Customer Reviews

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

5 star:		(146)
4 star:		(27)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

I'm trying to return this book right now...it's not bad, and certainly has its audience, but I'm not it. It's your basic beginner's guide to creative writing, unique for its alternately folksy and sassy tone. A certain kind of beginner will find it encouraging -- typically young and female, I suspect. It's like having your own encouraging single mum! But for anyone who's got past their own precious egos (enough to progress beyond hand-holding and back-patting, anyway) and has the minimum intellectual insight required of a would-be writer of "literary fiction" (as opposed to "genre fiction"), this book's likely to be only amusing at best. I myself cannot recommend it as being helpful to anyone writing at an advanced, pre-publication level, for which I maintain that John Gardner's "Art of Fiction" and "On Becoming A Novelist" remain the most useful of all such books, intellectually rigorous (even if it sounds elitist here and there) and spiritually uplifting for being more "formal" and "classically-minded." As it stands, "Bird by Bird" is a good enough preamble for its implicitly intended market of young female beginning writers (and sensitive "Young Werthers," for that matter). As a nice counter-weight to Gardner, I'd recommend "Self-Editing for Fiction Writers."

(...)Bird by Bird was recommended to me by a dear friend as well as every other book trying to teach you how to write. So I read it. It's a little thing like a small notebook, easy. The main idea is to take one thing at a time, little by little (bird by bird).
I am at a loss for words now, as even though I agree and cherish many of the truths coming out of this tiny book (not as audaciously nor blatantly laid out as the author boasts), I am furious with the writer. I dislike her profusely, for the character she comes across as is someone I would definitely not be friends with in real life.
It just happened that in the timeframe I was reading this book I was using my public transit, shopping and walking time to listen to The Sum of Our Days by Isabel Allende, as well as Imperfect Birds, also by Anne Lamott. In The Sum of Our Days Anne Lamott is treated as a trusted friend, Isabel goes to her for advice at one point. In Bird by Bird Isabel is treated like a 'God forbid' kind of author, mentioned as a threat for Anne's students who would immediately copy the style and write only like that (one might wonder what type of ludicrous specimens are attending her classes).
In Bird by Bird Anne is talking (if not bragging, true, trying to make a point) about how other people thought she was a good gardener because one of her main characters is tending a garden that she is passionate about. In Imperfect Birds we find the garden and the character: no, I did not think that Anne is a good gardener at the end of the book, although you could say that her mentioning of having only plastic flowers in her garden (who does that?! I think this is one of the tackiest things ever) might have altered my perception. However, in all honesty, there are a few plants mentioned here and there, as well as the way you cut them, scanty information, much less than any gardening guide would provide. The trouble she went through to get that gardening info seems quite superfluous given the result.(...)
To see the rest of this review, as well as many more interesting unabridged ones go to allwords.ca.

I don't really care for this book. With all the hyperbole about it, I really expected it to be the Holy Grail of inspirational writing books.

Instead, it's very heavily laden with metaphors and similes where writing and related topics are compared to all manner of things, and a lot of self-indulgent autobiography that I found more off-putting than inspiring. In just one short chapter on "giving" she presents these:

* "shot my literary creative wad every day"
* "like Zorba the Greek at the keyboard" (Huh??)
* "I'm a wired little rodent squirreling things away"
* "like patients in an emergency room"
* "like you violated some archaic law in their personal Koran"
* "like a single parent of a 3-year-old"
And *that* simile then compared to "like a doting grandparent."

I found that kind of style tedious after a while. I've tried repeatedly to get through this book - even getting it on tape (and the author reads the entire thing in a monotone).

The overall tone is depressing (unless you really want to hear about cancer and cocaine abuse), and the points can be frustratingly contradictory. For example, she exhorts on writing your truth and pain, but at the same time quotes an editor who told her "you assume everything that's happened to you is interesting." This is like telling new writers to dig deeply within their own memories/experiences and write about them honestly, and then chiding them for writing "what really happened."

I only found a couple of useful tidbits, but with so many other books on this subject that say the same things more concisely and directly, this one just isn't worth it. If you really want to read it, check it out of the library instead.

