The Problem with Cleverness
Hi, friends.
I hope you are well, that spring is whispering all kinds of possibilities in your ear.
Over the last month or so, I’ve DNF’ed two novels for similar reasons. Both were bogged down with backstory. (I swear, I read close to 100 pages in one without any conflict or action.) Both were too focused on being clever (both the writers themselves and their narrators). Both had interesting premises, but were overwritten. This cleverness kept their characters distant and unknown. Both of them were first person narratives and in both cases, the focus was outside the narrator - which can be done and done well. Ultimately, it was this insistence on cleverness — artifice and language that tried too hard — that made me abandon them.
It seems to me both of these writers were trying to prove something to their readers instead of creating a bond with them. Writing takes so much time from us. Creating these worlds and characters and stories. It goes so much easier when we care about them. And the last thing a reader wants is to feel contempt seeping through the pages. There are just too many other choices out there.
Story.
Today’s story is Karen Russell’s Vampires in the Lemon Grove.
Craft tidbits.
Admittedly, not all of Russell’s stories work for me. Some of them try too hard. But I like this one very much — despite it being about vampires.
On the one hand, you can imagine that this story was born from a question, a desire to turn convention on its head: What does it mean to be a vampire? And what would it mean to take vampire tropes and turn them on their head?
The premise could give itself over to cleverness fairly quickly.
But somehow it doesn’t.
The opening:
In October, the men and women of Sorrento harvest the primofiore, or the “first flowering fruit,” the most succulent lemons; in March, the yellow bianchetti ripen, followed in June by the green verdelli. In every season you can find me sitting at my bench, watching them fall. Only one or two lemons tumble from the branches each hour, but I’ve been sitting here so long their falls seem contiguous, close as raindrops. My wife has no patience for this sort of meditation. “Jesus Christ, Clyde,” she says.” You need a hobby.”
The use of Italian brings the reader into the story instead of alienating us. Instead of assuming we know Italian, Russell gives us context clues. It begins wide, and narrows on Clyde. The intro tells us alot. He’s passive; the wife is impatient. There is a lament about how long he’s been there. And some kind of friction with the wife.
From the very beginning Russell subverts expectations. People mistake Clyde for a kind grandfather, perhaps a widower, when really he’s a vampire. Mostly, though, he’s invisible in his old age.
Ultimately, we feel for Clyde. We understand his wants and his burnout. He’s a worrier. These tourists give him anxiety. He’s protective and considerate, especially when it comes to his wife. And we come to understand the burden of eternity. Even though we are desperate for more time, we also know there are limitations to this. I think of my grandmother, who at 97 has survived her husband, a child, and all her friends. For years now, she has said that she has lived too long.
I once pictured time as a black magnifying glass and myself as a microscopic flightless insect trapped in that circle of night. But then Magreb came along, and eternity ceased to frighten me.
Love has undone him. It’s a blessing and a curse. Much like being a vampire.
There is plenty of backstory here. But it doesn’t weight the story down. It lets us see the complexity of Clyde.
We learn about the regrets he carries from his early years when he dabbled in vampire stereotypes. On the one hand, Magreb has weaned him from the bloodsucking and sleeping in coffins he first thought were necessary. It was, afterall, what the folklore suggested.
Magreb was the first and only other vampire I’d ever met… We bared our fangs over a tombstone and recognized each other. There is a loneliness that must be particular to monsters, I think, the feeling that each is the only child of a species. And now that loneliness was over.
On the one hand, Magreb has opened his eyes to the world. On the other, his identity is lost. Who is he without these conventions?
There is a thrill in befriending the young girl who works the lemon stand. There’s a thrill in being viewed as a threat again. Clyde only wants to be seen. To fend off the loneliness that he feels.
In the end, he remains a monster. He just can’t help himself. It seems to mirror the human tendency to self-sabotage. Afraid to change. Afraid they are not worthy.
Sparks.
My comp class is themed around the idea of monsters. We look at how the definition of monstrosity has changed over the years, and I often think about the loneliness of monsters line above. Whether real or imagined monsters, use that as inspiration for a story or essay.
Revision. Is there a spot in your work where you are trying to be too clever? I recently re-read a story that I had over-edited. It’s too dense. It’s uninviting. And trying too hard in some places. I need to go back in and soften it. Instead of tinkering with what you have, it might be easier to let the ego go and re-write a scene from scratch.
Other tidbits.
If you, like me, love starting projects, but don’t share the same enthusiasm for finishing them, Susan Orlean has some advice on finishing.
But if you are a finisher and beginning the agent search, you might be interested in this agent alert service.
Entropy Magazine had a great list of submission calls. When they folded, Heavy Feather took up the torch. (It doesn’t look like it’s as frequently updated as Entropy, but is far easier to wade through than Duotrope.)
That’s it from here friends. It’s a beautiful day to write some beautiful words. Pencils up. Go break the world’s heart~
Marsha