Blog #1: Dentists without borders

David Sedaris's essay, "Dentists without Borders", is a characteristic of creative nonfiction by being true but told through the authors view and memory of the experience. His words give you an image of what happened, "a painted scene". The essay follows into the creative nonfiction genre because of the way the author presents it. The words he chooses and the information he shares. When classifying this essay in terms of sub genre, I would classify the essay as a portrait because Sedaris's is describing and giving us an image of his dentists through his own eyes. He gives us some background information in his own voice. For example when he mentions Dr. Barras having a sick mother and a cat name Andy. We also get an understanding of how Sedaris sees these people and their relationship.

Useful (maybe) links

Hello all.  This isn't one of the actual blog assignments, but I found these two links about distinguishing personal essays from memoirs and other genres.  I know I was confused about the personal essay/memoir divide and figured these links might be useful to others in the class with the same problem.  Hope they are of use!  Otherwise, forgive me for dirtying this blog space with my spam.

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/753/02/

http://writersrelief.com/blog/2013/11/short-prose-genres-defining-essay-short-story-commentary-memoir-and-mixed-genre/

Blog 3

My reasons for reading creative non-fiction may be a bit more ignoble than many others’.  For me, it comes down to anxiety.  I write a lot of fiction, and I also tend to be my own worst critic.  Sometimes it gets so bad that I am legitimately unable to read fiction without my inner critic assaulting me; each paragraph becomes ammunition for the critic to say “See that?  That’s what good writing looks like.  Not that you would ever know.” Or “Gee, isn’t that a similar technique to the thing you tried in your last short story?  This author got it right, but you really effed it up, didn’t you?”  Needless to say, concentration becomes impossible in that sort of mental environment.  Seeing that I like to read before bed, and relentless self-doubt is not conducive to the relaxation required for such an activity, I started turning to CNF for my bedtime stories.  CNF keeps the critic quiet while still allowing me to enjoy a good book and learn.  As a reader, I gravitate toward CNF books about science, nature, and medical history.  I am particularly fascinated with parasites, which sort of encompasses all three of those categories.  Three CNF authors that I particularly enjoy are Sherwin B. Nuland, Carl Zimmer, and Siddhartha Mukherjee.  Aside from some past essays for classes, which I can now see may have employed some CNF elements, my previous blog post about fidelity and schistosomes is my first foray into the world of writing CNF.  So far, I’m having fun.  I just hope the critic doesn’t catch on to me and force CNF out of my reading regimen. 

Blog 2

Blog 2

Fidelity: strict observance of promises, duties, etc.; loyalty; conjugal faithfulness

Although they say that love can’t be put under a microscope, I believe that fidelity can.  I am not suggesting that the collective jealous girlfriends of the world subject their boyfriends’ clothes and personal effects to forensic scrutiny.  As tempting as an all-revealing Luminol bath might be, I am actually talking about a fidelity separate of the human realm.  A fidelity demonstrated by creatures that could legitimately fit onto a microscope slide. 

These diminutive devotees are parasitic worms known as Schistosoma mansoni.  They penetrate human skin as flailing aquatic infants and make their way through the internal organs to look for a mate.  That in itself is unique to the world of parasites, since many similar creatures do not even have separate genders.  Tapeworms, for example, just hang out in the intestines and have sex with themselves all day; each of their segments has both male and female parts, allowing the tapeworm to become an undulating ribbon of procreation.  S. mansoni, however, use chemical signals to find a worm of the opposite sex.  Males are larger, with bodies that have been described as resembling canoes or taco shells; females are small and thin, like the hairs of some ethereal maiden.  Once the male and female select each other as mates, the female crawls into center of the male’s oddly-shaped body, called the gynaecophoric canal.  I would not assign such a gross and sterile name to it, though.  It is, in essence, a site of eternal embrace.  These squirmy little blood-suckers mate for life, something many of us, with our big ol’ wise-ape brains and warm bleeding hearts, can’t seem to handle.  In my opinion, renowned science writer, Carl Zimmer, described S. mansoni best in his book Parasite Rex when he said, “they may be the most monogamous couples in the animal kingdom—a male will clasp onto its female even after she has died” (37).  That sort of devotion is pretty much inconceivable to humans outside of Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha.  While they are joined together, the male worm takes care of all the female’s needs, including feeding her a majority of the blood he steals from the human host’s intestinal blood vessels.  Additionally, of course, they have a ton of sex, allowing the female to produce astronomical numbers of spiny spherical eggs, or oocysts.  The eggs are shed in the human host’s feces, hopefully into fresh water where they can begin the life cycle anew, and the parent worms are left to continue their endless honeymoon.

 

It may seem disgusting, but if I ever get married I don’t want a diamond or gold band; I want a pair of Schistosoma mansoni embedded in a ring of Lucite.  I can think of no better symbol of fidelity.             

Resources:    

Drisdelle, Rosemary. Parasites: Tales of Humanity’s Most Unwelcome Guests. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2010.

Wojcik, Jonathan. "A Bogleech Guide to Platyhelminthes." The Insidious Bogleech: Biology. 27 June 2013. Web. 30 Jan. 2015. <http://bogleech.com/flatworms.html>.

Zimmer, Carl. Parasite Rex. New York: The Free Press, 2000.

Blog 1

Sedaris’s essay, “Dentists Without Borders,” is characteristic of creative nonfiction because it employs several devices and techniques common in literary fiction.  These include: dialogue, painting of scenes via specific and emotionally-charged details, characterization, and tight, yet still somehow lyrical, prose.  I would classify “Dentists Without Borders” as the CNF subgenre of personal or narrative essay.  Although I initially had trouble distinguishing this essay from a memoir, its connection to broader themes, such as socialized healthcare and how humans relate to illness/mortality, and its thesis-like opening and closing paragraphs mark it as a narrative essay.  I suppose one could also make a case for travel writing because it describes the healthcare facilities and conventions of another country (France).  

blog #1

In David Sedaris's article, he uses creative details to describe his doctor visits in Paris. It's more than what illnesses he had, or what the doctors prescribed to help him, but more or less who these doctors were as people. It really is a "true story told well." Someone who is describing their experiences at the doctors doesn't seem that interesting, but thanks to creative nonfiction, Sedaris made a simple story a fun one to read. He didn't lie about anything, he simply told his story in a way that attracts people to actually want and enjoy reading it. Based on the sub genres, I feel as though David Sedaris's writing can fall under the essay of place sub genre. Sedaris captures the settings of each scene he has from riding the subway to the dentist. He uses real quotes and gives great detail like how he describes the process of his four new teeth. He also describes his point of view throughout his medical experiences. For example, when he tells his boyfriend why would the dentist think he would leave the house with teeth missing anyway. He describes his experiences in his own way, how he felt, what he thought, and what actually happened. I did struggle choosing between the personal essay sub genre and the essay of place. I just felt that this article fell in line with the description of the essay of place genre better. His story wasn't an essay; it was simply describing a few of life's events over time in his point of view.

A Call To Blog

And so they shall. Welcome to the community blog for English 4017 Spring 2015. For your first foray into blogging on CNF, read the assigned texts and answer the following questions:

• How is Sedaris's "Dentists Without Borders" characteristic of creative nonfiction?
• How would you classify "Dentists Without Borders" in terms of subgenre?
• Why would you place it under that category?

Rather than leading everyone toward One Right Answer, these questions are designed to elicit your critical reading of CNF. I am interested in how you answer these questions based on your understanding of CNF and your facility in reading a text through the lens of CNF.

Post your response by 11pm this Sunday and comments by 4pm Tuesday.

Happy Blogging.