Customer Reviews

Rejected: The Chronicles of a Failed Writer

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Apparently, this book, which I picked up used, is shelved in book stores with the advice for aspiring writers when it should be in the memoir section. It's the story of a mediocre writer who can't capture character or tone, but who has developed to some extent a talent for self-observation. This is not a book for people who want to be writers, but a book for those who tried and wonder where it all went wrong.

Jack Harris Adlor is an alias. Jack used it cause he thought it sounded nice and German. He says he wanted German cause he was writing a novel called Felix Kulper based somewhere in the back of his mind on a writer named Mann, who wrote a book called felix culpa. This Harris Adlor guy thought everybody would get the pun. But see, the REAL reason he changed his name is cause he doesn't want anybody reading his work. He's bound and determined to fail. So he keeps this diary and adds excerpts of his writing to the book, that he was sending around at the time. The kicker is, his writing is REALLY awful. He's not sure why he's even writing and I'm not sure why either. In his mind the "glamour" of writing was better than teaching and so he had to come up with an idea so he could resign. As usual, all the people he told, thought writing sounded like a wonderful idea. Maybe his friends read Michener's book The Novel. So here's this Adlor guy trying to write books about life, when he's never even had a life of his own to pick ideas from. He's not writing about what he knows. He's just writing what he thinks writing should be written about. So he's clueless. And lifeless. And he insists upon calling himself an artist. He thinks the hat should automatically fit. But the word sensitive brings up embarrassing images for him. And the word artist means even less in hs mind. He also falls head first into another Michnere ideal. But he doesn't realize Micheners book The Novel, is a fantasy. Adlor believes college professors actually help students find careers and become famous writers. And he resents us students with all those perks and the first leg up that he isn't getting. He's so clueless that he admits it all freely although he admits nothing, if you know what I mean. Now the letters he writes to people, are totally subservient. This absolutely kills me. Subservient and self demeaning. He wants to be kicked. Come to think of it, maybe I should write him myself and ask what he's doing after dinner. I'd be glad to dress up nice and let him have it. From the start, Adlor tells us how absolutely funny he thinks he is. So of course, you laugh about two times in the book and it's not laughing at Adlor, it's laughing because the people writing him are funnier than he is. Now I read a review about the book and it really panned the poor guy. I thought unfairly so since to me, I can learn from a guy like this. I think we should listen instead of turning away because we think we're somehow better. It's the guys undog status and low self esteem that we should be honest enough to acknowledge and try to understand. I bet there are a million Jack Harris Adlors out there trying to write novels. And I'm sure a lot of them are writing the things that get eventually get published and end up in magazines and on a shelf in the grocery store book isle.