Reading & Writing

I recently finished Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian. I enjoyed it. It's over 600 pages and I read it in less than two weeks. I spent one rainy Sunday afternoon with it which really kick started my interest in the story. The first half really engaged me. The second half had great moments and some lulls (compared to the first half), but the ending really felt rushed - or maybe forced. It was almost like all of the loose ends and what ifs had to be resolved - which isn't how life is. Granted, there is a certain appeal to closure - especially when reading for pleasure. However as I humbly dabble in writing I realize that I tend to give closure - but closure isn't always satisfying or realistic. So I guess it's an unresolved question in my mind - and for whatever reason I didn't totally like the ending of The Historian.

After reading it, however, I read a little about the author and the novel. This was Elizabeth Kostova's first novel. She spent ten years working on it - from researching to writing to rewriting. About 7 years into it she enrolled in a Masters program and also received an award (and funding) for her novel-in-progress. All in all, amazing stuff.

In my writers group we read a published short story by a famous author and discuss it at each meeting. It's funny how some of them, at first glance and sometimes even after re-reading and discussing, retell an oft-told lesson and don't seem to be telling it in a different, clever, original way. Yet others surprise me, more and more, as we read and discuss - all the layers and little things that I didn't notice on my own. I guess that's the benefit of groups - book groups, writing groups, etc. Each participant provides a different insight, a different facet, that we might never have identified on our own. In my writers group we talked about how some of these short stories - if they weren't in the anthology but instead written by Joe Schmo - might be more heavily critiqued. Yet another perspective - one man's trash is another man's treasure.

Last meeting we reviewed NJ's second story. It was very cool how CoE picked up on some patterns. From NJ's expression, I got the impression that some of the theming/patterns were unconscious, subconscious or something not completely deliberate. I like what that says about writing - that not everything in your story is or will be painstakingly deliberate, labored and belabored and crafted until you're sick and tired of the story that you had wanted to tell.