I have been reading Joni Tevis for capstone. Her collection of essays, The Wet Collection is fantastic! I’m already beginning a grieving process for when I finish the book and I have to
move on to something else! The essay that has moved me the most in writing style and content is “Building a Funeral.” Tevis writes on a dry season of her life in Texas, working in a funeral home. What impresses me beyond her writing style is the variance of emotions she is able to produce off of one broad subject matter. Sometime I struggle to keep myself from reading ten sections aloud when my roommates are around because I am either laughing or my heart is breaking over something.
Here are a few sections from “Building a Funeral,” just to portray the moods I am describing:
He flips to the next page of the Why Pre-Plan? section, a photo of a teary woman in a black blouse. “Stress to the families that pre-planning sends a message of love to those left behind,” he tells me. “It says to them, ‘I love you and I don’t want you to have to make these decisions alone.’” The woman in the photo looks tired, in need of a comforting shoulder, a drink, a makeover. If only she’d pre-planned. “Why should so many widows be compelled to make these decisions alone?” reads the caption. Much of the sales pitch directly targets women, though nobody admits
it. (34)
The mother doesn’t say much. Her sisters take care of the forms, the signatures, the money. I can’t look at her. I cannot help her, I know; it is enough that I do no harm.
“Will we have to pay for everything right now?” one sister asks, “or can we do a payment plan?”
“Well, we only allow payments on pre-need packages,” I say, hiding behind the euphemisms. “When it’s at-need, the company requires payment in full.”
“What’s at-need?” she asks.
“It means we need it right now,” sobs the mother.
Later, we walk the narrow road to the space together. I hold the lot book and look away when they cry. A pine tree and the shadow of a pine tree. He was eleven years old. The service will be Tuesday. (43)
Most of them add one or two clods of dirt, then pass the shovel on, but one handsome boy of eighteen or twenty loosens his tie and keeps digging. It’s not ceremonial; he wants to fill the grave. The shovel bites into the mound of dirt. He bears down on his loafer-clad foot, lifts his load, and throws it in the hole, violently. Time and again he does this. There’s a rosebud stuck in
his back pocket. His Adam’s apple shakes as he fights back tears. (46)
Style-wise, I am constantly influenced by Tevis’ use of listing. Sometimes her lists are in commas, other times in fragments. But the quality of the listing is in the rhythm she uses while still developing the setting. Some of the listing is in the structure of the essay, segmented into numbers or mini-titles.
Once again, I am shown the importance of using concrete metaphors to enhance setting; metaphors involving the five senses and objects that we as readers know so well. Here’s a section from “Postcards from Costa Rica”:
Meanwhile a woman does many things at once: washes a huge aluminum stockpot, relights the
gas with a piece of paper after a gust blows it out, stirs a bubbling kettle of beans Another woman cries out with joy when a child appears in the open doorway. Dressed in dark pants and a pressed white shirt, he carries a bag of books, ready for a day at school. After hugging him close she seats him at a table and gives him breakfast – beans and rice, eggs, a glass of juice. They talk quietly between bites. (55)
I’m encouraged by Tevis’ willingness to write about things that don’t necessarily have one strong message, but it seems it’s just what she wants to write about. Within that randomness, the reader feels totally connected.
READ IT!!! And that’s all.
That’s a really interesting concept—writing about whatever you want and having it come out in a way that the reader still feels connected. Do you think that’s just Tevis being a genius, or do you think it just worked out that way for her while writing? I feel like if I wasn’t careful about what I write about, it would seem really fragmented. It wouldn’t have the cohesive feel like you’re talking about in this collection. Do you think it just spawns from having thought about a concept so deeply that it comes out in what is written, even if it does not explicitly deal with that struggle or idea?
ReplyDeleteJust as a quick question, are these personal essays or short stories? I feel like they could go either way. By “collection,” I assumed they were short stories, but I thought I’d check anyway. Is the collection pretty cohesive, or does it just seem that way, without really having a theme of any sort?
Does she say what inspired these? I tend to draw what I write about from my experiences, and from the sounds of it, Tevis must have really excited and really sad memories. I wonder if she actually saw the scene in Costa Rica, or what brought on the idea to write about funerals and the people who plan and attend them—even exploring how people are affected by grief.
I agree too that all of her imagery is very concrete and tangible. You can feel the emotion and tone of the scene without reading much of the selection. I kind of feel like her sentence structure is a bit repetitive, though it does help to set the tone of the scene. I wonder if these excerpts would have the same emotion, setting, and response from the reader had she done something other than this style.
I just got The Wet Collection to start soon as my next book for capstone. From reading reviews around on the web, I was eager to start reading it, but now I'm even more excited after seeing these excerpts.
