For some reason after reading Duke's thought-provoking post, I have been having trouble figuring out how I wanted to ring in on this whole question about what's the "best" American novel of the last 25 years, what are the "best" American works, etc. I just can't seem to pick one myself, of course, it's way too difficult. I also don't know if I really see any point to the exercise, ultimately, which is the way at least some people seem to feel. Here's an interesting quote from one critic whose writing I frequently find admirable, who also sometimes writes for the New York Times, Laura Miller. Here, she explains why she did not take part in the selection process after being invited:
"An editor at the Book Review assured me that the list was really a parlor game that I should view in a more cavalier light, like something the obsessive characters in "Diner" or "High Fidelity" might indulge in. But those guys take themselves pretty seriously, and damn if the letter didn't ask for the "most distinguished" American novel of the past 25 years, which sounds pretty sober. I wasn't going to do it as a game when it was likely to be taken in earnest.
"My point in objecting was not just some namby-pamby reluctance to make any relative evaluation about literature, because that really is an important thing that critics do: declare that some books are better than others. I have no problem doing that, but I hate imposing a rigidly, atomistic structure on it. Ultimately, novels are so diverse that once they attain a certain level of quality, they really can't be meaningfully ranked against each other."
I have never seen Diner, but I did read the novel 'High Fidelity', and I like Laura Miller's point about how the guys in the book DO take their lists seriously. They sure do. And I think she is dead right in that last statement, that once a book reaches that plateau of quality, it sort of trascends the rankings: it's a damned good book, and doesn't have to be measured against any other book to make it any more so. That's kind of how I feel about some of the greatest novels I've read, especially in the last 3-4 years. I do get a kind of feeling that is something like, 'This book is just GREAT. No matter how many people read it, no matter what the guy or woman who wrote it thinks or says or what they seem to believe, they wrote a great book. Period.' I got that feeling with a book called 'Independent People' not too long ago, which isn't going to make its way onto any American lists since it's by an Icelandic writer, Halldor Laxness.
I didn't totally blow off the Times' piece, though; I did think it was interesting, and it did inspire me to read Morrison's 'Beloved', which as of this moment I am roughly 20 pages from the end of. And indicentally, I'd put it in the category I discussed above: a GREAT novel. Definitely worth reading for anyone of any race or any gender who cares about literature, and hey, an American wrote it on top of it. When you read 'Beloved', it's obvious that it is a great work of literature. Trust me on that. Or, rather, don't: anyone reading this ought to do what I didn't do for so many years, and read the book.
So anyway, I don't think I can come up with a list of the 'best' American novels, but that doesn't mean I'm knocking Duke's, because he put out there what he found to be "essential" American novels, which isn't necessarily the greatest ones. I thought his list was pretty sensible and it certainly includes 10 great works on it that most people would say represent the finest American literature. Nonetheless, if I were taken hostage and forced to make a list, I'd follow Miller's lead again. This time, she is referring to the National Book Critics' Circle, of which she is a member:
"If I had my druthers, the NBCC would stop at the list of 5 finalists."
I like the idea of coming up with 5 great choices, so the list that appears below ISN'T the 5 Best American Novels in my opinion, it's not the 5 best American novels of this year, but it does represent the TOP 5 MOST INFLUENTIAL NOVELS TO MUTT PLOUGHMAN, PERSONALLY, WRITTEN BY AMERICAN WRITERS. If you don't like that shoe-horn category, well, that's as good as you're gonna get.......
1. "The Grapes of Wrath", John Steinbeck
2. "Moby-Dick", Herman Melville
3. "Going Native", Stephen Wright
4. "On the Road", Jack Kerouac
5. "The Violent Bear it Away", Flannery O'Connor
Friday, June 09, 2006
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Debate rages on over the "Great American Novel" question
It's taken us a little while to post on this, but a few weeks ago there was an article in the New York Times announcing the "Best American Novel of the past 25 years," based on the opinions of a wide range of eminent writers and critics (invited to participate by the Times' Book Review editor Sam Tanenhaus). Their choice was Toni Morrison's epic novel from 1987, Beloved. Astute TST readers will have noticed from the right-hand column on this page that Mutt has been working his way through the very same novel for the past week or so (not entirely a coincidence, needless to say... although to Mutt's credit, I know that he's been planning on reading the book for a long time -- this just gave him the necessary kick in the butt!).
