Don’t get me wrong. I see the merit of Alice Munro’s sweeping character studies, the frank, uncommunicative, blue collar world of Carver, or Denis Johnson’s ability to lightly blur dark realism with the surreal. Aesthetically these authors are pleasing, and every beginning writer should study them. They should steal elements of Hemingway, and Joyce Carol Oates and be able to discuss them semi-intelligibly with other people who claim to be writers. I understand the influence and subtle art of these men and women, but they also bore the fuck out of me.

To a huge extent, I almost switched over to a Psychology major in my first year of college because literature was presented to me in terms of these individuals. In them, especially in our unpolished imitations of them, emerged a tired formula. I grew so tired of the failed marriage represented by a couple’s inability to purchase a house, or war trauma in the subtext of a tossed salad. There’s a huge level of restraint, and control that goes hand-in-hand with this brand of minimalism, but with it comes a sort of safety. For some of these authors, these pieces were formed by decades of workshops: In finding a level of sparsity where so little is left that there’s nothing to criticize. I’m being hard on the form, but in many ways, it feels dated, like a direct response to the harshness of workshop, and reading it, I rarely have the slightest reaction.

For me, writing opened up when we moved on to those who are subverting form. I absolutely fell in love with Kelly Link’s, “Magic for Beginner’s,” when I read it my sophomore year.  This woman wrote about ghosts, zombies, television programs, and fairytales, all the while she broke every conceivable rule about the genre. It was refreshing given the rule stressed in every syllabus, and on most submission guideline pages: don’t do genre. With Link a new world opened up to me. Soon after her came Aimee Bender, Italo Calvino, George Saunders, Barthelme, Kafka, Brockmeier, Murakami, Mitchell, even the short works of Ballard and Bradbury. In my own writing, I went from a stagnant couple pushing middle age, running an antiques shop in Newfoundland to small children with one hour to live at the end of the world who decide to start a story circle. This isn’t meant to say one would be better than the other (both were miserable early attempts) in all actuality you could write about sitting in the waiting room of a dentist’s office if the prose is good, but at least I had options. I was expanding.

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The Walking Dead

So the other day I was shopping around Barnes and Noble, getting ready to spend a birthday gift card. After finding a Murakami book, I wandered, as I do, into the sci fi/fantasy section. One thing I found was a first volume of a two volume series of zombie short stories, each of which was quite thick (the first one, which I bought, clocks in at 483 pages). Now, this is not the first collection of zombie short fiction that I own. And the one other that I own is not the only other collection. It seems like, these days, you walk into the sci fi section of a book store, close your eyes, and touch the spine of a book, odds are you’re touching, or within 3 books of touching, a zombie book. Novels, collections, “survival guides”, fake zombie memoirs, zombies are everywhere in book stores. And it isn’t just trashy SF Horror writers any more, either. This collection that I’ve just purchased, for instance, has some surprises. Aside from big names Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, and George R.R. Martin (who just so happens to be my all-time favorite author, next to, perhaps, Douglas Adams), this collection also features stories by Kelly Link and – most surprising of all – Sherman Alexie. That’s right, I have a zombie short story by Sherman Alexie that I bought at Barnes and Noble. Chew that one over for a second. Like a bit of human intestine.
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This evening, I am limiting my investigation to books on my shelves, which hold many issues of Willow Springs. So, let’s look at some of the greatest moments of Willow Springs interviews.

How about this: “Kafka is always down here with us, and I don’t get that feeling with some of Pynchon and I don’t get it with Gaddis or some of the others” (91). This is Charles Baxter, responding to a question by Jonathan Frey about what makes Kafka’s handling of postmodernism better than that of others. Baxter argues that Kafka’s stories transcend putting characters into chessboard-like worlds in that, “In Kafka you don’t even know what the system is. The characters are trying to figure out what they’re enmeshed in, and there’s an overflow of feeling—mostly claustrophobia, but there can be other emotions, too. Kafka is down here with us, looking around, trying.” I like this answer because Baxter is offering comparisons and patterns that we can look for in postmodern literature. He has done work for us, and now we can read Kafka, Pynchon, and Gaddis, with specific things to look for. Read more »

i declare that "electric literature no. 3" is greater than, or equal to, an entire container of fudge tracks ice cream. if you know me at all, you know this is not a small gesture.

so we’ve had a bit of chatter here about electric literature.  but really, that was more about the organization, or the concept, than the stuff they’re putting out—via print, and e-book, and iPhone, and animation, and possibly invisible microwaves sent straight to your brain.  seems only fair to follow up with a look at the actual work—especially since after all the hype they’ve received, i could only find one other review of this latest issue. (full disclosure: i’m currently on staff at willow springs—though i like to think of electric lit as more of a colleague than a competitor.  we all just want people to read more, right?)

i read electric literature no. 3 over the course of a sunday afternoon.  of the first things i noted, a few aesthetic points:  it looks nice.  and feels nice.  it’s got some crazy painting wrapping both front & back covers, with simple, minimalist text, printed on a glossy stock.  the pages inside were a soft, creamy white, occasionally punctuated with whimsical line drawings (not unlike something from mcsweeney’s), and carefully laid out.  i know it’s a small thing, but it seems like *way* too many journals ignore these easy touches and print on a glaring white page loaded with text—not to mention the intimidating size of some of them.  because, you know, i & the rest of america were so anxious to read their magazines in the first place.  but electric lit is a travel-friendly 6″x9″ size, with only five stories; it’s a slim 120 page book, but only about 65 pages of fiction after accounting for blanks and illustrations and whatnot.  totally manageable.  inviting, even.

as a partial rebuttal to those concerned about electric literature focusing too heavily on already established authors: the thing is, sometimes you publish a big name because there’s a reason they’re a big name—they got game.  this issue starts off with a story from aimee bender, who’s got three books out, with a fourth on the way, and publishing credits at pretty much all the places a writer wants to be published at.  and you know what?  her piece kicks ass.

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