Tim Fredrick proves himself to be a risk-taker as a writer. In his collection of short stories, WE REGRET TO INFORM YOU, Fredrick tackles a number of character voices and a variety of short fiction styles, but the theme that runs through many of these tales is a sense of just how difficult it is for Joe Everyman to express himself.
"We regret to inform you" might have come from a number of his characters' mouths. In each case, the act of speaking is itself an act of regret. In "By the Stream on Moving Day," his protagonist feels the ache implicit in the definition of nostalgia when he meets up with his childhood best friend, Henry, who, on their last day together as kids, put his toe in the water, testing whether what Henry felt was sexual love. When the narrator, who may be named "Buddy," hears Henry admit that this may have been the moment when he realized he was gay, Buddy chokes on a piece of ice, incapable of revealing whether he felt the same way. In "Egg and Spoon," Jim seeks a Guinness World Record and his brother's affection by carrying an egg in a spoon around and around the local high school track. And in "Thawed," my favourite story, Fredrick imagines that while hundred-year old corpses brought back from being cryogenically frozen may be cured of the disease that would have killed them, the process can do nothing to cure the prejudices they went into suspended animation with.
Fredrick plays with second person narration in "A Tale of Five Thousand Erections," which is great, unless the you being addressed is female. "This One Night in the Bar Where I Work's" stream-of-consciouness narration feels shallow, until you realize that the fight at the center of it is itself banal.
Overall, Fredrick shows terrific promise as a storyteller, and I'm curious to see where his writing takes him next. One thing is for sure, Fredrick is not limited by the boundaries of gender and sexuality. He tries on different writing styles as one does clothes--some of the pieces are not all that flattering, but at the end of the day, there's an eclectic wardrobe filling the shelf.
Monday, March 30, 2015
Sunday, March 29, 2015
THE LENS OF WAR: Still foggy after all these years
Books of photographs occupy a strange position in the average American's house. Many of them are marketed as "coffee table" books; their very existence a testament to the taste, the intellect, and the personality of the owner of said coffee table. LENS OF WAR (University of Georgia) is most definitely not a coffee table book, although perhaps it should be, as the photographs and the commentaries upon them would be certain to provoke discussions.
As someone who was not born in the United States, but went through the American educational system from kindergarten to graduate school, I'm aware of the unique position that the Civil War occupies in the popular imagination. Photography books are not cheap to produce, but University of Georgia press is probably not wrong in banking on this collection making a profit for its publishers. Its drop date of April 15, 2015 is conspicuous, being the sesquicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's death from an assassin's bullet the night before.
The premise behind the book seems simple enough. The book's editors--J. Mathew Gallman and Gary W. Gallagher--contacted a number of Civil War historians and asked them to each pick a favorite photograph from the war, along with an essay that explained the significance of the photo.
Most of the writers respond with remarkable candor. For those who think that all historians engage in parching prose best used as a sleeping pill, prepare to be surprised. Writers use colorful language in presenting these black-and-white images. And the choice of photograph reveals as much about the historian as his or her biography in the back of the book.
The book opens with a series of portraits of some of the "great men" of the war: Lincoln, Lee, Grant, Stonewall Jackson, and Sherman. On at least two of the occasions, historians proclaim that it was the portrait of the great man that caused them, at a young age, to "fall in love" with the Civil War, statements that I find troubling. While accepting that perhaps they are referring to their child selves who saw in the romanticism of the portraits the same window into an adventurous time that others experienced looking at portraits of the Tudors--Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, in particular. I admit to reading every book that I could lay hands on about the Tudor court between 1509 and 1603; the Holbein portraits creating larger than life images sure to capture the attention of an eight-year old girl.
But falling in love with a war strikes me as insensitive, given that portraits of great men were not far removed from the famous battleground images of the war's dead. It is not surprising, therefore, that the historians who chose portraits of great men possessed different attitudes toward the war than those who chose some of the more graphic images of suffering, deprivation, and destruction that followed in the remaining sections.
