COMPLETE Creative Writer, Creative Literary Noir

Creative Writer, Creative Literary Noir

By Jacob Malewitz

Just what do I mean by literary noir? It’s not quite crime noir, but it has elements of it. It’s more of the modern way of literary writing, the kind that brings out interest in it. This sort of literary noir—which is my own thought—seems to be growing in the literary world, where phrases like metafiction are the new wave. It can be fun, it can be boring. This article makes it fun.

Creatively, some writers go to far. For one, the novel is a purely creative act. The problem is you can be far too creative with stories. I once interviewed a novelist, who noted that comic books, which can be literary noir too, are often more about high art than entertaining loyal fans. Loyal fans should be entertained. The likes of Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, and Frank Miller can make all the literary noir they can; they’re good at it. Other writers see art as a vessel of some kind, a vessel for winning awards and … well may that is a rant. Let’s get back to literary noir.

I see some of my favorite writers as people who understand literary noir. I have read some John Udpike, too much Paul Auster, and far too much horror noir. I see these as lessons, lessons on what the creative mind can do. If anyone created literary noir, this thinking game where characters are obtuse and odd and mysterious, I might point toward the writer of “Frankenstein” or the author of “Don Coyote,” two classics which, with all their facets, are vastly cerebral works of prose.

It can all be boring. The point is rather simple, as far away as it seems. A creative writer, all creative writers, will toy with literary noir on some level. It’s not quite high art. In short, it’s entertaining readers while also showing them that the words on the page can dance too, that the words will dance with you on the odd days … and there are many odd days.

Creative Writer, Creative Literary Noir PART 1

Creative Writer, Creative Literary Noir PART 1

By Jacob Malewitz

Just what do I mean by literary noir? It’s not quite crime noir, but it has elements of it. It’s more of the modern way of literary writing, the kind that brings out interest in it. This sort of literary noir—which is my own thought—seems to be growing in the literary world, where phrases like metafiction are the new wave. It can be fun, it can be boring. This article makes it fun.

Creatively, some writers go to far. For one, the novel is a purely creative act. The problem is you can be far too creative with stories. I once interviewed a novelist, who noted that comic books, which can be literary noir too, are often more about high art than entertaining loyal fans. Loyal fans should be entertained. The likes of Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, and Frank Miller can make all the literary noir they can; they’re good at it. Other writers see art as a vessel of some kind, a vessel for winning awards and … well may that is a rant. Let’s get back to literary noir.

Complete, Book Addiction

Complete, Book Addiction

By Jacob Malewitz

(Photo Courtesy Stock.Xchng)

There is a book at the beginning and at the end. It could be the Bible, perhaps, or another tome on what it is to Be, just Be and nothing else. That is going down a spiritual track. The book addiction, however, has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with working your way up to the literary noir, or the fantasy fun, or even the science fiction wonderment. Feel the book addiction? I think you do; I always had it. This piece highlights the book addiction.

The book addiction is collecting …

And building a library of good books is, in my opinion, a big thing. You go from the literary noir of Paul Auster, John Updike, and Michael Chabon, to the odd machinations of Isaac Asimov and Dan Simmons (those sci-fi masterpiece). Or maybe you go down the roads of fantasy, where J.R.R. Tolkien, J.K. Rowling, Robert Jordan, and many other popular writers of the field go.

But picking names is …

Just picking names. I mentioned a bunch of authors so far, but, truly, the only one I really love so far is Paul Auster, and even he can be bad. Picking out names is, however, part of the book addiction. You go for the big names and the small names, book addict, because that is the way to true reading light.

Reading light has …

Nothing to do with faith and plenty to do with time. I see the reading light as something to be explored by each of us; it has a power which cannot be understated. Opening a book, you smell the pages. Looking at the picture of the author, and you wonder. Reading light becomes something more than building a book library or hoping you can get a discounted copy of “The Lord of the Rings,” “Harry Potter,” or a Stephen King horror. It means adding up all the names together, putting each writer on his/her pedestal, but choosing, choosing which one shows you the true reading light.

Book buying is …

The true path to literary happiness. Maybe I am going too much into theory. Maybe you should just keep it simple, forgetting the light and just picking up that beaten copy of a John Steinbeck masterpiece, or the forgotten dime novel from the 1950s. They say things, these books, and they lead to addiction.

