On the Craft of Fiction—EL Doctorow at 80
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Interview Focus Interview VOLUME 29 | NUMBER 1 | FALL 2012 | $10.00 Deriving from the German weben—to weave—weber translates into the literal and figurative “weaver” of textiles and texts. Weber (the word is the same in singular and plural) are the artisans of textures and discourse, the artists of the beautiful fabricating the warp and weft of language into everchanging pattterns. Weber, the journal, understands itself as a tapestry of verbal and visual texts, a weave made from the threads of words and images. This issue of Weber - The Contemporary West spotlights three long-standing themes (and forms) of interest to many of our readers: fiction, water, and poetry. If our interviews, texts, and artwork, as always, speak for themselves, the observations below might serve as an appropriate opener for some of the deeper resonances that bind these contributions. THE NOVEL We live in a world ruled by fictions of every kind -- mass merchandising, advertising, politics conducted as a branch of advertising, the instant translation of science and technology into popular imagery, the increasing blurring and intermingling of identities within the realm of consumer goods, the preempting of any free or original imaginative response to experience by the television screen. We live inside an enormous novel. For the writer in particular it is less and less necessary for him to invent the fictional content of his novel. The fiction is already there. The writer’s task is to invent the reality. --- J. G. Ballard WATER Anything else you’re interested in is not going to happen if you can’t breathe the air and drink the water. Don’t sit this one out. Do something. You are by accident of fate alive at an absolutely critical moment in the history of our planet. --- Carl Sagan POETRY Poetry is the journal of the sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air. Poetry is a search for syllables to shoot at the barriers of the unknown and the unknowable. Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away. --- Carl Sandburg Front Cover: James Balog, Iceland/Svínafellsjökull Glacier, February 2008. An EIS team member provides scale in a massive landscape of crevasses. VOLUME 29 | NUMBER 1 | FALL 2012 | $10.00 GLOBAL SPOTLIGHT/INTERVIEW FOCUS EDITOR 2 Michael Wutz, “On the Craft of Fiction—E.L. Doctorow Michael Wutz at 80” ASSOCIATE EDITORS 16 E.L. Doctorow, “Narrative C” Kathryn L. MacKay Brad Roghaar Russell Burrows Victoria Ramirez 24 Michael Wutz, “Evolution, Anthropology, and the Narrative Deep Space of Contemporary Fiction—A MANAGING EDITOR Conversation with Russell Banks” Kristin Jackson EDITORIAL BOARD 46 Jan Hamer, “Embracing the Weird—A Conversation with Sharon Olds” Susan Clark, Eastern Sierra Institute E.L. Doctorow...................2 & 16 Katharine Coles, U of Utah 8 5 Julie Rich, “Glacial Speed, Global Warming, Global Gary Gildner, independent author Warning—A Conversation with James Balog” Duncan Harris, U of Wyoming Diana Joseph, Minnesota State U Nancy Kline, independent author & translator ART James A. MacMahon, Utah State U 74 James Balog, Extreme Ice Survey Fred Marchant, Suffolk U Madonne Miner, Weber State U Felicia Mitchell, Emory & Henry College ESSAY Julie Nichols, Utah Valley State College Tara Powell, U of South Carolina 107 Jerry Eckert, Requiem for the Night Sky Bill Ransom, Evergreen State College Walter L. Reed, Emory U 127 Naomi Zeveloff, Echoes of Jewish Back-to-Land Scott P. Sanders, U of New Mexico Movement Under Utah’s Big Sky Daniel R. Schwarz, Cornell U Sharon Olds..................46 & 57 Andreas Ströhl, Goethe-Institut Munich 139 G.D. McFetridge, The Little Bighorn James Thomas, editor and writer Robert Torry, U of Wyoming Robert Van Wagoner, independent author FICTION Melora Wolff, Skidmore College Delia Konzett, U of New Hampshire 58 Stephanie Dickinson, Jade Dragon Kerstin Schmidt, Universität Siegen 97 Tom Miller Juvik, Salmon Feed EDITORIAL PLANNING BOARD Bradley W. Carroll John R. Sillito 120 John Norris, Decoy Brenda M. Kowalewski Michael B. Vaughan Angelika Pagel POETRY ADVISORY COMMITTEE 57 Sharon Olds, The Word, 1956 Meri DeCaria Barry Gomberg Elaine Englehardt John E. Lowe 72 Mark Aiello, Mourning the Dinosaurs and other James Balog..................74 & 85 Shelley L. Felt Aden Ross poems G. Don Gale Robert B. Smith 96 Eric Paul Shaffer, Maybe Mikel Vause LAYOUT CONSULTANTS 105 Maria Marsello, Some Say and other poems Jason Francis Mark Biddle 114 James Grabill, from Double Helix—a long poem in EDITORS EMERITI progress Brad L. Roghaar LaVon Carroll 134 Nancy Takacs, How to Survive and other poems Sherwin W. Howard Nikki Hansen Neila Seshachari 148 Michael Morris, Art Always Begins 150 Casandra Lopez, Your Name: A Diamond Stolen From Mouths EDITORIAL MATTER CONTINUED IN BACK 152 READING THE WEST Russell Banks........................24 Michael Wutz On the Craft of Fiction—E.L. Doctorow at 80 Philip Friedman 4 WEBER THE CONTEMPORARY