All language subtitles for Masterclass Joyce Carol Oates Teaches the Art of the Short Story - 13.Revision Workshop “Near Death”

When you're writing, it's very good to

have have readers so that you don't

don't become um

isolated and become really obsessed with

your work. It's better to have like a

deadline and have to turn something in

even though it's not complete and talk

about it and go back and revise it and

bring it back to the workshop. It's more

ariated than it is a very isolated and

solitary activity. It's good also to

have an environment where everything is

understood to be imperfect. It's a

workshop. Writing workshop means that

it's work in progress and nothing is

expected to be perfect. So, it's

understood that anyone comes into a

writing workshop wants criticism and

will look forward to it.

Now, we're going to take up a story by

Corey called Near Death, which is a

great title. Lindsay, I'm just going to

ask you what you thought about the story

as it like a reader, just as a reader

first.

So, as a general reader, I really loved

it and connected with it. I Yeah, I was

telling Corey that I grew up going to

youth groups. So

Oh, that's great.

Yeah. So, we had that in common and I

felt like he just did such a generous

read of faith communities as well where

he was pretty accurate and true to what

the community is like without being kind

of critical, which I thought was really

well done throughout. And yeah, he just

uh I thought that the opening and ending

of the story were extremely strong and

masterful. Like I love this first line.

The injuries themselves weren't serious.

The first was a two inch and then we're

looking for the second one and and then

we're not expecting those pigs to come

back

and they do in the hallucination at the

end and

just it was surprising but completely

satisfying and came full arc and full

circle.

Yeah,

it's very a sort of a vivid image in a

way in a kind of um colloquial

presence to bring something biblical in

apocalyptic

is somewhat startling. The story from

the Old Testament. So we we kind of

wonder I think what that's going to do

and then it comes back later.

Yeah. And I think he just does a good

job of showing how this youth pastor has

these Bible stories kind of interweaved

with his psychology. He kind of keeps

returning to them and thinking about

them even in that first paragraph about

lapping the water straight from the

source or cupping it to your mouth. This

is like little details that he picks up

on.

Then when they talk about that a little

later, there's this exchange like on

page five.

Then there's the story of the pigs. The

story always disturbed me. The idea of a

soul without a frame. those angry,

desperate demons darting around seeking

something to inhabit. It means this

space inside our bodies and room for

more than just our own souls.

And then Aaliyah says, "But you can't

possibly believe that." She's laughing

and she says, "Demon pigs. It's silly."

And then I, the narrator says, "I don't

think my belief has anything to do with

it." Which is kind of an unexpected

remark. And it's from a perspective that

the reader would find a little bit um,

you know, dramatic. and unusual.

Okay. What else about about the the

pros?

Yeah, I think he also just did a really

good job with,

you know, looking at this idea of this

person who really believes in infinity

and the eternal and how he would then

feel about his body. And I think it's

interesting because of course there's a

rule of workshop that you're never

supposed to write a dream, right? Like

we have like write a dream. Yeah. Write

a dream, lose a reader.

Is that it? Write a dream, lose a

reader.

I think Yeah, that was the feedback. But

I felt so engaged and present in these

uh hallucinations that were brought on

by him injuring himself with the falls

and in the shower that I was really

surprised by cuz I would expect to be

pushed out of the story, but they very

much felt

like the heart of the story or the most

almost the most tangible thing that you

would grab onto and think about

throughout the piece. So, I thought that

was really interesting that it was

flipped for me.

I didn't really think of them as dreams.

I'm not sure.

I'm not sure that I gave a name to them

necessarily, like

visions.

Um, more like visions.

Yeah.

If

a near-death experience, the title of

the story is near-death, you know. So,

is there such a thing as a near-death

experience that's authentic? And

could it be something like this? And

therefore is it maybe a higher

experience than ordinary life

and higher than a dream. A dream is sort

of a wisp and a dream is not that

significant. We have you know 400 dreams

a month let's say or more. Whereas this

is sort of like a vision that's it's

kind of unusual

and I thought that was um really a novel

idea to write a story about. It's a

story that's about something that we

haven't encountered before.

