Creative writing is fun

I attended the creative writing seminar that featured undergraduate contest winners. (12:05-1:20)  

The first seminar was a lot different than I thought it would be. I was mistaken, but I had thought that creative writing was typically going to be funny, out there, and random. I thought creative writing was a lot like The Onion. I was wrong. I learned that creative writing is more... well, just that. It's honestly a lot like writing a story. The three that read their essays were more or less based on experiences. Daniel Daw simply wrote about goats. He had taken his experiences from his travels to Great Britain and wrote about something (that to me) is meaningless, but to him, it made the trip that much more meaningful. It was an interesting article, and it really put perspective on what I thought writing should be. 

A Slice of Calvinism and Friendship

Last week I attended two presentations that were part of BYU's English Symposium. I attended the "Calvinism in 17th Century British Literature," followed by the "English Reading Series: Allie Condie."

The first presentation had three students reading their research papers on various topics. Hannah DeTavis opened with her research on Margaret Fell Fox and and Fox's fight for the right for women to speak during church. Jeremy Loutensock followed Hannah with his research on Lucy Hutchinson's On the Principles of the Christian Religion. One of the main points that stuck out to me was Hutchinson's belief in predestination, and that she believed that recognizing one's sins and mistakes could indicate that they are one of God's elect instead of it being an indication that they were created to fail. Olivia L. Moskot went last and read her research on George Herbert. Like Jeremy's research, Olivia chose to focus on predestination. She mentioned some of George Herbert's poems and used a few metaphors to describe our relationship with God.

The second presentation was a book reading by Allie Condie. She opened by reading two reviews she received on her books. One was her very first book review, and it was brutal. The second had a more positive tone to it. Condie wanted the audience to know not to give up after their first try, even if it's terrible. After a while, Condie started reading her novel, Summerlost. It is a book about a young girl who lost her father and one of her brother's in a car accident. Her family moved to a small town with a festival. Condie let us know that the town was based off of Cedar City and the festival was not unlike the Shakespeare Festival. Ultimately, Condie said Summerlost was a story about "friendship," which is a different kind of love than what she usually writes about.

BYU English Symposium

This past Thursday and Friday, BYU had an english symposium where they had many different panels, presentations, about a wide variety of topics.  I only made it to 2 of the presentations, the 3mp competition, and a panel called "The Range of Rhetoric".  The 3mp competition, which stands for 3 minute presentation, had 11 different presenters with a wide variety of topics ranging from feminism, to education, to even just our different portrayal and understanding of villains.  They were all interesting presentations, and I could tell that they had all put a lot of work in, and were very well put together. One that piqued my interest in particular though, was one by Elizabeth Young, who's presentation was entitled "Baudrillard's Hyperrealities: The Case for Living in a World of Simulations".  This one interested me, mainly because I basically did a literary review in my Technical Communications class about this very subject, which was how Virtual Reality can and is used in educational settings, for training simulations, and the like.

The second panel that I went to, which was called the Range of Rhetoric, as mentioned previously, had three presenters that each presented different uses of rhetoric in differing fields; one talked about religion, another Bio-genetics, and the third Statistics.  They each had their different approaches, and had some fascinating ideas.  The first presenter, Mitchell Holman, talked about Erasmus and Martin Luther's debate, and their different approaches, and talked about the importance of listening-rhetoric.  He compared the debate between the Catholic Church and Martin Luther to our political debates today, where there are 2 opposing, extreme viewpoints, that argue vehemently against each other, and refuse to compromise at all.  He spent most of his time talking about the viewpoint of Erasmus, who sought to seek understanding from opposing viewpoints, and seek a compromise that both sides can be happy with, yet no one listened to him, and the presenter talked about the importance of trying to use listening-rhetoric, and trying to understand other viewpoints than our own.  The second presenter, Alexis Polson, talked about how she transformed her literary review about cancer into a magazine article that could help those diagnosed with cancer to better understand what's going on, since many of them don't understand what exactly is happening to them because of all the medical and scientific jargon that goes on with explaining things to them.  And lastly, the final presenter, Brandon King, talked about the business model of pay what you want that has been happening in the video game industry, and the company that has found success with that model.

The World's Pickiest Eater

In the Starving Artist, a man is depicted who has devoted his entire life to learning the craft of fasting. It states in the story that he is capable of going up to forty days with no food, and that he cherishes it when people admire him for his accomplishments. He is described as extremely malnourished, although he never complains, or cries, but is instead very stoic and calm. When I was reading this story through the first time, I was impressed with the feeling the author used to describe the different stages of the Hunger artist’s life. There was a high note, where he was on top of the world, and many people had respect for his craft, even though there were quite a few who thought that it must be fake. Take that in contrast with the end of the book, where he sits in a cage at a circus-like event, where people pass by and offer mostly pity, with much less of the adoration that he used to enjoy. We think that this story is going to be one that maybe celebrates his accomplishments, then we think that it is actually about the Hunger artist’s downfall, as his popularity wanes. At the end of the story, however, the piece actually becomes quite satirical and funny in my opinion, when with his dying breath, the Hunger artist explains that the only reason he enjoyed fasting, was because he could never find a type of food that he actually liked. We have this amazing backstory explaining the life of this mysterious and obsessed man, wholly dedicated to his craft, only to find out at the end that all of the self-control and diligence we thought he had was only a product of how picky of an eater he was. Which basically makes the reader lose all respect they once had for him, as it seems less impressive when the only reason you don’t eat is because you don’t like the food.

