All Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost by Lan Samantha Chang (review)

Lan Samantha Chang, director of the MFA program at the University of Iowa, situates her novel All Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost at a prestigious writing program in 1986, during the era in which graduate creative writing classes took place at night, with cigarettes, angst, and paper cups of cheap wine. Graduates of programs during that time will remember urban legends—or incidents—involving dead fish slapped on the table in the form of opinions, and students leaving the classroom in tears.

All Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost is, unlike most academic novels, creative-writing-specific; it speaks to current conversations about the teaching of poetry, fiction, essay, and drama, and to critiques of the "workshop model" in particular.

For those who aren't familiar with the controversy over workshop format or with the ever-wearying question about whether creative writing can be taught (short answer: yes—like math or music or figure skating, it can be taught and learned to various extents depending on natural ability, level of interest, perseverance, life circumstances, etc. etc.), I offer a quick summation. Traditionally, the student-writer submitting a poem or story would remain silent while that work was discussed, as if eavesdropping on a conversation by an editorial board of a magazine. This "silent model" has lately fallen out of favor, critiqued as an unnecessary and even abusive gag order and a WASP-engineered system inherently biased against writers of color. (See Eric Bennett's Workshops of Empire, which discusses the influence on early MFA programs of right-wing socialist-fearing groups including the CIA.)

In All Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost, Chang is to some extent satirizing the traditional silent model, with its emphasis on craft and authority and freewheeling critique—but it has to be noted that satirization, an equal-opportunity employer, could readily be used on some of the newer, gentler workshop models as well.

The novel begins with a scene in which Miranda Sturgis, renowned poet and professor, appears to be listening with not great interest to a class discussion. Though known for "bludgeoning" her students' creative efforts, Miranda is a popular teacher; students vie for entry into her classes, knowing that she will likely be "critical of their work and dismissive of their hopes." (Depictions of classroom dialogue are darkly hilarious. Pressed to comment on a student's poem, Miranda notes that "few outside our world read the poetry now being written. This poem is one reason why.")

Miranda epitomizes the old-school workshop approach, waiting—but not expecting—to be impressed by what her students produce. (Flannery O'Connor: "Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think universities stifle writers. I think they don't stifle enough of them.") Rather than offering validation or encouragement, she presides and assesses, less of a coach than a referee.

Through Miranda, Chang's novel poses questions about mentor/mentee relations. What can a student reasonably expect from a teacher or adviser, and how, over time, have those expectations changed? What can or should a mentor offer—or even owe—a mentee?

All Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost does much more than simply answer these questions. The plot follows two of Miranda's poetry students from that first wonderfully painful classroom scene through the next several decades, as they experience the long and complicated shadow of their teacher's influence. Bernard, who is writing a book-length poem on which he will labor for most of his life, has come to "the School" in search of what he terms his ideal reader; though Miranda doesn't praise his long poem, he basks in and claims to benefit from the fact that she is reading his work. Roman, on the other hand, finds Miranda enraging; he insists that she approve of his poems. While Roman, the more driven of the two, aspires to "become a great poet," his friend Bernard...