What? Five Chinese Novels in NYT Sunday Book Review

Did the sun rise from the west today? This week's New York Times Sunday Book Review has five articles, written by well-known authors and critics, on novels from China! Even the current issue of Poets & Writers talks about "literary Beijing," the first time in my many years as a writer.

What has done the trick? Not cheap goods or tainted food, not the trade deficit or politics. It must be the Beijing Olympics then. Otherwise, why would America's predominant publications suddenly be showing solicitude toward Chinese novels, three short months before the Games? If nothing else positive comes out of the summer event, calling the West's attention to Chinese literature is at least one good thing.

This attention is in sharp contrast to a recent complaint from Wolfgang Kubin, one of the most renowned Sinologists in Germany. Kubin, who claimed in 2006 that China has not had any great writer since 1949 and "contemporary Chinese literature is trash," lashed out again in February of this year. In an interview with Oriental Outlook, he says he and Chinese writers have nothing to talk about. Judging from the interviews, he has been too busy to read Chinese books for quite some time. I wondered if the problem was his or Chinese writers'. Personally, Kubin lost credibility in my heart when he dismissed the Chinese classic Three Kingdoms, which happens to be my very favorite.

Howard Goldblatt, America's foremost translator of Chinese literature, disagrees with Kubin. Among the five novels reviewed in NY Times Sunday Book Review today, two were translated by Goldblatt recently. In a March interview with China's popular newspaper Southern Weekend, Goldblatt says it's not that China lacks great literary work; the problem is that there is not enough translation of it.

I happen to agree with Goldblatt. Growing up in China, I read far more translated Western classics than Chinese novels in my youth. Everyone in my generation knew the names of Hemingway and Hugo. In contrast, during my two decades in the US, I met only one American writer who knew something about Chinese classics, let alone average readers. This imbalanced one-way flow used to astonish me, but I've become accustomed to it (it's life).

Now this weekend's NY Times Book Review astounds me again, this time in a pleasant way. Among the five novelists reviewed, Mo Yan and Wang Anyi are definitely the top novelists in China. I have been Wang Anyi's fan since my college time in the early 1980s. The complexity and quality of their works, both in terms of content and art form, are no lower than the best American contemporary authors I've read. I raise my hand to my forehead with relief that their works are being translated into English. Jonathan Spence's review of Mo Yan and Francine Prose’s review of Wang Anyi will make everyone want to read the novels.

Jiang Rong is new to the literary scene, though he's from the same generation as Mo and Wang, and I doubt that he will write another novel. I'm in the middle of reading the Chinese original of his Wolf Totem right now, and from what I've read, I have to agree with Pankaj Mishra that "the novel's literary claims are shaky," despite the international prizes it received. The novel is of a "concept-driven" type; it certainly lacks the level of emotional complexity portrayed in the works of Mo Yan and Wang Anyi. It, however, raises important ecological and racial chauvinism issues. The phenomena that Wolf Totem has become a record best seller – the highest among all books sold in China – seems to reflect Chinese's concern on urgent societal issues.

Mo Yan's Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out (a great title on a terrible cover) and Jiang Rong's Wolf Totem have both been translated by Howard Goldblatt. While the literary quality gap between these two authors is huge, I do think it is necessary to have both novels translated, and I recommend both to American readers. Wolf Totem, being a best seller in China, will tell the Westerners something about the mindset of contemporary Chinese readers, to say the least.

By the way, in the aforementioned interview with China's Southern Weekend, Howard Goldblatt says that, to understand how unpopular Chinese literature is in America, one only need look at the quantity of Chinese fiction published in The New Yorker: Null. (Goldblatt doesn't think Ha Jin's work counts as Chinese literature, because it's written in English.) This isn't quite accurate – the New Yorker did publish Gao Xingjian's stories after he received the Nobel Prize, and those stories were originally written in Chinese. Other than that one arguable instance (you could say Gao was already a French citizen then), Goldblatt is right about the New Yorker's discrimination.

The New Yorker notwithstanding, now you can read these translated Chinese novels.

An Effort to Understand More about the Dalai Lama

This book, The Open Road: the Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama by Pico Iyer, is on my immediate reading list. My interest is raised by a book review in the New Yorker titled "Holy Man," and also the radical actions of the protesters in London who tried to douse the Olympic flame. I question how much those protesters knew about the Dalai Lama or Tibet. They certainly had no respect for the Dalai Lama's position on the Beijing Olympics or Tibet autonomy.

Read "Holy Man" here.

