Our Time Essay

“Our Time” by John Edgar Wideman he often takes a break from the narrative to address that he has many problems as a writer. He does this to try to consciously address these problems and hopefully solve these problems. He believes that if these problems are not rectified he would destroy any chance he has at telling a truthful account of his brother’s story. To rectify these problems he employs a variety of unique techniques in his writing. Looking at these techniques it is not always 100% clear how these are fixing his problems.

It is also evident that the way he is writing may be going against a lot of things we were taught in school about our writing. The first and arguably most severe of these problems is also the oldest habit of his. This is him “listening to [himself] listen” to Robby. When he says that he listens to himself listen, I think he actually means that he thinks too much when listening. He thinks about things like himself actually listening which end up being very distracting for him. When he is distracted he finds comfort in running away with his brother’s story which prevents a factual account.

Obviously this is, in his mind, something that he needs to rectify in order to write the best essay he possibly can. He claims that this habit “would destroy any chance of seeing my brother on his terms; and seeing him in his terms” (672) I believe this is him essentially saying “I need to fix this, now. ” His plan to fix this problem is that he must “root out his fiction writing self” (672) by this it seems that he means he needs to ignore his instinct to take off with what the person says and making a fantastical story with it.

This leads into another problem that he has and that is that he is distracted to easily. “A stranger’s gait, or eyes, or a piece of clothing can rivet my attention. Then it’s like falling down to the center of the earth. ”(672) He is distracted easily and once he is it is difficult for him to become undistracted. He doesn’t really talk about his plans to fix this. I think that there really isn’t a way for him to fix this problem other than just hunkering down and focusing on the story. There really isn’t a specific writing style or anything that can fix this.

So I think this problem may be one of the hardest for him to solve because there really isn’t one specific thing he can do in his writing to fix this. The ways that he tries to rectify these and other writing problems is by doing some rather odd things with his writing. The first being to interrupt the narrative to actively talk about these things, it’s an odd practice that requires a delicate touch to not mess up. It could have easily been distracting but he does it very tastefully. The whole point of him interrupting the narrative to bring these problems to light is so that he doesn’t forget about them.

While this is not explicitly said I think he implies that this is the reason. It seems it’s to fix them but I feel that making sure he remembers them is what he means to do by fix them with this writing practice. The other way he attempts to solve these is by changing the point of view quite often. He jumps from his own point of view, to his mother’s point of view, and to Robby’s point of view. While he goes back and forth between his own and Robby’s quite often it rarely becomes confusing or convoluted. It also helps him stay on track because he is writing through Robby’s eye.

By thinking about how Robby sees and reacts to events he can’t just go off on a tangent. His mind is too preoccupied with trying to get Robby’s point of view in. While he only goes to his mother’s point of view once (I think) it is used in a very effective way. He goes in to her point of view to basically give us a taste of what Homewood is like and why she chose to raise her kids away from it. It’s a very impactful passage that helps explain a bit about their family. The story has three possible beginnings, all three of which are equally important reasons as to why Robby is how he is.

The first of the three is Garth’s death. When Garth died he lost his best friend, one of the few people that he truly loved. After Garth died Robby got big into drugs, I think its cause he was depressed after the loss and wanted to forget. It was a major turning point in Robby’s life and in my opinion the most important of the three events that could have started the story. The second one is his own birth. People may wonder why this wouldn’t be the logical starting point seeing as how it’s his birth and makes sense chronologically.

The reason this can be seen as starting point of his troubles isn’t because he was born so it could happen as you’d probably think. It’s because for as long as he could remember his birthday was overshadowed. It was right after Christmas so it always felt a little insignificant compared to the biggest holiday of the year. There were also the unfortunate events of death that seemed to follow his birthday around like a cloud. All of his Grandparents died near his birthday and that has to take a toll on you. To have your birthday associated with the deaths of loved ones must be extremely hard.

The third and final possible starting point is his childhood home in Shadyside. Nothing particularly traumatizing happened in this passage but it’s still important none the less. In this he talks about how he grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood. He was around white people all the time and felt that they had it easier than him. Also he was not allowed to go into Homewood, which was the “black” neighborhood. The only time he went there was to visit family and because it was forbidden there was a natural curiosity about this place. When he became of age he went off into Homewood to fulfill this curiosity.

Because of this he is introduced to partying by the people he meets there. With this intro to partying recreational drug usage naturally follows suit. If he was not already drinking heavily and taking drugs heavily then he would not have been influenced to easily to start into the heavy drugs that eventually ruined his life. The writing problem that this EWS tries to solve is his attempt to make it feel more like Robby’s story and less like his story about Robby. Giving all three possible openings gives a more complete story, and the more complete he can make the story, the more personal he can make it feel.

The whole point is to make a personal, accurate essay about Robby and his life. The only way he can do this is by making it as personal to Robby as possible. The reason he doesn’t pick a definitive opening is, in my opinion, because he feels the story isn’t complete with just one opening. With this I agree, if I had only gotten Garth’s death or his birth I would’ve felt that there is something missing. That I wasn’t getting the full story and I wouldn’t have been. This essay, the writing problems portions of it specifically, relate to my writing in one way; to help me learn.

I can see where he is coming from with the distraction and wanting to make factual writing fictional, because I also hate factual writing. I would much rather make up a story so I see myself doing similar things to him. While his solutions aren’t solutions I can academically apply to writing they can help give ideas to come up with my own solutions to my problems. His methods are not normal methods. I don’t think any of us have ever been taught that we should do any of these things. Some of us may even have been taught to do the opposite of these.

I know once in high school I wrote a story that jumped between first and third point of view and I got points docked. She said it makes the writing feel “disjointed, confusing, and unprofessional” this essay manages to jump point of views often and manages to avoid making it feel this way. So in conclusion, I believe that he does solve his writing problems in an effective manner. He also does it in a way that is mildly entertaining for the reader which is good. I would much rather have him actually talk about what he is doing and how he is doing it rather than just doing it without telling the reader.

Nobody likes to read a paper and be like “hey what the heck is he doing here? ” so it’s good that he found a way to do this without being confusing but still being effective. Wideman’s problems while serious are overcome by him in his essay. There is a small bit of confusion as with his experimental writing strategies but most of the confusions are easily overcome with just a bit of thinking. He makes me think about how I can look at my own writing problems and use my own experimental writing strategies to solve my own problems in writing.