Writing About Writing

I’m back in Grinnell for a couple of days to fill out my paperwork for a summer job, and I let my friend Griffin*, who’s also here, know that I was coming so that we could meet up and hang out. When he got off work on the day I arrived, he called to ask me where I was, and when I said, “Burling Library,” he broke down laughing. I didn’t know what was so funny at first, so he explained: I’d complained all school year about spending all my time in the library studying, and now that I was back, I was right where I left off. We later joked that I was like a non-playing character in a video game, the kind that stays in one place forever and says the same line whenever clicked on (mine would probably be something like, “Huh, you’re off to slay the demon king? That sounds like a good idea for a blog post!”).

I’d gone to the library to read All is Forgotten, Nothing is Lost, a novel by Lan Samantha Chang, who gave a reading at Grinnell this winter. It’s about a man named Roman and the way that his pursuit of poetry affects his relationships. While I deeply enjoyed it, I’m not sure that I’d recommend it to anyone else, especially someone who isn’t a writer of some sort. Every single character that Roman talks to, with the exception of a couple brief lines exchanged with his grandmother and son, is a poet. The relationships with Roman’s mentor, wife, and friend, which define the emotional tension of the book, are centered around poetry. The questions that the book explores pertain to leading a life of writing. Which makes me wonder if this book means anything to anyone who isn’t already deeply invested in the world of writing.

I’ve always disliked the Oscars for the way that they give movies about filmmaking and the Hollywood lifestyle a better chance for major awards, or for the more pretentious strand of postmodern artists, who seem so much more interested in the meaning of art than the meaning of anything else. So, if I were a fair person, I would call out anything that panders, and therefore shouldn’t like All is Forgotten, Nothing is Lost. But I do, I really liked it, and I wonder if the reason is the same reason why I’m proud to essentially live in Burling library during the school year: I define myself as a writer. As I discussed in another post, there’s a real appeal to putting yourself into a box, and identifying as a writer and English major has always been a weakness of mine on that front. Even though this novel offered a pretty grim look at what the life of a writer is like, it still lit up some the old instinct in my brain to know what symbols define you and stick with them by beginning in the smoke-filled, wine-stained room of a graduate writing seminar.

But, aside from being hypocritical, this kind of self-indulgent writing about writing is something I’ve always been warned against. At the New York Writers Institute, someone trusted elder writer told me, “The best thing you can do as a writer is develop interests other than writing. If your whole life is just sitting in a room and writing, then you won’t have any experiences to draw on other than sitting in a room and writing, so you’ll end up doing those pretentious naval-gazing type books.” 

Maybe it’s because I’m sitting in Burling right now, at the exact same cubicle where I’ve read hundreds of academic books and articles and written dozens of essays, but I can hear a chorus of professors in my head chanting “Beware false binaries!” Which is a good point, and an excellent way to avoid throwing Lan Samantha Chang under the bus for her great, if writing-centric, novel. Because writing is still life, as authentic a part of it as any other. Maybe All is Forgotten, Nothing is Lost is built on the language of creative writing in the way that, say, noirs are built on the inherent coolness of dark and rainy alleys, but it’s more than that. It’s about bonds of friendship, uneasy relationships with mentors, and the odd disconnect between success and happiness. These are universal ideas of inherent value that anyone can connect to, writer or not. I’m probably right to be wary of defining myself so much as a writer that there isn’t anything left of me. But, at the moment, I don’t think that’s much of a danger.

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* Fun fact: Griffin and I also collaborated on a video for Grinnell's annual film festival. Check it out!