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Nee Cee
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, June 11, 2003 - 12:40 pm: | 
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In reading Cynique's comments about a certain novel, I wanted to post a question:
When picking a book to read, do you prefer certain styles or writing techniques when it comes to reading something funny? Like, Terry McMillan is funny to me, but does not do caricatures. Other writers are also able to write with humor in a way that is similar to Terry.
But then we have the writers such as Carl Weber, Van Whitfield, sometimes Lolita Files, who inject over the top characters or scenes. What is acceptable or unacceptable when trying to convey humor in contemporary literature? What is a no-no?
Do certain type writings have to appeal to certain type readers in order for it to be a good read. Okay, too many questions here, but thanks for your reply if you can make sense of my questions.
I am fulfilling my book club obligation by reading this month's selection, "Gonna Lay Down My Burdens," a coming of age novel which I am not particularly enjoying. The characters are all caricatures, a cast of people whose silliness the author exploits, in her lame attempt to inject humor into the improbable proceedings. |
Yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, June 11, 2003 - 01:09 pm: |
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Nee Cee
Some thoughts:
I can usually read any writing style, but this really depends on my mood, which is shifty...lol! I do like humour, but i prefer, mostly, literary fiction, so that i'm really into theme, which, in my opinion, often dictates the style, the methaphors, moods, etc....examples of literary fiction with humor would be Ways of Dying by Zakes Mda and Victor LaValle's Esctatic(sp).
I don't think there are no-nos in literature...of course, it is personal. It seems that as readers we can appreciate a variety of things, and so what is or not acceptable for the consumption of reading is open. On the other hand, in socalled "literary" circles, often white american/european, what is "acceptable" is limited; it is often shaped by cultural biases rather than "universal" appeal. So that, for example, some people can not get into Toni Morrison and John Edgar Wideman, and other Third Worldist and Colonial writers, because their literature, specially the narrative is often circular rather than linear, often folk rather than middle-class(similarly, others complain that their literature is too "deep" and laborious). Now, of course James Joyce and Faulkner, their(white folk or US and Europeans/of course we are Americans, but our literary traditions is not limited to white folk...another conversation) forefathers did the folk and orality, but when it comes to people of color it becomes another story....thats only one example.
And of course, i believe, certain writing appeal to certain readers inorder to make it a good reading. Yet, I would also suspect that some writers can not do both literary and commercial fiction, necessarily limiting their stylistic and thematic production. And, concomitantly, most readers, i would suspect, can not read or choose not to read and labor through both literary and commercial fiction:It goes both ways! |
Chris Hayden
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, June 11, 2003 - 01:13 pm: |
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NeeCee:
I don't prefer any particular style when it comes to humor--just that it be funny. |
Snake Girl
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, June 11, 2003 - 02:41 pm: |
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NeeCee, I took this question really seriously, because it's such a good question. I hope you forgive the length.
The first book I ever read (at 14) was Jaqueline Susann's "Valley of the Dolls"...and I LOOOOVED the style of that book. It made me hungry to read other books and that book (Valley/Dolls) made me think that I could write my own book.
But unfortunately--and this is a major problem with writers of "commercial" pop fiction--the author, after she got rich, wasn't able to maintain that level (a rather thin level) of honest introspection and flat out "precious" gossip. Her insider's view of the entertainment world and how sexism imposes a religion of vanity on young women became marred by laziness (and then later she got cancer). Her only other book that nearly equals "Valley" in a mixture of gloss, style, humor and truth is "Once Is Not Enough".
But keep in mind, these pulp fiction soap operas of Susann's are made "remarkable"...(just as "Waiting to Exhale" was remarkable)...in that a conscious TRUTH about the social pulse of "the day" is being tapped by the author in such a way that the book takes on a life of its own, so real and dear to readers, that it transcends the "packaging" and "formulas" of its genre--women's escapism.
THAT...more than literary fiction or commercial fiction is what I look for when purchasing a new novel.
And it becomes very difficult to find, because there are more writers who follow a formula to collect an ADANCE check and a deadline...than there are writers who really have their finger on the pulse of social climates or on the pulse of a certain issue.
Let me highlight what I mean by "the pulse"...
I recently began sketching a 40 page character outline...of an uneducated black woman whose career it is to stock and "correctly" breed fish ponds in the rural south. IT SOUNDS like an easy occupation...but I have now learned that it's a very difficult thing to do. It's like being a gardener with a green thumb. Fish, in captivity, require the Captor to have inbred "instincts about nature". You cannot stock just one type of fish--for instance to create a pond of "cat"fish--you need minnows, a few bass (to keep the population down, cause they eat babies) and then a few hybrid fish (90% of hybrid spawns are "male") to keep disease at bay and to insure that your catfish will grow to a sellable length. If you stock more than 150 catfish in one acre of water--then they will spawn runts. Then you have to provide the proper diet for all these stocked fish--and each of the species of fish have to be added to the pond at the exact right time throughout the year (the minnows going in first).
