The Politics of Art & Authenticity

I wasn’t able to go to the Katherine Vaz reading. I really can’t remember why I didn’t go… oh yes, I had to work. I read Lisbon Story and I was able to find a recording of Vaz reading parts of another story. I feel that I went in with a bit of a prejudice towards her voice. I mean I hadn’t listened to this woman speak ever, and I was thinking of her as a chronic smoker. Ha.

Lisbon Story is a good piece. It is very detailed and the style makes it flow. The descriptions of the surroundings are quite vivid. When Cat first gets to the flat and upon seing Mateus, she describes him. “Ishrieked, one of thosegirlish but full, rending affairs.Inside the V where he clutched the bed sheet, his chest revealed enough of his ribs to suggest the inner planks of a one-man fishing boat. His eyes were clouded but bright, beaming a child’s buoyancy toward sickness”(Vaz 8).  The imagery that Vaz uses is extraordinary. As the reader, it transports me to the place she is describing.

As a child, my parents didn’t really read to me. I think that in a way, all of my successes were due to the fact that since I was lonely child, I was able to find comfort in reading and transporting myself to another world.  Books are not meant to be read aloud. It just makes the reader lose that connection with the text.

I first listened to Vaz read s short story, I can’t recall exactly which one it was. But she killed it. Vaz is a great writer. But her speaking skills are far below par.  She has this monotone voice that makes everything boring. After listening to her speak for what seemed like an eternity[in reality it was only like 5 minutes] I started reading Lisbon Story. And as I was reading instead of following the vivid descriptions she had, I found myself thinking about this lady I met a couple weeks ago. she just wouldn’t put the cigarrete down. It was cigarette after cigarette. I thought Cat must look like that even though Vaz clearly describes her as a beautiful woman.

Credit to: http://disquietinternational.org/sites/default/files/katherine%20vaz%20small.jpg?1349124661

I never thought I would ever say this but as good as it is to hear an author read their own work, Katherine Vaz should never read anything. As I was sitting in that crowded room, filled with Vaz’s closest friends and some of her students I thought to myself, they must be used to the raspy, cutting sound of her voice, my guess is from years of smoking. I simply couldn’t get her voice out of my head. Her new story seemed interesting and the detail she uses is quite vivid, sometimes too vivid, but powerful. I would have enjoyed it more if someone else had read it unfortunately.

As I was reading the “Lisbon Story” I was trying to read with the main characters voice, a sultry Portuguese  voice that I would have enjoyed to hear, but all I kept hearing was a chronic smoker reading the story and puffing smoke in my face. With such imagery and detail as the “Lisbon Story” had, I was captured by this women’s time in Lisbon and her various interactions in her father’s house. The story, as well as the new story Vaz is writing, was very interesting and had clear signs of her originality as an author. Vaz clearly has some connections to Portugal, constantly referring to places in the small coastal country in both of her works. Her knowledge and research of the times and the places she writes about are also evident in her work. Vaz uses numerous metaphors as well to describe something as simple as pajamas with sea animals on it and turn it into “marine animals around his remains were floating at the ready to coast him…” (Lisbon Story, 48.). There were similar uses of metaphor in her reading that really brought up the idea of feeding someone who is imprisoned with bird songs. Vaz uses her metaphors well and in abundance, my only feeling is that she can be too descriptive sometimes and it hurts the story more than it helps the reader get her vision.

When it comes to the way she read the story and the way I read “Lisbon Story”, Vaz destroyed my inner voice. Every sentence I read I heard Vaz’s voice reading it the way she did. It hurt my experience greatly in both reading the story and at her reading. When my inner voice finally kicked back in and I began to enjoy “Lisbon Story”, Vaz’s voice came running back into my head, talking in unison with my inner voice. Once again I began to not like the story and I had to stop reading. It seems to me that hearing the author’s rendition of their own work should be more about the emotion and vision the author wants to impress upon the reader. But when a person is hearing a story, they want to hear the character, they want to hear the soothing voice of the narrator, not the author. When I was read to as a child I wanted to hear the funny voices my parents gave every character, not the monotone voice of the author. This is the same way I felt when hearing Katherine Vaz. I just believe some people simply shouldn’t read, leave that to British actors and Betty White.

It was probably the sequence of being read to before reading Katherine Vaz‘s work on my own that has lead me to think that she is better at spinning the story on paper than reading her vision to her audience. Though listening to an author read her work makes it seem more meaningful and personal, it also confuses the audience as to what is precisely going on in the story. It is harder to get past the author’s voice and to imagine the voices of the characters than when one is reading alone. Now that I have literally heard Vaz’s voice, however, I found that when I was reading her work, I was hearing her actual voice as the protagonist’s voice. It was actually not much different than what I experienced during the reading.

