Lorrie Moore's "Self-Help" (part 2)

I finally finished Lorrie Moore's "Self-Help." My opinion of it stays the same as the last time I wrote about it--the stories are great individually, but the repetitiousness makes Moore seem a weaker writer than what she is. You often hear people say that writers should write what they know, but if all you know is cancer and adultery and going insane then perhaps you should learn some new things.

In the last story of the collection entitled "To Fill," Moore experiments with a style different from her other stories. She uses no quotation marks and very minimal commas in order to replicate an inner voice of a woman slowly driven to madness. The story is similar to previous stories in the collection; her husband is having an affair, she is unsatisfied with her life, her mother is sick, she is sick, et cetera. As always Moore has the ability to thoroughly explores the mentality of her narrator and convey it beautifully on the page, but after reading several similar stories these insights can be quite boring. How many hysterical women fighting with how many cheating husbands can you stand? (The first story of the collection, "How to Be an Other Woman," is probably the most unique, as it is about the other woman for a change and not a victimized wife.)

I'm not exactly riveted by "To Fill." It is rather long and contains too many issues: depression, amnesia, adultery, theft, et cetera. It's not a good story to end the collection, because it doesn't really offer enough magic. I was more captivated by other stories in the middle and think they would serve better as a closure. However, Moore's ability to entertain and capture attention never disappoints; she keeps me reading even when she has no surprises left. Though each narrator is different, their voices are still similar. As gifted a writer as she is, her range and versatility stand to be better. I would say buy the book, read one story, put it away and go read other things, come back to it after a few months and read the next story. You will appreciate it more that way.

Lorrie Moore's "Self-Help"

I've been reading Lorrie Moore's short stories collection called "Self-Help." The stories are good individually, but reading them back to back can get a little boring. She is a bit repetitious, recycling the same themes like adultery and cancer over and over. She sometimes uses second-person narrative, which she does well. Despite the repetition I find it a real page-turner.

The story I just read this afternoon is called "Amahl and the Night Visitors: A Guide to the Tenor of Love." It is about a woman in a dysfunctional relationship with an opera singer, who is convinced that her boyfriend is having an affair with someone else. I read it out loud, and bursted out laughing unexpectedly at one point. Her joke caught me off-guard. Later the opposite happened; I came across a sentence that made me start crying.

I'm not going to quote the sentence because somebody might want to read it, and I do hope that you do read this collection. But the sentence struck me because it says something to me so directly. It didn't offer anything that never crossed my mind before. Instead it said something that I have heard myself say before, maybe in my journal, or out loud to myself. It made me think of people I had loved, who had left. Sometimes you come across a work of art that speaks so honestly, and speaks directly at you, right to your heart, and it affects you so tremendously. That's when the most powerful form of catharsis happens.

Whoever you are, if you read, I hope you find something that touches you, that affects you. I have this ability to kind of feel along with anything I read, but only once in a while does something sweep me over like this. I know I would be reading anyway even if moments like this never happens. But when it does, gosh, it reminds me why I love reading.

This and That

I have spent the past couple of months being completely obsessed with the theater. I wanted to start writing for the stage, so I read a lot of plays and studied everything I could about playwriting and the theater. The downside of that is that I have become unable to accomplish anything. While struggling to write my first play, it had been impossible for me to write anything else. In an attempt to fix that, I decided to get back into writing short stories again.

In order to do so, I have to start reading short stories, so I go and check out a collection of short stories from the library. After browsing through the collection and reading some of them, I become rather disappointed. There is nothing about the stories that I find innovative. They are well written, don't get me wrong, but the stories are just not interesting. It seems to me that these writers have great ability but nothing of importance to tell. It's a wonder that they have won the notable prizes that got them into the collection. One of them, for example, is about a college student who sleeps with her professor to get a better grade and to steal his money. The main character is well developed, but there just isn't much in the story. I even find some of its elements cliche, like the professor character, for example. Many writers mention that it is important to get to know what is being published these days, what is currently considered good, but I find that most of the things that I have read that are on the market has nothing to compare to the classics, which are mostly what I read. I'm not sure what is going on in the literary world today, but I do not like it.

Putting that away, I return to my collection of short stories by Ray Bradbury, who I think is one of the best writers that ever lived, especially in America. His stories always give me inspiration; they have helped me through many writer's blocks over the years. But reading and learning from the same writer after a while can also become a bit of a bore. So I decide to pick up some new collections--ones that I have heard mentioned and recommended for so long but haven't gotten a chance to get to. These are Raymond Carver's "Where I'm Calling From," Tim O'Brien's "Things They Carried," and Lorrie Moore's "Self-Help." I have read some stories from these collections, and it is time to read all of them.

I started with Carver's story entitled "Nobody Said Anything," which is marvelous and exactly what I need. There will be some sort of an analysis on the story in a later entry.

This and That #1

So, I waited too long to write a post about short stories, and now I can't write about them anymore because it has been too long since I read them. I would reread them but I seriously do not have time with school going on and all the things that I have to read. But let me suggest the following:

The Enormous Radio by John Cheever
Roman Fever by Edith Wharton
How to be an Other Woman by Lorrie Moore

These are fantastic writings. Check them out.

I'm doing an independent study on modern and contemporary American drama. I just finished reading Paula Vogel's How I Learned to Drive, a superb play about a young girl becoming a woman while having a sexual affair with her uncle in law. It raises questions about the nature of pedophilia and statutory rape, and gives a very interesting take on a character that we might have otherwise condemned.

I also read Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, which is depressing to read, especially during the time where our economy is fucked. But it is a great play. The characters are multi-dimensional and very intriguing to study. What I love about Arthur Miller is that his works (the 4 that I have read) all have timeless qualities. These are the plays that readers and audiences will always be able to relate to. He is very Shakespearean in that way.