Now on top of that...my character only really makes this her living...because she's black in the south and uneducated..and therefore, cannot move beyond her personal relationship with "the countryside" as a way of making a survival. This job, which ruins her hands, keeps her smelling like fish and algae all the time and is like washing clothes to her--it's all she knows how to do to feed her kids.
Although she can take an acre of land and create for rich folks (white and black)--a dream pond--she cannot find a way to her own dream, because her understanding of nature's system is considered inferior to the power of mankind's larger system of measuring "somebody's" worth against that of a nobody.
Millions of people in the world are in the same position. (I am building the pulse here, NeeCee)
Their mama was an unhappy overweight Nurse's Aid--so they become an unhappy overweight nurse's aids. Their mama was a materialistic, fake-acting stockbroker (and people who are fake are usually fake because they fear the cruelty of other people)--so they become some kind of white collar office worker with a double-consciousness that protects them from other people's "problems". Their daddy sold weed was too busy being cool to learn how to read--so they sell weed and do what they saw daddy do.
PEOPLE can relate to these realities and can see how they themselves are trapped by their own limited point of reference. (Now we have a pulse behind the character)
So this is my makeshift (and quickly written) example to you about what I look for when both purchasing and writing fiction. I look for a connection to "reality" and to "the mass feeling" that is
OUT "There".
And then the best writers..like Morrison..respond to that (as I so often do on these boards) by inserting her own willfull opinion and forcing the reader to become enthralled in a myopic consideration of alternative normalities...events and realities that are usually so close to the bone and so embarrassing that it either shuts people up (because knowing makes you responsible for acting)...or annoys them that their comfort zones have been intruded upon.
In other words...Morrison deliberately challenges us and challenges everything we "think". Which is what pure art is about in the first place.
And remember this...in her book "Bluest Eye"...she actually wrote about being OUT OF DOORS..."being put OUT of ones home". Which is an experience so heavy and meaningful in the lives of millions of black folk--that it touches a spark of reality and surprises the reader all at the same time.
It's not what you write. It's HOW you write it. Execution and the elements of truth and surprise are everything. With Mary Monroe, as much as I enjoy reading her books...I also lament the fact that so much of her work is "contrived" and you are right...she tends to characters whose BIGNESS...doesn't explain how they remain in such small crevices. I love Mary's work, but it's hard to read her work and then read Berniece McFadden's work and not notice that Mary has a lot of weaknesses. Personally, I think she becomes too emotional about the stories while she's writing them, but who in the hell am I--I could be wrong.
Anyway. It's the essence of truth and the spark of surprise (O look--it's us) that I HOPE FOR when picking up a novel.
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Yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, June 11, 2003 - 04:15 pm: |
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Kola:
Nice response....nice analysis and illustration of "pulse." Very useful! |
Cynique
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, June 11, 2003 - 07:59 pm: |
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When it comes to the subject of humor in fiction, I am reluctant to make a definitive statement because humor is such a subjective thing. What strikes me as funny is very often skewered by my own blithe approach to life. Then, there are the different brands of humor, e.g. broad farce, subtle irony. Humor is a very elusive entity and most writers agree that it's much more difficult to write funny stuff than mainstream prose. (But when comedy works, it's magic!) And of course there is always an element of tragedy in humor, a poking of fun at the human condition. Personally, I prefer the hip, witty, under-stated type of humor, and to be amused by something while reading, is an added bonus for me. I never just go looking for a funny book. I also think that the most ineffective attempt at humor occurs when it become self-conscious in its application. Finally, what's more sad than when a scenario which is intended to be serious, evokes laughter. |
Snake Girl
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, June 11, 2003 - 08:13 pm: |
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Thanx Yukio--I tried, off the top of my head, to explain why some people's books are wooden, lifeless and dull. It takes a lot of planning to get a "pulse"...and then you STILL might write a bad book. But atleast if you have a pulse, the reader usually forgives you for not engaging them in some way. And I agree with Cynique, too.
People read to be reminded of why they go on living and what it is they believe...and to have contact with others.
A good book written about Nuns in Russia--if it has a pulse--can make me realize that their lives is also MY life.
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Tee C. Royal
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 12, 2003 - 10:22 am: |
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Hmmm, I don't really seek out humor in books or books that I know is billed as comedy, because what I think is funny and NOT isn't usually the norm. LOL.
For instance, I've been to several movies that either I was the only one laughing or the only one it seemed NOT laughing. I'll tell which ones if anyone is interested; but I admit to not "getting it" or necessarily "liking it" when some comedians are doing their acts.
Marcus Major does a good job at humor to me, and I also think some scenes in Getting Mothers Body are funny. There are a few more books out there, but I can't remember titles...