If you pay attention to the stories told by the historians, one gains a view into where each historian sits in the range of theories of the war. Whether identifying themselves as members of the "Lost Cause" school of thought to the newer theories of the "Destructive War," one finds a number of occasions where professors, many of them affiliated with southern colleges, painting the Union armies as punishing and blood thirsty. In an example of sloppy scholarship, Joan Waugh, writing about U.S. Grant says, "without attribution," "The battles of the six-week Overland Campaign, where Grant's and Lee's armies fought to bloody stalemate across Virginia's countryside, gave rise to the nickname of "butcher," for the general-in-chief whose main strategy seemed to be throwing bodies at the enemy."
LENS OF WAR is a great book to add to any Civil War student's collection. Photographs are not objective documents that simply record what is there. In some cases, what is there was stage-managed by the photographer who sought to drive home a point with his newspaper audiences. In some cases, the analysis of the photographs turns the lens upon the historian as much as the war itself.
As we approach the 150th anniversary of the official end of the Civil War, LENS OF WAR does a great job of illustrating William Faulkner's observation of history itself. "The past is never dead," he wrote, in REQUIEM FOR A NUN "It's not even past."
As someone who was not born in the United States, but went through the American educational system from kindergarten to graduate school, I'm aware of the unique position that the Civil War occupies in the popular imagination. Photography books are not cheap to produce, but University of Georgia press is probably not wrong in banking on this collection making a profit for its publishers. Its drop date of April 15, 2015 is conspicuous, being the sesquicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's death from an assassin's bullet the night before.
The premise behind the book seems simple enough. The book's editors--J. Mathew Gallman and Gary W. Gallagher--contacted a number of Civil War historians and asked them to each pick a favorite photograph from the war, along with an essay that explained the significance of the photo.
Most of the writers respond with remarkable candor. For those who think that all historians engage in parching prose best used as a sleeping pill, prepare to be surprised. Writers use colorful language in presenting these black-and-white images. And the choice of photograph reveals as much about the historian as his or her biography in the back of the book.
The book opens with a series of portraits of some of the "great men" of the war: Lincoln, Lee, Grant, Stonewall Jackson, and Sherman. On at least two of the occasions, historians proclaim that it was the portrait of the great man that caused them, at a young age, to "fall in love" with the Civil War, statements that I find troubling. While accepting that perhaps they are referring to their child selves who saw in the romanticism of the portraits the same window into an adventurous time that others experienced looking at portraits of the Tudors--Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, in particular. I admit to reading every book that I could lay hands on about the Tudor court between 1509 and 1603; the Holbein portraits creating larger than life images sure to capture the attention of an eight-year old girl.
But falling in love with a war strikes me as insensitive, given that portraits of great men were not far removed from the famous battleground images of the war's dead. It is not surprising, therefore, that the historians who chose portraits of great men possessed different attitudes toward the war than those who chose some of the more graphic images of suffering, deprivation, and destruction that followed in the remaining sections.
If you pay attention to the stories told by the historians, one gains a view into where each historian sits in the range of theories of the war. Whether identifying themselves as members of the "Lost Cause" school of thought to the newer theories of the "Destructive War," one finds a number of occasions where professors, many of them affiliated with southern colleges, painting the Union armies as punishing and blood thirsty. In an example of sloppy scholarship, Joan Waugh, writing about U.S. Grant says, "without attribution," "The battles of the six-week Overland Campaign, where Grant's and Lee's armies fought to bloody stalemate across Virginia's countryside, gave rise to the nickname of "butcher," for the general-in-chief whose main strategy seemed to be throwing bodies at the enemy."
LENS OF WAR is a great book to add to any Civil War student's collection. Photographs are not objective documents that simply record what is there. In some cases, what is there was stage-managed by the photographer who sought to drive home a point with his newspaper audiences. In some cases, the analysis of the photographs turns the lens upon the historian as much as the war itself.
As we approach the 150th anniversary of the official end of the Civil War, LENS OF WAR does a great job of illustrating William Faulkner's observation of history itself. "The past is never dead," he wrote, in REQUIEM FOR A NUN "It's not even past."