A Fast Way to Die

Kafka's "A Hunger artist" was a very interesting read. It lead me think much about the art of performing and why people like musicians, athletes, and performers do the things they do.

The story itself was odd and at times rabid. The title first caught my attention, and when I realized that the story revolved around someone who had a talent for fasting, I wondered why on earth the story would be interesting. Who would want to see someone in a cage, doing nothing? However, the story revolves around the deep meaning of the actual hunger artist and why he did what he did.

I found it interesting to consider why the hunger artist simply performed all his life with the help (and sometimes, for the artist, too much help) of his parter. Here was his talent: not eating. Impressive? Sure, but it what does it do for society? The entertainment is boring and there seems to be no message in why he is doing it. We may wish to consider another man who fasted- Gandhi. He fasted (though not for 40 days) with a purpose. His fastings were a key drive to his movements and philosophy. The hunger artist fasted for entertainment.

When his "art" died out he felt he needed to finish what he had started. Instead of finding something else to do that might give his life a little more meaning, he joined a circus to finish his "career" in fasting. It was here that he died alone, under straw, and admitted to the last man he spoke with that he fasted because he couldn't find anything he liked to eat.

That final confession from him truly shoes the complexity of his character, He spent his who life seeking attention and affection from the crowd because he didn't like food. To me, this shows how, sometimes, people use the strangest ways to seek attention. Sure, he was good at what he did and it's not his fault he didn't like eating. However, he could have done 100 other things with his life for attention and affection. He chose, ultimately, to use his "talent", and from this choice, he died the strange man that had no true fans.

Fasting Forty Days and Forty Nights

In Kafka's short story "The Hunger Artist", is an interesting short story, which follows his style of writing strange, and somewhat disturbing short stories, like "The Metamorphosis".

When I first saw the title, I thought it was a bit strange, since I thought it would be more about an artist that was struggling to make ends meet, but then that would've been the hungry artist, and not the hunger artist.  After going through the story, I realized, it was an artist that was trying to use hunger itself as an art form, which is a strange idea, since hunger is usually not something that one appreciates, which can bring up the question, what is art?

While going through the story, I thought it was very peculiar that the man was able to fast for such a long time, considering the human body can only last a couple weeks without food, and merely only days without water, yet this man was able to last for months, maybe even years (since there was no count of the number of days he fasted at the end) without dying.  This makes the story a rather mundane fantasy, since the only incredible thing was how much a man could starve himself.  Even the extent of 40 days seems unbelievable, yet the character still wanted to continue, despite him appearing to be half-dead even at that marker of time.

With reference to the 40 days of fasting, which was set as the limit, I thought it was an interesting choice of number, since, assuming one has any knowledge of the Bible, that makes one think of the story when Jesus Christ fasted for forty days and forty nights, and was then tempted of the devil.  This might make one think that the protagonist is some sort of Messiah-like figure, but that turns out to not be the case, since all he does is fast for who knows how long before his death.

How Long Could You Go Without Eating?

Kafka’s “A Hunger Artist” was an – interesting read. Early on, it mentions a clock being the only significant thing in the artist’s cage, causing me to wonder why the clock was so important. It isn’t until later that you realize that the artist can fast for weeks. The longer he can fast, the more impressive he is.

The hunger artist is an odd character; he does not want to eat. In fact, he even mentions that fasting is not the challenge that most people assume; it is easy to him. My first assumption was because he had not eaten for a long time and that the desire had started to fade along with his life. As I continued reading, I found that other spectators of the hunger artist had similar thoughts to my own. The artist denied that as the truth.

The artist, for some reason, felt like nobody appreciated what he did. I personally did not understand why anyone would find it a spectacle worth paying to see. The artist was able to go for forty days without eating and felt like he could go further, but nobody would let him. That is, until his profession was no longer engaging to the audience and he lay forgotten in a cage.

It was not until his dying breath, that we learned the reason the artist had no difficulty fasting and why he never wanted to break his fast. It turns out that the artist is one of the pickiest eaters in the world; he tells the man who came to his aid that he would have eaten if he had found something he enjoyed eating.

It appears that the antagonist is the artists partner. He is the man who refuses to let the artist go without food beyond forty days. He always makes him eat something after that time, preventing the artist from his desire to break his record and prove that he can go longer without.

All in all, I found this story to be different and a little disturbing.