Creative Zeitgeist

By Martha Woodworth

I was one of the first to point the finger of blame at James Frey for his false memoir, A Million Little Pieces. I even wrote to Oprah accusing her of enabling Frey in those first days after the world learned some of the things he wrote about did not actually happen. People forget Oprah originally tried to defend him and shore up her own credibility for helping make the book a best-seller. She’d had Frey on her show and thoroughly drenched him in her special brand of chicken soup for the soul. Later, she would be hounded (by people like me, no doubt, threatening to put a dent in her immense credibility) into taking back the matzoh balls.

On one of the highest-rated episodes of all time, she excoriated the stuttering author, who sat shrinking further and further into his shirt. Oprah invited his famous, big-time editor on the show as well, to ostensibly shoulder the blame. But basically, it all fell on Frey, the one with the least amount of worldly power, who ended up looking like Oprah’s whipped dog. (I’ll bet she wouldn’t do that to one of her precious puppies if they pooped on the Persian rugs in her overstuffed dollhouses).

Now I wish I could take back the letter I wrote because, as time went on and several other hapless “memoirists” were unmasked, I remembered what happened to me when I approached publishing consultants, agents, and editors to discuss my own novels-for-hire.

“The first thing you should know,” I was told, again and again, “is that fiction by unknown novelists doesn’t sell. If you’ve got a book that in any way resembles your life, turn it into a memoir. Memoirs of famous people sell best, of course. However, now and then one written by an unknown, especially if it contains lots of sex, drugs and rock and roll, will scoot through and become a bestseller.”

I always felt miffed upon hearing this advice. As a long-time freelance journalist, I’ve had columns and features published in national publications, and I also write nonfiction books. However, my novels are fiction, pure and simple. Yes, of course some of them are autobiographical, to a degree. However, I never write them as pure fact.

My novels are totally different from memoirs, and I’ve done both. You might say that an autobiographical novel is a memoir stretched out - a euphemism for “not true.” At least, not in the literal sense, because I’ve always felt that novels were truer than nonfiction. In fiction, you can let your thoughts and emotions rip without worrying about fact-checkers. It’s the writer’s uninterrupted psyche that makes a novel real and raw. Memoirs make you consider life; novels take you out of your head and into your heart, and gut.

Thus, when I read about other well-received memoirs that turned out to be bogus; when I heard they were now banned and some of the (talented) writers’ careers ruined, I couldn’t help wondering if these writers were prodded into turning their novels into memoirs by “practical-minded” agents, editors and publishers. And even if this was not the case, were they misguided by the “practical-minded” advice of teachers, writing mentors and other literary know-it-alls?

When it comes right down to it, those literal-minded “advisors” haven’t got a clue as to how a writer - or let’s face it, an artist - thinks, and an artist writes. I’ve tried bringing this issue to the table on several occasions with letters to the Times Sunday Book Review and other publications featuring articles on the subject of “false memoirs.” In the past, I’ve always had at least one letter on a subject published, but not this time. For obvious reasons, those in power don’t want this side of the story to get out: that fiction writers are being unwisely guided down the garden path, away from their best, creative instincts.

by Andrew Watchorn

Over the past three years, I’ve been working with universities, helping them incorporate technology from the company I work for into their engineering curriculum. My territory includes 18 research-based institutions from the Midwest to the East Coast. Needless to say, I spend a lot of time driving, and NPR begins to repeat itself after an hour and a half. I needed something else to fill the time.

Enter my mother. Mom is a neat character in the sense that she was not encouraged to go to college by her parents, but each of her brothers has a PhD in something (physics, education, philosophy). Mom has the same set of genes and there is clearly an interest in acquiring information. She is a techie–got her degree in computer science as I was growing up–and signed up for audible.com. When I am back home, about once every six weeks or so, she downloads and burns a book on CD from her account. I usually have it “read” within a few weeks.

Needless to say, over three years, I’ve now experienced a lot of good nonfiction books. My take on books is influenced by an English class I took at University of Michigan, “Chaos in Society.” The TA’s take on modern literature was deeply rooted in the post-modern idea of constellation-making. The stars are arguably a random arrangement of celestial bodies, but we create connections between them to make recognizable things. This is the same attitude I take when reading nonfiction. You take the ideas presented and look for connections between them.

The sum total of this reading adds up to me having read a large set of books that other people thought I would find interesting and have tried my best to distill a useful idea or two from each. I begin a lot of my conversations with, “there is a great book that talks a little bit about that…”

So, what does being well-read mean these days? A few years ago, I talking to a good friend from MIT. I had just read Douglas Hofstadter’s Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid and a “for Dummies” introduction to biochemistry. We got into a discussion about the small amount of information that allows one to be up-to-date in biochemistry–he was working on things that were just permutations of the ideas from the Dummies book. Compared to that, GEB (which makes connections between artificial intelligence, cognition, math, art, and biochemistry) was a VERY dense read. I realized I would have had to chase down a million references to fully understand each topic brought up in the book at a fundamental level.

I made the statement that “you can’t be at the forefront of everything.” My friend was skeptical for a moment, “Really?” he said. Then we both thought about it for a second and he said, “That is demonstrable. There will always be someone who is able to put 100% of their time into their field. If you’re putting 100% of your time into one thing, you’re not putting it into another.” I walked away from that discussion with a sense that I still wanted to read as much as I could, even understanding that I can’t be an expert in everything–or anything, really.

I get into lots of conversations where I share what I consider a central theory of a book or several books with someone and they say “Send me the name of that book!” What I’d like to do with this post is start a list of the books that come up the most often. I also love to follow other people’s karma, so, hopefully I’ll get some suggestions that I can have Mom download.

My list starts with Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter. The basic premise of the book is that self-referential statements are found in mathematics, art, music, dialogue, computer science, etc. An example of a self-referential statement is “This sentence is false.” Such a statement loops in on itself, creating a paradox. Hofstadter explores how self-referential statements and loops can give us an understanding of the way consciousness arises from the collection of biochemical processes that makes up a human being.

GEB, which won the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction, is a tough read, but, absolutely worth it. It’s full of wordplay, intellectual puns, and ideas that will make you think differently about how you think for some time to come. For those with less time, I Am a Strange Loop is a follow-up to GEB. Published more than 20 years later, the book clarifies some of the headier concepts in GEB.

I’ll update a complete list of my favorite books and expand on it as we go along.

Happy reading and thinking.

by Meredith McGhan

Watching the debates and speeches as the presidential race wears on, I‘ve heard the candidates pontificate about the importance of secure jobs, a la the pre-information society model of the unionized factory worker. But both of America’s major political parties seem to be in denial about the nature of today’s job market, with its downshifting, outsourcing, and masses of contingency workers from day laborers to consultants. It’s becoming a post-job world, due to globalism, technology, and a proliferation of knowledge work that has spawned a “creative class” whose workstyles do not match either the pro-labor or pro-big business paradigm.

Members of this creative labor force are the lucky ones. Despite the shaky job security everyone must deal with these days, knowledge workers at least have educations to fall back on, as well as mental skills easily transferable from one opportunity to another. It’s the manual laborers who are hit hardest by both the change and the denial, and the end result is not going to be good for anyone. Continuing to regard America’s strength as a secure, pensioned labor force that can be resurrected through politics is like repeating “I do believe in fairies!” and expecting Fifties-style prosperity to reappear like Tinkerbell. In reality, the only thing that will appear is a slew of goods from abroad, cheaply made so the weak U.S. dollar can buy them.

We can’t go back. But we can adapt, and we have to. For those of us who have always felt caged by spending eight hours in an office, the shift to a more flexible workstyle can be a blessing, but our relative prosperity, freedom, and education create new responsibilities, too. We should do what we can to make sure no one is left behind, while at the same time being open to working with people from other countries and cultures. They’re not going to go away, nor should they have to.

Side by side with flexibility and creativity is a dearth of benefits and social services. Forty-seven million Americans don’t have health insurance, including part-timers, consultants, and the self-employed at all income levels. Like subatomic particles, jobs move in and out of existence rapidly. People are left behind as technology grows more complex. These issues are taking place in front of a worldwide cultural backdrop of rapidly changing values and backlashes against them.

Because of such backlash, America’s cultural climate today feels almost dystopian to some creatives. It’s not even anything that can be concretely pointed out; it’s just something in the air, a sense of contempt. A tendency to see creatives as flaky dreamers has always been there. However, its tone has not always been as hostile as the Right’s current vitriol. And the Left is simply silent, except for an occasional mention of bringing arts education back into the schools. Where is the acknowledgment that “jobs” are no longer compartmentalized blocks of time-for-money? Why is the focus on immigrants “having to learn English” instead of on welcoming foreign talent to our universities? What are some solutions that can be part of the change instead of stop it from happening?

Discourse is welcome at Creative Zeitgeist. C’mon, let’s brainstorm!