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TRUE NOTEBOOKS by Mark Salzman


jaedmc

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I teach English is a secondary school just outside of London. I have a library lesson with my Year 8 (low ability) class every two weeks. I read them 'Clouds' at the end of a very peaceful and enjoyable lesson (believe me, most library lessons are not like that). It had blown me away in terms of what the boys had become capable of, and it was just a really nice touch. Whether they enjoyed it or not, I'm not sure, but with the context and information, was nice to just show them what people can be capable of when it comes to their own writing.

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I am currently about a third of the way through this and it is mostly okay but I have a bit of a disconnect with it.  It seems to technically be non-fiction but is more of a novelization of true events and the blurriness that introduces bothers me a bit on some level.  Perhaps towards the end of his experience he realized he had a book here and started to take very detailed notes but can't have known that early on, yet there is specific dialogue included that in all likelihood is either being remembered many months later or re-created in a way to sort of paraphrase what was covered at the time.  I mean he states that he writes in his notebooks a lot so perhaps he just takes absurdly detailed notes on all of his life experiences big or small, but it feels like there would be pieces missing that just aren't.

 

It does have the benefit of apparently legit writing samples he saved but they have obviously been cleaned up a great deal which almost certainly makes them easier to read but feels a bit like a cheat.  The lack of typos is one thing but the grammar often feels stronger than what I'd anticipate.  Does this make me think more of these kids than if they were transcribed as-is?  Does it shift reality to better make the point he wants to make?

 

On one hand it really shouldn't matter as long as it is a good read (and so far it generally is) but in cleaning things up I worry some blurriness was introduced and it hangs enough in the back of my head to pop up at times when reading.  While comparing a book to science is always foolhardy with experiments you must avoid even the faintest outside touch as it can skewer the results; here I feel the author's hand more than I think I should.

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I finished this morning. 

 

It was very readable, maybe even the most readable book we've done yet. It flew by in a lot of ways. The author's voice was very honest, and frankly, since we deal so much with unreliable narrators in what we read, I think there's some level of comparison here. He was very quick to be self-depreciating or to admit when he was wrong. It's interesting that he was able to manage that in a way almost none of our fictional narrators could and I wonder what that says about a lot of things really, about non-fiction against fiction, about life against what we consider interesting or meaningful characters to be, about an author vs a character. 

 

There were times in the first two thirds that it gets pretty precious. The areas of conflict were mainly about the author coming to grips with his own hesitation and preconceived notions and then with him trying to maintain control and be accepted by the class and the establishment. He seemed to be pretty easily accepted by the class though and he seemed to get past his own notions pretty easily too. Most of the time was then spent with the students without those things as huge concerns. Again, this was a difference between non-fiction and fiction, because this was probably just how it happened. There were elements of stress and strain like when the retreat breaks down, but none of it was too relevant to the main themes. The most powerful bits were towards the end at Kevin's trial, especially when he really had to face the reality of the situation. 

 

Maybe because of that, for most of the book, the students' actual works seemed somehow too precious. I'm not saying they felt exploitative but they did feel sort of precious. Part of the problem might have been that he wiped out the spelling errors. My guess is that this was a practicality. He probably only had the typed version of the work and he fixed it then. It's more than counterbalanced by the reality of the situation that these kids were in especially towards the end of the book. I had my own notions. For instance, I couldn't help but visibly picture Javier like Weevil from Veronica Mars. I don't want to know what that says about me. There was kind of a weird Mr. Kotter and the Sweathogs gone wrong feel to this too, but in the end I'm glad I read it.

 

I'd be interested in reading Salzman's other non-fiction work but I somehow feel that would be even more precious. Hearing about him trying to learn karate as a teenager just seems annoying for some reason. I'd be less interested in reading the fiction. I don't think I'd be able to separate it from his non-fiction voice.

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In 2012 I read a bunch of non-fiction, and this was one of the books that I enjoyed the most.  It still flies right by, but going back to it now after everything else we've been reading, the writing felt very basic to me for whatever reason.  Apparently this guy got nominated for a Pulitzer, so maybe he was purposely trying to keep it simple here.

 

I am currently about a third of the way through this and it is mostly okay but I have a bit of a disconnect with it.  It seems to technically be non-fiction but is more of a novelization of true events and the blurriness that introduces bothers me a bit on some level.  Perhaps towards the end of his experience he realized he had a book here and started to take very detailed notes but can't have known that early on, yet there is specific dialogue included that in all likelihood is either being remembered many months later or re-created in a way to sort of paraphrase what was covered at the time.  I mean he states that he writes in his notebooks a lot so perhaps he just takes absurdly detailed notes on all of his life experiences big or small, but it feels like there would be pieces missing that just aren't.

 

There is a note at the end about this, where he basically says that he recreated dialogue from memory, and acknowledges that memory is supposed to be unreliable but whatever.

 

Re the kids' writing, he says that the only changes he made were to correct spelling and punctuation.  I don't have a problem with that, except that there are other times where he reproduces writing that he didn't like and purposely does not correct spelling (his earlier experience teaching a creative writing class, and the time with Virgil when the class was getting overcrowded.  Actually I have mixed feelings about the Virgil story - I don't like that he didn't fix the spelling, but I like that it shows that not every word written by a young offender was automatically golden to him, which makes everyone else's writing seem that much more impressive).  That feels like more of a cheat to me.

 

My big thing with this book was that I read it and I liked most of the kids, but when I step back and think about it, I felt like information was being deliberately withheld, and that had to be done in order for me to like them.  We don't necessarily need to know any more than "most of these kids are here because they killed someone" and the in-depth examination of Kevin's case, although I'm really curious what happened with someone like Wong.  And one of the themes is that we're supposed to be willing to give them second chances and not to judge them for one mistake.  But part of me feels that most of them probably don't deserve a second chance, and I want whatever they did to be emphasized more.  Then another part of me feels like a dick for thinking that way :)

 

Also I love that line "The priest's son started trippin' so we fucked that punk up in the parking lot."  Quite the attention-grabber.

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There is a note at the end about this, where he basically says that he recreated dialogue from memory, and acknowledges that memory is supposed to be unreliable but whatever.

 

 

 

I got to this so I'm glad it is at least acknowledged.  It also makes me feel less overly critical if the author himself feels the need to address it.

 

This also means that I finished it.  I'd say it was pretty good overall and was definitely easy to read through, which I consider to be a positive.  In terms of the author withholding information it seems to me that he intentionally did not look too deeply into the details of his class's history but I think this is likely the biggest flaw with the book.  In many ways he he evangelizing about the class and the kids but in the process it is hard to ignore how both him and us do not have complete information.  I don't think it is a fatal flaw, but it is there.

 

I'm kinda curious how long he stuck with the class after this tale wrapped up.

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I liked the fact that I didn't feel he was necessarily going 'LOOK AT THIS, LOOK AT THIS' when he put their writing into the book. I didn't think he was banging me over the head with the need to be impressed by what the boys had written. It just became part and parcel of the whole thing.

 

I wasn't cynical about the make-up of the book, but I could see why this would be an issue for some.

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