As I was reading the “LISBON STORY” I felt myself expecting the same tone in the same setting that she had in the story she had read aloud even if it was not the case. Thus, I was surprised when I read, “The cupboards, canary-yellow and apple-red, cheery plastics I’d installed in the post-revolutionary seventies…lukewarm.” For the first few minutes of reading I was thinking that this took place in some historical past way before the, “post-revolutionary seventies,” and the years after. It was then that I started to re-think the story and refuse to be influenced by whatever I had heard from Vaz concerning the other reading. It, however, proved difficult. I kept hearing her voice and associating it with the other story, especially since “LISBON STORY” also had a female protagonist and Vaz’s style of writing is exactly the same in each. I just could not get over it.

When more characters were introduced such as Mateus and Tonio, it was also harder to imagine their respective male voices speaking in accents and tongues foreign to Vaz’s real voice. I kept hearing her voice attempt to read in Spanish as a male and…failing. Not because I could not imagine her rolling her R’s and such but failing because it was not authentic to the characters speaking. This was probably the biggest hang-up that I experienced with both stories.

There were positive aspects to hearing, though. During the reading, I was able to witness and feel the passion she had for writing the story which is something that I do not usually think about. When first reading a text, envisioning the author is not my main priority and so to literally hear her passion and drive was definitely a new experience. There were points when she painted the setting with her words that made it very vivid and realistic. She paused to explain what she had read which both helped me understand the story a little more but broke the trance of experiencing the story.

As for reading on my own, it was the same experience minus the explantation breaks. Because I had kept hearing her voice in my head, it was like listening to the story rather than straight-up reading, thus,  I did not feel much different. Again, I do believe that it was because I had heard her before I had read her that my experiences turned out in that way. At least when reading, it was easier (still difficult but easier) to get over her hypothetical voice barrier that blocked me from truly hearing the characters.

http://prairieschooner.unl.edu/?q=book-prize/our-lady-artichokes-and-other-portuguese-american-stories

My experiences overall were both positive and negative. It is undeniable that Katherine Vaz is a talented writer. Her voice, however, is not suited for her characters.

Although I was not able to attend the actual reading due to sickness, I was lucky enough to find the video footage of her reading an excerpt from one of her early pieces, Fado. 

http://katherinevaz.com/fado-other-stories_283.html

I don’t have many memories of having someone read stories for me. Even during childhood, having your parents read bedtime stories was something I would only see in a movie or TV as part of western culture. Being an independent child, I generally enjoyed reading by myself. I liked to be immersed in my own thoughts and visions as I read the story.

Reading Lisbon Story was not easy at first. With all the foreign terms and images the author tried to depict, I needed time to adjust to the setting. After a several attempts of rereading the first few pages, I finally found my pace and started reading until I reached the end of the story without noticing the time flying. Her story is definitely descriptive and the character’s voices, very distinct. I did not have much trouble distinguishing who’s whom and picturing rather exotic and unfamiliar scenes as I was reading. But in the end I think it was the message of the story which helped me understand better and keep reading, the theme that revolves around basic human lives and respect, common in almost every culture.

The video of her reading I found does not contain the whole story but Vaz gives a general summary in the beginning and in the middle to help the audience follow the contents she is going to read out loud. When she was giving the brief introduction of the characters and their relationships somehow I found it very difficult to catch up and draw the image inside my head. Without establishing this basic information of the characters, I knew I was going to be so confused and disoriented, trying to figure out the characters name with the background, the situation and the reasons behind their actions. I had to physically draw out the picture of the relationships to help me understand. People say hearing the actual author read her story is the most direct way to understand the story as it is. Generally I would agree. Who can have better understanding of the story and idea of how to deliver it than the actual creator herself? However, listening to Katherine Vaz read the story, I understood why there’s the screen writer, the director and the actors performing each role. During her reading I could definitely feel that it was derived from her own childhood experiences through her enthusiasm of the voice and etc. However, her rather “not soft” and “not very childlike” (I’m trying to be as indirect as possible) voice just disrupted me, the listener, from being deeply engaged in the story. My image of the protagonist, who is suppose to be a young girl, did not seem to harmonize well with the voice.

In sum, her stories whether in print or sound contained a lot of imagery to keep the audience interested and the story, containing real live situations and human emotions were good enough to make it relatable despite the cultural differences that may exist to some readers. However, although I have huge respect towards the authors and their reading sessions, I prefer reading by myself to being read to by someone else. I like imagining the voices inside my head, controlling the speed of the scenes, putting my own thoughts and having my own moments of reflections. These just seem to be very unlikely when you are being read to especially at the moment where you have no control of stopping or rewinding the story.

