ATTICA LOCKE’S BLACK WATER RISING
Thanks for a first-rate discussion of Locke’s debut novel today. I hope you believe I’m not just saying this, but our session made me think more of the novel that I did going in. So if I do that to you, you also do it to me. I’m thinking particularly of the tension in Jay’s character between idealism and pragmatism that we kept coming back to. And I very much appreciated Bob’s “personal testimony” that you don’t have to give up one to practice the other. My immediate post-class thought was that B might think she wants him to clock out every night and come home, but she’s going to like Jay a lot better once she gets used to the “whole” version. Am I being idealist or romantic? A wife-mother wants her husband-father safe, but more than that, she wants to have proof of his courage?
I’m still bothered a lot by Locke’s writing and would like to hear what some of your after-thoughts are. A member of the Breakfast Group said that the most popular literature from her native country (India) is written rather sloppily but cleaned up in translation for English-reading audiences. I hadn’t heard that but thought it was interesting. Thanks for coming today–it was great fun. I’m glad you were as easy on me as you were. The next book is “literary,” in more ways than one.
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First of all, the blogs look fantastic!
Beyond that, I just wanted to put this question out there, do you think it is a possibility that with so many authors making more money if and when their books are turned into movies, that some writers may be “writing” for this sheer purpose or at least with it in mind? “The Secret Life of Bees,” up-and-coming “The Lovely Bones,” “The Da Vinci Code, and, of course, The Harry Potter series (for which an entire amusement park is currently in development), are all relatively recent book titles that have been taken mainstream. Maybe some authors are now writing for this possibility in the hopes that if their novel flops it could still make a great film? Or, maybe it is truly difficult to completely go from the mentality of a screenwriter to that of a novelist. In college, it was difficult for me to go from news writing to poetry class!
Thank you,
Haley
Good thoughts, Haley; sorry to be so long getting back to the blog. Not that there’s anything immoral or dishonest about a novelist’s desire to see his or her book turned into a film–the novel and film seem to me to be wonderfully compatible–but I think the lure of the big screen must make some novelists less demanding of their own craft. How could it not be a temptation, especially considering the spin-off benefits of a successful film?
Permit me to name-drop to make a point. In the 80′s I did a lot of book reviewing and happened to get to know Winston Groom, who thanked me after I wrote a very favorable review of “Forrest Gump,” which I loved. We happened to live in the same town and became friends. When Robert Zemeckis embraced the project that Groom’s agent had been trying to sell in Hollywood for eight years, Groom complained mightily about what Zemeckis was doing to his novel (he did change it a whole lot), but the success of the film and the various by-products it generated made Groom pretty wealthy, which must have gone a long, long way toward appeasing his wounded sense of artistic purity. I like the movie, too, by the way, but still prefer the novel.
Well, along these lines, I think I’m going to try something for our November book, because the U.S. publication date for John Banville’s “The Infinities” has been pushed back to Feb 2010. Last year, Philippe Claudel wrote and directed “I’ve Loved You So Long” with Kristen Scott Thomas, which I liked a lot. But he is also a novelist, although only two of his previous books have appeared in the U.S., and says this about his work: “I write novels like a film-maker, but I write films like a novelist.” What does that mean?
His latest novel, “Brodeck,” has recently appeared in English translation, and I’m thinking that after our experience with Attica Locke, we should see how a successful novelist who is also a film-maker operates in the writerly medium. I’ve read a few pages of “Brodeck” and like it very much (though it’s rather dark).
What do you think?
Interesting about novels published in India being cleaned up for the English translation. If Locke should be so lucky as to be published in India, perhaps the publisher will do the same for her. As I read I kept wondering was there no editor monitoring this novel prior to publication?
Larry, I think you have identified the deep inner conflict plaguing many women in relationships, i.e. the desire for security versus the desire to be able to admire the partner for risk-taking in order to maintain integrity. I have observed marriages that have succeeded based on either, however I have witnessed many disintegrate due to boredom when predictable security is all there is.
Good comments, Joyce. I wish I could confirm whether or not translators do indeed clean up loose language in novels, and I wondered following your entry whether I’d have liked Locke’s novel more if some of its sloppiness had been “lost in translation.” I think probably so, though I did get accustomed to it; mostly it annoyed me and offended my English teacher’s sense of standards about language.
I was also interested in your remarks about marital disintegration due to boredom. Provocative! Anyone else?