LESSONS FROM THE LEARNEDThree Great Writers (Who Are Also Teachers) Give Us Their Unofficial Syllabi
Jim Shepard is the author of six novels and three collections of stories, the latest of which, the jaw-dropping Like You’d Understand, Anyway, won the Story Prize and was a National Book Award finalist. Besides writing heartbreaking, hilarious works that have been convincingly set in every conceivable milieu and told in every imaginable voice, Jim is a professor of English at Williams College.
I almost never get a chance to teach an entire novel in my fiction-writing courses, since those courses fetishize close reading to the extent that we spend an hour and a half on, say, William Carlos Williams’s three-page story “The Use of Force.” If I had all the time in the world, though, I’d teach Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, since it may be one of the most rigorous and accessible examples of Frost’s notion that poetry is play for mortal stakes. And because it features one of literature’s most instructively unreliable narrators. It’s hugely useful for people starting out to register just how slippery and protean a notion like “reliability” can be—the way, when telling our stories, we can veer not just between the sincere and the manipulative but also along a continuum that includes everything from the repressive to the self-deluding to the pathetically optimistic. And I’d teach Marguerite Yourcenar’s Memoirs of Hadrian, too, as one of the most miraculous examples of our attempt to extend our empathetic imagination and immerse ourselves in an alien other. Because that willingness to do some of the work involved in learning how others different from ourselves work and live and think is supposed to be what the whole project of literature is all about.
Mostly, I teach stories. A lot of contemporary stories, because that’s what my students are trying to write: Amy Hempel, Raymond Carver, Donald Barthelme, Grace Paley, Ron Hansen, Denis Johnson—those sorts of people. I always return to Flannery O’Connor’s stories because of the way she so implacably animates her characters’ ethical conflicts in charged and urgently important events. One of the hardest things to learn early on is that it’s not just a matter of coming up with a sufficiently fraught and vexed conflict—I love my father, and I hate my father—since that’s an inherently static situation that could go on forever. The story also has to apply sufficient pressure to that conflict: I love my father and I hate my father, and now we’re stuck in a VW Bug on a cross-country drive. O’Connor’s great at effortlessly calling her characters to account that way: making them confront the implications of their own inner divisions.
I also always return to Isaac Babel’s stories for the ferocity of his economy and the pitilessness of his emotional juxtapositions. Get to the heart of the matter. Now. And now the next heart of the matter. And don’t pretend we don’t experience some brutal juxtapositions, in terms of affect, along the way.
And who doesn’t teach Chekhov’s stories? He’s ubiquitous on writing syllabi because most of us, not having taken part in pogroms as Cossacks, often choose to write about the less dramatic emotional revelations, and Chekhov reminds us constantly about the limitlessness of those possibilities: about just how many intensities of tenderness and anguish can be bound into the quiet gesture, providing that it’s observed with sufficient care and precision.
CONTINUEDLESSONS FROM THE LEARNED | 1 | 2 | 3 | >
See all articles by this contributor Anonymous, on Mar 23, 2009 wrote:
drinking wine and listening to the velvet underground? fuck you, guy. | | Anonymous, on Jan 26, 2009 wrote:
Hey, you "where are all the female authors" person. Didn’t you see the nods to Marguerite Yourcenar, Grace Paley, Amy Hempel, and Flannery O’Connor? Stop knee-jerking, and start worrying about shit that matters, like the actual content Shepard is writing about. | | Anonymous, on Dec 19, 2008 wrote:
Why so few female authors? Discuss... | | Anonymous, on Dec 18, 2008 wrote:
if you are disappointed in russian literature, give isaac babel a chance. he might change your mind. | | Anonymous, on Dec 18, 2008 wrote:
a friend of mine had a class with shepard at williams. said he is a rad guy and super nice taboot. | | Anonymous, on Dec 17, 2008 wrote:
Cheers on including Sheppard! His story "Sans Farine" might be the best of the last five years. | | Anonymous, on Dec 17, 2008 wrote:
mary gaitskill looks like the wicked witch of western lit 101, but she has some nice selections. i’m a bit surprised about delillo and roth being on there, but i certainly would have liked them on my syllabus. | | Anonymous, on Dec 17, 2008 wrote:
is lolita really that great? it’s one of the only kubrick films i haven’t seen, but if it’s super fantastic i will hold off and read the novel first. also, how closely does the movie follow the book? the virgin suicides was completely ruined since i saw the film first and they were so similar. | | Anonymous, on Dec 17, 2008 wrote:
it’s hard to go wrong with raymond carver. nice to see him mentioned by shepard. it’s sad that he died so prematurely, he’d probably still be writing today. | | Anonymous, on Dec 16, 2008 wrote:
Word to Isaac Babel. | | Anonymous, on Dec 15, 2008 wrote:
i find your generalization of english professors pretty accurate, but the good ones deserve credit. english is an easy thing to teach, but a difficult thing to teach well. a high school english teacher and a college english professor ended up being my favorites, and my degree is completely unrelated. | | Anonymous, on Dec 15, 2008 wrote:
i gotta say, i’ve been very disappointed with russian writers in my experience. the brothers karamazov is the best novel of all time? you must be crazy. | | Anonymous, on Dec 15, 2008 wrote:
"i want jim shepard to be my best friend"
the problem with english professors as friends is that even though they have exquisite taste in everything, they ruin in by talking about every nuance of it. they’ll put on a velvet underground record and then talk about it instead of listening. or open a bottle of wine and won’t shut up about it. dammit, man, can’t i just drink some wine (which is very good, thanks for the glass) and listen to some music? | | Anonymous, on Dec 15, 2008 wrote:
i want jim shepard to be my best friend | | Anonymous, on Dec 15, 2008 wrote:
fuck these douchebags. | | Anonymous, on Dec 15, 2008 wrote:
quixote is cliché but deserving. if you decide to read it, do a bit of research to find a good translation. i suggest the jarvis edition. | | Anonymous, on Dec 15, 2008 wrote:
i had some cool english professors, but this guy teaches denis johnson? damn, man, where do i sign up? if my syllabus had fiskadoro on it i might have shat myself. | | Anonymous, on Dec 15, 2008 wrote:
she looks like tilda swinton’s stunt double from the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe. i bet she’s downright horrifying rolling out of bed. | | Anonymous, on Dec 15, 2008 wrote:
what’s a good way to find modern literature other than digging through amazon lists? i hate hearing too much about a novel before i read it, but so many time when i buy a book on instinct i can barely finish it. any suggestions? | | Anonymous, on Dec 15, 2008 wrote:
so glad you guys are doing another fiction issue i loved last year’s and, belatedly, the one before | | Anonymous, on Dec 15, 2008 wrote:
oh god. great selections from gaitskill but she looks like she’s going to cast some sort of blizzard hex on me | | Anonymous, on Dec 15, 2008 wrote:
thanks, now my to-read list on goodreads will look respectable for once | | Anonymous, on Dec 15, 2008 wrote:
fuck. why couldn’t i have had teachers like these in school? especially galchen | | Anonymous, on Dec 15, 2008 wrote:
if it wasn’t for the vine and windowsill, i would have thought ms. gaitskill’s photo was black and white. that lady is scary looking. good thing she teaches college and not grammar school. | | Anonymous, on Dec 15, 2008 wrote:
i’ve heard lots of good thing about updike, but somehow have never read him. i think i’ll start with "rabbit, run". thank you, professor gaitskill. now where is the sign-in sheet? | | Anonymous, on Dec 15, 2008 wrote:
if this is a choice, i’ll take ms. galchen, please | | |
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