A review by jackieeh
All is Forgotten, Nothing is Lost, by Lan Samantha Chang
4.0
Three things:
--Ah, writing about writing. So easy to do poorly, so difficult to do well. This book wriggles through and past the usual obstacles to come uncomfortably close to success. Why uncomfortable? There were some things about Miranda that reminded me of one of my own undergrad creative writing teachers who is notorious for picking favorites, crushing spirits, and having people sign up in droves for her classes. So that was not so personally wonderful.
--To me, the best thing about this book is how it gestures towards three types of writers: 1) the writer everyone wants to be: who's in it for the glory and who is wildly successful and gets mainstream plaudits from graduation onwards, 2) the writer everyone claims they'd settle for: the genius who spends years on one thing and doesn't care if it ever gets published so long as its perfect, 3) the writer most people actually are: who gets started late in life, to reasonable acclaim. Roman, Bernard, and Lucy (and Miranda) are fully realized characters, but they're also archetypes.
--Now I really want to write an epic prose poem about Lewis and Clark.
--Ah, writing about writing. So easy to do poorly, so difficult to do well. This book wriggles through and past the usual obstacles to come uncomfortably close to success. Why uncomfortable? There were some things about Miranda that reminded me of one of my own undergrad creative writing teachers who is notorious for picking favorites, crushing spirits, and having people sign up in droves for her classes. So that was not so personally wonderful.
--To me, the best thing about this book is how it gestures towards three types of writers: 1) the writer everyone wants to be: who's in it for the glory and who is wildly successful and gets mainstream plaudits from graduation onwards, 2) the writer everyone claims they'd settle for: the genius who spends years on one thing and doesn't care if it ever gets published so long as its perfect, 3) the writer most people actually are: who gets started late in life, to reasonable acclaim. Roman, Bernard, and Lucy (and Miranda) are fully realized characters, but they're also archetypes.
--Now I really want to write an epic prose poem about Lewis and Clark.