The Freedom of the Constraint

Hot on the heels of the sell-out Mary Karr reading comes another major literary event: David Wroblewski reading from and discussing his hugely successful debut novel, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. The word "phenomenon" is one of those most over-used and ill-used in the language, but it is accurate to describe Edgar Sawtelle as a literary phenomenon. I began reading it today, and already I can see the appeal. What came to mind, even just a few chapters in, is the old John Gardiner definition of a novel--oft heard in writing workshops--as "a vivid continuous dream." There is something dreamlike about Edgar Sawtelle, and it's something that's very hard to do (especially vividly, and continuously) because most writers overplay the surreality of the dreamlike. Wroblewski's fictional vision presents us with with a reality that's a shade beyond normal, and perhaps that's one secret of its success.

A question I had before I started the novel was, How constraining is the Hamlet parallel going to be? This is, I believe, a big issue, because when a writer makes a commitment to retell a classic story or myth, it's a strategy that can end up as a narrative straightjacket. I can see already that this is not going to be the case with Edgar. Not only are the parallels drawn with an admirable lightness of touch, they are also plain fun to work out (is that Claudius? is that Elsinore?). The decision to commit to a familiar plot (in this case, one of the most famous in literature) confers on the novelist a paradoxical freedom, too, I think. Once the plot is out of the way, so to speak, the writer can concentrate all the more on realizing his or her singular vision. Shakespeare himself--a gleeful borrower of plots--is the towering example of that practice.

Posted on Wed, January 20, 2010 by Robert Cremins

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