Thursday, March 26, 2015
Daily Beast Reveals Its Inhumanity with Germanwings Headline
Today, while checking my e-mail, I noticed that an update from The Daily Beast indicated that it had posted a new article about what they were calling the "kamikaze" pilot. (I will not link to the article. It can earn its own clicks.) My gut seized. Why would anyone trivialize such a tragedy by using a word that has lost its original meaning and has now become a word we use to describe either a belly-flop into water, or a mixed drink that we use to get drunk. What could they have been thinking?
I sent them the following.
Dear “Editors,”
I have put your position in quotation marks because if the decision to refer to the air disaster that is currently playing out in the Alps as the work of a “kamikaze” pilot was your own, then I find myself wondering just what you have to do to be qualified to hold your position. Did you spend more than a fraction of a second thinking about the implications of the title? Do you know what kamikaze means in Japanese or what its meaning has come to be in American culture? Did you think about the fact that 150 souls—yes, they refer to them as souls, so it’s their word, not mine—that 150 souls were on board that plane? Did you perhaps assume that no one who had lost someone on that plane would ever see the callous treatment of mass death as if it were some cartoon spectacle for you to sell for a cheap click? Are you ashamed of yourselves yet?
You should be.
It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway, that I am removing myself from your mailing list today. Now. At the moment that this letter is sent.
The human thing to do would be for the “editor” among you who made this decision to apologize.
The purpose of being a writer is to increase understanding in this world. To add to the empathy we have for one another. If you cause other human beings pain in order to make a buck, why not admit that what you are publishing is not writing or journalism or anything worthy of reading. You’re selling death porn.
In a way, your headline vivified reading that I had been doing just last night. I was reading a Nobel Prize winner, a writer whom I have admired since I was a teenager. He was criticizing writer friends of his who had attacked him for his public criticism of the murderous behavior of a country’s government that many in the artistic community thought should be above reproach because it was under attack from right-wing enemies who wanted to bring that government down.
He wrote:
“But it seems to me that there is another ambition that ought to belong to all writers; to bear witness, every time it is possible, insofar as our talent allows, for those who are as enslaved as we are. That is the very ambition that you questioned in your article, and I shall consistently refuse you the right to question it so long as the murder of a man angers you only when that man shares your ideas.”
It’s funny that the words written by Albert Camus in 1948 should feel so relevant now. Would you have perhaps shown a shred more decency if this air crash had taken place in the United States? Or do you only laugh and point at others if they’re foreigners?
Sincerely,
I realize that The Daily Beast doesn't care what I think of it, and my disappearance from its daily subscription list, and my decision to never visit its site again, will not do any damage. Unless, of course, those of you reading this were to make a similar decision. I can't speak for you.
But I refuse to add to a culture of death as entertainment. I refuse to support writing and editorial decisions that erodes the humanity of all who come into contact with its skeevy approach. It does no good to complain about this sick culture if one is willing to continue to patronize its merchants. I'm not willing to do that. I hope that some of you join me. Let editorial@dailybeast.com know that it has lost one more viewer. Sure. It's a grain of sand on the beach. But at least it might make you feel less polluted by having come in contact with its rot.
I sent them the following.
Dear “Editors,”
I have put your position in quotation marks because if the decision to refer to the air disaster that is currently playing out in the Alps as the work of a “kamikaze” pilot was your own, then I find myself wondering just what you have to do to be qualified to hold your position. Did you spend more than a fraction of a second thinking about the implications of the title? Do you know what kamikaze means in Japanese or what its meaning has come to be in American culture? Did you think about the fact that 150 souls—yes, they refer to them as souls, so it’s their word, not mine—that 150 souls were on board that plane? Did you perhaps assume that no one who had lost someone on that plane would ever see the callous treatment of mass death as if it were some cartoon spectacle for you to sell for a cheap click? Are you ashamed of yourselves yet?
You should be.
It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway, that I am removing myself from your mailing list today. Now. At the moment that this letter is sent.
The human thing to do would be for the “editor” among you who made this decision to apologize.
