Lance Olsen - 1956
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Advanced English III
Emmett High School, Emmett, ID
"I'm not Edgar Rice Burroughs; or, Stop Tonguing my Zeit's Geist"
I. Personal and Professional Biography
In a state noted for its rigid conservatism a writer such as Lance Olsen cannot help standing out. Born among the "hermetically sealed malls" of northern New Jersey, he was raised in a Venezuelan jungle compound where his father was a sea captain helping build an oil refinery. After a few years he returned to the land of the malls and went to school. There he told stories of his jungle adventures (crab crushing and the like) and was treated with naught but disbelief until his parents verified his claims (Café). Now, much older, he still has wild stories to tell in his novels and short stories, as unique as his early life.
Lance Olsen lives on an 80-acre farm just outside of Deary, Idaho (Flagg), where he lives with his artist-wife Andi. Friday through Monday, without exception, he'll sit for three hours after breakfast writing; Tuesday though Thursday he rides merrily to the University of Idaho where has taught since 1990 (Reed). Though he has often said that he loves teaching, he abhors the progressively corporate attitudes of the U of I, and, indeed, universities everywhere. At the University he is little-understood man, referring to his colleagues as "benignly amused" by his bizarre writing and anti-administration feelings, thinking of him as a weird uncle living in the attic who gets drunk at family reunions and shaves the neighbor's cat (Kung!). After 11 years of inadequate pay and discontented administrative dealings, Olsen submitted, on April 2, 2001, a letter of resignation in which he refers to the U of I as "the intellectual and pedagogical equivalent of a McDonalds franchise" (Café), while reaffirming that he has enjoyed his time at the U of I.
Before teaching in Idaho Olsen taught at the University of Kentucky, the University of Virginia, and the University of Iowa. He earned a B.A. in English Journalism from the University of Wisconsin - Madison, an M.F.A. in Fiction Writing from the University of Iowa, an M.A. in English Literature, and a Ph.D. in Modern and Post-modern Literature from the University of Virginia.
Olsen has published five novels, three short story collections, a poetry chapbook, a creative writing textbook, over seventy-five essays, one hundred reviews, and some non-fiction books. His first novel, Live From Earth , is a magical realist tale about a woman's love affair with her dead husband, the Iowa Writers Workshop, Vietnam, artificial insemination, and other weirdness of the late twentieth century (Café). Tonguing the Zeitgeist is a social satire of a rock star who gives up everything, including his voice, face and gender (Kung!). On his website, Olsen describes the book as a "postmodern fable about the commodification of the arts at the alpha of a new millennium." In Time Famine, a Disney-like company buys up rights to the great atrocities of history. The nuclear reactor powering one of these, BelsenLand, chernobylizes, releasing radiation over the NorAm southwest and affecting people's sense of time, giving them the impression of intense memories, possibly not their own and transporting one of the protagonists, Uly, back into the nineteenth century and the ill-fated Donner Party. Burnt is an eco-novel exploring various kinds of pollution (environmental, cultural, psychological, ethical), as well as an "academentic" satire about a professor who ends up killing a student because of his bad prose style. Freaknest is about feral children in a Dickensian, 2023 London (Café). His most-noted short story collection, Sewing Shut My Eyes, was a collaboration with his wife, combining bizarre collages with text. Completing his résumé, in 1997 Lance Olsen was awarded Idaho's title of Writer-in-Residence (1997 ILA 78).
Idaho has played an important role in the work of Lance Olsen as a background presence. The state holds special interest to the environmentally-conscious Olsen who appreciates the pristine landscape. His works often, directly or indirectly, address environmental issues. He does not write about Idaho in his fiction, however, because he believes that to write about what is outside one's window is only as good as taking a picture (Huntington). Olsen says that if his work is marked by any one trait, then it would be diversity (Flagg). This is evident in his works, for he has vowed never to write the same thing twice. Due to this, it is difficult to classify the work of Lance Olsen. One literary movement into which Olsen is often classified is the Avant-Pop. Avant-Pop is a term from a Lester Bowie jazz album that, through critic Larry McCaffery and surfictionist Ron Sukenick, began to be used to describe a form of literature that "splices the avant-garde's obsession with innovation, experimentation, and radicalization with a deep pop sensibility" (George Jr.). Olsen identifies with certain aspects of the Avant-Pop but is leery about its motives. He is uncertain if the Avant-Pop isn't just a commercial bastardization of the avant-garde (Reed).
No matter how one taxonomizes Olsen, his individuality cannot be denied; it is apparent in each work, and, indeed, in the range of his works. There are few people in the world who think in such radical ways and are able to express them. And there are few places where such a person would contrast with his surroundings as strongly as Olsen does with Idaho. Idaho is fortunate to have a writer who so denies the northwestern, and especially Idahoan, stereotype.
II. Works Cited
"1997 ILA Conference Speakers." Idaho Librarian July 1997: 78.
Dodge, Trevor. Interview with Lance Olsen. Alt-X.1996.16 April 2001.
Flagg, Mariane. "North Idaho Author Wins Appointment." Idaho Statesman 21 Dec. 1995: n. pag. Huntington, Rebecca. "Creative Writing Alive And Well And Diverse In Idaho."
Lewiston Morning Tribune 12 Jan. 1996: 1C+. Kung!. Interview with Lance Olsen. 13 Apr. 2001.
Olsen, Lance. Café Zeitgeist
. 13 Apr. 2001.
http://www.cafezeitgeist.com
This essay was submitted by a student of Joanne Davis, an English teacher at Emmett High School in Idaho.