Did you like the title? Like

I did like the title. I think at first

it maybe suggested a different kind of

story than I was expecting,

but I felt like it did so much work for

me on the ending because I wasn't quite

sure at the end what exactly was going

on, you know, in quote unquote the real

world, like not the vision world. And I

think the title made me connect the dots

that maybe it was this near death, but

that he's going to wake up and come back

from it. So, I thought I thought it was

working.

What do you think about using the a

therapist?

So, I actually um I liked it at first,

but on second read, I feel like I loved

that there was this adult who was only

surrounded by teenagers and only

surrounded by people younger than him.

And I almost felt like it would do more

for the story to for him to have no

adult outlet to talk to, even though I

think a therapist does a lot of work in

um letting us get into someone's

interiority and their motivations and

see what he's going through. And I'm a

little bit less worried about him since

he's seeing a therapist because I was

definitely worried about him throughout.

But I almost want him just to be

surrounded by kids like Leah could maybe

step in as the therapist. I thought that

was a more of a convention, you know,

going to a therapist,

like people who are telling a story and

that they're actually in a a prison cell

or they're talking to a psychiatrist

or to um

a a minister as they're being about to

be hanged or something, you know, it's

sort of like a convention

maybe. And then the therapist

doesn't really have enough to do or but

the situation is that this therapist

belongs to the church and so he's free.

And so that that's sort of a a little

bit of an irony sort of undercuts his

his value.

And I like the idea that he's got this

bald h head and ponytail in back and he

goes hearkens back to the counterculture

and some world you know that was

idealistic. the church is slightly left

of center.

I thought that was good.

Maybe he feels he should see the

therapist, but he's not going to tell

the truth to the therapist or he hides

himself from the therapist.

Having the therapist, somebody to whom

he tells exactly what happened to him

seems to make it less dramatic. Don't

you all feel that if you went to a

therapist, you would definitely

not tell them the truth? you know, like

you'll be making up some story about

yourself that's makes you makes you more

interesting, you know, or less less

obviously insane. He's obviously pretty

pretty strange. So maybe that if if you

want a therapist and the idea of the man

with the ponytail, he could be somebody

who

is not exactly a real therapist, but

more like

the person to whom somebody goes who's

not exactly a real licensed therapist.

I mean, is he he's not a real therapist,

is he? Or is he?

I thought he does he have a degree.

Yeah, it seemed like he had a degree,

but that

he was still associated with the church,

which I I found interesting. So, at

first on First Street, I thought it was

like a church counseling.

Yes.

thing where he was going to see like a

lay pastor or something like that versus

an official

if you if you wanted him to see a

therapist, it might be better to have

him see a therapist who has an ideology

very different from his own. Like when

this therapist says he said that Christ

had prepared the way for us and so

forth. As soon as the therapist said

that, there seems to be no difference

between him and the therapist. Like

if he went to a secular therapist or

somebody that the state or the county

county services

provides some free

counseling. So maybe he went once or

twice and then he never went back. That

might be more interesting because he's

coming from this really insular are

these evangelical Christians sort of

coming from their world into a secular

world would be much more dramatic.

Well, on page five, which you had

mentioned, page five,

Tim puts his glasses on and and looked

into my eyes. So, it's like a dramatic

moment. He says, "Besides, as far as I

can tell, the point of the story isn't

the man on the road, the demon. It's

about names." he said and then turned

and left the room.

Uh I as a reader I was sort of baffled.

I didn't I didn't know what I was

supposed to think.

What does that mean? I'm just going to

ask the author.

Um

uh I think Tim is remarking on the part

of the the story from the biblical story

of Jesus on the road to the Gatherines

with the whole pig story. Um the way it

starts is

um now I'm misremembering the actual

story but he speaks his own name.

There's there's power in names in that

story itself like uh they he asks the

pigs Jesus asked the pigs like what's

your name and neighbor or the the demons

and they say we are Legion.

We are

and then he speaks his own name to cast

out the the demons. So, I just wanted

Tim to grasp on to some part of exactly

as you described, some part of the story

that other people didn't. Um, and that's

what he grasped on to this idea of the

power of names because it's basically

this name exchange and then that's and

then Jesus's name is more powerful and

the demons fly out of him of the of the

pigs.

Well, I think that's very interesting.