DON NOBLE: "Short-story collection is a winner"

Today Google alert brought me a pleasant surprise: a review for Tartts Three, a short story anthology that includes my story "Pivot Point." Here is what the reviwer, Don Noble, has to say about it:

"Xujun Eberlein is a story writer who grew up in China and came to the United States in 1988. Her collection won the Tartt Award. Her story in this volume, 'Pivot Point,' has the wonderful, nearly invaluable advantage of having a setting unfamiliar to the reader and dealing with issues unknown to the reader. (Hemingway was similarly lucky, or wise, when he set stories in East Africa and on charter fishing boats in the Gulf Stream.) Eberlein's protagonist is a 26-year-old single Chinese woman who had been sent to the country for 're-education' at the tail end of the Cultural Revolution. She is in love with a married man — not a rare situation — but in China conditions for romance are claustrophobic and stultifying. The young woman, living in a tiny room in her parents' apartment, cannot get housing of her own; there is no privacy to be had. The affair takes some predictable turns but ends, as a story titled 'Pivot Point' should, with a twist. She will go west, not to die — as the folk adage has it — but to study philosophy in America."

It is also interesting Don Noble says later in his review that "There are no bad stories in this volume, amazingly, but there are some problematical ones." Continue to read the review here>>

Don't Limit Your Characters – An Author Interview

Pamela Erens's novel, The Understory, was the winner of the Ironweed Press Fiction Prize and is a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for First Fiction. Erens's fiction, poetry, and essays have been published in a wide variety of literary and mainstream magazines. She has twice been awarded a fellowship in fiction from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.

What role does the Ramble play in the novel?

This interview was conducted by Xujun Eberlein during two weeks of March, 2008.

--------------------------------------
Interviewer: Is The Understory your first attempt at a novel?

Pamela Erens: Yes. I had written and published short stories, poetry, and essays, but I was afraid that a novel was beyond me. I didn't think I could build that elaborate a structure, hold that many strands of character and plot in my head at once. So the novel was a challenge I set myself. I was daring myself, to see if I could pull it off. Also, I was a mother of young children then, and my time was very fragmented. It felt very reassuring to have this project I could go back to day after day, that just stayed there even as the rest of my life was all about quick shifts of attention.

Interviewer: Many writers start the first novel from their own experience. Apparently this is not the case for you. What triggered the idea for this novel?

Jack takes refuge in a Buddhist monastery

Pamela Erens: From the beginning I've enjoyed writing stories that aren't close to my own. I've always liked writing male characters and from a male point of view. That's partly because when I do so, it's plain to me that the character is a fiction, is not me. My imagination is more free. At the same time I strongly believe that there has to be an autobiographical component to the emotion in a story or novel. With Jack I was writing out of, if exaggerating, my own experiences of isolation and longing. The seed of the story was an idea that came to me, God knows how, of a man who wants to find a spiritual twin, someone with whom he can have a complete emotional and psychological connection. I literally had the guy putting an ad in The Village Voice, advertising for this spiritual twin. That was the Ur-source of the Jack-Patrick storyline. After a while it became clear to me that what I was writing was really a story about a man whose buried longing for human connection begins to come to the surface, in a way that is threatening to his stability.

Interviewer: Very interesting that you like to write from a male point of view. What are the challenges of writing from the POV of the opposite sex? Do you have brothers who you grew up with? If so, does the experience help in understanding male minds?

Pamela Erens: I honestly didn’t find writing from the point of view of a male character a challenge. I just didn’t think about it. As I mentioned before, I’ve often gravitated to writing from a male p.o.v. I do have brothers but I don’t think that has much to do with that choice. I really do feel that the primary emotions—longing or rage or remorse or whatever—are accessible to you as a writer whether you’re working with a male or a female character. I think at the base level we’re all made up of the same stuff. Maybe I’m naïve.

Interviewer: Why is it so important for you to separate from a character and make it plainly clear that "the character is a fiction, is not me"?

Jack first meets Patrick in a brownstone

Pamela Erens: I meant that it has to be clear to me that the character is a fiction. I’m not thinking about the reader here.

If I merge too much with a character—if I give her (or him) a history or hobbies or a personality that is too much like my own—it limits that character. I might fail to let an aspect of her character bloom because it feels alien or frightening to me. I might not let her take an action I would never take. It hobbles my imagination. At worst, it can also be a species of self-therapy: Oh, let me put this version of myself on the page and then I’ll just grind all my axes and wail about all the stuff I’m still unhappy about and feel a little self-satisfaction or relief that way.

Interviewer: You mentioned the author's emotional truth in fiction, and in the case of The Understory it is related to your own experiences of isolation and longing. Where does your feeling of isolation come from?

Pamela Erens: That’s probably an unanswerable question! In many ways I don’t feel isolated at all. I have a husband and children, and my life is quite full. But I’ve always had a hermit side to my personality. I like being alone for big chunks of the day. I have a pretty busy interior life—I’m not saying a fascinating one, just a busy one—and maybe at times that makes me hyperaware of the boundaries between me and everybody else. And then there were times in my life, when I was younger, when I was much too much alone and felt kind of frighteningly lost. So it doesn’t take that much for me to access the feeling of being alone, different, or isolated.

