Theme Week 15 "Juxtification"

johngoldfine said...

I like the little subtle variations here from version to version, but what jumps out at me is that you have a project, a goal, something you really want to write about. That's excellent--my assignments are mostly blank pages the student fills in with his own material, and that's what I want you to do if you want to do it--figure out ways to write about your experiences that also fit my assignment.

Hey Marlon, I hate poetry (usually) but I have to confess to liking this very considerably. I can't do justice to all that I like tonight 'cause I'm nearly asleep, but I'll try tomorrow. Aw hell, I'll finish this tonight. Back in a few minutes. There's a place for this piece outside just a course blog. When you're rich and famous, don't forget to tell them about your great teacher at EM who taught you everything you know by the middle of week 2.

Neat for me to read all three at once and see the spin you decided to put on the assignment--I originally saw it as a movement from truth to enhanced truth to fact/fiction--but you've done something just as good, maybe better, which is to go from minimal to maximal, from barebones skeleton to totally fleshed out and alive. The last piece is a knockout with all its ministories, memories, details, visuals, and the progression of all three is instructive. Can I use this as a future sample or model of one way to approach the assignment?

I'm really appreciating the unpredictableness of what you're doing in the course--trying different kinds of things.

Nice for its seemingly effortless ability to glide through long stretches of time so gracefully. For its seemingly effortlessly ability to incorporate two lives into the setting. For its seemingly effortless ability to have the junkyard reflect the larger setting. For its paradoxical but completely satisfying ending. And, of course, for its fine straightforward descriptive passages.

It's strong, it's in your face, it can't be denied, and it is what it is without argument or qualification. Nothing I or anyone else could do or would want to do with it except read it a few times and enjoy it where it can be enjoyed for the sheer writing power of it and then not enjoy it when that same power makes you feel like shit for just the way of things.I mean I'd hate to offer Engteach type remarks--I have no standing to offer them. By 'no standing,' I don't mean: "Ooh, Marlon's in that other world, not my world, I can't comment." Not that at all--something else. It's the writing. Sometimes the best thing I do is not dream of touching or picking over or messing with or even commenting specifically on someone else's vision, passion, and strength. This is one of those cases.It pleases me more than you will ever know when a student uses my assignment to do something much better than I could ever dream up. This still isn't a character study, and thank god for that because it's something better, and something I don't have an easy name for.It humbles me, makes me ashamed a little, to see my assignment next to your self-assignment.

Quite a piece, strong narrative style, no words wasted but nothing we want to know not here. I'm reading a memoir right now by a man who fought in Burma during WW2 and his and your piece have the same quality of being hyper-photographic in detail. You both ace the kind of detail that creates a scene--the foggy lenses, the trmbling sergeant, the sardine line, and so on. (I just grabbed those randomly--the fact that it's so easy to grab them is the point; they're woven tightly through the piece.)When I get something as clean (meaning I have no suggestions) and muscular (no flab) as this, I hate to see it just sit on a course website without any further literary life...but I think I've said that to you before about other pieces.

That sting in the tail works for me--opens the door, really, to all sorts of speculation and burrows right into the reader's mind, which is part of the point of any kind of good writing. And despite all the different shifts and tricks, it all hangs together which is a trick I can't explain but it's there.

Hey Marlon--glad you're back.Thinking about your totality as a writer at this point in your writing career: I often use 'slick' as a compliment. I don't think I've ever said 'too slick' though, but now I'm going to.You really know what you're doing here, but is it what you really want to do? This is slick like a greeting card--it's professionally slick, it's very insinuating, it slips right past your guard. But I get the feeling it's just too darned easy for you, something you can always depend on, but--just a little too slick.So, yeah, even the good has its bad side. Thoughts for the Thought Book maybe.

I'm afraid to say a thing because I have no idea how seriously to take you.

Aw, marlon, 70 is one of those pieces that goes to places I can't follow, and since that's quite intentional here, I'd say you're meeting week 14 in style--taking risks.

This is one of those cases. It pleases me more than you will ever know when a student uses one o my assignment to do much better than I could ever dream up.