by R.P. Burnham
At this point Shakespeare’s roommate at Meatloaf, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, came in from playing mixed doubles to announce he and Emily Dickinson defeated Emile Zola and Charlotte Brontë two sets to love. After congratulating him and hearing him modestly attribute the victory to Emily Dickinson’s wicked backhand, we mixed martinis and continued.
LITBIZYour novella, The Brothers Karamazov, has received a lot of praise from critics. They particularly liked the total absence of any ideas and the emphasis on language. Tell me, did the writing present any difficulties?
FDWell, the first version of the novella was written before I had any training in the art of writing. You could say, then, that The Brothers had a difficult birth. I can still hear my beloved instructor Bobcat Jones telling me, “Lighten up, Fyodor.” He quite rightly found the original ms to be too engagé, too full of moral earnestness. He kept urging me to find the story in my story. Throw out the philosophical crap, he said. Cut the dead wood. It was he who suggested the novella end with the double wedding of Alyosha and Ivan to the twin sculptors. It was Bobcat too who suggested I change the setting from provincial Russia to an artists’ retreat in America where writers, artists, dancers, and so forth could meet to share their work. It took several rewrites and much argument, but Bobcat finally convinced me that the only literary response to reality was to be bored or appalled by it —
LITBIZIt bores and appalls me too.
FD— and to find refuge in language and in the life of a writer, the conferences, the readings, the classes, the writers’ retreats, the interviews.
LITBIZYes, it’s what writing’s all about. But, you know, every once in a while you still hear some bozo come up with that tired old notion that writing is a private communication between two individual minds. Tell me, what do you think has been gained by the modern view that literature is a social act to be performed in public and with plenty of refreshments?
WSI can answer that by reference to this room. The fact that Fyodor and I are doubling up is wonderful. It means that we can get to know each other and share some laughs. I especially like the cocktail hour and the free buffet, but the tennis and swimming are great too. The philosophy of Meatloaf is simple, you see. When you’re alone you might start brooding, which can lead to that boring seriousness we’re all trying to drive out of literature. When we’re together we can puff each other’s work and reassure each other that what we’re doing in exploring language and metaphor is the way to go, and we can have fun doing it.
FDAnd don’t forget the contacts we make, Willy.
WSTrue. I’ll tell ya, I’ve enjoyed meeting that Emily Dickinson, a hot shit if I ever saw one. I’m inviting her to give a reading at my college next semester and she’s inviting me out to hers. She’s been sunbathing topless every day since we’ve been here, and I love it.
LITBIZInteresting. We’ll have to interview her later on. But tell me, what other advances have you made careerwise here at Meatloaf? Care to share any trade secrets with our readers?
FDWell, Willy has just today promised to publish the short story I’m working on in Quid Pro Quo. It’s called “Crime and Punishment,” the story of a young alienated student at writing school who decides to murder his landlady to gather material for a short story he’s been assigned. He’s in Murder-Mystery 306 and the instructor is a hard grader.
WSI just love the piece. The beauty of the imagery and the rhythm of the language are so choice, so beautiful, that I dare predict it’ll be reprinted in Pushcart next year, and will help me get another grant from NEBA [National Endowment for the Bored and Appalled].
LITBIZThat’s great. I look forward to seeing the piece when it’s published. Tell me, how would you assess the state of literature in the U.S. today?
FDI think there’s more good fiction and poetry being written now than in the whole history of the world. It’s really amazing the talent that’s out there, the sheer number of people bored and appalled by reality and interested in the literariness of literature. In my creative writing seminar at Beandip University, I alone have seven students who I can confidently predict will go on to garner the Nobel Prize, and the other instructors in the program have about the same number.
LITBIZWilly, how many students do you have as shoo-ins for the Nobel?
WSEleven. These are indeed wondrous times for literature.
LITBIZOne final question, or rather a request. Do you have any advice you could give to young writers?
WSMy advice is simple. You’ve got to remember that writing is a safe, middle-class profession. That means, go to writing school and learn to write in the one, correct, universally recognized style of writing. I see Fyodor nodding and know he’ll agree when I say: you can’t become a writer without the accreditation that an MFA gives you, just as you can’t become a doctor without a medical degree. We’re the proof in the pudding. From our training we automatically can hear the voices of the other students in the seminar critiquing our work, so that after graduating we instinctively know what consensus writing is. God knows what would have happened to us if we’d developed our writing independently. We’d have been two boring and appalling guys, I’ll tell ya.
FDI would just like to add two things. One: make sure you have an uncle who owns a publishing house. Two: avoid reading the classic writers. They’re all a bunch of old farts who wrote before writing was codified into a system. You’ve got nothing to learn from those dudes.
LITBIZI want to thank both of you for your insightful comments on the writing scene. Have a good time during the remainder of your stay here at Meatloaf, and I’ll see you both at the first writing conference in the fall. It’ll be in Chicago, and I believe they’re serving Indian food this year. See you there, and until then, Bon Appétit!
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a note about the writer
R. P. Burnham edits The Long Story literary magazine and is a writer. He has published fiction and essays in many literary magazines. He sets most of his fiction in Maine, where he was born and raised and has deep roots. The Least Shadow of Public Thought, a book of his essays that introduce each issue of The Long Story, was published in 1996 by Juniper Press as part of its Voyages Series. Five other novels, Envious Shadows, On a Darkling Plain, The Many Change and Pass, and A Robin Redbreast in a Cage, have previously been published by The Wessex Collective and are all availabel on online as ebooks along with Jonathan Willing’s travels to Pangea. Burnham was educated at the University of Southern Maine (undergraduate) and The University of Wisconsin–Madison (graduate). He is married to Kathleen FitzPatrick, an associate professor of Health Science at Merrimack College in North Andover, Massachusetts.
