Michael Chabon is Gay! (and Deconstructing Writing Class)

So announced my professor last night at my writing class last night. A little bit weird, as Chabon has a wife and four kids. But, as my professor pointed out, all of his protagonists are gay, so there's gotta be something there he's really dealing with.

I'm inclined to agree. If homosexuality is on his mind so much, he must have questions about his own situation, and I'm sure there was an intensive fresh-out-of-college experimentation phase. But four kids? That's a lot to repress feelings he may not want.

Last night at class we had the classic discussion about types of stories. According to my professor, there are story stories, and then there are stories with the protagonist as a stand-in for the author. My professor is a huge fan of the latter, while I am firmly in the former camp. His argument is understandable -- write what you know, and liven it up with details to make it more interesting. Fine. But let's face it, my life's been amazingly good. Almost all of my "conflict" is about stupid little things that don't really matter at all. And to me, that's not usually interesting, or something I want to keep reading.

To me, the electricity of reading is often magical -- that's why I love authors like Nabokov and Rushdie and Marquez. The wild imagination of these works, the evocative description take me somewhere exciting and beautiful. It's very hard to sustain, but when it's good it's the best. Whereas reading about some stand-in for the author's life, while often poignant and moving, is a lot more blah.

I don't think writers can write fiction without putting themselves in it - where else are we getting our material? Those emotions and ideas come from us. But what's wrong with stretching our minds a little bit? What's wrong with a little creativity instead of sticking to beauty in the mundane?

This is a case of different strokes for different folks, I believe, and to my professor's credit he's pretty good about saying what he likes but appreciating what he doesn't like but is well done. Which is better than my professor from college could do.