-Tee |
Chris Hayden
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 12, 2003 - 10:27 am: |
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Kola:
In my study of writers I have found that few of them (and I think this can be said of other artists) can maintain the level of intensity that they display in their first works.
Often this happens in the successful writer because, once success has been attained, what is there to fight for now? Often they have written their first works as unknowns, hungry to get out there and angry or with something "big" or important to say--now they've said it, they ain't hungry or unknown anymore, tahe motivation, the fire in the belly is gone.
Success is often its own undoing like that.
This even happens in your "artistic" and "literary" writers--in their case again, they either have said what they have to say or they get worn down from fighting and can't do it anymore.
The artistic energy is also a function of the general health level of the artist (I tell beginners that the first duty of the artist is to LIVE so that he or she can create). Sickness, old age can destroy those energies--indeed, faced with one's impending doom--as we all really are, we just are able to deny it until we get on the downside of fifty and then we know it won't be long now--creating art can fade to insignificance.
There is the conundrum of Ralph Ellison--writers wonder why he didn't follow up the wonderful success of INVISIBLE MAN--some have conjectured that he was intimidated by that success and was afraid to put something else out that didn't measure up.
We were talking about humor. Humor is a young person's game. TAke a good look at most successful comedians. Take a look at comedians when they get fat and successful and no longer have the urge to make people laugh--indeed, most comedians are very sad people who seek to inject humor in their environment by making everyone else laugh.
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Cynique
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 12, 2003 - 12:18 pm: |
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Kola, your treatise on "pulse" was very noteworthy, but I also agree with your observations, Chris. Neither Margaret Mitchell who wrote "Gone With the Wind" nor Harper Lee who wrote "To Kill A Mocking Bird", 2 monumental works of fiction, ever wrote another book because they were so overwhelmed by the idea of duplicating their initial success, that they eventually lost their desire to do so. In agreeing with your comments about comedians, Eddie Murphy comes to mind. Once he became successful and happily married, he lost all of his dangerous comedic edge, becoming more of a goofy buffoon. Now, Chris Rock, with all of his newfound success has started to mellow out. And, was there anything more pathetic than an old ailing Richard Pryor trying to be funny, or anything less hilarious than Bill Cosby's tired monologues. |
NeeCee
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 12, 2003 - 12:23 pm: |
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Cynique,
I was just thinking of Margaret Mitchell today, and how she is known for that one book. Maybe it's just meant to be for some people -- they'll have 1 or 2 huge successes, but then everything else they do (if anything) will be minimal.
It's amazing to think about. |
Cynique
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 12, 2003 - 12:42 pm: |
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Hey ABM, as the board's resident sit-down comedian, what are your thoughts on the subject of humor in fiction? |
Cynique
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 12, 2003 - 12:56 pm: |
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Hi NeeCee,
Yeah, maintaining the drive and creativity required to turn out anything other than genre books that follow a tried and true formula is a daunting task. I haven't even written a best-seller, and I'm already losing interest in pursuing success. LOL
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Yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 12, 2003 - 01:41 pm: |
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Cynique and Chris H:
Hmmmm...there are as many examples of one hit wonders as there are those who continue to produce great fiction....i think at the end of the day....it is just hard work writing good fiction--and some have it and others don't..this of course is if we acknowledge/believe that the literary commununity's affirmation doesn't necessarily make someone's work great--it is just hard work, some have it and most don't...
Also, I don't think comedians and writers are comparable(not a go analogy), although some comedians are writers, but they have different markets, and the fiction community tends to stick with their praised writers more so than folk who follow certain comedians.... |
Chris Hadyen
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 12, 2003 - 02:41 pm: |
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Yukio:
Comedians are artists just like writers. There are things in common to Comedians (who are performing artists) and painters and sculptors and musician, etc.
They all get tired and old and sick die. They all, one day, run out of steam.
"We have but a short time when we can wage war" said Napoleon Bonaparte. In my studies, even those artists who had long careers--Gwendolyn Brooks, Robert Hayden, Whitman, Baraka--tended to produce their most powerful work early in their careers. |
Yukio
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, June 12, 2003 - 03:52 pm: |
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Chris H:
Comedians are artists, but that is not where i made the distinction. Please consider that i addresed the market and their readership. I made the distinction on the audience and comsumer side of the equation.
I didn't think it was a good analogy, since the variables we were addressing did not necessarly enter you equation.
Since we were also talking about the quality of work(its reception by literary community and the masses) not just their production or identity as artists, which is what you focused on in response to my post.
I don't completely disagree, Chris H. My point is that some people can and some can not sustain quality work, even if their work isn't necessarily better than their work in their youth, which is really, as most things, interpretational. I don't think youth necessarily equates to quality; your formula doesn't allow for much flexibility.... |
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