Advanced Essay Writing, Spring 2013

I chose Ruthan Robson’s creative nonfiction piece titled “Notes From a Difficult Case” to focus on for this blog post. The powerful nature of the subject matter and the methodical style of her writing (perhaps related to her role as a CUNY Law professor) was gripping. In my opinion, the most effective paragraph break is the second one in middle of page 232:

I weighed less than one hundred pounds and was so thin it hurt to sit on a chair. I had fevers that clawed at my bones. I was so weak I crawled down the hallway to the bathroom. I lost all my hair, even those sweet little hairs on my toes. 

This paragraph break struck me as the most moving in what is a heart-rending story. Robson closes the previous paragraph with “Pain and suffering are incalculable.” Yet what she does in the paragraph that follows is vividly describe to the reader the brutal physical and mental toll. These four sentences paint a grim picture that the reader can’t escape from; one can’t skim over this passage to move on to the next part of the story. She strategically breaks the paragraph after listing all of the ill effects, allowing the reader to truly absorb the gravity of the situation.

I like “Delivering Lily”. I love the way the writer share his personal experience. His descriptions are so vivid that I can image myself in the same room. The story is so personal that I feel part of his family.

When I started reading I could not stop because I wanted to know the end of the story.  I like the whole story, specially when he describes the last push and the baby come out. The antepenultimate paragraph of page 436.

“And I expected, as the fissure closed, that my first wife would disappear.

I was wrong.”

This simple paragraph break is effective in Callahan’s short essay “Chimera” for a number of reasons.

The style of the second paragraph, a simple sentence, is a repetition of a style that he uses earlier in this section of his essay.  This powerful and abrupt use of the short sentence creates a sense of a past reflection by the author; he has led the reader to believe one thing but then put an immediate stop to that thought process by contradicting himself.  In this particular example, he tells us what he understands in the preceding paragraph, implying that time would heal wounds and the memories of his wife would fade away.  By negating this statement with the phrase, “I was wrong”, Callahan is opening the essay to the explanation of this particular paragraph break and creating a sense of confusion to which the reader can relate.   The final sentence allows for a smooth transition into the body of the essay and leaves the reader wanting to understand what it is that the author was so wrong about.

“…if I had been a little less stubborn, a little more awed by authority, a little less economically privileged, a little more charmed by tranquilizers, a little less able to research my own disease, or simply unlucky, I’d be dead now.
And you would not be reading this.” (Robson, 244)
I found this transition to be extremely effective for two reasons: Firstly, the way this sentence is read is as if said in one breath. As a reader I almost felt overwhelmed by the lengthy sentence and felt that it mirrored the author’s sentiments as someone going through such a trial. Secondly, I felt this sentence played in to the cause and effect. She sums up how certain aspects of her own personality, seemingly unrelated to cancer as a disease in itself is responsible for her recovery. What she says is true, if she did not have these attributes she would not have survived. These attributes were her saving grace, after all, even those whose jobs it was to save her- could not had it not been for her taking initiative. I felt that both the style of the sentence coupled with the content demonstrated her story of survival succinctly and powerfully.

“I weighed less than one hundred pounds and was so thin it hurt to sit on a chair. I had fevers that clawed at my bones. I was so weak I crawled down the hallway to the bathroom. I lost all my hair, even those sweet little hairs on my toes.

It’s become mundane to lose one’s hair.” Robson 232 Paragraphs 8 & 9.

I love this transition. She takes her excruciating experience with chemotherapy and shows us what it did to her, how it affected her physically. She even makes the point of emphasizing the loss of hair on her toes, something that usually get taken for granted, and makes it an important detail. And she immediately follows it up by saying that it becomes mundane.

I think this is a very effective transition particularly because after reading the first paragraph there I was thinking about what other things I take for granted and that it takes a great shock to make me realize that I am indeed taking those things for granted. Then I read the following sentence and it shifted my mood. It made me think that over time everything becomes mundane, even the awful things like chemotherapy that literally change the way we look and the way we look at the world.

“In other words, the doctors screwed up more than their biopsies” (Robson 8, Paragraph 1)

This is a very interesting read, and the way Robson structures his content is genius. As an attorney, Robson is very careful with legal writing and clarification. Throughout his essay, he quotes doctors and lawyers and uses many medical terms that the majority of the general public would not understand. After he pinpoints the incorrect hypotheses from the doctors, he very bluntly states that they “screwed up”. It adds humor to the piece as well, because when reading through the medical terms, the average reader just goes with the flow, and acknowledges that the terms are harsh and complex. And then suddenly, a casual direct statement implies that although the doctors amy seem smart with their jargon, “basically, they suck”. This paragraph break is genius not only because of the completely redirected tone, but also the repetitive nature of it. The previous paragraph break reads “In other words the doctors screwed up their biopsies”, after pinpointing some more medical mis-conclusions. The second one tacks on some more fire power, and gains the reader’s support.