It doesn't it's not really communicated

by what you've written here that it's

such a it's so swift like he said and

then turned and left the room. I'm

sorry. Leah said, you said a bad

experience. I thought you were going to

talk about didn't tell me much. In other

words, you um you really jump right over

that moment. You know, it if you want to

isolate it a little more and emphasize

that it would be quite powerful. The

narrator could think about it. He could

realize what he meant a little later. He

could be baffled but then think about

it. But when you have Leah talking

immediately, she said, "I'm sorry. I

tried to get him to talk about it." Then

she reached the god put her hand on my

knee.

That is so soon, you know, that could

almost be another scene all by itself.

So it becomes anticlimactic.

Sometimes a story is like a little ride

on a bicycle or in a vehicle, you know,

and you don't want to go too fast. Like

your bicycle is really going fast and

people are saying, "Well, what? Wait, we

didn't see that." But you're already on

the next hill, you know, and you're sort

of moving along because the next theme

is this her touching him and that's like

another theme and that's um in itself

startling and unexpected. Leah, I said I

put my hand over hers for a moment.

Uh we have to go and next week and so

forth. Now, that that could just be a

little scene by itself, but not run in

together with with what comes before or

make it just a longer scene.

Otherwise, I think it's just lost.

Okay. Any other comments about the

story?

So, what about the ending? Yeah, like I

said, I I think you did such a good job

of pacing us to this point as well. And

I think I maybe expected something to

happen with Tim or I expected to see

more with the visions or get to the or

reach the figure and that was all

satisfying. But I think by doing this

turn back to something that we'd already

seen and it was something that was so

odd and disturbing to both the

characters and you know the reader me to

end on these this image of the pigs. cuz

I just feel like you had such strong

images throughout that were just really

anchoring the story. And you know, when

I walked away from reading it, that's

what I was picturing was these pigs just

crashing into the water. It it might be

good to

touch upon that image like in the middle

of the story, not too obviously, but

just in some way.

There are lots of different ways you

could do it. I mean, I'm not going to

suggest you have an image of a pig on a

or a picture of a pig or a cat that's

fat like a pig or anything. I mean, I'll

just leave it to you to come up with

some subtlety there. Well, it was really

nice when Lindsay read a little

paragraph from her story. So, Corey,

maybe you could read just the whole

first paragraph. That may be nice to

hear you read in your own voice.

Sure. The injuries themselves weren't

serious. The first was a 2-in gash on

the side of my head, a narrow red line

stretched like a highwire between my

temple and the corner of my left eye. It

bled a lot in the way that head injuries

always do. But it didn't take much to

clean up the blood, knit the gash with a

few butterfly bandages, and move on with

my day. What worried me were all the

moments just after the injury when I was

staring up at the white ceiling. I keep

thinking about the choice I had to make

lying there on the ground and

remembering this story from the Old

Testament, the one where Gideon brings

his soldiers down to the water's edge.

God tells him that his chosen army will

be the few among them who bring the

water up to their mouths with their

hands, not those who lay on their

bellies and greedily lap from the

source. I wish I could lap from the

source, I think. But then again, I'd

also like to be chosen.

Yes, that's very nice. in this idea of

cho of his uh expressing some kind of

agency that he's he wants to make a

choice. I kept thinking about the choice

I had to make and then when I was

reading the story and sort of rereading

and looking back on that I'm not sure

now what the choice was he wants to

make. Well, what did you intend his

choice? Lit literally literally not not

theoretically, but literally

literally I think he's remarking on the

lying on the ground seeing a sort of

like blackness of hitting your head and

then making a decision to sort of

instead of pushing it off, you know,

just closing it in and then going into

unconsciousness, right? and and he from

then on starts making the conscious

choice to go into unconsciousness.

Okay.

Um that that's literal uh my literal

interpretation.

Yeah. I think I wasn't sure as a reader

what that what you were indicating

there. Okay.

So I'm not sure that most readers would

get that.

Okay. The I was watering the plants the

first time it happened sitting on a

chair in the kitchen and I thought that

was a good description. But I definitely

thought that he was much I thought he

was much older. Like I thought he was

really middle-aged or or even elderly

that he was doing he was reaching up and

that he got like an attack of vertigo or

something and fell over. I was very

surprised to hear that he's a younger

man.

So basically he he has a concussion.

He's unconscious

and he has something like a vision in

this other state and he thinks it's like

a near-death experience or or something.

And so he wants to replicate and have

that experience again. So he's sort of

choosing to do that again and again. So

how many times these do like two or

three times or three times in the story?

