Feelin' Whitehead


Sag Harbor isn’t the most spicy action book we’ve read this semester. Some would even say that nothing actually happened. I agree. However, it was still a striking read to me because of the recent semester project.

If you are not a practiced writer, maybe you can relate to this thought: I’m sure I could write a bestseller if I wanted to, how hard can it be? I’ve admittedly toyed with this thought from time to time, usually because I’m reading a book that’s so good it seems to have flowed smoothly right from the author’s life onto paper. How hard could it be? Well, the answer is very hard, and every so often I am reminded by something like the semester project to take myself down a peg. Catch me racking my brain to come up with something to describe that isn’t Holden’s eyes or the color of the sky. Writing a book seems easy until you realize you have no idea how to string words together. Despite my mediocre end product, I really appreciated the semester project for what it taught me, and not just that writing is terribly hard. It also showed me what my writing style is like—what my sentence structure naturally manifests into, what details I focus on, etc. Then, we started reading Sag Harbor and all of a sudden I actually paid attention to the author’s writing. It’s like you can’t really appreciate the intricacies of something until you have explored it yourself, like how a non-musician doesn’t see the complication of classical music. Point is, I actually appreciated a writer’s skill, which I don’t often do. Also, I noticed something even more incredible—there were similarities between Whitehead’s and my own writing style! Don’t get me wrong—my writing is like a toddler banging around a playpen compared to Whitehead’s suave, wise adult…person… but still, I felt an odd connection to him that I don’t usually feel to authors. Like, if I were to train super hard in writing and learning literature combined with natural talent, then Whitehead’s style would be the one I approached.

Anyways. In other topics Sag Harbor made me sad about the passage of time and the sucky realities about human nature and how no matter how much you hope the people you meet will be permanent fixtures and always make the effort to love you, chances are they will “stop coming out” and just never give you another passing thought.

But mostly it was cool to read the writing.

Comments

  1. ChristinaMay 19, 2019 at 10:48 AM

    I love this post. It's so true that writing is a difficult form of art to master. I also realized just how difficult writing (specifically fiction) was when I attempted my own version of Catcher in the Rye for the semester project.
    I personally enjoyed reading the chapters from Sag Harbor that seemed uneventful and almost monotone on the surface but has so many underlying issues and messages. "To Prevent Flare-Ups" is a really good example of this. Some people complained how it was just about Benji watching an old movie at home during a BBQ. While that statement is true, we see his father's terrifying temperment and how Benji does all he can to avoid setting his father off. I'm still unsure how Whitehead pulled off this effect, but without a doubt, I'm incredibly impressed.

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  2. Smita NairMay 19, 2019 at 11:55 AM

    I think there can be some good to impermanence as well- at least for me, I feel like it removes the pressure to gain respect from people who I know will be transient in my life. Like, if I give a really, just, god awfully wrong answer in history, that's pretty embarrassing, but who's gonna be thinking about it 20 years after graduation?

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  3. NikaMay 19, 2019 at 1:53 PM

    This was a really interesting blog post to read as somebody aspiring to be a writer. While I didn't have this sense of connectivity with Sag Harbour, I definitely had a feeling of connection to the writing of Salinger during Catcher of the Rye. However, it was less of a seeing the similarities between our writing styles - our writing styles are quite different, I'd think - but much more of inspiration to try his writing style and to try to experiment with my own writing more. In any case, there was a connection, sort of similar to the one you've described. For my Catcher in the Rye essay, I did end up writing about Portrait of the Artist as Holden Caufield and getting to experiment with Holden's voice was a highlight of the class for me.

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  4. ZonaMay 20, 2019 at 7:58 AM

    This is so true, it's always easier to appreciate something after you've gone through it. But I guess it was also easier to write after reading so many books and discussing the writing as well. I guess it goes both ways, but this class has also made me appreciate just the writing.

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  5. Dylan BMay 20, 2019 at 6:43 PM

    I definitely got this from the semester project, too, except maybe in a slightly different way. I did my project on the scene with Mr. Antolini from Catcher, despite quite disliking the book on my first read. But as I closely read and took notes on the chapter, I began to see how Salinger had crafted his story, and it encouraged me to look at other parts to see what I had missed out on. I found that I really enjoyed the book.

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  6. BettyMay 24, 2019 at 8:10 PM

    The semester project and all the pastiches I've done (both in this class and 20th Century Novel) have really helped me understand the nuances of each author's style. Pastiches and the semester project have helped me appreciate details such as how an author writes dialogue, introduces us to a character, and author's sentence structure. On one hand, I agree with you Emi, whenever I try to mimic another author's style I'm struck by how amazing that author is and how terrible my own writing is in comparison. But also I like how the semester project and pastiches help you learn more about your own writing style especially when a writer has a writing style that very different from your's and you have to pay extra attention to what you write (*cough* this is why I'm never doing a Hemingway pastiche *cough*)

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