Writing can be magical -- to be a conduit of the voices, to be merely the typist, to get out of the way of your characters, and to see the story develope like a Polaroid. Anne Lamott's book is practical, entertaining, insightful, amusing, and right on. I'm reading it for about the third time along with Julia Cameron's "An Artist's Way". I'm just starting to accept that the important thing, as Lamott points out, is the process of writing not the product. This book is good for beginners but a reminder for us who write and put our poems, short stories, novels in boxes within boxes in file cabinets in the basement. Anne Lamott reminds us that writing is a very human activity. It is humbling and exhilerating. And when we feel so alone in the process, Anne Lamott reminds us we're not alone in the things we confront or experience in the process. Writing is messy . . . is art. The magic, the secrets of the art come from ordinary experiences in the process. So, holy grail? Everybody has their own experience in salvation. Anne Lamott just reminds us common people who have to write to remain sane that we're not alone.

It's the handholding that makes this book worth owning. I have found myself flipping back through Bird by Bird to reread passages and returned to my writing fortified and soothed. This is an imperfect book, as Anne Lamotte herself is an imperfect person. The advice she gives is sound, though, and if one remembers can get past a few differences of opinion, you'll enjoy the bit of direction and companionship she offers.

Lamott is an autobiographical writer and a great, big personality. Sometimes this book seems like close quarters. You may find yourself needing to put it down every 20 pages or so to get some fresh air. Readers who are put off by theological meanderings and over-sharing may find Lamotte's style so irritating that they won't be able to finish this book at all and will be better served by Barbara Ueland's book. Readers who are offended by her colloquialisms will not like this book either, but no matter. Readers who are afraid of a few little four letter words rarely become writers worth reading, and don't need to waste their time being offended by books about writers.

Here's the thing: I KNOW Anne Lamott loves writing fiction, and she's helluv good at it. But I swear she's at her best when writing nonfiction. Afterall, it was Bird by Bird and Operating Instructions that put her over the top; then she followed up with Traveling Mercies. The quality and longevity of her fiction pale by comparison.
Bird by Bird is simply one of the three best books on the angst of writing and being a writer that's ever been written. The other two are Writing Down the Bones and S. King's On Writing. But the three books are very, very different. King's is actually pretty weird in spots, as he is, but for the most part it's all about philosophy. Natalie Goldberg's 'Bones' is very instructional and inspirational.
But Lamott! Oh, Annie's book is just as outrageously honest and funny and true and painful in the telling as it is in actuality to be a writer.
Wonderful, wonderful book; highest recommendation.
Read it.
If you're a writer, you'll get some advice from a master on how to cope with (or not) self-doubt, writer's block, and jealousy. But read it anyway, even if you're not the least bit interested in being a writer but just happen to like her other books; you won't be disappointed.

This book is about life, death, writing, jealousy, school lunches, voices in your head, and everything in between. Lamott is funny and witty and entertaining. I've never read any of her work before, and after reading Bird by Bird, I want to read all of her other books. Even if you're not a writer, this book is worth reading.

Once more, Lamott has applied a poultice for the soul with her words. She possesses the ability to make people laugh out loud, to incite a placid and mildly depressed reader to spew beef vindaloo over the pages of a book while discovering a hilarious passage from the pool of truth. This is an author who makes some of us queasy when one considers her first book, Hard Laughter, which was great and got great reviews and which was published at twenty-three, an age when most of us are trying to find a waitressing job in a fancy restaurant (at least I was). From then on she continued cutting her swath of Hell, with wonderful novels like Joe Jones and Rosie and All New People, which I've read three times. Ironically enough, this is a woman who has professed to know no cosmic reason why she should continue writing. If I, like all people created, am a part of God, and I've heard that I am, then I hereby decree that Lamott must continue to write books. Although she need not do it at breakneck speed, she must definitely do it. So there's your cosmic reason, Ms. Lamott. Additionally, any of you out there who consider yourselves Lamott fans but have not read the book or listened to the recording of Bird by Bird are not being completely honest... Read this wonderful book, and then listen to the recording, for Ms. Lamott's powerful messages resonate through her voice. I recommend you read all of her books. Read it all, preferably with a nice Indian takeout.

