Thank you to my Fiction I Writing professor at Gotham, Season Harper-Fox, for sharing this story with my class as an example of plotting.
There are three things I learned from/loved about this story:
1. I like to play the "Who would be cast in the leading role?" game when I read. The only person on earth who should ever play Professor Kugelmass is Woody Allen himself. That led me to realize that while I've been trying to "get less autobiographical" in my writing, I could do much worse in life than to emulate Woody Allen's approach. Tell me that Girls is not autobiographical Lena Dunham. Tell me that This is 40 is not pulled almost entirely from Judd Apatow's own marriage. Write what you know or make up an entirely new world; just do what works for you.
2. Allen summarizes his entire backstory in his opening paragraph.
Kugelmass, a professor of humanities at City College, was unhappily married for the second time. Daphne Kugelmass was an oaf. He also had two dull sons by his first wife, Flo, and was up to his neck in alimony and support.
Backstory is my arch nemesis and this was an example of how you can meet your backstory head on, shake its hand, and then move forward with your story. The albatross of backstory must be shed!
3. Kugelmass enters the novel Madame Bovary with the help of a magician and proceeds to have a passionate and complicated love affair with Emma Bovary. I had just finished reading Madame Bovary and felt very frustrated by Flaubert's treatment of her. I think Flaubert was a big-time jerk and grade A misogynist; I hold him personally responsible for Emma's tragic death. It was quite lovely to see her having a little fun with Kugelmass in modern day New York City, even though their love affair was doomed to fail in light of the professor's various neuroses and commitment issues, not to mention the pressures that time travel places on a relationship.
You can access "The Kugelmass Episode" online.
Oh, yeah, I remember reading this in a short story class years ago...when I had only a vague idea of who Woody Allen even was!
ReplyDeleteAnd I have to agree that there are worse things than throwing a little (or more...) autobiography into our writing.