Understanding Robert Coover (as a reader & a writer)- parts 1 & 2

To look through the lenses of philosopher Roland Barthes- we literally live in an environment of signs, advertising and representations, even in our art. Humankind can never again be simple nor feel naturally connected. Our technological culture is at the point of no return. In the 1960s, Robert Coover legitimized the genre of Metafiction. In fact, Coover upgrades to Postmodernism where the focus is no longer on finding universal truths (the modernist point of writing) but focusing on the structure of the story. This allows the reader to participate in deconstructing the text, especially, because Coover surrounds the readers in a somewhat familiar version of fairytales and myths, all which are universally known.

In The Door: A Prologue of Sorts, the reader enters the world of Little Red Riding Hood except things are not as they seem. We, as readers, understand the wolf will eat her and so does Red. There’s a great anxiety and tension built up in the voice as she reaches the door as referred to as a passageway into the rest of the book, “this was a comedy from which, once entered, you never returned…” (19). Coover expects us to know the ending and thus, never goes there, because he wants us to focus on other points. As confused as I was for what was beyond that door, or the rest of the book, I understood that I had to read into Coover and always keep in mind that he does control the narrative. And thanks to my teacher Eric’s interpretation and guidance, the theme to take away from Coover’s prologue is- all fiction is a form of propaganda.

Coover takes surrealism to the next level making the narrator, author and characters voices blend and play against each other in his stories. One of the best tricks of this genre is the ability to write outside the box, the voice and carry the story into different realms and perspectives. In The Magic Poker, there are no boundaries between the world of imagination and the world of the story. There are multiple “once upon a times” and multiple versions of how this island was invented. There is also a strong presence of Robert Coover himself, “No, no, there’s nothing to be gained by burdening our fabrications with impieties. Enough that the skin of the world is littered with our contentious artifice, lepered with the stigmata of human aggression and despair, without suffering our songs to be flatted by savagery. Back to the poker” (30). I love these interruptions because it not only shows Coover’s ‘musical quality of language’ (as my teacher puts it) but also just fucks with the boundaries of fiction itself. This is what Metafiction is all about! No matter how fantastical the different versions of the story and the characters in the story and the narrator get, there is a real sense of Coover himself- the writer. He puts in his two cents as if the story took control of itself. This is where the reader is expected to take a step back and re-evaluate what Coover is trying to do here by writing himself into the story as the writer which lost control of his own story. He is inviting us to interpret. Even if the reader wasn’t a writer and wasn’t clued into what is going on- he or she would still understand his or her own version of the story. The conclusive theme of The Magic Poker- reading is a process of writing.

I was writing stories about writing stories long before I understood what Metafiction was- fiction about fiction. Now, while reading Pricksongs & Descants by Robert Coover, I can further understand and develop how the process of writing becomes a process of telling. Also, as a writer, I have the power to create anything, to not be restricted by order or sense. For example, Coover writes a dedication five stories into the book in Seven Exemplary Fictions titled Dedicatoria y Prologo a don Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. In which Robert Coover shows his inspiration for this postmodern way of writing, “But, don Miguel, the optimism, the innocence, the aura of possibility you experienced have been largely drained away, and the universe is closing in on us again. Like you, we, too, seem to be standing at the end of one age and on the threshold of another. We, too, have been brought into a blind alley by the critics and the analysts; we, too, suffer from a ‘literature of exhaustion,’ …” (78). It is exhausting to read works from authors who attempt to show the answers to all these universal truths. In this “threshold of another age,” a philosophical shift called postmodernism is born. It is no longer the writer’s job to guide the universe, but the reader’s job to deconstruct.

While reading J’s Marriage I was able to figure that this story was based off a religious figure. It wasn’t until the mention of carpentry towards the end had I fully known it was about Joseph and Mary. Maybe it’s years of Catholicism curriculum and thought which helped me to encode this sense, but I was aware of Coover’s hidden techniques from previous stories on how to read his book. It was how Coover described the character’s love for his wife- almost heavenly, but yet they couldn’t consummate their marriage. This trickery of fiction is what I love about Coover’s writing. The reader can only rely on his or her own knowledge to encode the stories in Pricksongs & Descants.