I acknowledge that it might have been different if I had attended the reading and heard it myself. Which is why I look forward to do it as soon as I get the chance. However, I believe it would be better to have read the story beforehand so I can better compare and comprehend it and ask questions to further the knowledge of the literature.

When someone reads something they tend to interpret it their own way.  The reader personalizes the experience by reading the piece in a certain tone.  I tend to enjoy reading something myself rather than being read to.  It is never intentional but when people read to me two things tend to happen.  I become bored, become drowsy, and fall asleep.  That or my mind begins to wander and I question what I’m being read.  These questions lead to more questions and even more questions, which I attempt to answer, and in the act of trying to answer I completely forget that I’m being read to and miss vital pieces of information in the story.

I hate to say it but at one point during Katherine Vaz’s reading this happened to me.  I did not quite expect her voice to be as it was.  It did not catch my attention and was somewhat monotonous in my opinion.  Her voice didn’t change but it rose when she was reading something she was excited about.  In other words, the reading seemed dry.  She droned on and on and at one point her reading became background sound to my own thoughts on her book.

I think I would buy her new book if I ever came across it in a bookstore.  Despite being long it seemed to have an interesting story line and plot.  I also believe that if I read this work then I would put my own tone to it, which would make it more interesting to me.  Also if I read it some of the more confusing pieces which had been read might become clearer to me.  I’m sure there are some words I misheard and didn’t hear at all.  There were also strange but interesting pieces like eating song.  I had never heard of such a thing before.  I am glad Katherine explained where she coined the term and what it meant.  If she hadn’t, I’m sure I would have been lost through most of the reading.

She tends to add a lot of detail, which I enjoy.  These details make Vaz stand out as an author.  For example, she writes in the Lisbon Story, “The carpeting was cornflower tint, and geodes caught sunrays on a mantel that had been barnacled with them since my childhood.” After reading the story, I found that this was one of the lines that stood out most to me.  Her heavily detailed writing paints vivid pictures in anyone’s mind for all parts.

All in all I feel that Katherine Vaz is a very good writer. Her writing is very entertaining with pieces of her own personality speckled across each piece.  During the reading I thought that there were sentences that seemed like they were run-ons due to the amount of details crammed into them.  If her book was written anything like Lisbon Story then I think I was wrong in assuming that, that it was her pauses, attempting to set the tone, that made the sentences longer than they really were.

source:

http://disquietinternational.org/sites/default/files/katherine%20vaz%20small.jpg?1349124661

It took me awhile before I got my Internet back so I could write this post, so I’ve had a lot of time to internalize listening to the reading and the reading that I read myself.

Although I am personally not a fan of book readings, I’m glad I went. I’m glad I had this experience. It really made me think.

At first, I didn’t enjoy the book reading. I thought Katherine Vaz read slowly and dryly, and this took away from the description, the excitement, of the book. As a listener, I could hardly follow what she was saying, let alone picture the scene and imagine myself in the book, which is something I usually do when I read. Like I just said, I am not a proponent of book readings. I have always thought the reader should have the liberty to imagine the book, create his or her own setting, and use his or her own ability to discern the author’s tone and purpose. If someone is reading this book aloud, that takes away much of the book-reading experience. The listener hears the book from another’s viewpoint, and not his own.

Well, I didn’t like the way Vaz read her book. When I read her work myself, I could imagine myself reading it aloud, only much more louder, stronger, and more emotional than the way she read it. I thought I could have read it better.

But looking back, I have come to realize that I am merely a reader. I didn’t write this book. I am not the one who created the plot, characters, metaphors, dialoge, etc. My interpretation of her book is only my opinion, how I understand the story, and maybe not how it is necessarily supposed to be understood, or how the author wanted readers to understand her book. Vaz is the author, the creator, the producer. Perhaps she read it in that tone for a reason. I’m not really sure why. But she obviously has her reasons for doing so, and I know it had to add some sort of stylistic content that probably enhanced her work in some way. And the more I think about it, the more my head starts to hurt.

It was really interesting hearing the story read aloud. There is always more than one way to hear a story, and maybe one way isn’t better, or more correct than another way. Vaz left me thinking about rhetoric and literature. She left me a little confuzzled.

Because of Hurricane Sandy, I was unable to make a post about Katherine Vaz reading on time since I lost my internet last night. Sorry, Prof. Davis, hope you understand! Thankfully, I got it back today.