An announcement like this is bound to throw gasoline on the already-raging flame of debate that swirls around the question, "Is there such thing as the Great American Novel, and if so, which one would it be?" Even if you narrow down the scope to the last quarter-century, the idea of choosing one novel that somehow captures all of the hope and heartache, joy and pain of this great country within its pages is, of course, a fool's errand worthy of the venerable Man of La Mancha. But since this is America, and we do love our polls, Top 10 lists and ranking sheets... why not perpetuate our penchant for rating things, and ring in on this most challenging and interesting of futile questions???
To that end, this post is intended to express my own opinions, but even moreso, to start a conversation. I invite anyone reading this to consider the great tradition of American literature (no matter how familiar or unfamiliar with it you may be), and then to think about what books from within that great tradition have been most important to you. Who are the American writers that you would consider to be the most important, the most relevant in any age? Who are the American novelists that have touched your heart and soul with the most memorable force? What are the “great American novels” you’ve read that you know you will never forget?
If I had to choose one novel to answer the question “What is the great American novel?,” and one to answer “What is the American novel you personally consider to be the most powerful and important?,” I think my answer would be the same for both: Moby-Dick by Herman Melville. To me, that is not only one of the most exciting and fascinating novels from any writer I’ve ever read (it’s easily my choice for the most memorable and perfect denouement in any novel ever written), but it also uniquely captures the American story to me somehow, as the crew of the Pequod strive alternatively for adventure, commercial gain, meaning in a relentless and brutal universe, and ultimately, spiritual redemption and the answers to life’s biggest questions.
In my opinion, based of course on my own reading experiences and what I know of their styles and impact, the five brightest stars in the American literary pantheon are Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor. Take away any of these writers and the entire landscape of American literary history would be permanently altered. As much as I respect other American legends, I can’t say with 100% confidence that this is true of others that might be mentioned in such company… two writers who I would say are very close to making that short list, but not quite there, are Steinbeck and Hemingway. Theirs is certainly an American literature, Steinbeck’s especially... but I don’t feel their work is quite as innovative or important as that of any of the previously mentioned five. (Yet, an argument could certainly be made for The Grapes of Wrath as the quintessential American novel… I’m not saying it is, but I can understand the inclination to nominate it.) Hemingway’s, in fact, strikes me as a tad bit overrated, although I am definitely no expert when it comes to his stuff. It’s obviously had a major impact on the writers that have followed him in this country.
Perhaps a Top 10 Most Essential American Novels of All Time list might look something like this (in no particular order):
1. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
2. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
3. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
4. The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
5. The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
6. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe
7. Winesburg, Ohio, Sherwood Anderson
8. The Violent Bear it Away, Flannery O’Connor
9. Main Street, Sinclair Lewis
10. The Sketch Book, Washington Irving (contains American folk tales of enduring popularity such as ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ and ‘Rip van Winkle’)
The other work that certainly belongs on this list in terms of its influence (indeed, I would put it on par with Moby Dick and Huck Finn in this regard), but is not here because it is not a novel, is Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. No question about that.
Now of course, any time you make a list like this, you are going to end up making choices that others would consider questionable, if not outright controversial. My list is no exception to that rule, I’m sure. Of course it’s MY list, so it’s obviously going to be colored by my own personal opinions and reading experiences. For example, I know a lot of readers would probably consider me nuts to put Winesburg, Ohio on a list of Top 10 most important American novels – but from all I’ve read, it’s one of the most unique and powerful books written about heartland America and its people out there. It’s arguably the finest portrait of small-town America ever written, and the stories had a deep and profound emotional resonance with me that I’ve rarely experienced anywhere else. Even putting Flannery O’Connor on this list would shock some, but to me that’s a no-brainer – her stories and two novels are utterly unique in all of American (hell, WORLD) literature. And though perhaps a writer like Washington Irving is not as widely known and read today, the stories he created have maintained a permanent place in this country’s mythology and psyche... and he was, in fact, the first American fiction writer to achieve wide readership and renown overseas. In a very real sense, Irving put the entire category of 'American literature' on the map!