Interviewer: What made you choose a Buddhist monastery as one of the main settings? Buddhism believes "No desire is strength" and, in a way, embraces isolation and loneliness. Do you find this an interesting contrast to Jack's mindset?

Pamela Erens: Yes, I thought Buddhist practice, with its emphasis on silence and awareness, would be an interesting counterpoint to Jack’s type of solitude and introspection. I could see Jack being instinctively drawn to Buddhism. But Buddhist practice actually requires that you spend a great deal of time not being in your own head--in being attuned, rather, to what’s outside of you. It also requires that you follow external rules and submit to authority. Both of those things are difficult for Jack, who wants to set his own rules and happens to enjoy the world of his thoughts. I don’t think I chose the monastery setting in any rational way. Like most of the bigger decisions I made about the novel, it was kind of intuitive. I just wanted him to go there.

Interviewer: Are you a plant lover? How did this help in portraying Jack's character?

Jack attends bonsais

Pamela Erens: I don’t know if I’m a plant lover. I like plants, but I’m not a gardener and I’m not even that knowledgeable about plant life. I learned a fair amount to write the novel, but I’ve forgotten a lot of it now. I do have a fascination with systems, and the taxonomy of plants always seemed a cool thing to me, as it does to Jack. My husband happens to be an avid gardener, and I’ve learned some things from watching him or listening to him talk about our garden. He’s the expert, not me. But when he gets me to focus on, say, our tomatoes, or cajoles me into planting carrot seeds, I can see how people get totally obsessed with this activity. There is something magical about the way plants grow and mature, and if you want them to thrive you have to pay attention to all the little details in the same way that you have to pay attention to all the little details when you’re raising children. I keep telling my husband that if there were twenty extra hours in the day, then, sure, I could see getting pretty absorbed by gardening.

Interviewer: There is a memorable side character, Mrs. Fiore, who wants Jack to address her by first name. Is this interesting detail from any of your own experience?

Pamela Erens: I didn’t base that detail on any one particular experience, but names and how we address people are bound up with questions of intimacy. What do you do when you don’t want to invite further closeness with someone, but you don’t want to insult them, either? This is a classic Jack dilemma. There are other moments having to do with names and naming in the book, such as when Jack sees his name written on an envelope in Patrick’s handwriting, and that connection makes him feel differently about the name, which he’s never liked.

Interviewer: The opening paragraph strikes me as deceptively calm, almost matter of fact, yet it radiates such an ambiance that I was immediately drawn to read more. It turns out to be a great opening in many different respects. What were your considerations in choosing such an opening?

Pamela Erens: For a long time I had a different opening, in which Jack was already at the monastery and was just talking to us about it, its look, its feel, its routines. One day it struck me that the current opening would be more distinctive and dramatic (if you can call pouring a cup of coffee dramatic), and crystallize something about Jack’s character and the kind of interior tensions he lives with.

Interviewer: I'm glad you changed the opening to the current one, because it really works. Did you ever consider ending the novel with the second last chapter? What do you think the book would lose or gain without the last chapter?

Jack hides in a knotweed bush at a climactic point

Pamela Erens: I never did consider that. I think too much would be lost. We need to know, first of all, what happens to Patrick, and we also need to glean what is behind Jack's final attempt to contact him.

Interviewer: The key reversal moment caught me by surprise, however in retrospect it is only logical. Had you planned this moment all along, or did it come to you as a surprise as well?

Pamela Erens: I had that key reversal or climactic scene in mind from very early on. I had an idea of the basic arc of the novel, and wanted that to be the ending. Although many things changed over the course of the writing, that scene was one thing that never changed, that I always knew I was going toward.

Interviewer: What was the most challenging part in writing the novel? What was the most enjoyable part?

Pamela Erens: The most challenging part was moving from an earlier incarnation of the book--which was more intellectualized and involved more of Jack yammering on about various topics—to the version that exists now, in which Jack is hopefully revealed primarily through action and situation. Another way of putting it is that the most challenging part was maturing as a writer! I didn’t realize at first just how much I had failed to dramatize.

But that hard work was also enjoyable. I got excited as I realized I could convey certain emotions and realities through scenes, not just by talking about them. I enjoyed figuring out ways to do that.

One of the other enjoyable parts was working with the structure. Right from the beginning I knew that I wanted to toggle between the present-tense monastery scenes and the past-tense New York scenes. It was an idea I’d stolen from a beautiful novella by William Trevor called Reading Turgenev, which starts in the present tense in a mental institution, describing the life of an older woman there. Then the novella jumps back decades to show you the woman’s youth, jumps to the present again, and so on, until gradually the two timelines converge and you understand how the woman ended up in the institution.

The structure did pose complications, of course. I was always poring over my dual timelines, trying to figure out how to make everything come out right.

Interviewer: When did you submit The Understory to the Ironweed contest? Did you try to find an agent or publisher for the novel before that?