ReplyDeleteI, too, find it very interesting to be able to write "random" things without a theme -- especially since what I'm trying to pin down on my own personal essay right now is the strong emotional center. I wonder if it's really possible to have a good connection to readers while writing like a spaz (for lake of a better word). With all the revisions work goes through, Tevis must find herself cutting here and embellishing there just like all the rest of us. I'd be interested to hear what her reasoning is for keeping the memories and scenes she chooses, why she arranges them the way she does. Perhaps she's able to connect emotionally with her audience because these things are all thematically related in her life even if an explicit theme doesn't show through in her writing.
In any case, I think it would be freeing for all of us to write what we feel like writing and let it take us where it will. Though it will most certainly take a new shape in revision, it's often the most productive way for me to get started on writing at all.
I've never read Joni Tevis on my own, but I've heard/read excerpts like these, and I'm always struck by her intensity. There is so much LIFE in her work, even when she's talking about hard things, about death. She seems to engage with life fully, to embrace the little things that make up the big thing life is, and to envision everything clearly. Her writing is so imagistic that I imagine her life to be much more interesting than mine.
ReplyDeleteIn reality, I think she just has a good eye and a deep desire to share her view with others. At least I hope so. That's how it seems to me.
Thanks for sharing!
i just loved the image used in the second passage, when they are choosing the grave site for the little boy: "A pine tree and the shadow of a pine tree." It may have been there in the scene, but regardless, it is a gentle, powerful word about what it means for this little boy to have died. The image stands for more than a thousand abstractions could declare.
ReplyDeletei like that you pointed out the seeming "randomness" of what Trevis writes about. That brings me back to how we writers should be the first ones to care about what we are writing; how else could we ask the second audience, our readers, to care?
I must say, this has been recommended to me several times and I finally went online and bought it after reading your review. The variance of emotions that you talk about is clear through your examples. I am looking forward to connecting to her array of experiences under the roof of funerals.
ReplyDeleteThe scene of the young man shoveling is simple and deep at the same moment. This "simple yet deep" concept has been on my mind since critiquing last Friday. A member in our group wrote an essay about religion, but it was neither dry nor foreboding, neither complicated nor "surface-y." It was simple yet deep. I think that Tevis could have overdone the depiction of the grieving young man, but he did not. He stuck with emphasizing the urgency of his action and his Adam's apple signified the inner struggle. The rosebud in his back pocket is the perfect image for this scene, because it is misplaced but also likely. As a writer I hope to convey emotion by showing rather than telling like Tevis did here. I hope to include the extra rosebud that would otherwise be overlooked.
I'm really drawn to the idea of writing about something totally random and yet connecting so much to the reader. Sometimes I think that might make for the most powerful writing because that's the kind of thing that stays in people's minds the longest. It really connects with how we see things as humans, and I believe that if you can master it and manage to capture the significance, you can become a powerful writer. The hardest thing is to make sure that you keep your focus on your own thoughts and reactions to ideas, so that you can be perfectly honest with the reader.
ReplyDeleteThe enthusiasm was another thing that I caught onto, in that Trevis really sounded excited to share those stories, which made me more excited to read them. Enthusiasm is catchy!
This is not an author or a book that I have ever heard of, so I'm curious: You mentioned randomness, but is there any sort of theme to the essays or reason for them? Is it true randomness? What does the title mean?
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned style elements such as lists and concrete metaphors; are these things you now find yourself practicing in your own writing, or are they just tucked away as tips for later? Do you find yourself taking any other practical writing tips away from her?
I love the lists.
ReplyDeleteI also loved the section that described the man filling in the grave. So much emotion hidden there, but she does a good job of showing instead of simply telling.
"A pine tree and a shadow of a pine tree" is also really powerful. I wanted it to keep going, and I wanted to understand further what exactly all of this meant. I love it when authors explain things in strange or interesting ways that affect how the reader will take it in.
Also, feel free to read sections out loud at random if you'd like - since I'm your roommate. :)
I love how you talk directly about the exact things you take away from this writer. Sometimes we are overwhelmed by the amazingness of some writing that we just want to mimic it all. It's really nice to focus on just one thing to try to imitate, and then once you get that skill down, the others will be easier to grasp onto.
ReplyDeleteThose little quotes you gave from the book were really well written. You were right that the randomness is something that helps it along. It feels more real that way, and it also helps to take away from the severity of a really intense scene, helps to make it not so dramatic.
Elsie, great post! I liked what you said at the end, about your interest in the author's willingness to write about things that don't necessarily carry one strong message. It reminds me of what Leif Enger said at the breakout chapel yesterday. He doesn't really write with an agenda in mind. He just tells the story how it is, and you can't hold the character by the hand and lead them through it, you just have to stand back and watch what happens.
ReplyDeleteThat's how I feel about the burial scene you talked about. The family's grief is real and raw, and there's nothing anyone can do to help them. The narrator can only look away as they cry.