What is Good Writing?

Writing. I never spend much time on it. I can produce a large number of words in a relatively short span of time, but I can't start to worry about the quality. That leads down the dangerous, poorly paved path of perfectionism, which I know all too familiarly. We're basically old buddies who had a falling out. See, I realized I wasn't getting anything done with all my commas here, thesauruses there, and that my pal, perfectionism, was just holding me back.

This summer, I attempted to join my college newspaper, The Michigan Daily. Strange shame, I have not heard back. I assume this means they found me less than satisfactory, which is distressing to someone who prides himself first on writing. Ironically, I don't even read that publication. In fact, the only publication I've read consistently in the past many years is Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine. I don't even read that anymore.

In fact, I am an abysmally informed person, who largely relies on literature from the 19th century for his news updates. But that isn't the point. The point is, having been slightly snubbed, I look to myself for faults. But I am too in love with the way I think to see the problem. Thus, I here replicate my application book review, with the hope that you, my readership, might have enlightening views regarding why it failed so spectacularly to inspire a "callback."


Regarding Etgar Keret’s The Girl on the Fridge (Stories)

It’s tough enough finding time to do most of the assigned readings for classes, let alone to read for pleasure. But Etgar Keret’s The Girl on the Fridge is worth it. The quirky title tops a collection of 46 short stories translated from the original Hebrew, the longest of which are nine and seven pages respectively…double-spaced. The average is more like four pages, which is both ridiculously manageable and surprisingly rewarding.

Keret makes smooth use of his limited space, packing about forty clean narratives into 170 pages. Note the forty, because there are about six solid duds, which will probably leave you saying, “Huh?” Maybe someone out there finds them incredibly enlightening or moving, but they seemed to be an indulgence of the author, a kind of unnecessary, “Hey, I’m wacky. Check it out!” statement.

But when Keret is good, he is flawless. Some of his best stories do happen to be his longest, but that may be more coincidence than any real advantage provided by the additional space. The nine-pager is “Exclusive,” a mystery wadded up in a tight space. It doesn’t involve any corpses, (at least not directly) but instead centers on a girlfriend’s unexplained departure to the big city and a sledgehammer. Some of the first, intriguing words in the story are, “All women reporters are whores.”

The second longest story is “Not Human Beings,” a surreal trip into the Gaza Strip with the Israeli Border Police. Keret exercises magic realism here to effectively darken the tone of the piece and its discussion of racism in the Middle East. One character, upon borrowing a combat knife, says, “‘The compass on the handle isn’t working,’” and within the short form context of the work, a detail like that is everything. The broken compass on the weapon is a stand-in for the Israeli soldiers’ own moral compasses, crippled by a violent but pervasive racism.

The strongest story, however, is “Vacuum Seal,” another exercise in Etgar Keret’s essentially ubiquitous magic realism. Unfortunately, it is so short that explaining the premise itself would ruin the experience, and that would be unforgivable.

Throughout, it’s Etgar Keret’s detail that is most interesting. His pictures are frighteningly complete with a bare minimum of prose, so when he deigns to describe something further, it jumps out in sharp focus. The similes and metaphors he uses are epic in their sensibility, as when the narrator of the title story, “The Girl on the Fridge,” says, “The more he thought about it, the more his childhood seemed like a cavity in somebody else’s tooth—unhealthy, but no big deal, at least not to him.”

Keret tackles issues like love, racism, and suicide with a kind of reckless abandon. He is never squeamish, and seldom disappointing. If you can find the time for even a few pages a day, Etgar Keret’s The Girl on the Fridge definitely deserves that time.

END

So, that is my book review. Note that while my review may be in some way fatally flawed, the book which it reviews is most definitely not--I stand by my very high recommendation of it. For now, the question of the day is a slightly bitter, "Why am I not considered a decent writer by Daily standards?" Ah, to have answers.

Sincerely,
Spencer Miles Kimball