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- The Hidden Machinery Reviewed By Wally Wood of Bookpleasures.com
The Hidden Machinery Reviewed By Wally Wood of Bookpleasures.com
- By Wally Wood
- Published August 19, 2017
- GENERAL FICTION REVIEWS
Wally Wood
Reviewer Wally Wood: Wally is an editor and writer, has published three novels, Getting Oriented:A Novel about Japan, The Girl in the Photo and Death in a Family Business. He obtained his MA in creative writing in 2002 from the City University of New York and has worked with a number of authors as a ghostwriter and collaborator.
With an extensive background in a variety of business subjects, his credits include twenty-one nonfiction books. He spent twenty-five years as a trade magazine reporter and editor and has been a volunteer writing and business teacher in state and federal prisons for more than twenty years. He has finished his fourth novel and has translated a collection of Japanese short stories into English.
Author: Margot
Livesey
Publisher: Tin House
ISBN: 978-1-941040-68-3
The
director of the Michener Center for Writers, James Magnuson, has high
praise: "There is no finer teacher of writing in America than
Margot Livesey." Livesey has published eight novels. a
collection of short stories, and is a professor of fiction at the
Iowa Writers' Workshop. Tin House recently published her small
paperback, The Hidden Machinery: Essays on Writing.
I suspect,
based on the titles about writing on my shelves, that at a certain
point in their careers most authors knows they have a book about
writing in them. For many of us, writing about how to write is easier
than creating one more goddamn novel. Also, for many of us who buy
these books, it is easier to read about writing than it is to write.
All that said, The Hidden Machinery is special and worth virtually
any author's time. (The exceptions are those who know everything they
need to know.)
Livesey's first essay begins with a quote from
Robert Louis Stevenson: "Life is Monstrous, infinite, illogical,
abrupt and poignant; a work of art, in comparison, is neat, finite,
self-contained, rational, flowing, and emasculate. . . " What
this means in practice, I think, is that even a 'slice of life' story
succeeds or fails not in how 'lifelike' it is but how carefully the
author has been able to hide the machinery of fiction from the
reader, and often from herself.
She writes, "I am using
the phrase 'the hidden machinery' to refer to two different aspects
of novel making: on the one hand how certain elements of the
text—characters, plot, imagery—work together to make an
overarching argument; on the other how the secret psychic life of the
author, and the larger events of his or her time and place shape that
argument." To illustrate, she uses works of E.M Forster and
Henry James. This first essay caused me to consider (as best I can)
the effect of my psychic life and the events of the time and place in
the past about which I am currently writing—and the effects of
current events.
Her second essay discusses creating vivid
characters. "Vivid characters are not necessarily the sine qua
non of memorable fiction, but they certainly a significant part of it
and an enormous part of all fiction." (And as I wrote in my last
blog post, they are critical in mysteries.) Livesey confesses that
she has trouble creating characters that leap off the page, and has
come up with a list of prompts, rules. and admonitions for herself
and her students: "Name the character . . . Use myself or
someone I know . . . Make her act . . . 'Bad' characters must have
some strength or virtue: perfect pitch, the ability to recognize
edible mushrooms . . . When creating a character very different from
myself I often need to creat her or him from the outside. I give th
character a house, a job, activities, friends, clothes, and, in the
course of doing so, I gradually figure out her or his inner life
. . ."
While it is tempting to continue quoting (my copy
of the book has a dozen sticky tabs marking passages), I am going to
stop myself with a few of Livesey's words about dialogue: "But
if all dialogue does is appear natural, then its artifice is wasted.
Good dialogue serves the story. It must reveal the characters in ways
that the narration cannot and advance the plot while, ideally, not
appearing too flagrant in either mission. And it must deepen the
psychic life of the story. We should sense the tectonic plates
shifting beneath the spoken words. There is text, and there is
subtext. Too much dialogue without subtext can quickly become
tedious."
The Hidden Machinery has ten essays that
explore various aspects of both craft and theory of fiction. In
addition to Forster and James, Livesey employs Jane Austin, Virginia
Wolfe, Gustave Flaubert, Shakespeare and her own work to illustrate
her points. In addition to the essays about creating characters and
writing dialogue, she has an essay she titled "How to Tell a
True Story: Mapping Our Narratives onto the World" and "He
Liked Custard: Navigating the Shoals of Research"; either one
alone is worth, in my opinion, the price of admission.
While
these essays will be most useful to working and aspiring authors
(Francine Prose blurbs on the back jacket, "If only I'd been
able to read The Hidden Machinery before I began my first novel. It
would have saved me so much trouble!"), any reader with a
serious interest in fiction and how it works—or doesn't—can learn
from Livesey's insights as an author and teacher.