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Though friends and relatives always admired him for his empathy, the pigeon in the drugstore parking lot doesn’t want to hear about your bad day.
A belatedly posted sight from my Saturday afternoon run with Lulu, our fast, young dog.
In real life, imaginary friends drink for free.
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So my notion of poking fun at (Ayn Rand) evolved into an idea for a more sophisticated satire that would try to play fair with her philosophy, and present not just the bad and the ridiculous, but the good and the thought-provoking, and try to give some sense of where her ideas had come from and why they had such value to some people. And I also decided that I wanted to bring Rand herself into the story, so that she could defend herself, and so that I could give her her due.
And this idea would eventually become my second published novel, Sewer, Gas & Electric, which to me represents the point in my career when my dad’s influence caught up with my mom’s. Many of the elements in that book—the fantastical setting, the flashes of missionary zeal when my protagonist, Joan Fine, engages Rand in debate, the bicycle trip to heaven—these are things that I would associate with my mother. But the decision to treat Rand and her philosophy as more than just the butt of a joke—as a person, not a perversity—that’s Dad.
- from Seattle novelist Matt Ruff’s 2010 speech at the Calvin College Festival of Faith & Writing, which I found tonight by a strange route.
Ruff’s words fit well with my favorite bit of that Camus quote I blogged in December: “true artists scorn nothing; they oblige themselves to understand rather than to judge.”*
Or, as Geraldine Brooks asked in that Best American Short Stories intro that I seem doomed to quote from at least once daily, “why, if religion turns up in a story, is it generally only there as a foil for humor?”
More than just the butt of a joke. To understand rather than to judge. Not just a foil for humor. Ruff and Camus and Brooks aren’t saying exactly the same thing, but they’re singing in the same key.
I’ve typed and retyped and retyped this sentence. Every attempt ends up being about fiction I’ve written or fiction I hope to write and about how devoted I’ve become to the idea that I can’t be worth a damn as a writer unless I understand all my characters. Not admire all my characters. But understand, be able to step in and serve as their court-appointed defense attorney in a pinch.
I know what you’re thinking. Please, oh unpublished novelist, give me at least seven more paragraphs of your beliefs on this important topic. Tragically, I’m heading to bed.
——————
* This is my latest stab at improving on the official Nobel translation. I explained my thinking in the December post. If you understand French, you can decide for yourself. The original is “les vrais artistes ne méprisent rien ; ils s’obligent à comprendre au lieu de juger.”
Earlier that same evening …
A few shots from NYE dinner at the consistently delicious La Medusa.
Happy 2012, East Coast! Seattle’s midnight should be here in a few hours.
sights from today’s old-dog walk and young-dog run
sights from Wednesday’s old-dog walk and young-dog run
sights from today’s old-dog walk and young-dog run
What better way to say “I’m glad you’ve been set free from an Italian prison” than by selling a burger-and-fries combo for the low, low price of $250?
Sights from this afternoon’s dog walk.