Pamela Erens: When the book was done I sent it around to agents for a while. The comment I most often got was, "This is beautifully written, but...." I told my husband that that was what was going to end up on my tombstone, "She wrote beautifully, but..." When no agent took the novel, I started looking at small presses, and I entered the manuscript in Ironweed Press's fiction contest.

I did a good deal of revision after the book was accepted. My editor had some changes he wanted, and once I started to make those I wanted to rethink everything. I ended up doing far more than I, or my editor, had planned for. But I think those changes eventually solved the "beautifully written, but...." problem. The novel came out leaner and the element of suspense was increased.

Interviewer: Even though you struggled to publish this novel, it has gained significant literary acclaim and press attention. At the same time, many works that get published are not that well received. Do you see anything, beyond luck, at play in this?

Pamela Erens: If the question has to do with number of reviews, it’s been a combination of luck and footwork. I amended the list of reviewers that Ironweed Press planned to send bound galleys to, because I felt it was too all-purpose. I wanted to send to places I thought might actually take a specific interest in the book, either because of the subject matter or because it was a small-press book or because (if I was really lucky) I knew someone – or knew someone who knew someone – who worked there. So I did a lot of research to find those places, and after the galleys went out I wrote lots of followup letters. A large number of galleys still fell into a black hole, but that’s to be expected.

If you’re talking more about the positive nature of the response, I’ll have to hope and pray that I’ve actually earned it. It does seem to me a plus that my novel is so short. People don’t have too much time to get bored.

Interviewer: Chicago Tribune calls the writing "understated." Another review mentions the novel’s "minimal plot." Do you agree or disagree with those comments?

Pamela Erens: Yes, phrases like "understated" and "minimal plot" come up over and over in the reviews! I more or less agree with those statements. Certainly I think the novel's narrative approach is to express major emotions through minor occurrences. I'm not sure I'd call the plot genuinely "minimal." A few dramatic things do happen. But it's true that the novel takes place over a fairly short period of time, the cast of characters is small, and there are no wars or shootings or flamboyant love affairs. #

"Cornerstone" of a Mystery

The Eye of Jade
by Diane Wei Liang
Simon & Schuster, 256 pp., $24.00

(Book Review by Xujun Eberlein)

1.
Diane Wei Liang's female detective protagonist, Mei Wang, is a character built up of conflicts between her mindset and reality. She is aloof, "an outsider who never wanted to be in" while in college, but her college friends turn out to be the only ones who truly care about her. Her longing for her mother's love manifests as resentment, and her mother suddenly has a stroke before there is a chance to reconcile. She desperately wants to cure her mother, but she has no money or connections, and those things can only come from the sister she looks down on. She detests "guanxi" (connecting with purpose) and people who are good at it, yet whatever clues she obtains for her investigation are through "guanxi." Wherever she exhausts her network of relations, her means of investigation also dry up. For the most part the novel leaves the reader wondering if the only way for Mei Wang to make progress in Chinese society is to embrace the opposite of what she values.

Yet this is a quite realistic depiction of the late 1990s' Chinese society, post Cultural Revolution, in the midst of the Reform-and-Open era. And Diane Wei Liang is at her best depicting it using multi-voice dialogue. Here is such a dialogue at a class reunion:

"I'm going to Shenzhen. I've had enough of Beijing and Xinhua News Agency," Sparrow Li declared.

"What?" Fat Boy shouted. "You didn't tell me! You are giving up the Steel Bowl for a private local newspaper? Are you out of your mind?"

"What's so great about Xinhua News Agency? We have no housing, and the pay is lousy. When we graduated, it was all about getting a job with the big ministries. Now it's about money. If you are rich, you are somebody. I'm going to be the chief editor and make a lot of money."

"Don't be naïve." Big Sister Hui popped open a can of Tsing-tao beer. "What's money compared to power? Mei had a beautiful one-bedroom apartment when worked for the Ministry of Public Security. She traveled in official cars and dined in the best restaurants. She wasn't rich, but didn't she live a good life! Look at your chief. He doesn't need to be rich. He gets everything he needs and more from his job."

"I don't need a car. But I would like to have a roof over my head." Fat Boy sighed. "Beijing Daily is much worse than Xinhua News Agency. It doesn't even give me a dorm room. I'm thirty years old and still living with my parents. So I told the matchmakers that I'm only interested in girls whose work units have housing."

This conversation is so real, I can almost see those people's lips moving and hear their voices, as if they spoke in Chinese, as if I were among them.

Dialogue is also an economic means deployed in The Eye of Jade to convey background information of supporting characters. In the example above, with less than a page, we get to know several friends of Mei, even something about Mei herself, without dragging on through long descriptions.

The intimate reflection on everyday life of contemporary China is a good quality of this novel. For a reader who knows about China, this quality is engaging. Too often I can't finish a novel set in China written by non-Chinese, because it turns me off when the author gets obvious things wrong.

