Stephen Koch

The Most Important Person, Angelica, Grandma Susan and I are doing a little August time in our longtime town-away-from-town, Greenport, New York, on the North Fork of Long Island. Last night Susan, the MIP, and I took the ferry over to Shelter Island, where Itzhak Perlman and his wife Toby run a summer training camp for young classical music prodigies. Two master classes were open to the public, with Perlman himself in dialogue with the wunderkind. The music was wonderful, the kids dazzling, the summer heat in the performance tent no joke, and Perlman so masterful I learned something new not only about music, but about teaching, too. 

Now, please do believe me, I have no wish to return to teaching. Been there, done that. I also know that performing music and writing prose are two different things. But if I were running a workshop again, I’d follow Perlman’s lead in two ways.

 
First, I’d MAKE WRITERS PERFORM. Each writer would give the class a reading of the whole piece BEFORE THE ACTUAL CLASS BEGINS. Preferably one full day before. REASON: What does not read well when read aloud usually does not real well, period. The ear is the best editor, and any writer’s friend.

Second, I’d weigh in harder with my own views. Perlman’s views on performing music are what he offers these kids. He tells them how HE thinks it should sound. Egotism? Sure, but what of it? He’s Itzhak Perlman.

I make no ridiculous comparisons between IP and SK, but presumably when I’m running a workshop instead of joining it, I’m in the front chair because I have some sort of special experience to impart. I used to underplay that in my teaching, partly out of insecurity and partly because I didn’t want to impose my views. (No egotism for me!)

I’d change that now. You take my workshop, you get me!

After a first hour (or half hour) of a group discussion, I’d devote a second equal time to a very focused public exchange between the writer and me.  I’d build on the group’s ideas of course, but for better or worse the dialogue would be between two people, not twelve. I’d want my contribution to be tactful but forceful and opinionated, given with a little something of the verve, tough love, (accent on love), and wisdom Perlman showed last night.  

Because it all made great sense, and it looked like fun.

With this first blog on www.stephenkoch.net, I’m about to dive into a pool where I’ve always wanted to swim. I’ve wanted to write a column for as long as I’ve been writing, but back when the only path to a column was print, no editor was either wise or foolish enough to offer me the chance. This blog is my chance.  I am bouncing on the board. Will it be a swan dive or a belly flop? We’ll see. Luckily, there aren’t many people watching.

Just you.

You know who you are, but who am I? To those who have come here looking for the site of Stephen Koch that awe-inspiring mountain-climber, snowboarder and skier, you’re way off site. You want www.stephenkoch.com, and you’ve got www.stephenkoch.net. I’m Stephen Koch, the writer, and I’m a very different fellow from the amazing athlete from Wyoming. I’m scared of heights.

In any case, my site may perplex you. The array of my books seems so scattered. I sometimes think what I’ve done looks like an unsolved jigsaw puzzle with a missing piece or two. There’s history. There’s The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop. There are two novels. There’s art criticism. There’s stuff about Andy Warhol. So what is my literary identity?

I think I have an answer to this question, and I am going to make it my first post.

It’s true: I do write history, but don’t see myself as an historian. I write fiction, but don’t see myself as a novelist. I write about art and literature, but don’t see myself as a critic. In fact, I refuse to see myself as any of these things. I will not slap one of those labels on my tee-shirt and dump all the rest of what I do wastebasket of some second-class status. And to call myself just a “writer”—just a plain “writer”—clarifies nothing. What author, what blogger, isn’t?

It’s more helpful to point out that everything I’ve written is subtly unified by one common element. Almost all of it either is, or is about, storytelling. I write narrative. My history is narrative. My criticism is narrative. My fiction is narrative. If I have anything to offer in any of those areas, it’s because my main talent, for better or worse, is for narrative.  I believe in the mind’s power to define experience, consolidate passion, and tell the truth through a unified sequence of events. I think narration is one of humanity’s most valuable creations, a prime vehicle for entertainment, art, and thought in which those three things constantly mix and merge. I know that’s an idea under constant attack, but you’ll find it defended here. Those who claim that narrative is always illusion, propaganda, reaction, or social repression are wrong, and I reject wholesale the standard academic effort to build walls between narrative as art and entertainment and thought. “This is too entertaining to be art” is noxious. “This is too smart to be entertainment,” is meaningless.

Of course, I’m not talking here about quality. I know perfectly well that many— most—stories serve up stupid, vulgar art; dull, unproducible entertainment; and/or crappy, worthless thought, and that much of it is illusion and propaganda. That’s not my point.

I have two points. One very big. Another much smaller.

The big point is that narrative is one of the human mind’s most essential instruments, and that its majestic power sweeps across every genre.

My smaller point—much. much smaller—is that when it comes to yours truly,  whatever the subject, whether it’s criticism, history, or real things re-imagined, my mind looks for and usually finds some sort of  story, and I am almost always at my best working within it.

So there it is: my the first post’s grand pronouncement.

Let’s come back down to earth. From now on, there will be a posting at this site every Friday, or else I’ll be too sick to get out of bed.  It will be about be history, or fiction, or art, or any other subject about which I think I have something worthwhile to say. Don’t look for commentary on the news. Don’t look for pit-bull political arguments. If I say nothing about Obama’s inauguration, trust me: it’s not because I don’t care. It’s because I have nothing to say that a hundred thousand others haven’t already said.

In the first months especially, I’ll be feeling my way, looking for what you find valuable. I’ll need feedback. So let me begin with a promise. I will respond promptly and individually to each and every e-mail that comes to me through this site. The response may be short, and it may not be what you want to hear. It may be just a “thanks” or “no thanks.” But if it doesn’t come, call me a liar.

And I’ll talk to you next Friday!