This morning I was reading "The New Yorker" magazine (May 30, 2011) and my attention got caught on a book review on page 83. The novel was We Had It So Good, by Linda Grant. I've never read her work, so what caught my interest wasn't about the novel itself, it was about the review. The review said this: "There is no plot---only the passage of time, which forces the characters through history...life loses its immediate heat; the past is reduced to a series of nouns, black words arranged on a cold white background."
I've been meditating on that this morning. Would someone say that about my novel? Daftwooly (on Amazon.com) gave me a very good reading, which translated into 4 stars. He or she must be a gentle soul. I'm so lucky to have this review. And (not "but," and) his last two sentences said, " The book has much in the way of post-modernity about it, and I didn't quite get how it all added up in the end. But it is nonetheless an excellent read."
So here is my response to Daftwooly: In one sense, it doesn't add up in the end; no life does. Think of the architect who conceived the Twin Towers, only a twinkle in his/her mind's-eye at first. Think of all the "heavy lifting" to bring that project to conclusion. And finally, his life all added up! Until. Or maybe it added up as a disaster? But not necessarily. We are left with the passage of time, and perhaps with jaded spirits (who have lost their immediate heat"). And now all that's left are words, a poor representation of reality. Words like dead plants?
I can imagine that Linda Grant's novel was more than "forcing the characters through history." If I was writing a novel about the passage of time (I did), I would be making the word "passage" contemplative. I would make the passage carry them, as in God carrying us. I would make each moment a moment in eternity, a living in eternity right now, a destiny perhaps, a moment with wonders to explore.
I get it about language. It can be cold and false. That's why I chose song, because it has something beautifully divine about it, even when it's expressing the ways of beings who are hugely inadequate. Writing to my mind is alchemy; we keep going for the gold, and I don't mean money.
I would add up my novel [Blacktime Song by Rosalie Wolfe] this way if I had to right at this very moment: The grown woman protagonist made it through many changes, and still loved God. Her daughter, at the moment the novel ends, is thriving in a life full of possibilities. Both characters still live in gratitude, a virtue that matters to me. I hope God's eye has a twinkle in it for these two characters. I do. I can't help it.
As for Mark Twain's Afterword, he speaks for me, even if I'm not yet beyond the veil.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Water
As a direct descendant of Lot Smith, I've particularly enjoyed reading the Jeannette Walls book, Half Broke Horses, A True-Life Novel. Lot Smith's son James Smith is the author's grandfather.
On page 148 she writes so beautifully the words she remembers coming from him. I quote:
"Sometimes after supper when Jim got home from a storm, the kids would describe their escapades in the water and mud, and Jim would recount his vast store of water lore and water history. Once the world was nothing but water, he explained, and you wouldn't think it to look at us, but human beings were mostly water. The miraculous thing about water, he said, was that it never came to an end. All the water on the earth had been here since the beginning of time, it had just moved around from rivers and lakes and oceans to clouds and rain and puddles and then sunk through the soil to underground streams, to springs and wells where it got drunk by people and animals and went back to rivers and lakes and oceans.
"The water you kids were playing in, he said, had probably been to Africa and the North Pole. Genghis Khan or St. Peter or even Jesus himself might have drunk it. Cleopatra might have bathed in it. Crazy Horse might have watered his pony with it. Sometimes water was liquid. Sometimes it was rock hard--ice. Sometimes it was soft--snow. Sometimes it was visible, but weightless--clouds. And sometimes it was completely invisible--vapor--floating up into the sky like the souls of dead people. There was nothing in the world like water, Jim said. It made the desert bloom, but also turned rich bottomland into swamp. Without it, we'd die, but it could also kill us, and that was why we loved it, even craved it, but also feared it. Never take water for granted, Jim said.Always cherish it. Always beware of it."
That's my kind of nature writing! I feel the shared genes, passing down to me also the wonder of existence, of the material world, but in my case, of the inner world as well. I marvel at the sheer power of mere words, when one can find them, that shock us into seeing things that are ordinary but extraordinary. I love paradox too. Unlike water ("Without it we'd die, but it could also kill us...")paradox is safe. I can almost hear Jim Smith whispering in my ear--"Damn safe"--then laughing at his little joke.
Hats off to Jeannette Walls for her two great books which have helped explain me to myself in such fine writing.
On page 148 she writes so beautifully the words she remembers coming from him. I quote:
"Sometimes after supper when Jim got home from a storm, the kids would describe their escapades in the water and mud, and Jim would recount his vast store of water lore and water history. Once the world was nothing but water, he explained, and you wouldn't think it to look at us, but human beings were mostly water. The miraculous thing about water, he said, was that it never came to an end. All the water on the earth had been here since the beginning of time, it had just moved around from rivers and lakes and oceans to clouds and rain and puddles and then sunk through the soil to underground streams, to springs and wells where it got drunk by people and animals and went back to rivers and lakes and oceans.
"The water you kids were playing in, he said, had probably been to Africa and the North Pole. Genghis Khan or St. Peter or even Jesus himself might have drunk it. Cleopatra might have bathed in it. Crazy Horse might have watered his pony with it. Sometimes water was liquid. Sometimes it was rock hard--ice. Sometimes it was soft--snow. Sometimes it was visible, but weightless--clouds. And sometimes it was completely invisible--vapor--floating up into the sky like the souls of dead people. There was nothing in the world like water, Jim said. It made the desert bloom, but also turned rich bottomland into swamp. Without it, we'd die, but it could also kill us, and that was why we loved it, even craved it, but also feared it. Never take water for granted, Jim said.Always cherish it. Always beware of it."
That's my kind of nature writing! I feel the shared genes, passing down to me also the wonder of existence, of the material world, but in my case, of the inner world as well. I marvel at the sheer power of mere words, when one can find them, that shock us into seeing things that are ordinary but extraordinary. I love paradox too. Unlike water ("Without it we'd die, but it could also kill us...")paradox is safe. I can almost hear Jim Smith whispering in my ear--"Damn safe"--then laughing at his little joke.
Hats off to Jeannette Walls for her two great books which have helped explain me to myself in such fine writing.
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