Article by Jacob Malewitz

Author, The Writer Who Smiles, Now Available from Booklocker

http://www.booklocker.com/books/3288.html

Writer A Writer’s Eye, A Reader’s Eye, A Comic Eye, Chasing Heaven, Story And Script

Book Addiction Part 1

Book Addiction Part 1

By Jacob Malewitz

There is a book at the beginning and at the end. It could be the Bible, perhaps, or another tome on what it is to Be, just Be and nothing else. That is going down a spiritual track. The book addiction, however, has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with working your way up to the literary noir, or the fantasy fun, or even the science fiction wonderment. Feel the book addiction? I think you do; I always had it. This piece highlights the book addiction.

The book addiction is collecting …

And building a library of good books is, in my opinion, a big thing. You go from the literary noir of Paul Auster, John Updike, and Michael Chabon, to the odd machinations of Isaac Asimov and Dan Simmons (those sci-fi masterpiece). Or maybe you go down the roads of fantasy, where J.R.R. Tolkien, J.K. Rowling, Robert Jordan, and many other popular writers of the field go.

But picking names is …

Just picking names. I mentioned a bunch of authors so far, but, truly, the only one I really love so far is Paul Auster, and even he can be bad. Picking out names is, however, part of the book addiction. You go for the big names and the small names, book addict, because that is the way to true reading light.

Article by Jacob Malewitz

Author, The Writer Who Smiles, Now Available from Booklocker

http://www.booklocker.com/books/3288.html

Writer A Writer’s Eye, A Reader’s Eye, A Comic Eye, Chasing Heaven, Story And Script

Complete, Inspiring Paul Auster

Reading the works of Paul Auster, you get a glimpse. Being a creative mind, I’m always astonished at just what Auster can do with the page on a daily basis. Sure, he’s a Brooklyn writer in the vein of Borges, with obvious French influences, French tastes for the certain ways that film makers, as an example, explore the depth of humanity. I love Paul Auster because, no matter how many stories he completes which are oddly similar, it’s as though you are turning the pages not because you have to, but because you must. What Paul Auster does better than many modern novelists is see the page, be the page, turn the page interesting, turn his characters inside out—pushing them to the extremes of humanity.

I first discovered Auster through a grad student who, through some circles, recommended the top novel “City of Glass” which is part of “The New York Trilogy,” a damn good title which fits the mold of what Auster is. Soon I went to the realms of outsiders looking into the madness of the world. Later in his career, his interests were far more plain, yet you could see the interest in this author from the beginning, intersest in what makes us be who we are.

So I look to Paul Auster, the author of so many fine novels, not a single poor one, perhaps flawed but not poor, and I see something akin to the literary sleuth, the kind of writer we need here in America to expunge us of all the finer details of a New York life, the kind you see on the road waiting for an idea to pop into his head. And as a novelist, Auster may have some peers. I would say, in terms of interest, the only comparable living author is Stephen King—and they are so far apart, there is plenty of room for both. I am missing out on many literary authors—Michael Chabon, John Updike—but I believe Auster has a more fascinating treatise on what it is to be in pain, living with all the bad and good of the world. Don’t look to closely too the French writers, because I believe Auster, who lived in Paris, wrote in Paris, and read of Paris, is one of another influences who learned his literary noir while living in the city—only to write about the city that rarely sleeps.

Article by Jacob Malewitz

Author, The Writer Who Smiles, Now Available from Booklocker

http://www.booklocker.com/books/3288.html

Writer A Writer’s Eye, A Reader’s Eye, A Comic Eye, Chasing Heaven, Story And Script

Inspiring Paul Auster Part 1

Inspiring Paul Auster Part 1

by Jacob Malewitz

Writer A Writer’s Eye, A Reader’s Eye, A Comic Eye, Chasing Heaven, Story And Script

Reading the works of Paul Auster, you get a glimpse. Being a creative mind, I’m always astonished at just what Auster can do with the page on a daily basis. Sure, he’s a Brooklyn writer in the vein of Borges, with obvious French influences, French tastes for the certain ways that film makers, as an example, explore the depth of humanity. I love Paul Auster because, no matter how many stories he completes which are oddly similar, it’s as though you are turning the pages not because you have to, but because you must. What Paul Auster does better than many modern novelists is see the page, be the page, turn the page interesting, turn his characters inside out—pushing them to the extremes of humanity.

I first discovered Auster through a grad student who, through some circles, recommended the top novel “City of Glass” which is part of “The New York Trilogy,” a damn good title which fits the mold of what Auster is. Soon I went to the realms of outsiders looking into the madness of the world. Later in his career, his interests were far more plain, yet you could see the interest in this author from the beginning, intersest in what makes us be who we are.