LIVE! #30
4 April 2021
Agenda
- Why We're Here
- Literary Forensics
- - What do I bring?
- - What do I feel?
- - What do I notice?
- - What do I study?
- Next Month's Reading & Study
Why We're Here
We Writers want to improve our craft
by Reading like a Writer
through Literary Forensics training
we learn from each other
Roundtable Rules
Always refer back to the book
We practice active listening & serendipity
Every feeling and observation is valid...
but not every conclusion
Always refer back to the book
Today's author: Colum McCann
- “I’m not interested, and neither are they, in the absoluteness of facts.
Facts are mercenary things. Facts can be used, they can be soldiers for whatever
sort of truth that you want them to be. Texture, emotional texture, heart. That’s a completely
different thing and that’s what I was going for: to try to capture the emotions that they
have and continue to have . . . “ - Colum McCann - On 1001 sections: A novel for the internet age, the way our minds work right now,
the weird shotgun leaps that we make from one age to the next . . . - McCann intends Apeirogon to mean that we’re all involved or complicit in a way
- McCann started confused, and he wants the reader to be confused,
because he believes that its okay to be confused . . . - “The purpose of the first 30-40 pages is to confuse the reader,
and then acknowledge that confusion.” - Colum McCann
What do I feel?
What in the book elicited that feeling?
Every feeling and observation is valid...
but every conclusion should be questioned
We practice serendipity
- nothing is too crazy
Always refer back to the book
What do I notice?
- • Language and Grammar
- • Context
- • Point of view
- • Character & character development
- • Pacing
- • Horizontal structure
- • Layering of themes
- • Overall effect
Apeirogon - Stats
- Marketing: Jewish Historical Fiction, Biographical Fiction, Biographical Historical Fiction
- Genre: Realistic Present-Day Episodic Long-Form
- Word count: 129,420
- Print Pages: 480
- Reading Level: 8th-9th grade
- Publish date: February 25, 2020
- Publisher: Random House
- Sold By: Random House
- Audio book narration: Colum McCann
- Prizes: Winner 2020 National Jewish Book Award; 2020 Booker Prize Longlist
- A Best Book of the Year: The Independent, NY Public Library, Library Journal
- Fiction vs. Non-Fiction
- - McCann prefers "storytelling"
- - 12.9% of first half is Bassam-Rami narrative
- Fiction using real people
- - Movies, TV feature the living
- - Books usually feature the dead
- Why is that?
Writers Who Read: Coming Up
May 2: The Lying Life of Adults - Elena Ferrante
(Italy, trans. 2020 by Ann Goldstein)
June 6: The Vanishing Half - Brit Bennett (USA, 2020)
- Summer Break -
September 5: Shuggie Bain - Douglas Stuart (USA, 2020)