"With a discipline, it isn’t necessary for us to be in a completely perfect mindset before we start. The point of a discipline is to do it, and in the process, the right mindset will sometimes come."
Buddhism says very similar things to the Quakers on this.
May 18, 2023·edited May 18, 2023Liked by Jacob R Weber
I’m a writer of art criticism (in fact just spent the last few weeks flinging myself against the Warhol Writer’s Grant application which is the writer’s equivalent of deep sea diving, maybe? I’m tired…anyway…). I really appreciate much about this piece. I’ve never put it in these terms but it was instantly recognizable, the faith component. I definitely traded by family’s backwater southern zealotry for art, literature, and critical thinking. There’s some analogy brewing now about them being dirt farmers at some point and scratching around in the literary dirt feels similar, so maybe I’m not so different in the end. I’ll work on it. All this to say I really appreciated this piece and insight. I will be sharing with my fellow critical writers. I agree it’s a call to action, as Leslie P. said below. Thanks for this.
This is the first time I've read anything by you, Jacob, (honestly, I've never spent much time with short stories). This essay is like being served a full, delicious meal. As a poet and painter, I'm always, in all ways, comparing and contrasting writing and painting processes. This essay hits me in the gut and heart and mind, as its content parallels the artist's process. Inspired by you, I'm going to re-read this, then write from it through an artist's eyes. Maybe into my next blog at celestialartworks.com And I have you to thank for many delightful hours to come of reflection and contemplation and writing and painting.
I feel like literary criticism for readers should be closer to what you practice, whereas literary criticism for writers is somewhat, but not completely, closer to the academic stuff. The academic stuff seems derived initially from an attempt to see how literature operates and what it can do and what writers' responsibilities, ethics, and social roles are for and all that kind of stuff -- a form of philosophy, really -- but the publish-or-perish culture and demands of having something new to say provided perverse incentives toward that keep-the-discourse-going situation you complain about.
Meanwhile readers don't have much literary criticism available to them. They mostly just have reviews. It's a hard sell with people's preconceptions of criticism plus the fact that the preconceptions aren't necessarily inaccurate to open up the field for readers to pleasurably indulge in the same way they would reading the original texts themselves.
This is one of the most amazing essays about writing that I've read - and I read widely and daily. I had a spiritual experience just reading it. Thank you Jacob R. Weber! Part of what made it amazing was that I'm compiling my stories and essays published in literary magazines. Yesterday I tried to find one from 2010, and the magazine that published it barely exists, with no accessible archives. My work files showed countless drafts. In other words, if anyone ever read that story at all, it doesn't exactly "exist" anywhere. I'd just been reflecting on that with a hmmmm, interesting "hobby" I've devoted part of my life to, when this essay popped up and urged me to read it. That's part of what I mean by spiritual. Thanks, Becky, too, for providing this venue. And by the way, I have a long-standing habit of tracking down writers I read in literary magazines to tell them how much a particular work means to me. This has resulted in a few wonderful on-line literary friendships for my isolated writer-in-the-forest self.
Jacob, I'm glad to have found your blog. I was lucky enough to teach a class on the short story form this spring, and I wanted to have fun, so I assigned four anthologies: Best American Short Stories 2022, The Best Short Stories 2022: The O'Henry Prize Winners, Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2022, and Best American Mystery and Suspense 2022. I designed the course like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" novel with the backstory of crashing on Short Story Island on the planet Fictionia. It was one of the best teaching experiences I've had in a long time; I'm sorry the semester is over, as it turns out, I loved my fictional island for many of the same reasons you describe in your Lit Mag News editorial). I wish I'd discovered your blog earlier, so I could have shared it with students and perhaps even invited you to visit the island (on Zoom or something). If you'd like to be in touch, either to see my syllabus (can you tell that I'm proud of it?), discuss short stories and the state of the publishing world or to perhaps to collaborate on some literature/spirituality thing in the future, send me an email at dent@susqu.edu.
Your story reminds me just a little of Herman Wouk’s decision to become a novelist while reading on board a minesweeper in the South Pacific during WWII. In his case, I believe the book was Don Quixote, but Moby-Dick would work too: something to immerse yourself in (sorry, water pun). Although Wouk remained religious throughout his life.
I’ve never heard anyone compare poems to prayers. There’s Yeats’s “A Prayer for My Daughter,” but no, in general, they’re not.
Your site looks fine, very efficient layout. You might try playing around with Substack if you haven’t already — it apparently supports “seamless” import from Blogspot.
Thank you, Jacob, for this thoughtful and beautiful reflection. In me, art (namely poetry/literature) and spirituality come from the same “fire in the belly” and I love how you’ve shared the way they’re united for you. Thank you, Sari, for sharing this. I’ve just tried my hand at re-stacking--hope it works.
I got this to say in my essay some years back on the intersection of literary criticism and faith: "If not for the uncouth manner the sociology school seeks to rework art to make it say what they want, the entire enterprise would have been funny; funny in its compensation. Here are anti-religionists who would not be preached to seeking redemption in a work of art. Or perhaps it is because they resent the faith-based homily that makes them seek out its poor imitation. Nature, indeed abhors a vacuum, even a homiletic one, and, be careful what you don’t wish, for you may get it." You may access the full works here: https://www.creativewritingnews.com/literary-treatise-lionizing-the-feline-the-quest-for-social-commentary/
This is so beautiful. Ok I will do it.
I find this piece downright inspiring and important in wide ways
Wow! I love this...your practice and the call to action.
"With a discipline, it isn’t necessary for us to be in a completely perfect mindset before we start. The point of a discipline is to do it, and in the process, the right mindset will sometimes come."