The purpose of being a writer is to increase understanding in this world. To add to the empathy we have for one another. If you cause other human beings pain in order to make a buck, why not admit that what you are publishing is not writing or journalism or anything worthy of reading. You’re selling death porn.
In a way, your headline vivified reading that I had been doing just last night. I was reading a Nobel Prize winner, a writer whom I have admired since I was a teenager. He was criticizing writer friends of his who had attacked him for his public criticism of the murderous behavior of a country’s government that many in the artistic community thought should be above reproach because it was under attack from right-wing enemies who wanted to bring that government down.
He wrote:
“But it seems to me that there is another ambition that ought to belong to all writers; to bear witness, every time it is possible, insofar as our talent allows, for those who are as enslaved as we are. That is the very ambition that you questioned in your article, and I shall consistently refuse you the right to question it so long as the murder of a man angers you only when that man shares your ideas.”
It’s funny that the words written by Albert Camus in 1948 should feel so relevant now. Would you have perhaps shown a shred more decency if this air crash had taken place in the United States? Or do you only laugh and point at others if they’re foreigners?
Sincerely,
I realize that The Daily Beast doesn't care what I think of it, and my disappearance from its daily subscription list, and my decision to never visit its site again, will not do any damage. Unless, of course, those of you reading this were to make a similar decision. I can't speak for you.
But I refuse to add to a culture of death as entertainment. I refuse to support writing and editorial decisions that erodes the humanity of all who come into contact with its skeevy approach. It does no good to complain about this sick culture if one is willing to continue to patronize its merchants. I'm not willing to do that. I hope that some of you join me. Let editorial@dailybeast.com know that it has lost one more viewer. Sure. It's a grain of sand on the beach. But at least it might make you feel less polluted by having come in contact with its rot.
Thursday, March 19, 2015
Lorraine's Reading Salon is opening its doors
Years ago, when I stood at the trailhead and looked at the sign, I knew I wanted to follow the trail that would take me to that place where I would recognize that I had become a writer, that I had earned that title. I have broken into the clearing and those of you who want to read me can do so in a number of places. You may have followed me here from there, which is great. And while I am a firm believer (ask my students) that if you want to write, you must read, this is not going to be the place where you'll see the sorts of political posts that once garnered me attention.
Here, I want to talk about one of my great loves: books. I'll tell you about what I'm reading, what I'm thinking about reading, what I put down and couldn't read and which book kept me from blogging because I couldn't lift my eyes off its pages.
So in the coming days, look for my thoughts on books. I haven't yet decided what the inaugural book I discuss will be. But I hope you'll come back and talk about books with me. My only rule about posting comments is that you can't be a troll. This is a no troll zone, and violaters will be booted. You're in a literary salon, not hanging out in the parking lot of a strip club. Don't take a dump on my carpet. Feel free to offer thoughts about a book or books that that are contrary to mine. I will love that. We'll be having a discussion, a conversation, an exchange of ideas. Sometimes, I get lonely when I feel as if I'm the only one who has read a particular book. That's why I'm welcoming you to my salon. The furniture is comfy and we're casual, so go ahead and put your feet up.
Stay a while.
Here, I want to talk about one of my great loves: books. I'll tell you about what I'm reading, what I'm thinking about reading, what I put down and couldn't read and which book kept me from blogging because I couldn't lift my eyes off its pages.
So in the coming days, look for my thoughts on books. I haven't yet decided what the inaugural book I discuss will be. But I hope you'll come back and talk about books with me. My only rule about posting comments is that you can't be a troll. This is a no troll zone, and violaters will be booted. You're in a literary salon, not hanging out in the parking lot of a strip club. Don't take a dump on my carpet. Feel free to offer thoughts about a book or books that that are contrary to mine. I will love that. We'll be having a discussion, a conversation, an exchange of ideas. Sometimes, I get lonely when I feel as if I'm the only one who has read a particular book. That's why I'm welcoming you to my salon. The furniture is comfy and we're casual, so go ahead and put your feet up.
Stay a while.
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