Nonfiction as Literature.

Hello class (and anyone else that has happened to stumble upon this blog)!

This is my first blog, so I am a bit self-conscious about coming off as boring, but I'll just quickly shake it off and begin.  While I was reading chapter 11 of Zinsser's On Writing Well, I assumed the viewpoint of a radio show audience member rather than as one of the empowered women that Zinsser was interviewing with (because I automatically identified with the listener instead of the writer -- imagine that!).  First off, I have to say that most radio personalities irritate me to the core.  Something about their obviously fake perkiness and their overt-the-top commercial voices.  I'm not interested in hearing about the parties they went to the night before and how hungover they are at the current moment or what their pet's favorite outfit is and why.  That being said, I understood Zinsser's annoyance with the "strenuous joviality" of the host's demeanor right out of the gate.  On the other hand, I didn't care for Zinsser's banning of certain words and all of the awkward silences that he could have easily prevented by simply explaining what exactly it was that he did.  It didn't seem to me that he even felt he needed to introduce himself to those listeners who had no idea who he even was.  Who does he think he is, Cher?  If I turned on the radio and heard this interview, say on NPR, I'm sure I would have changed the channel within the first minute.

It seemed to me that the rest of the chapter was mostly comprised of lists, which I felt the author was using to further parade his credentials to the reader.  Honestly, I got tired of the name drops pretty quickly.  I can't say that his underlying point isn't true, though.  At least for me, anyway.  I have always enjoyed reading and when I was younger, I always had a fiction book by my side.  Nowadays, I am starting prefer non-fiction, mostly biographies and first-hand accounts of real-life situations, to made-up stories and I can identify with those book-club members that seemed to have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge.

All-in-all, despite the lists and decidedly boring radio show story that this chapter divulged, I'm going to keep an open mind about the rest of the book (and put this single chapter behind me).  Hopefully I didn't come off as too critical or negative this week because that certainly wasn't my intention.  I'm simply coming from the perspective of an almost complete writing innocent and in this chapter, Zinsser didn't seem to be reaching out to my demographic.  Perhaps he wasn't aware that his book would be made into a textbook of sorts and thus not read in chronological order.

I look forward to future opportunities to express myself openly ...and learn a little bit along the way! ;)