WEST PRELUDE E. L. Doctorow is among a small cadre of with Welcome to Hard Times (1960), American novelists admired by a wide in- a parody of the classic Western, and has ternational readership and scholars. Thor- continued this narrative investigation by oughly anchored in a post-World War II focusing on critical cultural moments: American context, and often investigating The Book of Daniel (1971) deals with the the popular myths and self-constructions of Rosenberg trial, mapping the prevailing America, Doctorow’s literary sensibilities national sensibilities in the wake of Mc- address current global political and cultur- Carthyism; Ragtime (1975), Doctorow’s al concerns: the intersection of official and first international bestseller, looks at unofficial history, the relays between print turn-of-the-century politics, racism, and culture and postprint media, literature and immigration in the manner of a pastiche; the discourses of science and technology, The Waterworks (1994) shows the dark as well as the idea of narrative as, what he underbelly of post-bellum prosperity and has called, “a system of knowledge.” While the perpetual balancing act of an ethical Doctorow understands the novelist as an science in the genre of the mystery novel; archeologist of unacknowledged knowledge, and Loon Lake (1980) and Billy Bathgate the novelist him- or herself transmutes (1989) interrogate the myth of the self- such leftovers into forms of telling knowl- made man in the (under)world of crime. edge that speak volumes about a culture’s Often, it is through the lens of a distant historical moment. Fundamentally oral historical event that Doctorow reflects on without presuming to be oracular, fiction the present, by laying bare the gap between for Doctorow is capacious with the intent America’s idealistic promise and its politi- of offering pertinent cultural critique in the cal and cultural reality. At the same time, service of human betterment. philosophical and theological speculations Born and raised in New York City are never far away, as in City of God within a secular humanist and Jewish (2000), in which fictional and historical cultural milieu, Doctorow often uses the voices ruminate about the imponderables of city as an urban microcosm for the themes the universe. More recently, Doctorow has that are at the center of his fiction. For that returned to the subject of history in The reason, his narratives tend to have sug- March (2005), which reconstructs Union gestive allegorical overtones with a wide general William T. Sherman’s march from swath of signification akin to the romances Atlanta to Savannah toward the end of the of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Often associated Civil War. Homer & Langley (2009), with a liberal tradition that has strong his most recent novel, tells of the United sympathies for the Left, Doctorow is careful States’ most notorious pair of fraternal not to infuse his fiction with overt politics hoarders, though not without touching on and ideology. On the contrary, while his many of the concerns that have informed a novels often propose themselves as counter- rich body of work spanning more than half narratives to the narratives of state power, a century. he has repeatedly asserted that fiction is As the recipient of many distinguished the province of art that has no place for prizes, among them the National Book propaganda. Award, two National Books Critics Circle Doctorow began his examination of the Awards, the PEN/Faulkner Award, the idea(l) of America, its myths and history, William Dean Howells Medal of the FALL 2012 5 CONVERSATION American Academy of Arts and Letters, This conversation took place over sev- and the National Humanities Medal, Mr. eral days during Mr. Doctorow’s stay at Doctorow has written himself into the Weber State University in September 2010. canon of American literature. He embod- I want to thank Edgar for his generosity of ies the virtues of a classical storyteller time and spirit, and the Offices of the Pro- who is singularly capable of rendering his vost and the Telitha E. Lindquist College of cultural diagnoses in ambitious and lyrical Arts & Humanities for underwriting Mr. narratives that have rightly made him an Doctorow’s visit. international bestseller. As a one-time editor and long-time writer, was very useful to me, as a result of which the art and craft of editing has been with I learned to edit myself in a way that actu- you throughout your professional life. At ally separated me from myself as a writer. I what point do you yourself start editing put myself in another mental state so that I your work—revising it and looking back- could admit that something was not right or ward at it even as you move your narrative know that something was. And consequently forward? At what point do you start shar- it became my habit to hand in a manuscript ing your work with an editor (and perhaps to my editor only after I knew it was the Helen, your wife), and to what degree are way it should be.