YOU CAN IF YOU WANT, BUT YOU DON'T HAVE TO

AN OMNIBUS FOR ASPIRING WRITERS

by Benjamin Obler ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

Creative writing teacher Obler offers a heavily autobiographical meditation on the writing life.

The author opens his account with a sketch of his own literary upbringing. His father was a high school English teacher (“a man who paired his deep love of literature with a theatrical bent”), and Obler describes a childhood reading works by such authors as C.S. Lewis, Daniel Pinkwater, and Judy Blume. He later pursued a passion for music, learning to play guitar, while falling in love with the short stories of John Cheever, Alice Munro, Donald Barthelme, and others. He went on to pursue writing degree programs in the United States and at the University of Glasgow. While teaching writing courses in Minneapolis and New York City, he comes to the idea of “Aspiring Writer Syndrome,” the essential feature of which is “an overabundance of expressive language development as demonstrated by feelings of compulsion, belief in an imagined duty, or perceived destiny that requires participation in the writing profession.” Obler’s story takes many detours, from a time he tried adaptThomas McGuane’s novel The Bushwhacked Piano(1971) for the screen with the author's blessing to another time in his 30s when he heavily dabbled in Kundalini yoga. But the narrative always returns to the conflicted role of the writer in modern society: “As a creative writing teacher for 13 years,” he writes, “I've seen many individuals suffer from their possession of a strong creative drive, while living in a world that values productivity, labor, adherence to rules, and other non-creative traits.”

Obler’s story is a diverting one, and it’s entertainingly told. However, the influence of David Foster Wallace’s work on the author’s style is clear in the often-dense prose and sometimes twee footnotes that appear on many pages. Even the organizing conceit, in which an “omnibus” doubles as an actual bus, feels a bit belabored. That said, the author consistently weaves in engagingly deep questions and ideas into his colorful autobiographical narrative, which helps to offset the overwritten sections: “Does it seem that in these times, the true meaning of self-care and health is to let go of the dream of our own acclaim just to stay sane?” he asks at one such point. “Does it seem that the reality of a pandemic, the death of millions of people around you, leaves you reevaluating what’s helpful and what’s not?” At another point early on, Obler sardonically observes that getting a novel published with one of the world’s top publishers—as he did with the novel Javascotia(2009), which was published by Hamish Hamilton/Penguin UK—“enables people to believe that you know how to teach fiction writing,” which he hadn’t done before; he notes that “only after learning, in the trenches, over the course of ten years, how to teach well, did I go freelance, and have the career that I do now.” Although this new book is overly mannered at times, it’s also a compelling celebration of aspiring writers everywhere who might feel themselves veering toward “the threatening cliffs of waywardness.”

An imaginative, if slightly overstuffed, travelogue of one writer’s experience.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 287

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: Dec. 19, 2023

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | ART & PHOTOGRAPHY | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR