Two Books and Opposing Storytelling Techniques

I've been thinking about this post for a while. It showcases some of my personal views on novel writing and fiction and storytelling, but through the lens of two books I was reading simultaneously, but have since either finished or abandoned.

Here's a start: Imagine a protagonist, an over-educated but out of work fella who's been trying to get some writing published while mostly mooching off his long suffering wife. He get's involved with a teaching-credential program and meets various folks, four of which are ladies who pique his interest in one way or another. Lady #1 is a fan of Irish whiskey, and Lady #2 likes to write, and both are into the fella something fierce, while Lady #3 matches politically with the protagonist and trades barbs with him. Lady #4 is more mysterious and the one that the protagonist begins to have feelings for, despite being happily married.

Now, most of this "story's" beginning I pulled from, eh, obviously my own experience this summer, with some translations and projections that are made with creative liberty.

Okay: the type of story this is has all sorts of drama and conflict built in: Will the protagonist commit adultery? Will a marriage fall apart? Will an old relationship be strengthened? How does all the drama effect an "old married couple"? See? This story could be good and exciting and, as a writer, I'd say it "could write itself."

But this isn't the type of story I've ever been interested in writing.

Now some books:

The book on the left, Between the Bridge and the River, by CBS' own Craig Ferguson (my favorite, if never seen anymore, late night talk show host), was purchased by me for a penny plus shipping once I heard he'd written a book. It's about Scots in Scotland, then in America, and sex and death and religion. Sex, death, and religion---that's pretty much it. It's good, and unfolds well enough, and is mostly predictable, to the point where after a few dozen pages, a keen reader would be able piece together what will eventually happen, if not exactly, then reasonably well enough.

That doesn't mean it isn't well written or not totally enjoyable. And it is just like that that the story about the married writer and the five ladies in his life would unfold. You may not see the exact ending coming, but you get the idea, no matter how great the writing or exciting the story. It's one type of novel or story or storytelling technique.

The book on the right, Villa Incognito (a Dollar Bookstore purchase), by who I've occasionally described as Pynchon-lite, Tom Robbins, starts with forty pages of Tanuki seducing the young women of the Japanese country-side. Tanuki is constantly being lectured by his more mature cousin, Fox, if that gives you any idea as to what Tanuki is (a tanuki is an Asian raccoon/badger critter with an enormous scrotum Seriously, the kids all over Japan have pretty silly playground rhymes involving the tanuki's scrotum)).

After the stretch with Tanuki in feudal Japan, the story shifts to Seattle, and then to Laos and Bangkok with the main characters being a ragtag collection of heroin smugglers and circus performers, and the possible descendants of Tanuki and one of the country maidens. Like any great Pynchon or Murakami book, never knowing quite what the hell is going on is part of the lure, the draw.

That's the kind of stuff I like to read, and that's the kind of stuff I aspire to write. The novel I'm working on has nothing to do with a lazy writer working towards becoming a teacher and struggling with interpersonal relations...it has bobcats and cowardly cowboys and the earliest immigrants and buboes and rockets.

I'm hoping it is a little out there.