Response to Ted, Death of Literature, A Final Rant.

This is Julianna Baggott's response to Ted Genoways' piece in MOTHER JONES, "The Death of Fiction?"


Dear Ted,

I'm teaching this essay in both a grad and undergrad class -- discussing the larger issues at play. Personally, I have trouble with the idea of literature as dying as I'm only second generation literate. There were only three books in my grandmother's house -- thousands in mine. And I'm not alone. And all those who are studying the craft of writing are also learning to be better readers -- of lit mags? Perhaps not, but overall ... Plus, the definition of a bestseller from the 70s to now has grown about ten-fold. People bemoan the huge corporate bookstore -- but not every little town had a corner bookstore -- and who knew there were so many books in the world? They built it. They came. Our desires got skewed ...

Lit mags, though, agreed. But it's not just the writers out there who have to be adaptable if they want to survive ... Lit mags have to be willing to grow some webbed feet.

I don't want to get the rep for beating the sexist drum too hard, but I was looking at an issue of VQR not long ago and it was dominated by male writers and poets. This may well be a fluke, but, Ted, now that I've heard your call to to arms here -- almost a literal call to arms as you're looking for more voices from our current wars (I think our big writers from other wars is largely a function of other wars having a draft) -- I'm a little worried about how this plays out ....

Listen for a moment -- the realm of the domestic (home to the navel -- which for women, hey, it's how we actually sustain life...) -- has historically been whose domain? The woman's. And haven't we taken enough guff for being too domestic? That our novels aren't about the "big" "important" themes of war, adventure, the larger world?

Personally, I've heard enough about it. Ask Virginia -- before she filled her pockets with stones -- how the domestic could be a battlefield.

I was having kids during my early writing years (and later ones) -- four total. And though my novels have led me far and wide in terms of research, do you want to know what I really understand about the world?

How a baby's eyelids go pink just before it starts to cough.

That is my lifeblood, Ted.

THAT is what I know.

I cannot tell you about the world of war -- or that larger world you want me to look out onto. I'm trapped here now, supporting a family of six -- sole breadwinner -- my livelihood as well as my lifeblood. I only know this trapped world -- but here is my report from those front lines:

It is bloody and filled with grief and loss ... If looked at closely enough, it holds the whole world within it. And I'm not the first writer or last to say it so.

Sincerely,

Julianna Baggott

Baby Scares Me.

I say to the 2 year old, "Hey, what do you want?"

"A ball. I need your head." He's pretty matter-of-fact.

This would make anyone uncomfortable, no?

Kid Quotage Update. PUT YOUR EYE OUT Vindication.

9 year old is doing an impersonation of a health teacher. "I'm multitasking," he says in a gruff Jersey accent, "smoking AND talking at the same time."

***

13 year old offers to beat up a kid who slugged his younger brother in the eye with an air-soft gun. "Just because he's part-Asian doesn't mean he's a Ninja."


***

After the air-soft gun shooting, I asked the 9 year old (with whom I've had many arguments about paint guns etc...), "Did it almost put your eye out?"

"No," he said. "It hit me in the eyebrow."

"How far is your eye from your eyebrow?"

"An inch."

"Did it almost put your eye out -- by an inch?"

"Yes, yes!" he ADMITS IT. "It almost put my eye out!"

OH MOTHERS OF THE AGES -- oh, Mothers of BOYS WITH STICKS and beebee guns and paint guns and archery sets and air soft guns -- vindication is ours, this day, oh mothers! Vindication is ours!

Um. Helloooo....

Yesterday, I looked at Dave and said, "Where did the beard come from?" Evidently, he's had a couple of weeks. I told the kids. "Your dad has a beard." "Huh," they said and they liked it. Me, too. But now I wonder, has the house been repainted? Has a new hotel gone up right next to my office? Is that our dog? -- What else have I missed?

The Set Up.

So, my mother calls and launches into a story about how my father -- in an effort to save money -- once reverted to a "party phone line." This means that at some point in the late 70s, my family shared a phone line with the Cunninghams who lived down the street. We had a family of six -- and I think they might have had a family of ... 8?

In any case, my mother would pick up the phone and someone up there would be chatting away. We'd talk and they'd pick up. My mother said, "Your father! He really had a way with pinching pennies!"

