This is my first time participating in a Spotlight Series blog tour, and I hope not my last!  What is the Spotlight Series?  It takes the form of blog tours, focusing on small press publishers, their authors, and their books.  The current tour, running from July 18-31, is all about Graywolf Press.  Graywolf Press publishes a wide range of books, from translations to literary criticism to poetry.

Although I already have at least one book (“The Looking House” , poetry by Fred Marchant) published by Graywolf Press, I chose to read and discuss “Burning Down the House” by Charles Baxter. 

 I’m a fan of the books and short stories of Charles Baxter (that I have read so far), but especially “The Feast of Love”.  When I first read “The Feast of Love” which takes place in Ann Arbor, I was also living in Ann Arbor at the time, and so was Charles Baxter.  Then, he was a professor at University of Michigan along with being a writer.  Now he is teaching at the University of Minnesota.  “Burning Down the House” seems to be a product of his professorial requirements.  Neither a novel or short story collection, and subtitled “Essays on Fiction”, it is described on the back cover as “a groundbreaking collection of essays on the craft of writing and the writer’s life“, and “has been enjoyed by readers and taught in classrooms for more than a decade“.  Taught in classrooms?  That explains the frequent textbook-like tone of this book. 

Not having a college literature background (I majored in science instead, unfortunately), I sometimes felt lost during reading these essays — mostly when Mr. Baxter was referring to works of literature (and this was often, I’m afraid) that I have never read.  I still found some thought-provoking  moments.  Some other parts, though, I want to go back to again to absorb a bit deeper in my mind (especially since I had to speed-read the last couple essays; not realizing my post was to go up today rather than a couple days from now).

“Burning Down the House” isn’t really about the “nuts and bolts” of writing, but aims to analyze the various flaws found in contemporary fiction.  The essays include titles such as:

• Dysfunctional Narratives, or: “Mistakes Were Made”
• Against Epiphanies
• Counterpointed Characterizations
• Maps and Legends of Hell: Notes on Melodrama

There were a few quotable gems from this book.  I’m not sure that I can get away with quoting very many of them, so I’ll just include a couple.

From the essay, “Rhyming Action” — which I liked, because Baxter displays more humor in this essay than the rest:

“Contemplating the lives of poets, however, is a sobering activity.  It often seems as if the poets have extracted pity and terror from their work so that they could have a closer firsthand experience of these emotions in their own lives.  A poet’s life is rarely one that you would wish upon your children.  It’s not so much that poets are unable to meet various payrolls; it’s more often the case that they’ve never heard of a payroll.”

But, then, Baxter says in the same essay:

“Prose writers, however, are no better.  Their souls are usually heavy and managerial.  Prose writer of fiction are by nature a sullen bunch.  The strain of inventing one plausible event after another in a coherent narrative chain tends to show in their faces”.

From “Regarding Happiness”, which examines why so much of fiction has unhappiness running through:

“Anyone who has taught literature probably has had….the students in class complain that the texts they have been assigned to study are “depressing.”  The stories are “morbid.”  Their endings are “sad.”  Sometimes the students become more aggressive in the pursuit of good cheer. “Why”, they ask, “can’t we read some novels and stories about happiness?”

Baxter says that “We all understand intuitively that reading about the happiness of others is often boring.”   He also quotes Oscar Levant, who once said, “Happiness isn’t something you experience; it’s something you remember”.

So, it gets me thinking about what great books have been solely about happiness and/or have happy endings.  I can’t think of any off-hand.  I’m sure there are lots of  happy novels, but to me, they are mostly forgettable.  Do you agree?

“Burning Down the House” is a good and thought-provoking collection of essays.  But at the same time, to be fully appreciated,  it requires from the reader more of a literature background than I have.  Still, I think I got enough from this book to think a bit more critically about why certain books might not work for me, and why some books more satisfying than others. 

My version of  ”Burning Down the House” is an Expanded Edition (2008; 233 pages), with a new prologue and two extra essays than the original edition published in 1997.  You may want to keep this in mind if you want to acquire a copy of your own.  To read an excerpt from this book, here is Charles Baxter’s preface at the Graywolf Press site.

Interested in visiting other Spotlight Series tour stops about Graywolf Press books?  Good!  Here is the link that will take you to all the tour stops.

Disclosure: “Burning Down the House” by Charles Baxter was purchased by me.