Fiction: A Mirror One Carries Down a Road
Freshman Seminar, Spring, 2016, Chuck Wachtel
The texts for this class will be contained in a single course packet that includes
works of short fiction, brief excerpts from longer fiction, two essays, excerpts
from screenplays, and more. The readings will serve as the basis of our class
discussion and, by extension, the bases of written creative responses. Thus, the
work of class members will also provide elemental aspects of our subject matter.
Since the writer’s craft and the purposes of fiction will be our primary focus, we
will not be reading with a specific critical approach, as much as an interpretive
one Thus the writers who will fuel our imaginations and our dialogue come from
a wide and diverse range of sources. They will include: Paul Bowles, Julio
Cortázar, Gertrude Stein, Walter Benjamin, Lydia Davis, Donald Barthelme, Toni
Cade Bambara, Paul Valery, Gilbert Sorrentino, Istvan Orkeny, Anton Chekhov,
Merce Rodoreda, Yosunari Kawabata, Gustave Flaubert, Leslie Marmon Silko,
David Foster Wallace, James Baldwin, Dubravka Ugresic, Russell Banks,
Charles Baxter, Chinua Achebe, E.L. Doctorow, Kay Boyle, William Burroughs,
Isaac Babel, Alice Munroe, Paul Auster, Grace Paley, and others TBA. lf needed
l will provide additional hand-outs.
Weeks 1 and 2: The sources and purposes of fiction. Excerpts from Julio
Cortazar, lstvan Orkeny, Jean Giono, and others.
Week 2: Spencer Holst and Gilbert Sorrentino. Discussion of first student
writing.
Week 3: Donald Barthelme’s The Perfect Sentence in Fiction (short essay), and
32 sentences.
Week 4: E. L. Doctorow’s False Documents.
Weeks 5 and 6: The Storyteller. Short-Shorts and excerpts by modern and
contemporary writers that emulate the works of the traditional oral storytellers,
including W.S Merwin, Barry Yourgrau, Lydia Davis, Keith Taylor,
Week 6: Allan Gurganus, Darla Stankridge, Julio Cortazar, and Yosunari
Kawabata.
Week 7: More complex and dimensional short-short stories. Mid-Autumn, by
Robert Olen Butler, Scheherazade, by Charles Baxter, The Scorpion, by Paul
Bowles.
Weeks 8 and 9: In Retrospect: The Lesson, by Toni Cade Bambara, SelfPortrait With Vanishing Point, by Jill Ciment,
Week 9: First Love, by Samuel Beckett, Forever Overhead, by David Foster
Wallace.
Week 10 and 11: Structure: 2 screenplay excerpts. From Smoke, by Paul
Auster, The News, by Darla Stankridge,
Week 11: Isaac Babel, 3 stories, and, time permitting, Paul Auster’s story,
Auggie Wren’s Christmas Story, on which his screenplay excerpt is based.
Weeks 12 and 13: Voice: Goodbye and Good Luck, by Grace Paley, The
Salamander, by Merce Rodoreda,
Week 13: The Shawl, by Cynthia Ozick, From The Railroad Earth, by Jack
Kerouac, and, time permitting, a brief discussion of Darla Stankridge’s essay
Behind the Mask, Narrative Voice in Fiction.
Week 14: Discussion, question-answering session, and celebration of the work
we did in the previous weeks of the semester. Party.
Note: I know there is a lot of stuff in the above inventory – probably too much. I
wanted to include many of the texts I love and wanted you to see and own and,
when needed, we will cut back accordingly. The rate at which we proceed will be
contingent on the rate of learning. I also want to allow enough time to workshop
student writing. My office hours will be scheduled on same day as class.