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Workshopping with Flaubert, and Other News

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On the Shelf

  • Before the culture of the workshop emerged, with its blandishments and its “constructive criticism,” there was Flaubert, who really put himself out there: “Flaubert is often described as a writer’s writer; but students of creative writing should be warned that he is not a would-be writer’s writer. [Michel Winock’s new biography] gives a good sense of the unrelenting misery of composition: ‘grinding away at it, digging into it, turning it over and over, rummaging about in it.’ Flaubert was referring here, not to a whole book, but to a single sentence. Over four afternoons and evenings, his friends listened in silence while he recited his Temptation of Saint Anthony, which had taken three years to write, and then told him that it should either be completely rewritten or thrown on the fire. This is perhaps not what writers’ groups call ‘mutual support’, but it was an impressive act of kindness. The final version, published twenty-five years later, was much improved.” 

  • You’re an adult now, and you can take any kind of quiz you want. May I recommend Nemo’s Almanac, a very old, very pedigreed literary quiz edited by Ian Patterson? He explains: “Nemo’s Almanac is a long-running literary quiz, which may sound like a pointless thing to write about but it’s—almost—an important cultural phenomenon. It’s also at a critical moment in its history, representing as it does a radically different pace, mode and rationale of intellectual inquiry from the instant gratification of curiosity that the internet has made possible. It consists of 72 quotations, plus one more on the cover, arranged according to monthly themes (this year’s include Hats, Coal, Novelty, Foxgloves, Silence and Socialism). It was started by a governess called Mrs Larden (first name unknown) in 1892 as an almanac and quiz for her charges. The fourth editor, Katherine Watson, who ran a bookshop in Burford, turned it over to John Fuller in 1970. The editorship subsequently passed to Alan Hollinghurst, who in turn passed it on to the late Gerard Benson, who was followed by Nigel Forde; and now I am Nemo and the Almanac has become my responsibility.”