It's represented three or four times in

the story, but maybe implied that he

he's done it a bunch more, I think. And

he's all battered and he has like black

eyes and he's all bandaged and and so

forth.

Yeah. I was wondering if he was dressing

his own wounds too because it kind of

seemed like I couldn't tell if he was

going to get medical attention or

he was doing this himself.

Well, I think that the story if it were

a Flat Hero Connor story, do you do you

like do you know her work? Okay. She she

often deals with situations like this

that people are trying to get into some

position, you know, visav God or Jesus

and try to get Jesus to come into their

hearts or they want to make sure that

they're a saved person and they're

superior to other people. I think do you

need a little more narrative distance

between yourself and the narrator? Like

I think that he is

and here I'm using a kind of Flanny O'

Conor term. He's a grotesque and absurd

and proudful person. Like he doesn't

have any right to be doing this. Like if

you were a Christian person,

you shouldn't be doing that to your

body. You know, it's almost like

committing suicide. He's definitely

injuring his brain. He's going to have a

hemorrhage. He may already be seriously

brain damaged from these concussions. Um

he's probably going to have a a

hemorrhage. you know, he's probably

going to die. So, he's doing something

that I think Fletconor would treat in a

much more satirical way, though she

would be very serious about it. But that

there's something about like he's a holy

a holy mad man or a holy holy innocent

or there's something about him that's

absurd. I think you you're too

respectful of him. You know, we we get

to feel that there's something comic and

grotesque about him and the reader, I

think, starts to feel impatient with

him, like if he were your your close

friend. And the the students are not

students, but the young people are

kind of worried about him and upset. And

he said, "I don't know why they're

worried about me." Oh, on page two, the

kids in my youth group were a little

freaked out. I had bandages on my head.

huge purple bruise. I could see it in

her eyes.

Leah seemed concerned. She worried about

me of all the relationships uh and so

forth. I'm not sure why she and the rest

of the group were so worried about my

injuries.

That seems like a very ingenuous or

disingenuous thing to say. You know, you

come in all broken and beaten up and and

with a black eye and you're hobbling in

and and wondering why they care about

you. That's sort of disingenuous for an

adult. You know, he's obviously hoping

to get through sympathy or he's he's an

exhibitionist.

If he's trying to get through this

vision, he doesn't have to do it in this

in this public way. So, I'm not sure

what you can do about that. It's because

the tone of the story is sort of

respectful toward him. Maybe it could be

more of a black humor or black comedy.

There may even be a Flanny or Connor

story where she deals with something

like this. Uh, isn't there one of her

characters wants to

the tattoo?

The tattoo on the back. Yeah.

The title right?

Yeah. The uh tattoo

I've forgotten the title of it also.

It's one of her later stories that

actually um

she wrote soon before she died. The

wife, the evangelical Christian wife of

the man who gets the tattoo of Christ on

the cross, she starts beating him with a

broom. She says, "What are you doing?

You know, you have putting an image of

Christ on your back." And she she really

singles him out as being vain and kind

of obnoxious, you know, whereas in this

story, there's nobody who who does that.

Maybe Leah would be the one, but she's

not exactly doing that because when Tim

hits him,

Tim is not reacting to that part of him.

It's more like he's jealous of

connection with Leah.

Yeah, that was an interesting moment

because Tim

uh says, "What's wrong with you?"

And I first read that line one way and

then on my second read, I read it

another way and I thought

it could either go both ways if you

wanted to leave it ambiguous. But I

thought it was meaning what's wrong with

you cuz he was looking at all of his

injuries. But then,

yes,

I also read it as like a what's wrong

with you flirting with a teenage girl.

Yes. And I thought that scene was really

very dramatic and maybe went too fast

cuz you immediately get to the sort of

rhetorical abstract ending. What would

stay in that scene a little bit longer

because Tim has been provoked to behave

in a way that's a aggravated assault. He

hits him with a skateboard. Presumably

he's knocked them out again. And this

person knocked out more times than Rocky

Graziano. I mean, he's just sort of

knocked down many, many times. You could

make him want to be an imitation of

Christ. You know, Christ suffered

physically. I mean, that might be some

part of his his pride or his hubris to

do something like that if he was if he

was Christian. But I'm not seeing how

Christ or Jesus is really um a figure in

his life. you know, he doesn't seem to

be very Christian for somebody who would

feel that Jesus was his savior and was

his closest friend if he's a youth

leader and not seeing that Jesus was

much part of the story, you know, now

might have Jesus hitting him

like I've had enough of you, you know,

sort of hitting you or hit him with a

cross or or something in some

hallucination.