In the second half the book, Coover has prepared the readers with the ability to decipher imagination versus the real world just by recognizing the structure of the story itself. The Elevator is the best example of this technique and arguably the best story in the book. My first impression was similar to the plot of a Twilight Zone episode, more specifically the Tower of Terror ride at Disneyland, Ca. But, between reading this story and class, I stepped into an elevator. I reflected on the awkwardness between people you are trapped in such proximity too, also the fact that most buildings suspiciously don’t have a floor 13 (how our character Martin works on floor 14), and the danger of being trapped in a falling elevator. These are all connections I feel Coover wanted me to make (Obviously not the Disneyland ride because that was after his time- but still it is a ride about the elevator falling from the thirteenth floor). The reader steps into the elevator with Martin as reading it. Thus, the experience of reading the piece is the same of the characters. The story is the reader’s universe; “this elevator contains them all: space, time, cause, motion, magnitude, class. Left to our own devices, we would probably discover them” (129). To the reader, as to Martin in the end of #7- there is nothing outside of the elevator.

Since the story is in itself is numbered like floors and with various scenes and vibes of stepping into and out of an elevator, the structure is also a part of the plot. Coover’s choice in directly relating the form and the content exposes the architecture of what the narrative does- allows the reader to have even more power in interpretation. At the end of #7, Martin is trapped outside the elevator and Coover evokes a supernatural funny feeling because of it. Coover also leaves the ending sentence without punctuation or a particular end, just a run away sentence. This allows the reader to form the story’s outcome. Also, with having a chapter “15…” with the ellipsis, tells us that Coover wants us to keep thinking of possibilities for stories in the elevator. As a writer, it is a good habit to write the same story over and over again- in multiplicities. It is infinite what slight variations and cause and effect decisions can change the entire fate of the story. Coover’s underlying theme- Fiction always offers another option.

Another comical perspective into Coover’s work was how to work with your audience. In Romance of the Thin Man and The Fat Lady as well as The Hat Act, it is obvious that the audience in the stories itself dictate what happens to the main characters within the plot. The thin man and the fat lady want the story to be a romance but when it transitions into a happy ending for the couple, the crowd no longer is interested in them. This frightens the couple and turns them against each other and against their true selves. It is possible this can represent a writer in process of writing for a specific audience. There are certain frames -which can create a successful story- but it is not genuine. The writer, like the thin man and the fat lady, can doubt themselves and their meaning. “Maybe it’s just that we’ve lost a taste for the simple in a world perplexingly simple” (147). In The Hat Act, it is obvious that Robert Coover is the magician. There is also no plot to the story but nonetheless a narrative. The audience “boohs” and “ahhs” at Coover’s tricks. The magician produces pleasure (based of disgust-another demand of an audience) by building up his act. Like the work of a performer, writing is also based of the structure.

Finally, we come to one of the most talked about stories in the collection- The Babysitter. Did Coover mean for this to be confusing? Of course he did! He blurs the characters and doesn’t pick one plot, but all! Showing us that multiplicity is one of the greatest things about Fiction. This story is also a great example of one of Robert Coover’s favorite themes- sex! And sex does evoke an emotional response from the reader- always, even if you are a nun. As a human reader (you never know?), we are challenged to see how sex evolves on an individual level- from a baby to an infant and as a teenager to an aging adult. There’s a lot of sexual experimentation going on here. Coover has the babysitter seducing the little boy, the dad daydreaming about the babysitter, both the boy and the father touching the babysitter in the tub (two separate scenes), two teenage boys raping the babysitter, and the adults at a party which suggests some type of orgy. What is appropriate in life is not what is appropriate in Fiction. In life, you are curious, there’s puberty, experimentation, sexual love, and later- regret as the parents show us. In Fiction, the writer can show all! But there is a structure to how Coover set up the story. It does start off rather innocent and progresses into increasingly uncomfortable, all the way to scenes death and rape.

As a writer, there are endless choices. Coover wrote Pricksongs & Descants in order for the reader to uncover and interpret his writing choices. Why did he choose the have scenes in the bathroom in The Babysitter? Maybe because the bathroom evokes a sense of intimacy and vulnerability or maybe because you always feel like someone is watching you (and the reader is!) But, Robert Coover is a brilliant writer who engages and also relies on his reader to participate. It is this postmodern sense of deconstructionism that allows the writer to write outside the book. Every story is a lesson I can’t help but take into account when I am writing my own stories. I never realized that I had similar techniques as Coover does and I am appreciative to have read (and discussed in class) Pricksongs & Descants: a reader’s guide to the endless possibilities of how to write.