Prompt #7: Shields, David Shields

Author David Shields takes "quoting your favorite line" to a whole new level in his book, Reality Hunger. Shields book is filled with quote after quote from a wide variety of authors, most unknown that relate to a plethora of different topics. While this book has controversy surrounding it the main argument over Shields book is not about whether it's good or not, but if it has coherence.

According to Merriam-Websters dictionary, "coherence is a systematic or logical connection of consistency or the integration of diverse elements, relationships, or values."  Coherence is a word that most would not use to describe Shields book. His book is labeled from A to Z, with quotes that maybe relate to each other or maybe they don't at all. I think the true battle of coherence in this book is up to the reader. I will argue with anyone that this book is coherent and has a true meaning that goes beyond any genre of nonfiction. 

Let's begin with the audience of this piece of writing. The audience could be anyone who enjoys a good book or any writer looking for inspiration. The audience ties into the coherence because any piece of writing that has a following audience has to have even a speck of coherence in it or the readers would become frustrated, put the book down and never speak of it again. In this case, the book would have low rhetorical velocity because no one would post a Facebook status about it or be writing a blog post for a college English class project about it either.  

So, my point remains, coherence is something that I believe this book follows quite well. The excerpt I'll be referring to is from the Y chapter. Shields is a smart man, if you can write a book, you're smart. That's my philosophy. It may seem like he puts lots of random quotes in or is just choosing the ones he likes but I think that's a misconception. Some of them maybe, but there are a few I would like to discuss that he put in this chapter that I think allude to the whole point of the book: thinking outside the box of writing.

The quote 606 of this chapter states, "If you write a novel, you sit and weave a little narrative. If you're a romantic writer, you write novels about men and women falling in love, give a little narrative here and there etc. And it's okay, but it's of no account. Novel qua novel is a from of nostalgia." Shields chose this quote and put in the book almost in a sneaky sense. A lot of the quotes from this section contain quotes on writing, reading, and quotes about types of novels. This quote is a give away to what his whole book seems to contain a lot of: writing as a free art. No one has the ability to say a piece of writing isn't what the author intended it to be. Only the author knows that. The author and the piece of writing from the author have there own from of relationships and values that are connected. There are writers and readers out there who see romance as a not credible source of fiction but who are they to say this to the people who enjoy these novels. They aren't. These authors are thinking outside of the box, just like Shields.

In section 610 Shields is the quote, "The kinds of novels I like are the ones which bear no trace of being novels." Once again Shields is sliding tricky quotes into his book to make the reader think. Why would he put that there? What does it mean? He means that novels don't need a pattern, if the reader wants to find a story in there bad enough, they will. When they find that story behind the words it goes right along with the rest of the piece, forming coherency. Shields piece is the best example. Some people may not see this piece as coherent. Those people aren't using there creativity to look beyond what is simply written out on a page. 

The next quote is 617, "Never again will a single story be told as though it were the only one." This is one of my favorites because it compliments to the whole section of Y. Every piece of writing is a story, whether it's nonfiction or fiction. That's just the way writing works. Where writers mean to or not, all writing eventually molds itself into a story. Even scientific research has story behind it. No one sees that when they look at it though because they aren't digging deeper and peering between the lines of the writing. It's not always necessary to do that but when you do it's pleasant surprise to find. 

Basically, my point on the coherency of this book is that Shields suggests that what is coherent and what is not, is up to the reader to determine. Writing, like art, should not be bound to a box, but yes, I believe it is coherent. I think Shields wants the reader to read between the lines. There would be no need to look for coherency then, because the coherency would find the reader. 

Have a lovely day, always remember to stop and enjoy the sunshine. 

~Kelsey 

Works Cited: 

Shields, David . "Reality Hunger: A Manifesto." Trans. Array Alfred A. Knopf. New York : 2012. 199-219. Print.