Proximity Mines, Archives: The Problem of Fictional Realism
Date
2017-12-13
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Abstract
The twenty-five short stories that comprise the creative component of Proximity Mines, Archives, while not linked in any strict formal sense, do share, in breadth of theme and comic temperament, a certain fixation on the psychological, social, and narratological difficulties attendant to the creation of realistic fiction. Employing a range of styles, from the subdued, minimalist strategies of Lydia Davis, Amy Hempel, and Raymond Carver, through the more exuberant, genre-dissolving prose of Donald Barthelme, David Foster Wallace, and Joshua Cohen, the collection performs and, in its sequencing, enacts a story of artistic maturation. Featuring a large cast of would-be writers and academics, the collection is at once deeply self-conscious and satirical. In composing a collection of disparate, fiendishly protean, short stories—from the stylistically sedate first-person narrative of “Terminal” through any number of long, one-sentence stories, pastiches, and nimbly ironic adaptations of canonical works (e.g., “Hills Like White Elephants, POV Hill”)—the collection both traces and challenges traditional forms of fictional representation.
The accompanying critical afterword to this collection considers the relationship between creative writing and academic commentary, particularly as these roles fall to one author. Eschewing a standard, or purely theoretical approach, I undertake a vigorously subjective examination of the wide range of literary influences underpinning the stories in this collection. While examining the stylistic practices of a variety of writers (Mark Anthony Jarman, Stanley Elkin, Yann Martel), I make a case for my own aestheticism, aligning myself with those writers for whom the sentence serves as first philosophy. Finally, I argue that the inclusion of self-conscious or metafictive elements in a piece of fiction is not antithetical to literary realism.
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Creative Writing, Short Story