Gender: Male
Status: Single
Age: 18
Sign: Capricorn
City: Colorado Springs
State: Colorado
Country: US
Signup Date: 6/12/2007
|
|
|
|
Friday, March 07, 2008
|
I would like to thank Brian Mandabach for taking time out of his schedule to answer these questions. This being your first book, did you find the editing process to be a hassle, or were you glad to see somebody look into your work with that kind of intensity?Actually, I welcomed it. I asked a number of people read the manuscript as soon as I had a reading draft (more or or less the first draft, cleaned up). I really needed people I trusted to look at the work, and tell me how it read. The writer is just too close to see some things. After that, I did a major revision, mostly adding and rearranging. Then, another read by my trusted friends, and another revision, mostly cutting. Once I got an agent, he had a slight suggestion for the end. My editor had some thoughts, too, though he left the final decisions to me. The revision and editing process is a lot of work, and exposing your writing to others makes you vulnerable, but not as vulnerable as when the book comes out and you get reviewed! Your primary character, Cassie, has many strange quirks, foremost being that she doesn't like CD's because they remove the purity of sound. She's also a vegan. Are these topics that have significance to you? They are significant to Cassie, so they are significant to me. Digitizing, btw, makes the music too pure, too sterile. I love my new ipod, but I do believe that analog and vinyl sound best. This is not your first scene in the "art" category -- at one point you were in a band, The Bo'l Weevils, where you were the vocalist. In Or Not there are many references to music and short stories, as well as other novels such as Lord of the Rings. Do you think that the education system should stress music education to students?
I think art and music are at least as important as math, science, history, English. But there's a cognitive dissonance in the mind of America regarding education: people believe, or pretend to believe, that we must be hard-core in meeting standards, competing with Europe and Asia, raising test scores, closing the achievement gap, blah blah blah. But most American parents don't want their kids to do four hours of homework, wear uniforms, or be subject to strict discipline. (Neither do most American students, surprise!) Many also claim to want all kids to have equal opportunity in education, but some of the same don't want their money to go to poor schools. And they want their own kids in high-level programs where they won't be dragged down by poorly motivated and performing kids. Sadly, the arts are always going to be the last priority in a sea of conflicting concerns and limited resources. But art is a subversive activity, thus it has a limited place in public schools. Schools should at the very least give kids the opportunity to absorb enough music and art to begin to find their own voices and seek more on their own. Or Not touches on many issues that could be considered controversial in teen life. In one scene, Cassie is told by her older brother's girlfriend that it's okay to masturbate. Do you feel that it's best to bring larger topics out in the open, rather than being suggestive as in many young adult books?
I know what you mean. When they read S.E. Hinton'sThe Outsiders, few of my students understand the implication that Soda's girlfriend leaves town because she's pregnant. And Hinton uses very few four letter words, chosing instead to say things like, "cursed softly," instead of the actual words. Most young adult books now are much more open--much too open for some people's taste. They removed The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things from the Jenkins library this year. Why parents can't trust their own kids to choose appropriate books is beyond me. And what gives someone the right to unilaterally decide that a book is unfit for other library users just because that individual finds it offensive? That's what I find offensive. I think we're on a topic that is related to the conflicting educational priorities I discussed above. We live in a pluralistic society in which it seems that instead of more freedom flowing from a more varied culture, we get the opposite: more things are forbidden. Artistically, what should be implied and what should be explicit is up to the artist. That's his or her decision based on what's right for the work. Or Not wasn't written just for a teen audience, though. I wrote it for myself and for Cassie and for readers of any age. But I didn't take anything out to make it fit in with the young adult label, and I didn't add anything to teach a particular "lesson" to readers. The sex talks that Cassie and Ally have were, I think, important for both of them. By the way, I should correct you! Ally doesn't just say that masturbation is okay: she recommends it. But the subject is rather private, isn't it? It's also funny. I remember a great Monty Python bit: "Masturbation—The Difficult One: Some people find it difficult to talk about. Others find it difficult to do." LMAO And remember, Or Not is a novel. Any subject that's appropriate for the characters is appropriate, and it's not necessarily meant to be morally or technically instructive—there's plenty of nonfiction out there for those purposes. Colorado tends to be a conservative state, and Colorado Springs is likely the most conservative city in the state. Is there a significance to having such a liberal family inserted here?Cassie wouldn't have had such a hard time if she'd lived in Boulder. But the Springs has plenty of people all across the political spectrum. And though Cassie's politics stir up controversy, on a deeper level they're only incidental to her struggle. Religion plays a large role in Cassie's school. A friend of Cassie's, Jenny, believes very strongly in God, while Cassie seemingly mocks and challenges her belief system. What are your views as far as religion? Also, in your classroom do you see religion used antithetical to its purpose?People have always used religion hypocritically. That's one thing that Jesus was up against. But what is the purpose of religion? Is it to enlighten the soul, spread love, and provide balm to the suffering? Or is it to increase the power of the righteous and enforce the status quo? Ask Socrates. Ask Mother