For readers who are less familiar with China, The Eye of Jade provides a lens into Chinese society. The author picked a good starting time for the story. Between 1980 and 1997 there were amazing changes that took place, almost as amazing as the changes between 1997 and now. The central case that Mei is investigating takes us back in time: to the origin of the relics she is trying to locate, nearly 2,000 years ago; to the circumstances of its disappearance 30 years ago; and to Mei’s youth 10 years ago. Thus, without a complete recount of history we are given insights into it. One can reasonably predict that, as future cases come for Mei Wang, we will get a chance to see China develops more, and hopefully also to explore more of its past.

That said, there are some holes in the work. For one thing, the Ministry of State Security (analog of the FBI) did not exist until 1983, so some of the retrospective actions during the Cultural Revolution in late 1960s are not completely plausible. Still, compared with some other English fiction on China, the lapses are small.

2.
Ultimately, Mei Wang does not give in to the Chinese societal trap. Toward the end of the novel, Mei's true self, aloof and courageous as she is, does triumph. When her "guanxi" ends, she singular-handedly confronts each hypothesized suspect one by one, alone and determined. And sure enough, each confrontation takes her closer to the entire truth, until the case is solved.

At this point, however, this triumph should be read as the author's fictionalized ideal ending, rather than a depiction of the reality. After all, it is unlikely in reality that any private detective, not to mention a young woman apparently with no training in self-defense and no backup – would go to each (dangerous) suspect and point a finger at him, "You are the murderer, aren't you?" simply to see if he'll admit to it. A detective who relies on this approach wouldn't be the smartest one anyway.

So why does Diane Wei Liang make Mei Wang do this? One can find a partial answer from the author interview by her publisher, in which she explains:

"Guanxi is loosely translated as connections and networks of relations. But it means much more. It is a cornerstone of Chinese culture, as the society is operated according to it – people are introduced, things get done – or not – based on who they know."

Except guanxi is more like extra oil for an age-old societal machine than a cornerstone of Chinese culture. In any case "guanxi" is an external factor; the concept might assist a novelist to move forward a plot, but it can't enhance characterization, nor excite the reader. If Mei's entire investigation "operates according to it," the intricate behavior and actions would be absent. The final confrontations carried out by Mei Wang, therefore, are a last-ditch resolution for both the author and the central character.

3.

This raises a key question: is this novel really a detective story? The answer is both yes and no. It is what the author sets out to make; it is not quite accepted as such by readers.

For detective genre readers, the fun of reading is solving a puzzle with the author. It is the chase of logical inference that is thrilling. In The Eye of Jade, however, this element is largely missing. Sure, Mei Wang confronts the suspects with her hypotheses, but when we see this, the hypotheses are already made. We read the conclusions without being letting in the process of reasoning, and we don't know how she gets there. This thrill is not quite there.

Apparently, the author has a different idea about what this book should be. The Eye of Jade is the first in a series of "Mei Wang Mystery" novels, for which the author has a very interesting and intriguing concept. The interview mentioned above opens with the following Q and A:

Q: Why did you decide to tell your story of modern China through the lens of crime fiction?

A: Because crime fiction brings together different elements of a society and exposes their frustrations, conflicts and desires. I found it an ideal format to examine the social and economical changes that are at the center of modern life in China. I also wanted to paint an honest and authentic picture of life in Beijing. "The Eye of Jade" gave me such an opportunity, allowing me to move among its different neighborhoods and varied social and economical groups, to explore the inner life of that fascinating city.

That is exactly what she does in The Eye of Jade, and quite successfully. The social and economic aspects of life in Beijing are given equal, if not greater, emphasis than Mei Wang's case investigation. A reader who is not looking for a particular genre story could enjoy both threads. To a mystery/crime genre reader, however, the author's stated goals, however admirable and ambitious, do not provide the same thrill as logical inference.

On the other hand, would a romance novel bother its readers for its lack of logic? No. One would have to be bothered by something else. This is to say, the genre label pre-sets reader expectations. It is a double-edged sword. It helps us find the right category for reading pleasure; it can also stop us from being entertained.

Therefore, the author has options. The smart idea of conveying modern China's societal change to English readers through genre fiction (which has a much greater readership than literary fiction) might actually work, if she finds the right genre and executes in it well. If she (or her publisher) chooses to stick with the current label, then she will need to enhance the genre's "cornerstone": logical inference.

Flash with Kim Chinquee and Rusty Barnes

After serving eight years as a med tech in the Air Force, Kim Chinquee received an MA from the University of Southern Mississippi, where she studied with Rick Barthelme, Steve Barthelme, and Mary Robison. She also holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. A Pushcart Prize winner, she teaches creative writing at Central Michigan University. Her collection of flash fiction, Oh Baby, will be published in March 2008 by Ravenna Press.

