Wile E. Coyote: The Things He Carried

products--equipment, merchandise, devises used by characters to advance story; material goods used by writers to denote living conditions, relative affluence, degrees of decadence, boredom inherent in characters; things people want or conspicuously do not want in stories.

Nowhere in stories are products given a more substantive and metaphoric treatment than the cartoon adventures of Wile E. Coyote. In these iconic dramatic ventures, Coyote lurches forth, a faithful replication of Mark Twain's description of the species from Roughing It. Coyote's hunger prods him to consider as prey The Roadrunner; the extensive number of Coyote-Roadrunner cartoons a monument to Coyote's abject failure. The rules surrounding the Wile E. Coyote landscape are myriad and inflexible, at once rendering the terrain a cross breed between Beckett and Krazy Kat. Coyote must not catch Roadrunner. Coyote's attempts at catching Roadrunner invariably end in his humiliation. Coyote may use devices such as explosive tennis balls, giant mouse traps, do-it-yourself tornado kits, and female Roadrunner costumes, but these and all others like them must come directly from the Acme Corporation. No other organization, neither Kafkan bureaucracies nor Orwellian imperialists, is so catholic in its offered menu of product; no government or manufacturer has such a smorgasbord of devices which, taken in totality, could be seen to represent the quintessential formula for curing all ails and supplying answers for all needs. In point of fact, some of the items on the Acme Corporation's list work, they simply do not work for Wile E. Coyote. But rules are rules, meaning Coyote has no recourse; if he is to use products, they must come from Acme.

Probably based on the ubiquity and comprehensiveness of the original Sears-Roebuck mail order catalogues, the Acme Corporation's arsenal of products and their built-in exclusivity for Wile E. Coyote become a metaphor for the writer who is setting forth, beginning with a particular landscape or locale, then basic rules of engagement between the major characters, then the source of materials the characters have at their disposal.

Wile E. Coyote's credit seems to be good so far as Acme Corporation is concerned; there don't seem to be any issues about accounts receivable. There are neither long, elaborate rationales about the Coyote-Roadrunner landscape nor the rules governing it. Neither, for that matter, are there distracting questions about the landscape within Beckett plays; Beckett stories hold up while being read, then become iron filings attracted to the magnet of the mind after the reading or witnessing ends. Similarly with Coyote and Roadrunner.

The message from Beckett ("Fail again, only next time, fail better.") inheres in the Wile E. Coyote cartoons; the after-the-fact paradigm of the cartoons with respect to story also becomes apparent with a personal deconstruction of the entire, precipitous southwestern mesa-butte landscape of the cartoon series.

Tim O'Brien has written a splendid account of American servicemen in Vietnam, The Things They Carried, a novel in which products play a major role in defining character and dramatic outcome. In the cartoons, Wile E. Coyote's frequent fate is having his hair singed off, falling to bottoms of steep declivities, being squashed by falling rocks or even the occasional debris from an Acme Corporation product; sometimes Coyote sustains all these fates simultaneously. O'Brien's characters inevitably reveal a distinct, moving relationship to a product, whether the product is a letter from a loved one (or a Dear John letter), a keepsake, a weapon. Coyote and O'Brien's "grunts" are set forth in an atmosphere and landscape that could not have suited Beckett better, thus is there a transcendent plateau reached and recognized when the writer brings characters with purpose and products to a locale, imbues them with constraints, restraints, and possibly even conscience.

Today's Question

So the question is, Who are you when you write? This question has subsets such as Who are you writing to/at? What is the source of fun achieved when you become the person you become when you write? Do you think you would be more or less effective if you were someone else when you write? Is writing for money preventing you from being who it would be better for you to be when you write? And of course the trick question, Are you writing for money or for a living?

It's important for you to understand that you have to be able to "get" to the person you are when you write in order to give your writing self the maximum opportunity for growth. You have to get there without defensiveness or explanation, which is to say it is not only all right to be an angry person when you write, it may become necessary for you to be angry when you write? Or--dare I use the word?--sentimental. Or cynical. Or amused.

Try deciding the frame of mind of the writer of the next thing you find yourself enjoying, getting caught up in, when you read. The reading sample may be fiction or nonfiction; no matter so long as you feel a response to it.

Next question: What do you hope people will experience when reading your work? (Your answer to your own question is An audacious sense of being entertained , followed by the sense that this is leading them somewhere beyond entertainment.) This hope of yours should be followed with a concern on your part that you are not becoming pedantic or lecturing.

Now you may be ready for a zinger of a question: Are you so concerned about wanting to get things right that you let style trump execution? Do you polish the original you out of your text for fear that your text may not be crystalline or whatever else the hell you want your text to be?

Story may be enhanced by style--I mean, look at what Joyce does with "The Dead" and what Flaubert does with "A Simple Soul." If those don't get you, look what D. H. Lawrence does with "The Rocking Horse Winner." So you're going to let those three admittedly splendid stories keep you from finishing yours for fear that you could never hope to match them? Where's the risk? Where's the commitment? Go ahead, be a sport: Cut loose. Care about what you're doing and do the caring in a way that defines you. Truth is, you will never get it as good as you want it, a fact that should humble but not discourage. Remember the injunction of Beckett. Fail again. Next time fail better.

How old were you when you first got an idea for a story that was so daunting, you thought it was completely beyond reach? (Maybe sixteen.)

What happened to the story? (Never got written.)

What happened to the stuff you thought you could handle? (It got written)

Where is it now? (I think some of it is in the garage. Or maybe the water tower in the back yard.)

How do you approach stuff like that now? (Pleased as hell to be off on something new.)

Where will it all end? (So long as it doesn't end up in the garage or water tower, it doesn't matter.)