enjoyed reading it. I think that the length of the piece contributed to this as well, had it been a longer piece that was so full of that sort of delicate and beautiful language, I feel like I may have lost interest, but because it was so brief I was able to luxuriate in it and it I thought it was a really effect and moving piece.

 

“The Fight to Live” was a wild ride. I really enjoyed reading it as I didn’t really know anything about Cobb before so it was almost like watching a train derail. It was so interesting and well written and I liked that Stump was so integral to the story. It felt so fast paced and intriguing, I liked it very much.

 

In “Silent Season of a Hero” I, like most other people, was very interested by the fact that Talese never actually got to interview DiMaggio. I was also particularly interested it in it as a Yankee fan, it felt like a sequel to story that I already knew starring characters that I’m already familiar with: Monroe, Maris, Mantle… all my old pals. I think it painted a very interesting portrait of DiMaggio the man and while he is a sports star, it wasn’t really a sports story, which was an interesting angle.

 

And here is an example of my continuum, done from top to bottom and not side to side because I don’t have any sort of technological skill to make it into a circle or even timeline. Bear with me.

 

1. Hersey (as noted by Hartsock)
2. Capote
3. Orwell
4. Taibbi
5. Ross
6. Thompson
7. O’Brien
8. Agee (as noted by Hartsock)

Dr Rodgers, thank you for such a great class. It was my favorite this semester and I truly enjoyed it.

Blog Essay Week 14

Well, you asked for my definition of gonzo journalism. Like many purists, my definition of gonzo is Dr. Hunter S. Thompson and nothing else. I do not particularly agree that Ron Rosenbaum is a gonzo journalist. He is an excellent writer, and I very much enjoyed his pieces this week on the Skull and Bones and the posture picture, but they were not “gonzo” as far as I’m concerned. I understand that Rosenbaum did indeed insert himself in the story – interestingly enough, in about the same place in both pieces he shifts the focus onto himself and his experiences after a bit of exposition – and I like the way they are written, but to me, only HST will ever be truly gonzo.

 

Take for example the preposterous scenario that Thompson created in “The Scum Also Rises” (LOVE the play off of Hemingway, by the way) of Nixon in the waves on the beach as if he had observed it himself – there is no fabrication of that sort to be found in Rosenbaum. Making up scenarios to prove his point or illustrate what he’s feeling about a situation is classic gonzo. The unnecessary but flavorful profanity is another point of interest that is gonzo to me. And the blurring between what’s fact and what he made up to make the story spicier is gonzo for sure… did he really bring the radio and TV down to the pool and have the calls directed to the lifeguard? Doubtful! But he presents it as casual fact in a typical HST gonzo fashion. Also, the references to drugs are abound, that’s big for me as a component of gonzo journalism, and in this piece there was a great deal of mention of Quaaludes, Demerol, Thorazine, all over the place. I think Ben Yagoda said it best in the introduction to this story when he posited that, “Hunter S. Thompson is to post-1960s American journalism what Ernest Hemingway was to post-1920s American fiction: the innovator whose estimable contributions have proved irresistible to a legion of less talented imitators.” Those are my boys, and the way I feel about anyone who claims to write in their style. I do not feel that Rosenbaum embodies gonzo. Nor do I feel PJ O’Rourke, who is often compared to HST as well, does. There was one, and there will never be another.

 

Consequently, I would not call Taibbi’s writing gonzo either, of course. While I agree that he is interesting and unique, and sort of emulates the gonzo style, I don’t think it fits the bill. There’s just not enough ridiculousness in Matt Taibbi’s work to constitute gonzo. He is much too well thought out and methodical. Which is not to say that Thompson’s writing isn’t at times factual and always brilliant but to me it’s like apples and oranges and they aren’t fit be compared. I can respect them each in their own way but I don’t think they are particularly similar.

 

This week, I found the most effective story to be the Thompson piece, but I know full well that this is because I am such a fan of his that I could never have it on my conscience to cast my vote for another. I very much appreciated being exposed to Rosenbaum, because I quite like his work, but he isn’t the winner for me. I felt a very strong connection to the fiction of Dan Brown when reading it, with all the mention of secret societies and initiations, with the mention of the Illuminati, and even with the petitioning to access archived material, themes that are present in several Dan Brown books (Robert Langdon protagonist books, Angels and Demons, The Da Vinci Code, and The Lost Symbol, as I haven’t read any other by him, but very much enjoyed those three). That made the material feel kind of familiar and I was able to get into it more, I think. But Thompson is the most effective for me because his writing is like nothing else in the world.