Bird by Bird is probably useful for most would-be writers, but must be taken with a grain of salt.

Bird by Bird starts with the handicap that all how-to-write books are burdened with, and that is the fact that you can't teach someone who can't write to write. In other words, if it doesn't come naturally, if you don't have a special aptitude, then you cannot realistically hope to ever be anything more than merely competent.

Having said that, anyone who has read more than one of the latest bestsellers will know that one needn't be great by any means to be published, or even to be published and wildly successful. The lowest common denominator holds the cards here, and they don't care about literature, they just want to have fun. An alternative to television, and that's all.

Not one to read such titles, I read Bird by Bird because it was foisted upon me by a friend. Although I found little that was helpful to me, for people who have never had a creative writing course in school or who haven't read books similar to Lamott's, this one surely has some value. I'm sure that many other how-to books are written in a fussy or hypnotizing style that will make reading more work than pleasure, but Lamott's book isn't. It is very readable, and often somewhat entertaining. Of particular interest to many readers is her discussion on getting published, and how one mustn't have illusions that allow one to believe that by being a published writer one's life will change for the better overnight. This is a good weed-out message for many people who will simply clutter the desks of literary agents with their hopeless efforts.

In addition to Lamott's tiresome salt-and-peppering of the book with references to God (your dog is welcome, but please leave your dirty boots and your religion at the door) what I found particularly disagreeable, however, was Lamott's chapter "The Moral Point of View." Lamott isn't at all clear about what she wants to do here, claiming that one shouldn't attempt to convey "messages" in one's writing but then admitting that any "good" writer must do exactly that in some way or other in order for one's work to have any value. What she really wanted to say was that although writers must say something to their readers - and this means they have to make value judgments and moral statements - they'll fail if they go about it in a heavy-handed way reminiscent of children's fairytales. Good writers sneak their messages in, is what she means.

The problem with this claim is that it assumes that there is only one way to write a book. Sometimes a message can be effectively transmitted subtly, sometimes quite overtly. There is no right or wrong way to do it outside of the context of the subject matter and the style of the work overall.

Lamott makes this mistake of assuming "my way or the highway" again in the same chapter when she discusses the "truths" that writers must communicate, and again when she covers good triumphing over evil. Both subjects suffer in Lamott's hands because of her naïve treatment of them. She tells us to write about those "truths" that we all know and that "feel like givens." The fact that we don't all of us know what we mean by these truths, nor do we know what others mean by them, resulting in our inability to say that these sentiments are truly shared, is proven by human history in every story of war and political or religious struggle. Personally, I find Lamott's advice here a recipe for disaster for the thinking reader. For everyone else, it has proven itself to be particularly effective, and if Lamott is only trying to help writers to create pablum that is commercially viable, then fine, but I don't think that is her intention...The greatest writers find time, somewhere, in their work to wade into gray areas and stay there, to tell the truth that realizes that real life involves a lot of gray area and uncertainty...
What really finishes this poorly written chapter is Lamott's final word of advice. After telling writers not to "send messages" she advises them to "write about freedom"!! Just what on earth she means by that underlines the weakness of this entire chapter.

I recognize that Lamott, unlike me, is a published author, so I hardly have the right to critique her methods. As an aspiring author, though (presumably the target market for this book), I think the fact that I found it irritating and unhelpful does have some significance for other perspective buyers.

Someone once said that an author is someone for whom 'writing is more difficult than it is for other people.' I don't neccesarily agree with that, but Lamott obviously does. About half of the time, when she talks about writer's block or issues related to writer's block (how to start yourself on the path to a succesful work of fiction), she makes it sound like writing a decent paragraph on the first try is something that happens about as often as God cures you of blindness. She has all kinds of suggestions for how to essentially trick yourself into writing. I always assumed that being good at something meant that you could actually do it...again, I realize how singularly this is my opinion, but if writing fiction is that hard, maybe your talent is for something else.

The other approximate half of the book consists of more practical advice about style, plot and character, a lot of which is practical, some of which tends toward the obvious. Its best feature is Lamott's comic style, which is really ingenious at times, but I would still say that this book is probably of more of interest to casual literature students than to people seriously considering a career as a novelist.