Teresa. Ask the Taliban Mullahs. On a lighter note, as a teacher you have seen CSAP (Colorado State Assessment Program) tests handed out for several years. One passage of the book Cassie decides to flunk these tests to prove nothing. This isn't the first time you've written about the dreaded CSAPs. You also have written a song about them that you share with your students. What frustrates you the most with these state exams, and how do you suggest changing the system?All tests above the individual classroom level should be shredded and used to line the cages of small animals. Before students are subjected to them.The only way to change the system is nonviolent revolution. There are many allusions to other books, music and government figures. One might say that you are very well read. How much of your time do you spend reading? And how much do you stress the importance of reading to your students?Not nearly enough. I just finished an amazing book, Titus Groan, a bizzare gothic fantasy by a contemporary of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis—Mervyn Peake. Just the language in that book is nothing short of mind expanding. I'm also reading a couple of light YA novels, and the classic YA novel Dicey's Song, by Cynthia Voight.I stress reading a lot, but what can a teacher do? When families have more computers and TVs than people in the house, but fewer books than they have fingers in the house, really . . . what can I do to make their kids literate? At the library yesterday, I ran into a friend of mine from college who's now a professor of philosophy at CC. Here we are at the library with our kids, right? I'm an English teacher and he's a philosopher, and we start talking about his 16-year-old daughter, how she is down on reading and just wants to be on the computer. He's just read one of those alarmist reports about how the vocabularies of our young people are being stunted by too little reading and too much media. But it's true. Kid's development in language is so retarded that they think retarded is spelled r-e-t-a-r-t-e-d. They also think it's a harmless insult intead of a synonym for delayed.I'm starting to feel like an old fogey, let alone sound like one, but don't get me wrong: I love my computer, and not least of all because I can go on myspace and see how my former students are getting along, or talk to some kid about what sort of subtext might be imbedded in a Disney movie or an album by the Who. I can also meet readers and other writers. So I believe that social networking can be a vehicle for making powerful connections with other people. But there's only so much time, and if you don't devote some time to reading, you're missing the single greatest way to develop your mind and connect yourself to the history and future possiblilites of humankind. The writing in the book appears as a diary. Did you find this style of writing easier or harder than writing a novel in the form of a continuous story?
The journal format was very challenging and limiting. Limiting because everything has to come through Cassie's pen. Challenging because of the almost insurmountable difficulty in establishing verisimilitude and believability. But it also allowed me to effectively assume Cassie's voice. You are writing another novel. How far are you from the completion of it, what is it's premise, and when do you expect to see it on shelves?I'm struggling with the first major revision. Who knows when or if it will be on the shelves! The story takes place in the late 1970s in suburban Chicagoland—when and where I grew up—and it follows two couples, four friends, through their senior/junior year. You mention the Three Sisters Mountains. as an Oregonian myself, I find the story within a story about them quite amusing. Can you explain how exactly you came up with the story, and was a visit to Oregon the spark of this story?We go to my brother's Oregon beach house every year or two, and that setting was the inspiration, along with the movie Run, Lola, Run!, and Cassie's interest in the intersection or overlap of poetics and reality. Over time, you've had many students pass through the door to your classroom. Their influence on your writing is substantial; many of them are even mentioned in your acknowledgments, and are even the reason that the book was written. Are many of the characters in the book accurate portrayals of many students you've had in past years?Not at all. I've taken a few little things, for example when one of my seventh graders was told she was going to hell. Also a few little character traits, which I've exagerated. But none of the characters is based on any real person. Individualism seems to be the spark of the book, and how groups tend to push those who have it away. Is this what you believe, and if so, could you embelish upon the subject from experiences in the classroom.
I don't know, Niles. Nietzsche said, "The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." Can I just leave it at that?
Politics are mentioned in Or Not. Would you consider yourself politically active? Yes. It is tiring, but yes. I'll be at a caucus for one of the parties on super-Tuesday. Finally, at the beginning of the book, there is a piece of Edgar Allen Poe's "Alone". For what reason do you use this particular poem? I came across the poem while working with my students in the library on their poetry collections. The excerpt encapsulates the way Cassie feels isolated, not just lonely, but without a soul's connection: " . . .from the same source I have not taken/ my sorrow, I could not awaken/ my heart to joy at the same tone,/ and all I loved, I loved alone." Again, I would like to thank Mr. Mandabach for his help with writing an article, however the quality of the article may never capture the fulness of his character.
 | Currently reading:
Or Not
By Brian Mandabach
Release date: 01 October, 2007 |
|
4:13 AM
Powered by  | | English | | Albanian | | Arabic | | Bulgarian | | Catalan | | Chinese | | Croatian | | Czech | | Danish | | Dutch | | Estonian | | Filipino | | Finnish | | French | | Galician | | German | | Greek | | Hebrew | | Hindi | | Hungarian | | Indonesian | | Italian | | Japanese | | Korean | | Latvian | | Lithuanian | | Maltese | | Norwegian | | Polish | | Portuguese | | Romanian | | Russian | | Serbian | | Slovak | | Slovenian | | Spanish | | Swedish | | Thai | | Turkish | | Ukrainian | | Vietnamese |
|
|
|