Writers Writing about Writers Writing C/D

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i.e. writing what you know vs. what you know is boring and narcissistic

Inspired by a discussion with my girlfriend over me wanting read this book. She has a particular dislike for writers writing about writers-as-characters and the process of writing, whereas I'm kind of a sucker for it. See also: Stephen King, Nabokov, that one arc of Finder, etc.

― Jordan (Jordan), Monday, 22 May 2006 14:29 (nineteen years ago)

Philip Roth's Zuckerman books are brilliant.

Didn't Roth have a reply to people who complained that he always wrote about Newark Jews - who else and why not?

― Ray (Ray), Monday, 22 May 2006 15:38 (nineteen years ago)

Total D, even though many of my favorite books feature it.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 22 May 2006 15:41 (nineteen years ago)

I notice there is an even a more strongly set current among poets to write poems about the writing of poetry. It seems to be an unavoidable tic among writers to write about writing. The world has about 10,000% more books on this subject than it properly can absorb.

I pity the poor author who takes up this theme in any form longer than a brief short story, because they end up investing so much time and effort parked on that sidetrack that they are loathe to toss the results into the burn barrel. It's much easier for a poet to write their poetry-themed poems and then bury them in a drawer or burn them.

― Aimless (Aimless), Monday, 22 May 2006 17:03 (nineteen years ago)

all writing is about writing, probably.

i like this one a lot in theory but less so in practice, i guess.

― tom west (thomp), Monday, 22 May 2006 17:38 (nineteen years ago)

All writing may be about writing, but it doesn't have to only be about writing.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 22 May 2006 17:58 (nineteen years ago)

Or: If the only think you know about is writing, then you need to write less.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 22 May 2006 17:58 (nineteen years ago)

"Think". Sigh.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 22 May 2006 18:03 (nineteen years ago)

I noticed nothink amiss.

― Aimless (Aimless), Monday, 22 May 2006 18:14 (nineteen years ago)

At Swim-Two-Birds (Flann O'Brien) = Writing about Writing and is awesome, awesome

― david foster vollman, Monday, 22 May 2006 21:48 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, and that brings us by a comodius vicus of recirculation back to a book that it is based on that one, is dedicated to its author and reuses some of its characters, Gilbert Sorrentino's Mulligan Stew.

― Sons Of The Redd Desert (Ken L), Monday, 22 May 2006 23:08 (nineteen years ago)

I got some of his from the library today. It feels mildly vulturish, though.

― tom west (thomp), Monday, 22 May 2006 23:52 (nineteen years ago)

two weeks pass...

DeLillo's Mao II is a little like this, and i absolutely love it. i think that's the only example i've read, though.

― derrick (derrick), Wednesday, 7 June 2006 06:16 (nineteen years ago)

I'm reading Bret Easton Ellis's Lunar Park at the moment, in which protagonist "Bret Easton Ellis", author of American Psycho et al., is trying to write a novel called Teenage Pussy. This sounds very wanky but it actually starts off really well, as a sort of self-satire. I'm about halfway through and the plot's turning ominously Stephen King though.

― Revivalist (Revivalist), Thursday, 8 June 2006 08:30 (nineteen years ago)

"ominously Stephen King."

Nice.

― Hoosteen (Hoosteen), Monday, 12 June 2006 00:57 (nineteen years ago)

Philip Roth's Zuckerman books are brilliant.

some of the funniest dialogue i've ever read in those books.

― The Giant Mechanical Ant (The Giant Mechanical Ant), Monday, 12 June 2006 01:27 (nineteen years ago)

three weeks pass...

Irving's a good one for this, especially in A Widow for One Year where he follows several writers as they write - my one complaint, though, is that they ALL WRITE LIKE JOHN IRVING!!!

― I'm Passing Open Windows (Ms Laura), Friday, 7 July 2006 18:00 (nineteen years ago)

i got a copy of mulligan stew today, incidentally.

― tom west (thomp), Friday, 7 July 2006 22:14 (nineteen years ago)

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