 

As for the naked pictures, I would certainly not allow such debauchery. I find it hard to believe that anyone ever would, especially people who were smart enough to get into Ivy League schools. I don’t see it as a shift in culture at all, I can’t imagine that ever being OK. Maybe Mitt Romney would disagree, though. It sounds like these creepy photo hoarding “researchers” had their fair share of binders full of women.

Blog Essay Week 13

In this week’s readings, I feel as though the writers adequately combatted Crane’s criticism regarding “a unit in the interesting sum of men slain.” Essentially, Crane’s argument is that nobody wants to read about the foot soldier who died, nobody cares about an unremarkable demise in war, and they only want to know about heroes, about what’s exciting, and about what makes a war worth reading. That a single death is just part of a greater death toll which is of casual interest to someone who is reading about war, but in no way crucial.

 

O’Brien argues against this with the storytelling in The Things They Carried, how he uses the individual tales from an otherwise “unremarkable” unit, so to speak, to paint a larger picture about the war, and how the experiences of these men, of the soldiers who fought, and were injured and died, is really what makes up a war. That it’s not about battles and who has won and lost them or the “grand” picture of a war, but that each individual makes up a piece of the greater story; as though the sum of the parts are greater than the whole. Through lived experience, we get a story of war that isn’t just about the men in the novel, but speaks for the generation of soldiers who lived similar tales.

 

Similarly, in regard to the Iraq-Afghanistan wars, Jones goes on to show us how important each individual death is. So important that there is a protocol and procedure to make sure each man and woman who loses his or her life in service to the country is treated properly and receives a military burial; that the spouse gets a flag; that there is an army representative there to show support; that a bugler will honor them with a tune. Clearly this disagrees with Crane. It would be much easier to dispose of the bodies without so much pomp and circumstance but because of the value of these lives in the framework of war, they are treated with the utmost respect and reverence.

 

Agee shows something akin to that as well. He discusses the effect of the wasteland on the clothes of the men who work there, clothes that are worn out and beaten threadbare much like the wearers, who are overlooked by many as just people out in the Dust Bowl but who are struggling every day.

 

I did sort of take issue to Agee as he applied Boswell’s principle of the inadequacy of words. I kind of just wanted to shake him; I don’t feel as though a person is a writer if they don’t think their words are doing justice. It offends me that he downplays the power of words and I wanted to tell him to get in a different profession instead of putting this one down. I do not believe in the inadequacy of words, and much like “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all,” I believe that if you don’t think your words can do justice to a subject, then don’t write about it. I also thought it was kind of ridiculous for him to basically say in the beginning of the piece that his words will not be enough to describe what’s going on, but he then uses a million of them across four pages trying. What’s the point of a vain attempt? And did it really even seem to be in vain? I found his words to be extremely effective.

 

In regard to the plain vs. eloquent style, I have to say that in the war stories, I think the plain style was more effective. There is no need to use eloquent or flowery language (a la, say, Whitman) when describing such a heavy topic that is so laden with devastation. It’s although the material speaks for itself and doesn’t need elaborate words to do it.

 

The readings this week were sad but effective. I enjoyed them but it was unsettling to have this weeks Iraq-Afghanistan conflict juxtaposed with Vietnam last week. When discussing Vietnam it feel distant and past enough to talk about but I feel even sadder and more uncomfortable when I’m reading about a conflict that still goes on today; it’s harder to distance myself from it.

Blog Essay Week 12

“Dispatches” really worked for me. I thought that the raw, honest and gritty style was really reflective of the Vietnam War in general and it made me feel like this was a true-to-life representation that I could believe. It was sort of unapologetic in style, and I think the disjointed jumping from scenario to scenario was meant to unsettle and make sure that the reader never got too comfortable, because the writer didn’t, nor did the soldiers.

 

I thought it was interesting that the blog essay question called in the Whitman war piece from earlier in the year; even having read the question before delving into the story, I didn’t really get the sense of Whitman’s style, so I think I probably differ from others in that way.

 

Subjectivity really works in this story as well. There is no way to give an objective point of view when one is essentially embedded in war. Herr could never unsee what he witnessed in the field and it would be ridiculous to pretend that he could, and then write a story about it without any bias. It would be even more ridiculous to pretend that anyone would want to read it; a diplomatic and balanced account of death and destruction in the Vietnam jungle is preposterous as an idea. Herr discusses what would later be known as shell-shock or PTSD in people as young as 19 feeling that they were “too old for this shit.” Which shows how moving and powerful the experience was. The stories that he tells need to be told the way he does in order to be effective and meaningful.