Buddhism says very similar things to the Quakers on this.
This was a pleasure to read.
I’m a writer of art criticism (in fact just spent the last few weeks flinging myself against the Warhol Writer’s Grant application which is the writer’s equivalent of deep sea diving, maybe? I’m tired…anyway…). I really appreciate much about this piece. I’ve never put it in these terms but it was instantly recognizable, the faith component. I definitely traded by family’s backwater southern zealotry for art, literature, and critical thinking. There’s some analogy brewing now about them being dirt farmers at some point and scratching around in the literary dirt feels similar, so maybe I’m not so different in the end. I’ll work on it. All this to say I really appreciated this piece and insight. I will be sharing with my fellow critical writers. I agree it’s a call to action, as Leslie P. said below. Thanks for this.
Great piece.
This is the first time I've read anything by you, Jacob, (honestly, I've never spent much time with short stories). This essay is like being served a full, delicious meal. As a poet and painter, I'm always, in all ways, comparing and contrasting writing and painting processes. This essay hits me in the gut and heart and mind, as its content parallels the artist's process. Inspired by you, I'm going to re-read this, then write from it through an artist's eyes. Maybe into my next blog at celestialartworks.com And I have you to thank for many delightful hours to come of reflection and contemplation and writing and painting.
I feel like literary criticism for readers should be closer to what you practice, whereas literary criticism for writers is somewhat, but not completely, closer to the academic stuff. The academic stuff seems derived initially from an attempt to see how literature operates and what it can do and what writers' responsibilities, ethics, and social roles are for and all that kind of stuff -- a form of philosophy, really -- but the publish-or-perish culture and demands of having something new to say provided perverse incentives toward that keep-the-discourse-going situation you complain about.
Meanwhile readers don't have much literary criticism available to them. They mostly just have reviews. It's a hard sell with people's preconceptions of criticism plus the fact that the preconceptions aren't necessarily inaccurate to open up the field for readers to pleasurably indulge in the same way they would reading the original texts themselves.
This is one of the most amazing essays about writing that I've read - and I read widely and daily. I had a spiritual experience just reading it. Thank you Jacob R. Weber! Part of what made it amazing was that I'm compiling my stories and essays published in literary magazines. Yesterday I tried to find one from 2010, and the magazine that published it barely exists, with no accessible archives. My work files showed countless drafts. In other words, if anyone ever read that story at all, it doesn't exactly "exist" anywhere. I'd just been reflecting on that with a hmmmm, interesting "hobby" I've devoted part of my life to, when this essay popped up and urged me to read it. That's part of what I mean by spiritual. Thanks, Becky, too, for providing this venue. And by the way, I have a long-standing habit of tracking down writers I read in literary magazines to tell them how much a particular work means to me. This has resulted in a few wonderful on-line literary friendships for my isolated writer-in-the-forest self.
Thanks for this very honest contribution to Lit mag news. Really appreciate it. Seems there is an absence of forums for criticism - I read a piece -
a critique of the shortage of critiques - in The New Yorker Jan 23, 2023, "Everyone's a Critic" by Merve Emre.
Jacob, I'm glad to have found your blog. I was lucky enough to teach a class on the short story form this spring, and I wanted to have fun, so I assigned four anthologies: Best American Short Stories 2022, The Best Short Stories 2022: The O'Henry Prize Winners, Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2022, and Best American Mystery and Suspense 2022. I designed the course like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" novel with the backstory of crashing on Short Story Island on the planet Fictionia. It was one of the best teaching experiences I've had in a long time; I'm sorry the semester is over, as it turns out, I loved my fictional island for many of the same reasons you describe in your Lit Mag News editorial). I wish I'd discovered your blog earlier, so I could have shared it with students and perhaps even invited you to visit the island (on Zoom or something). If you'd like to be in touch, either to see my syllabus (can you tell that I'm proud of it?), discuss short stories and the state of the publishing world or to perhaps to collaborate on some literature/spirituality thing in the future, send me an email at dent@susqu.edu.
This is absolutely awesome. Thanks to Becky for sharing Jacob's piece.
"I’m literally asking stories questions like, Why should anyone not immediately end their existence in a world that seems to make no sense?" Exactly.
Your story reminds me just a little of Herman Wouk’s decision to become a novelist while reading on board a minesweeper in the South Pacific during WWII. In his case, I believe the book was Don Quixote, but Moby-Dick would work too: something to immerse yourself in (sorry, water pun). Although Wouk remained religious throughout his life.
I’ve never heard anyone compare poems to prayers. There’s Yeats’s “A Prayer for My Daughter,” but no, in general, they’re not.
Your site looks fine, very efficient layout. You might try playing around with Substack if you haven’t already — it apparently supports “seamless” import from Blogspot.
Thank you, Jacob, for this thoughtful and beautiful reflection. In me, art (namely poetry/literature) and spirituality come from the same “fire in the belly” and I love how you’ve shared the way they’re united for you. Thank you, Sari, for sharing this. I’ve just tried my hand at re-stacking--hope it works.
I got this to say in my essay some years back on the intersection of literary criticism and faith: "If not for the uncouth manner the sociology school seeks to rework art to make it say what they want, the entire enterprise would have been funny; funny in its compensation. Here are anti-religionists who would not be preached to seeking redemption in a work of art. Or perhaps it is because they resent the faith-based homily that makes them seek out its poor imitation. Nature, indeed abhors a vacuum, even a homiletic one, and, be careful what you don’t wish, for you may get it." You may access the full works here: https://www.creativewritingnews.com/literary-treatise-lionizing-the-feline-the-quest-for-social-commentary/