Before reading her piece, I knew I would like Susan Orlean's work. As soon as I read her brief bio and the phrase "I like writing about streets," I felt like I got her. I also loved how Orlean talked about walking and noted she “dawdles with enthusiasm,” which is something I tend to do myself. I think that's one of the aspects of narrative journalism I want to embrace and but that also makes me uneasy. I like the transparency that comes with journalism. There is nearly always a byline on every piece and you can easily dig through a writer's work and see their opinions and biases, which can be a hinderance or an asset.
Before delving into the piece, I loved the playfulness of Orlean’s title and lead. The irony in the break in the title, placing American Man and his age on the second line made me smile, and the odd opening of imagining Orlean’s marrying her ten-year-old subject successfully drew me into the piece. In my modernism and postmodernism class last quarter we talked a lot about the use of lists in post/post-post modernist work and so now I always notice them and Orlean’s repetition of ‘We’ was comical and just fun. I liked how in the first section it seemed like she could be generalizing about any “American” ten-year-old boy—which means a heteronormative, white, middle class boy—but then went into detail about Colin’s particularities.
Orlean’s piece, while sweet and sometimes sentimental in her observation of Colin, is also a social commentary through the perspective of a fifth grader. In such a short space Orlean’s is able to touch on race, gender, death, HIV/AIDS, abortion, and violence. She makes assumptions about who the children surrounding Colin will grow up to be, both with positive and negative outcomes. The comments the boys made about their classmates, especially the girls, frightened me but did not surprise me with their hateful and sometimes violent tone. This recent piece in Jezebel about two fifth graders arrested last month after conspiring to rape and kill a female classmate definitely came to mind.
When the piece shifted to a statistical nature, I was glad Orlean moved into the studies. She rarely spoke from the I throughout the piece, and definitely showed and did not tell her perspective on young boys and gender development, but her stance quickly became obvious, especially with the subtle yet powerful image of her trapped with the dog in the dark, tangled in Colin's fishing line.
One problematic issue I’ve been dealing with recently as a writer and reader came up for me this week while reading. Over the past two years I’ve struggled to find male writers who’s work I enjoy reading. I think it stems from my women, gender and sexuality studies which has made it difficult for me to read without a feminist lens or critique. Last week, while I thought the readings were helpful in terms of craft, I did not enjoy the majority of the speakers. This piece, because of its theme, tone and perspective captivated me in a way others do not. I'm conflicted because I do not think the gender identities of authors makes them intrinsically good or bad for me to read, but it's a pattern I've seen developing among the books I choose to read and blogs I follow. I'm curious to know if anyone else in class has had a similar experience.
Thanks for commenting on how Orlean contextualizes and broadens the profile with research. That's key.
ReplyDeleteAs for your question about the sex of authors, well, I know what you mean, though I also resist the notion that women somehow intrinsically write differently than men. And it's tough to compare snippets of writing on craft to actual profiles/features themselves.
However, I can also say that right around the time I "awakened" to the notion that women's writing is so often excluded from "the canon" that I as a female reader actually identified with male narrators (hello, Holden Caulfield), I got really annoyed with what I deemed to be masculine-focused writing. As time has gone on and I've read more, and more widely, I don't feel that way as much. However, I do feel free to be drawn to writing that speaks to me, writing for which I am the intended reader, without apology. and I still love Milan Kundera and Ernest Hemingway and Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Tracy Kidder and . . . Ultimately I read to expand my understanding of the world, not to see what I know and grasp reflected back to me. Though for stretches of time, especially when I've felt excluded, it's really important for me to see my experience and way of approaching the world reflected back at me. And that kind of writing isn't always by women. How's that for queering your question?