 

I also felt a certain degree of closure, but I’m not sure if that’s because I recognize it as an excerpt and not a complete work; I’m not sure if I would feel the same way if I read the entire story this way. I often yearn for closure in reading and I don’t like walking away from something feeling unsettled, but I didn’t get that sense from “Dispatches” – maybe also because it was a real historical event and I know that the Vietnam War did indeed end. I know how it ended. And I know many details about how it got there. Choosing a topic that people have familiarity with is tricky because you have to be able to engage them without telling them what they already know, and I feel like Herr does that.

 

I really enjoyed “Dispatches.” Much more than The Things They Carried. But I think that is because of my personal struggle with O’Brien straddling the line of fact and fiction and basically rubbing it in our faces; I don’t like that. If he had done it without trying to show it off I might have felt differently but I felt like he was teasing us and sort of neener, neener-ing about how no one would ever know what was real and what wasn’t.

 

I felt a lot of anticipation when reading Tiananmen Square, because I knew what it was leading up to, but the graphic imagery and descriptions made sure that it stayed really engaging throughout. It was scary and almost inhumane but was a story that needed to be told and the author was in a position of very few people who would be able to tell it the way he did. I thought it was very effective.

 

I also liked Friendly Fire, it evoked a lot of emotion and left me kind of melancholy but it was in interesting story that managed to be just as sad as the rest of them without ever putting you into the field.

 

I greatly enjoyed this week’s readings; the Vietnam War is a subject of great interest to me and I appreciated looking at it from a journalistic point of view.

Blog Essay Week 11

I think there are real similarities between Rashomon and Marrakech and Los Angeles Notebook.

 

In Marrakech, it is more like offering an alternate point of view than the typical one, which is that of a prosperous white man. Orwell explores how the same thing can be experienced different ways depending on the culture of the person involved. Obviously, as a white man he was privy to the way of the colonial settlers but chose instead to represent the natives in Marrakech and show that while some people were excelling and enjoying their existence, others suffered every day and couldn’t even give a proper burial to their dead, that brown people were invisible because they just faded into the backdrop around them. In this way, it is like Rashomon because it shows how different representations of the same events can look, like in the movie how straight facts were skewed depending on who the teller of the story was.

 

Los Angeles Notebook is a little more set up like Rashomon, displaying the many different points of view and how they can represent facets of a story. I can’t say that I particularly “got” this piece. I understand from the introduction that it is meant to be disjointed and unsettling, and it certainly did that, but I don’t think it really resonated with me; I don’t understand why it’s particularly important or meaningful.

 

The difference to me between discursive and narrative writing is that discursive writing examines equally any and all points if view (or at least aims to) and that narrative writing doesn’t try to do that; it doesn’t try to represent one or both or any sometimes, it is just about telling the story. In this way, I think Crane is right about his work. Whether or not he includes a moral, what people take away from the story is entirely up to them and their specific interpretation. Like any art, people find in it what they want to see and it is open to interpretation. I think that perhaps Didion and Orwell are up to the same thing. There is not a lot of back and forth or representation of a “side” persay, just a story with the facts that create a meaning to both the author and the reader. While I’m sure that some writers have a sort of agenda going into a story, I don’t sense that here, and I don’t feel as though exposing things that may be misunderstood or overlooked in an attempt to garner them some attention or thought is necessarily taking a side, more like trying to shine a light on a part of a topic that people may be unaware of.

I like the idea of negative capability, there is not a true answer or certainty for many, many things in life and being able to accept and build schemas around that is an important part of developing as a human. People should not go into anything expecting to know or learn it all and I think the Bacon quote speaks to that as well, that the sort of openmindedness that comes with doubt or discernment speaks to a higher knowledge and the ability to know that you DON’T know.

Analyze This Week 10

I believe that journalism magnifies reality rather than just reflecting it, because a reflection would be a mere recitation of facts. The art of magnifying reality lies in what a writer chooses to include (and sometimes more importantly exclude) and highlight and that creates a focus and theme of the story. The elements that we are learning about as part of literary journalism like status details, dialogue and description do more than just reflect what happens, they attach feelings and imagery to a story and truly have the capability to magnify reality by the emphasis given and the words chosen.

 

I don’t know that I would necessarily say the same for “straight” journalism, because I feel like that is supposed to be an objective recitation of facts and that reporting news and the like SHOULD be a reflection of reality. But in regard to literary journalism, turning what is potentially just a story into a work of art, I certainly believe that it magnifies the reality that it represents.

 

The writer in literary journalism gets to choose what is magnified and can apply his “magnifying glass” to reality in the way that he sees fit and can almost control what the reader walks away from the piece feeling and knowing by the tone that is used and that is a lot different than simply reflecting what is happening.