Rusty Barnes grew up in rural northern Appalachia, and received his M.F.A. from Emerson College. After editing fiction for the Beacon Street Review (now Redivider) and Zoetrope All-Story Extra, he co-founded Night Train. A book of his flash fiction, Breaking it Down, was published by Sunnyoutside Press in November 2007.

Q. Welcome on stage, Kim and Rusty. At AWP early this year, Brigid Hughes, the editor of A Public Space, asked me what flash fiction was. I thought I knew, however I could not come up with a quick answer. So I'm passing this question to you now: what's your definition for it?

Kim C.: Thanks. In September, I gave a presentation and reading on flash fiction, and I believe my definition then was something like: a brief emotion rendered on the page, like a photograph, or snapshot. Though now I believe that definition is a bit too elementary. I've been doing a lot of research lately on the prose poem, and trying to read as many prose poems as possible. I'd like to read everything there is about the prose poem and flash fiction before even accurately trying to define them.

Rusty B.: I think flash fiction can be a story under 1500 words, as often language-based as plot-based, which deals with the impact of a moment or a couple moments as opposed to a full-length story which attempts to cover more material.

Q. Interesting. So Kim, what relationship do you see between prose poem and flash fiction? And Rusty, do you think flash fiction is more often language-based than longer stories? Can you give a good example of language-based flash?

Kim C.: I'm beginning to believe that flash fiction is simply another name for prose poetry, although the term prose poetry has been around a lot longer than flash fiction. Baudelaire published a series of nine poems in 1861, the first to be named prose poems, and his collection Paris Spleen reads to me like a collection of flash fiction. In C.W. Truesdale's Introduction of The Party Train: A Collection of North American Prose Poetry, he identifies seven different types of prose poems: The Object Poem, The Surreal Narrative, The "Straight" Narrative, The Character Poem, The Landscape or Place Poem, The Meditative Poem, and the "Hyperbolic" or "Exaggerated" Poem. I was able to relate to each and could adequately categorize my own flash fiction based on these criteria. Perhaps flash fiction is more "story-like," with a bigger focus on plot, yet maybe not.

It's hard for me to tell, when writing my own pieces what to call them exactly. I think my flash fictions are becoming shorter, and lately I've been writing one-paragraph pieces. So, do I call them prose poems? By default, I call them flash fictions, though they could probably be either. I'm teaching a seminar next semester, focusing on flash fiction; I found that there was no way to teach the class properly without discussing prose poetry, so I have incorporated prose poetry into the course, and lately I've been reading everything I can about flash fiction and prose poetry, and I have stacks of material to work through, thanks to the generosity of Robert Alexander, a prose poet himself, who wrote his dissertation on the prose poem in 1982 at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. And of course, there are the anthologies on flash fiction by James Thomas and Robert Shapard, which I am a fan of, and discuss regularly in the classes I teach. I hope to have a clearer sense of prose poetry and flash fiction as I read more. But to put it simply, to me flash fiction and prose poetry go hand-in-hand.

Rusty B.: If I can be forgiven, and I hope I can, for talking about the work of my Night Train comrade and friend Cami Park, I think her piece from SmokeLong Quarterly, 'On Mondays Francesca Takes the Stairs' is a nice example of what I mean, even if I wasn't precise enough in my original phrasing. The entire piece is one long sentence that works so well in its cumulative effect because of the near-perfect placement of its commas. She begins the story with the quick phrase and the semicolon, and then each phrase after that turns in on itself, adding what I call forward-momentum details (since it's really not appropriate to talk about plot-points in a story like this) that augment our understanding of Francesca and the very simple, but wondrous in its implications, progression up these stairs. It's a near-perfect illustration of a moment, which is something that impressive flash does as well as or perhaps better than a traditional story. Another good example of what I mean comes from Night Train's Firebox Fiction archives: Lydia Copeland's 'In the Air a Shining Heart.'

And to get back to the question, in my own circuitous way, I think flash tends to come in two or three distinct forms: the traditionally-shaped (but shorter) story, like many of mine; the open-ended moment-illustration, which I think most shorter flash--less than 500 words, maybe--tends toward; and the sort of pungent minimalism affected by Lydia Davis and Diane Williams. Which is a long way of weaseling out of the question, I guess. Okay--here goes. I think flash fiction can be more language-based and in many cases I wish more of it was language-based. I think the work in the anthology PP/FF, from Starcherone Books, illustrates the various methods of the form better than I can explain, while a number of other equally excellent anthologies like the well known Sudden Fiction and Flash Fiction anthologies approach the work from a more traditional view.

Q. Great stuff from both of you – very educational and thought-provoking. I wish we had more time to discuss this! My next question for you is, what do you like about writing flash compared to longer stories?

Kim C.: In writing flash fiction I'm able to indulge more in the moment, or scene, the image or circumstance, where as when I'm writing longer stories, I tend to think more about the bigger picture.

