Tinkering With the Rules

A few years back, I posted about a book written by Paul Harding titled tinkers (little 't'). It's a Pulitzer-winning, rule-breaking, fearless little book with an endorsement by Marilynne Robinson and a starred review by Publishers Weekly. It's the best example I've ever found of successful rule-bending. Here are some of his 'infractions':

1. Multiple POV & tense changes. The kind that have you backtracking to figure out whose head you are in at the moment.
2. Long sentences. I mean long. Stream-of-consciousness long. One sentence had 386 words and 30 commas. And two question marks, which did little to impede the sentence, since it did not actually come to a stop at either one.
   
3. Lack of punctuation. I finally realized that the capitalized word in the sentence meant someone was speaking at that point, sans those helpful quotation marks.
4. Sentence structure. Some had so many clauses that I forgot the point before the end.
   
5. Non-sequential time travel. At least, it felt that way, with the main character's hallucinations transporting him back to his childhood and further, and back again.
6. Long passages from a manual on clock repair. I understand that these were important to the story and paralleled his father's writings, but they began without warning. Just a slight indent of the paragraph.
   
7. Slight overuse of a few favorite words. The words 'sibilant' and 'boreal' and 'arboreal' were used several times. I didn't have a problem with them (they are ethereal and slightly sensual) but they stood out because the words were distinctive, and most editors would have requested a word change.

Basically, I'm tickled pink that an author who was allowed to defy so many rules was awarded the Pulitzer, but I do see the wisdom in those rules. More than once, I had to step back from the story to orient myself. If the story's not compelling enough, a reader may feel it's too much like work and use the book as a doorstop.

Susie Finkbeiner raised a good point in her comments this week (thanks, Susie!). It is easier and more natural to break the rules when you're writing dialogue and when writing in first person. When you're in a character's head, you enter into a contract with him or her. There's an implied intimacy that allows for a natural flow of story. If the telling is stilted and proper, the story will not seem genuine, unless, of course, it's in keeping with the character's personality. I think this is why I prefer writing in first person. Short phrases, run-on sentences, dropped conjunctions - isn't this how we think in our heads? It's how we speak to intimate friends. At least, occasionally these are allowed in literature. Unless you have a Pulitzer on your hands, and then, anything goes.

A Tinker on Mars

Last week, just before boarding a plane for a six hour flight, I picked up a paperback at Hudson Booksellers in the Nashville airport. My thirty-second choice was based on four things: the intriguing cover, the size (191 small pages), the endorsement by Marilynne Robinson and the Pulitzer Medallion on the front. It had all the earmarks of a winner and I wasn't disappointed.

The book is tinkers by Paul Harding. (His debut novel, BTW and, no, the title was not capitalized) The story drew me in from the start and the prose kept me reading. Like this description of a dismantled clock: "Such a crooked and flimsy device could only keep the fantastic hours of unruly ghosts." At times his style reminded me of Ray Bradbury's, the kind of short, crisp sentences that leave a minty-fresh taste in your mouth: "Lightning crawled down the mountain and drank at the water, lapped the shallows with electric tongues..." So creative. I read with a pen poised to bracket particularly inspiring passages.

I admit that I was both puzzled and encouraged by the success of this book because it bent and broke a lot of rules that we all learned in Writing 101 at the School of Hard Literary Knocks. Here are some observations that wouldn't normally get past the editor's desk or would otherwise work against its success:

1. Multiple POV & tense changes. The kind that have you backtracking to figure out whose head you are in at the moment.
2. Long sentences. I mean long. Stream-of-consciousness long. One sentence had 386 words and 30 commas. And two question marks, which did little to impede the sentence, since it did not actually come to a stop at either one.
   
3. Lack of punctuation. I finally realized that the capitalized word in the sentence meant someone was speaking at that point, sans those helpful quotation marks.
4. Sentence structure. Some had so many clauses that I forgot the point before the end.
   
5. Small publisher: Bellevue Literary Press, a small 3-year-old, non-profit affiliated with New York University's School of Medicine. What are the odds they would produce a Pulitzer winner? The last small publisher to do so was in 1981.
   
6. Time travel. Not really - it just felt that way, with the main character's hallucinations transporting him back to his childhood and further, and back again.
7. Long passages from a manual on clock repair. I understand that these were important to the story and paralleled his father's writings, but they began without warning. Just a slight indent of the paragraph, and me momentarily scratching my head.
   
8. Slight overuse of a few favorite words. The words 'sibilant' and 'boreal' and 'arboreal' were used several times. I didn't have a problem with them (they are ethereal and slightly sensual) but it registered that my editor would have pointed it out and asked for a word change because they were very distinctive.

Basically, I'm tickled pink that an author who was allowed to defy so many rules was awarded the Pulitzer, but I'll admit that I see the wisdom in those rules. More than once, I had to step back from the story to orient myself. That's precisely what we don't want as writers. Our stories should be seamless so that our readers look up at the end in wonder that they are still sitting on a familiar couch in their own home or a window seat on a crowded plane making its approach. But I guess it's a good thing I'm not a judge for the Pulitzer Award!

All in all, it's a remarkable, ground-breaking book. I will read it again and force myself not to highlight or mark sections, but to absorb it all together as a solid entity. Do you have a book that has made you wonder how the author got away with major rule breakage?