11-17-08 Week Twelve The "New Fabulism"

Today in class we discussed Karen Russel and her work of short stories. St. Lucy's home for girls raised by wolves. Our discussion focused primarily around Her use of fantasy, we collectively wondered: how, by utilizing fantasy in her work, does Russel align herself with a particular genre? Has she trapped herself in the voice of a child and is there a problem with depending on the metaphor of the fantastic to define the experience of loss of innocence/coming of age?

In my reflections in the class discussion I began thinking about what Prof. Row mentioned on authors like Saffron Foyer who have almost locked themselves into this trap of "out quirking" themselves. Each book must be more bazaar than the next. I read both of Saffron-Foer's popular novels and I would think the last was actually less quirkier. It is primarily one continuous narrative, unlike his first which jumps around in time. But still I could see how one finds themselves in this predicament. I don't know if this would apply to Russel but I couldn't imagine her publishing anything that did not include an aspect of the fantastic, it seems such the core of her narratives.

We talked about her expanding her alligator story into a novel and if it would still hold the same appeal as her short stories. I certainly think she could pull it off, but she will have restructure her work and define the role of the fantastic. She seems to walk a tight line between true bizarreness and the "real" world, and I believe that for her pieces to work as full length narratives she will have to more concretely situate writing into one of these perspectives.