Rusty B.: It's incredibly gratifying to finish something within an hour or a few hours and either polish it for publication afterward or let it germinate into something longer. My life is such that my writing often comes in hour or two hour bursts 3-4 times per week if I'm lucky, and it's helpful for my psyche to feel as if I've completed something that might be publishable within that very limited time frame. Still, it's an odd week that goes by where I don't write one or two or three flashes, and usually at least one of those is something I'm interested in expanding into longer material. Writing flash is the way I work now, and I like it.

Q. In light of the above, what kind of readership is flash fiction aimed at?

Kim C.: I like to think it's aimed at everyone and anyone.

Rusty B.: People with short attention spans, people who spend a lot of time on their computers, people impatient with plot and tradition, people who don’t think they have time to read.

Q. Which is the best piece of your flash and why? Where was it published?

Kim C.: That changes in my eye from moment to moment. Perhaps my most successful is "Formation," which was published in the 2005 NOON and won a Pushcart. A lot of time I think my best piece is the one I'm currently working on, though I realize that after I get some distance from it, this is not usually the case. Like any writer, I tend to favor whatever I'm focusing my energy on. Maybe some of my best work appears in NOON; Diane Williams has had quite an influence on my work. She's a great editor--careful and precise, which I am grateful for. Also, I have a lot of work in elimae, which is edited by Cooper Renner, who is another one of my favorite editors. He's currently editing my book, Oh Baby.

Rusty B.: I have no idea what the best one is. I'm most proud of a flash I published in SmokeLong Quarterly, "Love & Murder," because it's a key scene in the novel I've been writing off and on for four years, and it feels nearly exactly right to me in both tone and character, and every time I feel like abandoning even the idea of a novel—I've failed miserably at three before this one—I come back to that story and say to myself 'no—don't let these people go—finish it!'

Q. How do you relate flash fiction to video games?

Kim C.: Yikes. I really don't. The thought of video games gives me a headache—the noise and stimulation, seems like the polar opposite of flash fiction to me. Though I don't really know much about video games.

Rusty B.: I love both of them, but my hand-eye coordination is much better suited to flash fiction. Having said that, though, video games allow me to fulfill my dream of suiting up and throwing down a nasty dunk in Shaquille O'Neal's grill.

Q. Aha, here we see a real difference between you two. Now, what's your advice to other writers who want to try flash fiction?

Kim C.: Read anthologies and literary journals that publish flash fiction and prose poetry. Study them. Think less about plot--if you're writing from the heart, the piece will come alive through your choice of detail, and the language.

Rusty B.: Write a lot of it. Write to prompts, write without prompts. At one point I wrote three flashes a week on a schedule, every week for a year. Do that or more. Read it, as much as you can find, online and off, good and bad. Send it out and get it back, I don’t know—all this advice is dumb, basic. Make sure you tell everyone in your life that every moment of every story you write is true: it'll make your family reunions and interpersonal lives much more exciting.

Rusty Barnes: Breaking it Down

They say that great things come in small packages. Measuring in at 4 ½ by 5 ½ inches, Barnes' little book tells 18 stories that are both poignant and memorable. Barnes is a master of Flash Fiction, who says more in a paragraph than can usually be found in a page. The characters and imagery quickly grabbed me, and held me in their short embrace. For the past week, I read a few each evening like savoring a delicious bitter-melon dish, a Sichuanese favorite, before falling asleep with a heavy heart.

The stories have an intensity that surprised me. Frequently, the situations described are grim, sometimes helpless. In the opening story, "What Needs to be Done," a farm wife of 30-years has to balance the guilt of infidelity with her 19-year-old brother-in-law, against any hope of a moment's happiness. The concurrent senses of right and wrong from a simple heart reveal unexpected complexity.

Many of the stories are set in rural America, often hinting of the South, and the characters are usually unsophisticated. Barnes, however, has managed to mix a variety of cultural overtones into the characters that made me reflect on myself. One of my favorites is Beamer, the opera loving farmer who, to his last breath, sings Arias to the dancing cows. Coincidentally, "playing music to the cow" is a Chinese adage that derides someone who speaks to the wrong audience. In the story "Beamer's Opera," our innocent writer unintentionally turns the saying around, as Beamer's whole life unfolds in a few pages and ends as artfully as it is portrayed.

Despite all their woes, the characters take the situations in stride, and Barnes renders this with authenticity. Presented from a number of different points of view, the narration never gets in the way of what is happening. Even those written in second person, which I almost always have trouble reading, came through crystal clear. This was another surprise to me – I did not expect a flash to have as complete a storyline and characterization as a "regular" short story.

I have not been what you would call a fan of flash fiction; Barnes makes me feel that should change.

Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday

Here are some interesting statistics on Amazon.com about this book:

3,156 of 3,265 people found "the most helpful critical review" (which rated the book 1-star) to be helpful;
441 of 452 people found "the most helpful favorable review" (which rated the book 4-star) to be helpful.

