Melanie Rae Thon, American fiction writer and professor of English at the University of Utah read from her essay, “Galaxies Beyond Violet,” at the English Reading Series. Thon was joined by Lance Olsen, American metamodern writer and professor of English at the University of Utah, who discussed the influence of Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty in his latest book, Theories of Forgetting.
PROVO, Utah (Oct. 31, 2014)—How does the environment transform art and art transform the environment? Melanie Rae Thon and Lance Olsen demonstrated the concept of environmental influences and the effect of earthwork art in selections of their writings at the English Reading Series.
“[Melanie Rae Thon] is a writer who has mastered the use of the striking image and metaphor to show the depth of her characters’ lives and the depth of our own,” said Sarah Syphus, a graduate instructor in first-year writing at BYU.
Thon read from one of her recent works entitled “Galaxies Beyond Violet,” a lyric essay that captivatingly integrates issues ranging from disconcerting and mysterious honeybee colony disappearances to the plight of illegal immigrants crossing the border.
“The whole project is called ‘Vanishings,’” said Thon. “It explores cultural collisions, intimate loss and environmental pressures along the Arizona–Mexico border.”
Melanie Rae Thon is the author of four novels and three collections of short stories. Her writing has been included in The Best American Short Stories anthology and other literary journals.
Lance Olsen also presented his work at the English Reading Series and explained the relationship between his newest book, Theories of Forgetting, and earthwork artist Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty.
“[Olsen’s] narratives compel audiences to reexamine language, form and being. He is indeed a master of evocative, expressive prose,” said student Lauren Todacheenie.
“The Spiral Jetty is a magical space that redefines what a museum is and redefines what gallery space is. The artwork itself actually becomes part of the landscape; the landscape becomes part of the artwork,” said Olsen.
Olsen explained how the spiral shape of Smithson’s land art was of critical importance to his conception of Theories of Forgetting, discussing how the spiral might also be seen as a visual relative of the labyrinth.
“Smithson explored the theme of the labyrinth as an archaic symbol for spiritual meditation and evolution,” said Olsen. “He was intrigued by how that shape occurs everywhere, from megalithic art to the Chartres Cathedral in France to our fingerprints.”
He continued, “I couldn’t get this idea of the spiral and its connotations out of my head. I began to think, ‘If that’s true, how would you develop a novel around the idea of a spiral?’ That takes us to Theories of Forgetting.”
Even the physical structure of Olsen’s novel is suggestive of a spiral structure. Olsen divided each page of the novel in half, with one narrative reading across the top from front to back, the other narrative reading upside down across the bottom of the page in the other direction.
“We usually read pages as invisible windows into fictional worlds,” said Olsen. “When you’re reading a novel, for instance, you talk about falling into the world and losing yourself in a different world. I’m interested in defamiliarizing the reading process and making the strangeness of reading, and hence meaning-making, strange again.”
Olsen concluded, “The reader must choose what constitutes the privileged narrative, and that choice will exert pressure in the meaning she or he will make since there are contradictory elements in the competing plots.”
Lance Olsen’s short stories, poems and reviews have appeared in Fiction International, Village Voice, Time Out New York, The Best American Nonrequired Reading and Hotel Amerika, among others. He is the author of 12 novels, five nonfiction books, a poetry chapbook and several short story collections.
For more information about Melanie Rae Thon and Lance Olsen, visit their webpages.
—Sylvia Cutler BA English ‘17