Re: [acornlive] "Nostalgia...(They Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To)"
Ailish M. Farragher (acornlive@dublinwriters.org)
Wed, 21 Jun 2000 16:30:13 +0100
Hi Imbas,
thanks for your tale of John Gardner. I'm half-way through "Grendel" (what a
hoot!) and anticipating a lifetime of re/reading the rest. I remember quaking
when taking a fiction workshop: we were assigned "The art of fiction." A tall
order, brilliant, and snippy too.
Slán,
Ailish
> Dear John,
>
> Ah, yes, the real "good old bad days," with those
> messy carbons et al...
>
> I studied with the late novelist John Gardner when he
> was the reigning honcho outta NYC at State University
> of New York at Binghamton, (upstate) New York...
>
> To get into his Graduate Fiction Workshop, one had to
> pass "The Interview." He had a reputation for
> "speaking his mind," and, though he wasn't Irish,
> certainly came off as curmudgeonly as our Shaw or
> Yeats at times...
>
> I was a just a few years outta my undergraduate days
> at U.C. Berkeley, Ca., and thought myself a wee bit of
> a journalism "hot-shot" from the work I'd been doing
> in Manhattan--of which I told him, when asked, "So,
> what have you been writing?"
>
> --CUT to shot of a white-haired man removing his
> wireframe glasses, tossing them onto his desk, rubbing
> his eyes and saying in disgust, "What *serious* work
> have you been doing..."--
>
> Though with a chip on my shoulder still, I proffered
> several short stories...
>
> He filled and lit his pipe (sometimes considered
> equivalent to the Pauline Kael/ Dorothy Parker
> maneuver of "bring out the bottle of brandy," in that
> the "fit was about to hit the shan"...).
>
> Then he picked up one of several stubby and well-used
> pencils that he used for editing...
>
> --CUT: to same white-haired but youthfully vigoured
> man exhaling grunts of what sounds like displeasure as
> he furiously attacks paragraph after paragraph with
> pencil marks and comments...--
>
> --REACTION SHOT: Mr. "Hotshot," sinking gradually
> lower and lower into his chair, thinking ominously,
> "It doesn't look good for The Kid..."--
>
> After what seemed like an eternity he actually
> finished both stories, in toto, puffed on his pipe and
> looked out his window at the already gloomy Fall
> landscape...
>
> "Not bad," he said, still gruffly, as he handed them
> back to me. "Class is Wednesday night, be there and
> have them corrected..."
>
> I did my best at maintaining my "tough guy" composure,
> nodded in agreement and ducked through the door...
>
> As--still not able to speak--I passed the queue of
> hopefuls assembled, comments along the lines of,
> "Jesus, he tore up another one," whispered forth as
> each stared at the sheaf of papers held in now
> trembling hands...
>
> Swear to Heaven, seems so funny thinking back, how
> easily intimidating the concept of "Graduate Student"
> could be...
>
> Gardner, by the way, holding forth at one of his
> notorious parties, told the tale of how he'd ridden
> his Harley-Davidson (one of the classics, not the new
> "yuppie bar" models) into Manhattan (New York City,
> quite a stretch of highway from where he was teaching
> in the Midwest) and walked into the publisher Alfred
> Knopf's building--clad in his full-riding leathers and
> holding a cardboard box containing three rather
> lengthy novels. Brushing his way past the
> receptionist--he had no appointment--he found the
> office of the editor he'd picked and dumped the box on
> the agape-mouthed man's desk. "Here," he said, "I
> want you to read these and get back to me on Monday."
> It was Friday. Then he walked out and, one might say,
> rode off into the sunset...
>
> (Not only did the editor read them over the weekend
> but on Monday called John to tell him that Knopf
> wanted all three: including "Grendel," Beowolf from
> the "monster's" point-of-view, and "The Sunlight
> Dialogues," a remarkable piece of "philosophical
> fiction")
>
> "So don't grumble about your writing until you have a
> body of work they can't refuse," he'd conclude.
>
> Not only visiting writer Joyce Carol Oates, who never
> seemed to have any difficulty getting her immense
> works published, but too the late Ray Carver said,
> "True story, man"; Carver, one of his students from
> long ago at Chico State (Cal.), even added in his
> deadpan way that the story was "the most inspirational
> thing he'd ever heard..."
>
> Best,
> Imbas
>
>
>
>
>
> =====
>
> --"For, wondrous though the gift of knowledge is,
> it has little moving power over the happening..."
> ***Arthur Koestler, The Gladiators (Macmillan, 1939, 1965 Danube ed.,
> trans. Edith Simon), p. 232
>
> --"...don't feel like Satan but to them I am...", Neil Young
>
> "Well, he could walk down the street and girls could not resist the
> stare, and, unlike you, nobody ever called Pablo Picasso an asshole,"
> Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers
>
>
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