A number of Amazon reviewers, such as the most helpful critical one, have argued more eloquently than I could that this book's patronizing writing and judgmental presentation makes it read like totalitarian propaganda. I wanted to point out another bit of irony that no one else seems to have brought up.

In her previous book, Wild Swans, which has writing I admire but content that could benefit from more honesty, author Jung Chang notes in front that "in order to describe their functions accurately" she has changed the translation of "xuan-chuan-bu" ("the Department of Propaganda") to "the Department of Public Affairs." The author's father, a heroic character in the memoir, had been a co-director in such a department.

Guess how she translates the same "xuan-chuan-bu" in Mao: The Unknown Story? Well, you guessed it. It is changed back to "the Department of Propaganda." Mao once headed such a department. This time Chang does not provide a note on how much she cares about the translation accuracy.

So why the need to deploy hypocrisy?

Because: though Jung Chang was a Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution, and her parents were active and loyal members of the Communist Party, they did nothing bad. They were all good. Objects that were once associated with them must be translated in commendatory terms accordingly. "Love the house, love the crows stopping on its roof."

And: Mao was evil from birth to death. He was all bad. Thus the same objects, when associated with him, must be translated in derogatory terms.

In China we call this "Red Guard language." Jung Chang was a Red Guard at the critical age of learning – and she apparently picked up the language well, even decades of living in the West have not made her drop it.

Interview with Two NEA Grant Winners

Viet Dinh comes from a Vietnamese immigrant family. He holds a MFA from the University of Houston and teaches English composition at the University of Delaware. He was the fiction editor for Gulf Coast and now an associate editor for Night Train. A widely published short story writer, he is currently trying to find a publisher for his collection, I (Heart) Disaster.

Jim Tomlinson was born and raised in a small town in northern Illinois . He lives and writes in rural Kentucky. A realistic writer, his debut collection, Things Kept, Things Left Behind, won the 2006 Iowa Short Fiction Award.

We learned yesterday that both Jim and Viet are among the 2008 NEA Literature Fellowship winners.

Q. Congratulations, Jim and Viet! Could you describe the moment when the phone call came from NEA in November? Who called you? What did he/she say? What was your reaction and response?

Jim T.: Thanks, Xujun! Chloey Accardi, Division Assistant in the Grants Office, phoned and told me the news on November 15th. I was stunned. That much I remember. Most of what she said after that is a blur. I know she asked for a bio, a photo, and permission to use an excerpt from my work sample on the NEA Writers Corner website. She also said to keep the news quiet until the December 4th press release. I told my wife, of course, and two or three close friends, but no one else.

Viet D.: I didn't receive my call until late November -- I was called by a nice man who wanted my social security number, so I was suspicious that this was a phishing scheme. But, since my credit rating is nil anyway, I threw caution to the wind. Needless to say, I was flabbergasted to discover that this was the real thing. My previous plans for the day: go to the DMV. My revised plans: have a hamburger and take a nap at home.

Q. LOL! Now, which story did you submit to NEA as a writing sample? Where was it published? In which way is the story representative of your writing?

Jim T.: I sent “First Husband, First Wife,” which appeared in Five Points and leads off my short story collection, Things Kept, Things Left Behind. Most of my stories are about characters and relationships that appear to be one thing but then unfold new layers. I think that’s especially true of Jerry and Cheryl in “FHFW.”

Viet D.: I submitted "Substitues," which appears in the most recent issue of Five Points. I'm not sure this story is representative of my writing as a whole -- my style and subject matter vary vastly from story to story. But I felt it was the best story I had on hand at the moment, so off it went.

Q. Both in Five Points! Isn't that an interesting coincidence.
In one sentence, tell us what sets you apart from other contemporary fiction writers in America.

Jim T.: I’m just another fish in this river, like every writer I know.

Viet D.: I'm lazy.

Q. How are you going to spend the $25000 grant money?

Jim T.: Living expenses, mundane things, too many to list. Research trips to southern Indiana and western Kentucky, certainly. Possibly central Illinois, too. These are settings for my novel-in-progress.

Viet D.: I plan to upgrade my computer, take a semester off from feeding knowledge to the animals, and perhaps travel to India, where my novel will be set.

Q. If the grant were for $25 million is there anything you would change about what you are trying to write?

Jim T.: Interesting question, Xujun. I want to say I’d be trying to write the same kinds of things. I also want to say that that kind of money wouldn’t be a ruinous thing. But it just might be.

Viet D.: Not really. I'd just be writing in much more luxurious surroundings. Attended to by servants. And unpaid college interns who will do my typing for me. Plus, perhaps, a carousel drawn by a live donkey.

Q. What's your advice to other writers who want to apply for the NEA grants?

Jim T.: Send your very best work as a work sample. Fill out the paperwork neatly. Send it off, and then try to forget about it.

Viet D.: The same advice I'd give to anyone submitting their work anywhere: give it your all, give it your best, have an accountant deduct the postage from your taxes later in the year. #