In all honesty, I got there earlier just because of the food. Hey, we are broke college students after all. As everyone, got situated into the room, I was still munching on some delicious cookies. I have never been to a reading where the actual author read an excerpt of her brand new book.When the reading began, I had never expected Katherine Vaz’s voice to sound to be so raspy. Her voice was very distinct and I can actually remember it as I think back to the day I heard her reading. I wish she were more animated with the voices to differentiate who said what. To be honest I did daze out of her reading. She should have added more enthusiasm and feeling into what she read. I am sure she is very passionate about what she wrote but I wish she showed it a little better. It was weird to have a median, in this case, Katherine Vaz, from the book to the listener, mainly because I wasn’t used to being read to. But it was interesting when Vaz did tell us how she came about the ideas in the novel.

Some stories were meant to be read to, such as bedtime stories for little children. But this story shouldn’t be read aloud by Katherine Vaz. Reading by yourself gives a new perspective. It makes you feel as if

you are surrounded by the environment you read. Everyone has their own way of thinking. Each word or phrase can mean something completely different for each person and that’s the beauty of reading. When reading on our own, you feel the same emotions as the characters. I try to picture as if I were actually there. In my head, I do read with different voices that I think would suit the characters very well.

While reading “Lisbon Story,”  Vaz was very descriptive. She mentioned even the smallest details. Sometimes I did feel like those details were quite extraneous. I did like how she incorporated a little Portuguese in almost every page. It showed a little bit of the cultural and helped the experience of being in Portugal. For example, the use of pá and CREDO, which could mean two opposite things depending on how it is said. She also used many metaphors such as ” You serve me the food of jails.” Overall, I think Katherine Vaz is a very talented writer. But she should just practice reading it aloud more to get emotion and help entice the audience. It was definitely easier reading her work than listening to it. I give Katherine Vaz respect and appreciation towards doing the reading and sharing it with Baruch students.

As the soothing voice of Katherine Vaz began to unravel the story of her latest novel, I found myself being pulled into the plot and picturing the vivid scenes she was describing. I pictured the mother and her child, the guards, and the songs of the birds outside the cell. I began to notice that the pictures I was creating were slightly fragmented; like something was missing. The reason for this was that I was not directly reading the text myself making it slightly harder to picture the scene because I wasn’t staring at the text thus being able to glance around at my surroundings. As she continued to read on, the inflection in her voice gave the reading a distinct style; one that was characteristic of her writing style. It was almost as though her interpretation of her own work was being thrust upon me precluding me from formulating my own interpretations. This is one thing that I dislike about hearing a reading over actually reading on my own because it detracts from the judgements I would have made on my own. Readings by an author tend to have a hint of the their own interpretations and steer the audience in a specific direction whether intentionally or not. Another major issue I often have when being read something is that I focus more on listening than I do on the actual content. This results in the need to glance at what was being read to me in order to fully grasp the concept. Not only was I able to grasp the text better than the reading but I also got a better feeling of the tone and mood that Vaz was trying to convey simply based on her diction; something that is better noticed when reading a text. However, this aspect of a reading can work in the opposite favor as well. By listening to the author, the amount of flawed interpretations are minimized. The author also has the opportunity to explain their reasoning for writing a certain part the way they did and also clarify any misconceptions that may have arose during the excerpt. All in all, the reading was something different and provided a new perspective on the text by letting me hear from the author in the way it was intended to sound. Not having to question the way the author meant for something to sound was something new for me.

P.S. I apologize for the lateness of this post, I lost power yesterday and I’m currently sending this from a Dunkin Donuts.

I enjoyed having my elementary school teachers give the class story time when I was younger, and this reading made me feel like a kid again. It’s neat that we got to listen to the actual author, Katherine Vaz,  read her short story to us, but this neatness wore off after a couple minutes.  Although I felt special that I got to hear the Vaz’s unfinished story before it was published, I felt cheated that her reading was not fully capturing the emotions that it meant to portray. Literature is meant to be read not listened too. Usually when someone reads to me, I have a hard time paying attention, and the words go in one ear and out the other.

There is more insight to be gained during reading since the reader can use his or her imagination to make the story more interesting. Also, its more difficult to visualize whats going on in the story if someone’s reading to you.

Katherine Vaz is a great writer of a metaphors and uses an extensive amount of metaphors in her writing. In her Lisbon Story, she describes Mateus Soares’  flickering eyes “as if fireflies had stepped in the quicksand of his irises and were pulsating ferociously before they went under” (Vaz 3). Just this amount of detail allows the reader to clearly imagine his eyes is simply brilliant. I have never read an author like this before and it’s great that I got to experience something new. This metaphor makes perfect sense to me, but during her reading the metaphors were more difficult to understand. The metaphor about the cobb webs during her reading was very difficult to understand and allowed the listener to be lost in the story.