Blog Essay Week 10

 

“A wild exactitude! It was, and remains, a thrilling, permanent and almost undefaceable phrase. Neither mere exactitude — the dreary procession of facts disingenuously presented — nor wildness itself, the kind of language-bending rhetorical overkill that many people mistake for originality, but the two together. Get it exactly right and go a little crazy; put it simply, and put it down with feeling.”

I think a good example of the wild exactitude is as follows: Louie is five feet six, and stocky. He has an owl-like face-his nose is
hooked, his eyebrows are tufted, and his eyes are large and brown and
observant. He is white-haired. His complexion is reddish, and his face
and the backs of his hands are speckled with freckles and liver spots. He
wears glasses with flesh-colored frames. He is bandy-legged, and he
carries his left shoulder lower than his right and walks with a shuffling,
hipshot, head-up, old-waiter’s walk.

Mitchell takes artistic liberties while still giving the facts and explaining to us exactly what Louie looks like. I feel as though it meets the definition set forth, as do most of the descriptions that Mitchell uses throughout the story.

For me, Up In The Old Hotel has critical closure. I feel as though if the story continued there would be too much extended denoument, and I like the idea that you sort of get to impose your own thoughts into the ending. I did not feel unsatisfied or unfulfilled at the end of it, and I know the feeling because it’s happened to me when I don’t feel as though movies or books have given a conclusive ending. I didn’t get that feeling from Mitchell’s story. For me, the literary resonance is a certain thoughtfulness, almost like you can let the story continue in your mind because of the way it ended. You explore the different paths, what you hope happens, what you think happened, and it left me feeling sated but curious and stimulated, so I liked that about it. It is different from traditional journalism in the way that it’s not just cut and dry facts, it sort of invites the reader to participate to a degree.

As far as the veracity to Mitchell’s story, I think I believe it. He has had so much experience at Sloppy Louie’s, he has been eating there for 9 years, that I feel like he can write about it in a familiar way like he did.

In Markey’s, I have to say I really enjoyed the reading. The language he used was exceptional, referring to the body by a number, including the conversations about potential suicide and the Catholic church, the entire piece read almost like a dirge. It was somber and almost dank, but still told the story. In my head I pictured it as a grayish day along the water where these people are doing this thing that most would consider terrible or sad but it’s just part of their everyday job. Which is really what Markey’s assignment for the New Yorker was, to just go out and experience the city and then write about it.

 

I found it hard to choose a favorite passage from Mitchell this week, there was a lot that resonated with me. I liked the talk about old New York, because it makes me feel linked to home. I also liked the peppering in of Italian words and phrases, because I appreciate the familiarity. I liked the talk about the shore and the fishing industry because that’s where I grew up and I simply loved when he talked about the fig trees and how he covered them up with old clothes in the rough winter months of the northeast; in my head I can see my little Italian neighbor swaddling her fig tree like a baby each winter.

 

Additionally, almost each week we look at writings where the author is musing on New Journalism and before taking this class, I never would have realized how hung up people get about it. It’s all about defining the genre and who said what and what needs to be done and it’s exhausting. Maybe it’s just me but I care less about what people want to call it and more about enjoying the writing.

Analyze This Week 9

Haven’t you ever heard that God is in the details?

This week’s readings really exemplified the use of detail and how you can use it to facilitate “showing” over “telling.” The details in the way Ross described Hemingway, from his dialogue to demeanor and the behaviors in between really painted a portrait. His take on the artwork and the things that he said about them was steeped in detail and it’s what makes a story come alive.

The interesting thing that I’d like to approach is the importance of details. As we’ve discussed, “status details” can really enrich a story – I am reminded of Moe’s example in his sketch of a woman losing consciousness, that he mentioned she was drinking a glass of wine… in a beer bar. That small detail spoke to her character in a way that an ordinary description probably couldn’t. However, details need to be chosen carefully. You could fill a story with superfluous details and that wouldn’t make it good. Isn’t it one of the trademarks of a bad liar that there is too much detail in the lie? Making sure that details are appropriate and further the story is what makes them good, and they should be peppered in evenly, not just dumped in random spots.

Important details showed up in our other readings this week as well, such as Lady Olga’s yearly donation to the ASPCA, regardless of how much she herself was struggling financially – that message that she is caring and selfless when it comes to animals speaks about her character and perhaps things that she learned about caring for them over a career in the circus.

And an example in Bragg’s story would be that the little women’s furniture is mostly child-sized, but their feet still dangle high above the floor when they sit on it. Instead of just saying “these women were small” he paints a sort of picture with the detail, that in your head you see this doll house with little furniture and even littler ladies.

