Compared to What?: On Writing and the Writer's Life

Those who are looking for the usual treatment of how to plot a book, how to make a character believable, how to find an agent, in other words a Nuts and Bolts approach to writing should look elsewhere. Thomas Farber's wry perspective and lack of sentimentality come through strongly in this introspective book on writing. This is for the writer who has gone through the nuts and bolts and is ready for a more philosophical turn on the craft of writing. This book --parts of which have been reproduced in updated books by Farber in recent publications such as "A Lover's Quarrel: On Writing And The Writing Life" which was reissued by Ellsberg books in April 2007, is full of thoughtful and short insights on writing. (Things aren't so much written in "chapters" as they are jotted down, hence it reads like a personal journal). Farber writes about experiences kept in one's psyche and later serving as a springboard for the writer. Written in the third person, Farber touches upon inspiration --organic sources for that story inside. Upon release in 1988, it was positively reviewed by Isabel Allende and Robert Pinsky. Farber's approach to writing can only be termed as refreshingly organic, the antithesis to those teachers, conference workshops and blogging agents who force a plethora of MFA students and beginning writers to make plot charts, stick to a formula, who seem to have an answer for everything, and inevitably end up scaring the creativity, courage and heart out of students. Does this book hold up today, 20 years after its initial publication? The answer is, yes it does. Especially now, in a very changed world where writing has increased tenfold from blogging, self publishing and mass market fiction and non fiction and everyone wants not just to be a writer, but a famous writer with a limo and a chauffeur. The world needs more books like this, ones that make a writer think and feel before they fire up the computer and begin their writing day. One can only hope that this book is republished in its original form. Until then, you can find it compiled in one of his other, more recent non fiction offerings, or find it used through Alibris.