Besides using an extensive use of metaphors, Vaz is a very descriptive writer. In her  Lisbon Story, Vaz describes the the cupboards as “canary-yellow and apple-red, cheery plastics”(Vaz 3). Just by describing the certain shade of yellow or red shows the precision and dedication the author has used to make her story perfect. These descriptions are easy to follow while reading the story, but during Vaz’s reading the descriptions were more difficult to follow. I got lost at one point during her reading because it was way too descriptive. Her voice really didn’t connect with a writer that uses an extensive amount of descriptions either so this contributed to the disruption of the  flow.

Both her reading and the Lisbon Story share an authentic element of recreating the scenery. In her Lisbon Story, she uses authentic elements to make the reader believe that he or she is actually in Portugal. For example,  Mateus using the Portuguese word, “Pá” or the use of Portuguese names like Mateus or Toninho. In her reading, Vaz incorporated some elements of her travels into her story. This allows the listener to better visualize the setting and allows the reader to experience what Vaz experienced during her travels.

I thought that going to the reading was a truly unique and rewarding experience because I got to experience something new by  listening to a published author read her unreleased work.  I look forward to going to future book readings, and I also enjoyed experiencing a new style of writing.

Image Source: http://129044.myauthorsite.com/images/site_graphics/Vaz%20Image%20smaller.jpg

http://cdn.controlinveste.pt/storage/DN/2010/big/ng1359351.JPG?type=big&pos=0

I didn’t attend the reading so I can’t compare both experiences. Based on prior experience, I can say that reading a passage is completely different from actually reading the passage on your own. When we read anything on our own time, we give our imaginations room to give the characters personality, voice, we’re allowed to make the words on the page come to life. The author in a way loses control over the words they show us because we are the one deciding how to interpret the words. I like that about reading. I like knowing that there isn’t anyone dictating how I should feel about the content presented to me and that there isn’t a right or wrong way to react to that content.

Being read to however, changes that dynamic completely. Personally I find it very easy to zone out when someone reads to me. It is easier to pick up on the emotion that authors try to convey in their novels but at the same time I feel like that’s all it does. I’m so focused on the way that the author reads, that I lose track of the content itself, which is what matters in the end. It could give me a new perspective on the passage being read, and perhaps some things might make more sense, but in the end I think it would have a negative effect on my perception of the passage.

My experience reading Katherine Vaz’s writing was a positive one. I didn’t have any trouble reading through her material and she successfully kept my interest throughout all 48 pages of her short story. I appreciated the simplicity in her writing. I didn’t feel like I needed a dictionary by my side, or that I had to keep an eye out for unexpected metaphors or details that might be crucial in my understanding of her story.

Sometimes the ethnic references and phrases threw me off a little bit, especially in the beginning. Most of the time she explained their meaning following their appearance in the passage. At first I didn’t know how to feel about it. A part of me thought, “Well, she has to think of her audience. Not all of us are fluent Portuguese speakers with knowledge of their culture.” After reading the whole story however, I was able to appreciate all the ethnic anecdotes. Her story would not have been the same without them and in a sense they were necessary for the development and flow of the plot.

The plot of the story itself was interesting. From the very beginning I was interested to find out who the sickly man she encountered was. Why was she in Lisbon? Who was Tónio and what kind of relationship did Catarina have with him? The simplicity in her writing allowed me to find the answers to these questions fairly quickly. I thought the theme of illness and sexuality were interesting topics to bring up because it gave the passage a more modern spin. The way that they were integrated into the plot made me want to keep reading and know more about the characters.  The ending was predictable, but the buildup of conflict between Mateus, Catarina, and her dying father again kept me interested. The moment in which Mateus was choking on the fish bone and Catarina was desperately trying to save him…I felt like I was there feeling the anxiety and pain that they were all experiencing. The passage came to life there in a way that it hadn’t done so beforehand. Her use of imagery made me feel like I was there with them as this event unfolded. The effect that Katherine Vaz created for me in that instance and many others were ones that I wouldn’t have experienced if she read the story to me.

I heard from my classmates that the reading wasn’t the greatest. That her voice was raspy, that it didn’t seem to fit the things she was reading about. That she wasn’t the best reader and sometimes the things she was reading about just weren’t interesting. Since I can’t judge or compare, I guess I can walk away from Katherine Vaz’s writing with a positive impression. She might not have the writing style that I look for, but I can say I enjoyed her Lisbon Story.