Detail is one of the most important tools a writer has.

Blog Essay Week 9

It was interesting to read four personality profiles done in such different ways. One great thing that I can say for them as a group was that none of the profiles read like celebrity interviews in popular magazines, which are often quite deplorable. I remember Dan in an earlier class complaining that the celebs are always “clad” in something… because that’s evidently the only way to describe the way a famous person wear clothes. This style was nowhere to be found, which was a major plus.

 

In “Little Women Look Back on Lost World” Bragg is doing more of an overarching portrait of their lives as they remember them and what has happened since they were no longer part of the “midget troupes” or Munchkinland. However, it was not so much the content of the story (though interesting, no doubt) as the style that stood out to me. The series of short one-sentence paragraphs punctuate the piece and in between the dialogue and back story of the little ladies, sort of show where Bragg stands on it. The sentences such as “Because fairies never get old.”, “Life in miniature.” , “A living doll.”, and “Alabama kindness.” Are fairly even spaced throughout the story. I’m not sure how I feel about the use of them. The lines themselves feel a little cliché and I can distinctly remember a feature writing professor of mine in undergrad telling me that you are free to use a one-sentence paragraph, or even a one-word paragraph, but if you’re going to, you have to marry it. Make it a good one. I don’t feel as though Bragg did that here and I think he could have gone a different route and made the story feel less tired if he had done things a little differently.

 

In direct comparison with “Lady Olga” I think “Little Women Look Back on Lost World” sort of fades into the background; “Lady Olga” was written much better in my opinion. However, I’m not sure if I particularly liked the story. Throughout, Mitchell seems almost  condescending when he’s writing about Lady Olga, and I’m not sure of the sarcastic or ironic feeling was his intent, but it made me uneasy, like he was making fun of her. I didn’t care for that. It’s easy to make fun of a bearded lady; go pick on someone your own size. However, in other parts, it seems like he drops her some charity, like mentioning that no matter how hard of a time she is having, she always donates to the ASPCA. I also thought it was interesting how long into the story he waits before he gives description, perhaps be was building a sort of suspense because obviously the first question you ask when you hear about a bearded lady is “what does she look like?!” I found the piece to be more emotional than “Little Women,” it was sad and moving at times but was written very nicely and expressively but I just couldn’t get past the feeling that Olga was being mocked and I felt defensive of her. I wonder if that was the same response that other people had?

 

I tried not to be biased when I got to the Ross piece about Hemingway. I make no secret of my love for Ernest and he can essentially do no wrong, so as I was reading about him making salespeople punch him in the belly, I was delighted with his eccentricity and thought about how much I wanted to hang out with him. He’s gifted and brilliant and I would take anything else that came along with it. I was expecting something much different than the story that we got, though, after reading the introduction to the story. I did not feel like it was “devasting” as a portrait at all, and I much agree with Ross that it exuded affection and admiration. I thought it was an interesting representation of a side that most people probably don’t get to see, and it’s almost as though you would never know who this person was from reading his books. I liked Ross’ fly-on-the-wall technique because she let the story tell itself and I found that to be very effective, we didn’t need her to digest it for us and we could each take away from the story whatever it meant to us; perhaps this is the source of the disconnect in the public’s reaction to it – she posits no opinion so everyone is able to make it their own and they react in very different ways. I very much liked this piece and loved hearing Hemingway discuss art.

 

“The Earl of Louisiana” was the least effective reading to me this week, I couldn’t seem to connect with the material. I felt like Liebling’s use of narrative was good but was distracted by the dialects in the dialogue. While it did paint a profile, it seemed to do so in a more roundabout way than the others, almost as if the story was masquerading as something else. It was an interesting approach but it didn’t really work for me as a personality profile. I liked the Ross piece most of all, but I can’t say that it wasn’t because of the content and my affection for Mr. Hemingway himself.

Analyze This Week 8

I think that Capote definitely upholds his idea of going vertically into a story rather than approaching it horizontally as in traditional journalism.

It is evident in his use of foreshadowing and how he sort of bounces back and forth between the Clutters, Dick and Perry, and Dewey; he approaches it knowing the outcome and all the details and then uses that to section off ideas and “plot lines” so to speak and is able to construct them in a way that he sees fit artistically for his “nonfiction novel.” There is no “this was the beginning and then these things happened and then there was the end” – while there is a definite beginning, middle, and end of the story, Capote manages to play with the details and arches in between which makes it very atypical of traditional journalism.

It’s as if the storytelling is about the journey, not the destination, where we are not waiting to find out what happens in the end, but are simply able to revel in the way Capote takes us to get there.