Re: JCO: RE: Talent vs Experience

Hi, Joy. I would call those crude reality stories "ways not taken" rather
than experiences that JCO would have sampled had she had adequate time to spare.
In other words, I think that the writer makes deliberate life choices, and
perhaps JCO's stories were ways of exploring various options open to her and
discarding ones that may have been tempting but ultimately unacceptable.
For example: let's say I work for a boss who is mean. I fanticize about
how gratifying it would be to cuss him/her out in front of the whole company,
and how everyone would applaud my bold, incisive oratory. That's a pleasant
scenario but not very likely to happen in my situation. So I (A) write a
story about someone like me who cusses out someone like my boss and then has to
take the consequences. (B) Send out resumes and find another job working for a
different boss who is more to my liking.
I haven't got the exact quote in front of me, but James Joyce said
something to the effect that a writer should write a tragedy, not become a
participant in a tragedy.
Cyrano

In a message dated 10/23/2005 9:56:05 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
Cyranomish@aol.com writes:

<< So, are you saying that JCO keeps relying on talent instead of experience?
Although I believe most of the stories reflect the crude reality she hasn't
had
the time to live.

Joy >>
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