Process Writing

        When I started my first movie review, I found it impossibly too complicated to express in a mere four-hundred words. I chose to write on Les Miserables, and there was no lack of content to talk about. In my notes I started to write different aspects of the movie, and then a few notes about them.

        After I had about a dozen different thoughts on the page, I started to think about how they related to one another, and to the film as a whole. In one category I noticed how the movie was very slow, and in another I had written that the close-up shots lasted for ages. By having them both on the page I could make the judgment that the reason I thought the movie was slow was because of the boring cinematography. 

 

        As I began to discover other mediums to write on, it immediately became clear to me why critics usually specialize. I definitely thought that I would make more assertive and authoritative arguments in my review when it was on something I was familiar with.

        For example, when reviewing the Oscars, I felt like a had an inside perspective from my experience working in the TV production studio. We had talked in class about the momentous effort in producing a live awards show on television.

        By understanding (to some degree) how the show was being televised I thought I wrote a strong review of the event, not just the movies or celebrities. The conclusion I've come to is that it's best to sample a lot of different mediums, and when you find one you like to write on, write on it.

         At the same time, though, it's been my experience that it's much easier to write on a medium that I myself have produced, or at least been involved in. It gives you an understanding that allows for more critical judgments, and as a result, better reviews.

        Sometimes the biggest challenge of writing a review wasn't the writing. I often found myself clicking 'word count' and combing the page for redundancies or superfluousness. I would take out a word here, shorten a phrase there, and the whole process really made me appreciate the art of working with words.

        My entire life writing was always an act of more, never less. More pages, more lines, more paragraphs, but with in writing reviews it's an act of more creativity. With smaller boundaries a writer has to be more flexible and solve, not more, but different problems, than say a novelist. 

 

         I don't know if I agree with Wilde that critics are the greatest of artists, but he did convince me that criticism is an art. One that I have enjoyed greatly, I hope that someday someone will value my opinions enough to pay me for them, but until then I'm glad that I had the chance to take Arts Journalism.

The Submission Review (Revised)

The Submission of Whom?

          Amy Waldman places her debut novel in the ash-filled wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11^th, 2001. The towers have fallen, and a small jury has been tasked with choosing, from thousands of anonymous submissions, a memorial to honor the lives lost. Among the jury members is Claire Burwell, the only juror to have lost a family member, her husband, in the attack. 

 

          After much deliberation the winning design is a garden, symbolic of healing and rebirth, but the decision becomes controversial after it is made public that the designer, an American named Mohammed Kahn, is labeled a Muslim by a nosy reporter. Although he does not practice, and in his own words an Atheist, many of his countrymen are insulted that he would defile sacred ground with what they see as an “Islamic Garden.”

          Waldman, a contributor for both “The New York Times” and “The Atlantic,” has a powerful, punchy, prose that seamlessly incorporates symbolism from the real-world events of 9/11 into the lives of her characters. Her imaginary garden, with steel trees reformed from the wreckage of the Twin Towers becomes an afterthought to it's imaginary designer, the media, as well as the public.

          The process of building the memorial becomes a microcosm of American democracy. A thousand different interest groups fight with one another and among themselves until the whole process is compromised to the point that an innocent women loses her life. The masses, eager to use their collective voice, finds that it has none, and that America is not a black and white country.

         That's democracy, finding a single resolution among three-hundred million different opinions, and Waldman perhaps hints at the answer in the title. There isn't a protagonist, or an antagonist either, but rather just Americans, each trying to do what they think is right. The rub is that while everyone wants to memorialize the attack, nobody can agree on how to do it.

          Waldman incorporates an intricate use of architecture and design into her prose, eloquently describing the contours and lines of buildings. It fits the story of the memorial thematically as well as engaging the reader with vivid imagery. The memorial is brought to life by her words, and the reader can develop their own opinion on it. At least until the epilogue, set some time in the future, in which everything is neatly tied up, in an underwhelming and seemingly forced conclusion.

         People say that everything changed after 9/11, and they are right, to an extent. Waldman's novel is a portrait of the changing American landscape in the twenty-first century, in which globalization and capitalism has blurred the line between 'us' and 'them'. Despite a dissatisfying ending, Waldman's writing is strong enough to carry a reader through the 300 plus pages. As a work of fiction, “The Submission” is as much a memorial to 9/11 as Waldman's imaginary garden would have been.

The Submission of Whom?

         Amy Waldman places her debut novel in the ash-filled wake of the terrorist attacks on September 11^th, 2001. The towers have fallen, and now, a small jury has been tasked with choosing, from thousands of anonymous submissions, a memorial to honor the lives lost. Among the jury is Claire Burwell, the only juror to have lost a family member in the attack. 

 

         After much deliberation the winning design is a garden, symbolic of healing and rebirth, but the decision becomes a controversy after it is made public that the designer, an American named Mohammed Kahn, is labeled a Muslim. Although he is not practicing, and in his own words an Atheist, many of his countrymen are insulted that he would defile sacred ground with what they see as an “Islamic Garden”.

         Waldman, a contributor for both “The New York Times” and “The Atlantic”, has a powerful, punching, prose that seamlessly incorporates symbolism from the real-world events of 9/11 into the lives of her characters. Her imaginary garden, with steel trees made from the wreckage of the Twin Towers becomes an afterthought to it's imaginary designer, the media, as well as the public.

          The process of building the memorial becomes a microcosm of American democracy. A thousand different interest groups fight with each other and amidst themselves until the whole process is compromised to the point that an innocent women loses her life. The masses, eager to use it's collective voice, finds that it has none, and that America is not a black a white country.

         That's democracy, finding a single resolution amongst three-hundred million different opinions, and Waldman perhaps hints at the answer in the title. There isn't a protagonist, or an antagonist either, but rather just Americans, trying to do what they think is right. The rub is that while everyone wants to memorialize the attack, nobody can agree on how to do it. 

 

         People say that 'everything changed after 9/11', and they are right, to an extent. Waldman's novel is a portrait of the changing American landscape in the twenty-first century, in which globalization and capitalism has blurred the line between 'us' and 'them'. There aren't any happy endings to be found in the novel, a harrowing reminder of the reality of the events portrayed. As a work of fiction, “The Submission” is as much a testament to 9/11 as Waldman's imaginary garden would have been.