So Leah is sort of a standin for this

other girl that he's remembering. Is

that it? Like

that's how I was thinking about it.

Yes.

So I think the girl in the past is too

vague.

And we we would need to know what

happened to her. Maybe she got married,

she moved on. Maybe he he's not stalking

her, of course, because a youth leader

doesn't stall. but he happens to go

drive by her house once in a while and

he sees she has a little baby or

we just need to be brought up to date

because he's not a boy anymore

and he's so starkly alone too like we

can really tell that he lives alone and

I mean he wouldn't be able to do this to

himself if he had a wife or a roommate

obviously.

Did any of you see the wonderful movie

First Reformed with Ethan Hawk? That's a

movie that's really beautiful, serious

movie about a Protestant minister in an

ecological uh sort of disaster area and

he's trying to be uh he's trying to to

be a real Christian and the story is

just brilliant. That's one of the best

movies I've seen in a long time. Ethan

Hawk's performance is tremendous

because it's it seems like it might be a

little satirical, but actually it really

isn't. so immersed in this this

Protestant minister

and then the idea that Leah is really

reaching out to him. She says, "Well,

sex is human and Jesus was was human,

too." He doesn't really want to confront

that. He doesn't talk to her in a way

that seems uh really adult. It's like

he's running away from her.

But I thought the idea and the uh sort

of audacity of the theme was very

unusual and very striking. So there were

a few other things I thought about the

story. I didn't think that Tim came

across very well. We're told that he's a

a wonderful boyfriend. It might be

better that that your character is

jealous of him a little bit or doesn't

want to grant him much. So let me ask

you kind of quickly, what does the story

mean to you? Did you write it just

recently or? Um I I probably wrote it um

last over the course of last year. Um

and I wanted to sort of earnestly

explore the uh the Christian ideology of

believing in an afterlife and then also

push it to a level of parody to see what

the limits of it would be. Um, and then

there were a few images just floating

around in my in my mind from things that

have happened to me and it was

eventually two at some point two other

things.

And then I realized, oh, these two

things I'm working on are actually the

same story. Like this this youth leader

character is the one seeing these

visions and I was able to kind of knit

them together. But it's to me it's

mostly about like um the sort of

conflict between uh our our bodies you

know our finite bodies and then people

who believe very earnestly in in the

afterlife like what use has your is your

if you truly believe that right like

what use does what does your body become

right what does hunger become what does

sex become what does

violence become

um

so I wanted to see a character str be

struggling through those sort of uh

questions

yeah I think I think the story just

needs a reccasting maybe of the voice.

It would be interesting to see him more

from other perspectives

because

will be like a close third, you know,

person, but you always should also draw

back. So, we look at them like your

camera's moving in and out. And I think

you're so close to him all the time that

we're not really seeing him. And he's

sort of like a flat character, oddly

enough, and he seems very immature. But

it's a it's a very um risky and

audacious theme I think to take this all

very very seriously. But literally he's

killing himself, you know. That's the

literal thing. And at the end I thought

maybe he had uh lapsed into a deep

unconsciousness. Is he in a coma at the

end? What are we supposed to think?

Um

yeah, I'm I'm not sure. I I I actually

think he is telling this whole story

from from after that point, right? Cuz

uh he's just explaining like this is

what happened to me. The injuries

themselves weren't serious, you know?

But I I do think I need to do better

thinking about what happens after the

end because, you know, there's this

strong implication that either he dies

or um I think it's probably more

interesting if he lives and now what is

his life like that he's ruined this?

That's right. He may be expelled from

his community or he may leave it

voluntarily. Tim may be in in jail or

he's been indicted with assault. Uh Tim

was provoked into like a public act of a

aggravated assault and the the head

injury from this blow would just all

this blood all over, you know, so you

kind of jump and tiptoe away from a a

really violent melodramatic scene. But

it's really well done and I think we

really enjoyed it. So thank you very

much.

Thank you. That was wonderful.