Blog Post 2.1

On page 380, last line, into page 381, Callahan writes,”….define creative nonfiction in terms of some absolute truth or fact. What we put in, what we leave out, the words we choose, the metaphors we build on, change everything. None of it is “real” in the absolute sense”.

Next paragraph, “Clearly the facts get muddled in creative nonfiction. That’s how humans are. Conversations get constructed from 10-year old memories, scenes get rebuilt from imperfect neurons, tastes are retasted and touches are refelt. None of that is done with absolute accuracy”.

Next paragraph, “That doesn’t in my opinion, detract from what we call creative nonfiction. Rather it adds.”

I really think these are two great paragragh breaks.

Zissner talks about “simplicity”, and the avoidance of “clutter”. On page 25, he writes, “Simplify, prune, strive for order……style… gradually emerging from under the accumulated clutter and debris…”

So, if one keeps it simple and avoids clutter, how does one’s style gradually emerge?

Perhaps Callahan answers this on page 380-381 in the above paragragh breaks.
When writing creative nonfiction, what a writer puts in, what a writer leaves out, words and metaphors chosen; in short how a writer interprets events, is perhaps one aspect of developing one’s style as a writer.

She sobbed like a whip-poo-will, then brayed in and out like an affronted donkey.
Abandoned. (Lopate, 437, 1st & 2nd paragraph)

This paragraph break truly stuck me. Lily’s birth was the cause of Cheryl’s labor pains, and Phillip’s emotional pains and when she was finally born, she was left on the table, crying alone. Phillip begins his paragraph with such a strong word, Abandoned. It was as though Lily were brought into this world and was left there unaccompanied. He uses this word as a reflection of what the world feels like. A human’s attention span is so limited. Lily was brought into this world and is immediately left alone. At such a young age she gets a taste of what the world is like. Even Phillip who see’s his daughter alone on the table, feels intimidated and fails to go accompany her.

Lily’s “abandonment” might be a reflection on how Phillip felt through Cheryl’s labor. Cheryl threw all her frustrations out on Phillip. No matter how hard it got, he stood by Cheryl and tended to her every need. The labor had taken a huge toll on him as well.

But when we do, like this morning, her image is as vivid as it ever was– her dark eyes as bright, her odd smile just as annoying.

I’m not crazy. (Callahan, 369: first and second paragraph proper)

“I’m not crazy” is more than just an harbinger of his subsequent scientific rationalization. It is a statement that disavows him of all the accountability he would have otherwise if we weren’t slaves to our body and its complex mechanism. “I’m not crazy,” can also be a justification for the unspoken emotion that he keeps occult because he thinks that his love towards his wife is logical and sane within the context of science, within the context of how human are really made as. He is, however, very careful not to mix the visceral and scientific justification together. He leaves it up to the reader to decide whether he is crazy or not; Is he crazy because of all those scientific jargon that he spews out, or that he sees his dead wife, or even whether he is crazy because he is trying to blur the boundary between emotions and science to make the sighting of his dead wife “as real as it ever was”.  But one thing for sure, he is playing with a dualism and as with dualism, the hierarchy vanishes or it fluctuates all the time. In the last sentence of the previous paragraph, the use of “as” is ubiquitous and at the same time very effective. Are thoughts “as” real as the reality? Are the phantom and immunological memories of her wife as real as wife? I think we see the dualism here again in the form of an oxymoron: “dark eyes as bright”; “odd smile as annoying.” This paragraph break between these two sentences not only marks his attempt to make sense of his imagination, but also a declaration that for some people “as” is as real as the REAL.

If anyone could make sense out of this jargon–it beats me– please feel free to enlighten me.

I loved “Chimera” by Callahan. I literally was not able to tear myself of the book.  Not only I loved the content, but the way he writes is just brilliant. I like that he does not use smooth transitions, he just goes from one thought to another, yet his structure is well-thought. The structure of his story reminds of a ring, when the reader comes back to where he started, and in the middle there is something else, his thoughts, main content. If you dont agree, try to read the first four paragraphs (until “I was wrong”) and the very last paragraph, omitting everything in the middle. It will make sense.

As for choosing one paragraph break that is especially effective, to me it is when he speaks about immune systems remembering things followed by the next paragraph which goes : “My grandmother had a penchant for saving things” (p. 370). I would make a smoother transition here simply because I cant write as sophisticated as Callahan does. He inserts a bright example from his life to what he just said right away, and the following paragraph speaks about immune system again. This type of devise keeps readers entertained, not bored by simply scientific description. And Callahan does not do it only once, that is how his story structured.