At the time, my mother said this as if it were a good thing, as if my father possessed some rare talent -- circus worthy.

But later, as I'm telling my husband the story in bed, I realize that my mother was setting me up. Pinching pennies? That's not a rare talent. That's something that one would deride in a public forum if one were a writer and said person with said rare talent were the writer's father...

In other words, my mother was totally setting me up to tell a penny-pitching tale on my father ... in hopes of ... what?

The man is un-embarrass-able. He lacks the genetic coding.

And so here I am ... Who's having the tale told on whom?

I have no idea.

Baby Says -- Back off my chapstick!

So Dave tells me the 2 year old is eating Chapstick. They're out at an older kid's soccer practice -- ever the demoted life of the youngest of 4 -- and he says to Dave, "I eating my Chapstick!"

Dave says, "Don't eat Chapstick, man."

He says, "I'm teeeeasing!"

Moments later, Dave looks over and sees that the 2 year old's teeth are coated in Chapstick.

I suggest, "Maybe he has a different definition of 'I'm teasing.' Maybe to him it means, 'Back off! Can't a man eat his Chapstick in peace?'"

I'm flash-backing -- as I say this -- to all the odd and foul things he's told me recently that he's "teeeasing" about.

I shudder.

More Christmas Log -- 2009

December 27th, 2009

11:33 am --Ever since finally seeing The Secretary, Dave sometimes calls me Ms. Baggott through the baby monitor while I'm working.

11:02-- My two year old son is off to the grocery store -- with his man purse and his ... man bracelet? Let's be honest. He picked out the velvet leiderhaussen and the hand-me-down cow-print coat for the party. He's got style.4:01 pm --First rule of potluck. There is no potluck. (Of course, there's a potluck. And our hosts grew up in, I want to say, Minnesota therefore it will be hearty.)

Dec. 26th -- A day of rest for the Log. Only one entry.

9:45pm -- I say to the two year old, "Your sitter Perri comes back tomorrow! And you can show her your presents!" He says, "An' Santa will tome. An' he will dive me more pwesents an' he will put dem under the twee. An' I will open dem an' it will be merry Twismas!" "Oh, no. Um, sorry. Christmas is over. That part is done." "He not toming back tomorrow?" "No." "How bout to-later?" "He'll come back a really long time from now when you're three years old." "Santa is cweepy an' nice." "I agree."

Dec. 25th

3:53pm --On the way to the potluck, I will reiterate the rules of potluck. "Potluck isn't luck. It's all skill. Case the table while they're putting out utensils. Hover like choppers. Go in early. Round two, look for tipsy adults and slip in between the weak links. Final rule of potluck? Do not, on the car... ride home, say you're hungry."

3:17pm -- In preparationg for Robert Downing Jr in Sherlock Holmes, we read some Sherlock Holmes. (And RDJ is right. Watson really gazes very lovingly at Holmes. Very, very lovingly. Plus, I had to explain that in days of yore, ejaculating was another acceptable term for exclaiming. Words.)

3:12pm -- No holiday boardgames. (Those of you have experienced the let's-get-pumped head-butts of Pictionary -- Doug Cassler -- and/or the tackling in joy -- Chris Canning Esposito (still feel bad about knocking your tooth out during racquetball in '89) and/or the pen-throwing glass-frame-breaking Scrabble ...-- ahem, Mr. Scott -- will understand why. It's almost as bad as our family history.

3:06pm --The homemade Christmas tree cake has a dent. To quote Spongebob, "It'll buff out."

3:03pm -- Driving Green Machine slowly, carefully in my yellow galloshes with 2 year old at the controls -- feeling the burn -- and then feel the whiz of a football as it careens past my head. Near catastrophe averted -- meaning one of the boys got really lucky.

12:47pm -- We can find the sneaker that whacked the 12 year old in the forehead by tracing -- CSI-style -- the tread marks on his skin. (9 year old threw shoe out of anger at the hot wheels race track. I'm blaming NASCAR.) I consoled with the old adage, "A Christmas black-eye is the specialist!"

11:22 am -- Momentary commercialism angst -- what if all the stores really are close out there -- just like France on Sundays and most Mondays and during the lunch hour and in the evenings?

11:05 am -- The 2 year old is addicted to "lollicanes." I feel we're in for the DTs, man. It's gonna be ugly.