Of course, there are other great writers that immediately come to mind as American superstars, and many jaws would be open in astonishment in reading my list due to their absence from it… I’m thinking of the work of Henry James, James Fennimore Cooper, Ernest Hemingway, Edgar Allen Poe, Henry Adams, Edith Wharton, Ralph Ellison, Booker T. Washington, T. S. Eliot, Henry David Thoreau, Willa Cather, Abraham Lincoln, Stephen Crane, Upton Sinclair, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jack Kerouac, Theodore Dreiser, Ayn Rand, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Thorton Wilder or Eugene O’Neill. And yes, it is very hard to imagine American lit without any of them… but somehow to me, these don’t seem like the pillars that, if removed, would cause the entire structure to collapse…
When considering the modern era (as the New York Times was), there are other writers that enter the conversation too, whose work certainly cannot be ignored. There are obvious choices, like Morrison, Saul Bellow, John Updike, Cormac McCarthy, Don De Lillo, Philip Roth and Thomas Pyncheon. But then there are less obvious, but equally worthy, ones, such as Thomas Wolfe, Walker Percy, Stephen Wright, or Raymond Carver. And poets ought not to be ignored either… the work of Emily Dickinson, Robert Lowell, Robert Frost, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Langston Hughes, William Carlos Williams and Richard Wilbur have made an indelible mark on American letters as well.
What about you? Which writers and works would be on YOUR list? Any article or event that keeps the conversation about, and the reading of, American literature going is worth noting, even celebrating. So hats off to Tanenhaus, A.O. Scott, the New York Times Book Review and its contributors for this interesting project.
May the reading never cease… and may Americans keep rising to their potential as true and unique voices of artistic freedom and integrity, in a world that is ever in need of such shining beacons to guide it along its harried and haunted voyage.
An announcement like this is bound to throw gasoline on the already-raging flame of debate that swirls around the question, "Is there such thing as the Great American Novel, and if so, which one would it be?" Even if you narrow down the scope to the last quarter-century, the idea of choosing one novel that somehow captures all of the hope and heartache, joy and pain of this great country within its pages is, of course, a fool's errand worthy of the venerable Man of La Mancha. But since this is America, and we do love our polls, Top 10 lists and ranking sheets... why not perpetuate our penchant for rating things, and ring in on this most challenging and interesting of futile questions???
To that end, this post is intended to express my own opinions, but even moreso, to start a conversation. I invite anyone reading this to consider the great tradition of American literature (no matter how familiar or unfamiliar with it you may be), and then to think about what books from within that great tradition have been most important to you. Who are the American writers that you would consider to be the most important, the most relevant in any age? Who are the American novelists that have touched your heart and soul with the most memorable force? What are the “great American novels” you’ve read that you know you will never forget?
If I had to choose one novel to answer the question “What is the great American novel?,” and one to answer “What is the American novel you personally consider to be the most powerful and important?,” I think my answer would be the same for both: Moby-Dick by Herman Melville. To me, that is not only one of the most exciting and fascinating novels from any writer I’ve ever read (it’s easily my choice for the most memorable and perfect denouement in any novel ever written), but it also uniquely captures the American story to me somehow, as the crew of the Pequod strive alternatively for adventure, commercial gain, meaning in a relentless and brutal universe, and ultimately, spiritual redemption and the answers to life’s biggest questions.
In my opinion, based of course on my own reading experiences and what I know of their styles and impact, the five brightest stars in the American literary pantheon are Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor. Take away any of these writers and the entire landscape of American literary history would be permanently altered. As much as I respect other American legends, I can’t say with 100% confidence that this is true of others that might be mentioned in such company… two writers who I would say are very close to making that short list, but not quite there, are Steinbeck and Hemingway. Theirs is certainly an American literature, Steinbeck’s especially... but I don’t feel their work is quite as innovative or important as that of any of the previously mentioned five. (Yet, an argument could certainly be made for The Grapes of Wrath as the quintessential American novel… I’m not saying it is, but I can understand the inclination to nominate it.) Hemingway’s, in fact, strikes me as a tad bit overrated, although I am definitely no expert when it comes to his stuff. It’s obviously had a major impact on the writers that have followed him in this country.
Perhaps a Top 10 Most Essential American Novels of All Time list might look something like this (in no particular order):
1. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
2. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
3. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
4. The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
5. The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
6. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe
7. Winesburg, Ohio, Sherwood Anderson
8. The Violent Bear it Away, Flannery O’Connor
9. Main Street, Sinclair Lewis
10. The Sketch Book, Washington Irving (contains American folk tales of enduring popularity such as ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ and ‘Rip van Winkle’)
The other work that certainly belongs on this list in terms of its influence (indeed, I would put it on par with Moby Dick and Huck Finn in this regard), but is not here because it is not a novel, is Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. No question about that.
Now of course, any time you make a list like this, you are going to end up making choices that others would consider questionable, if not outright controversial. My list is no exception to that rule, I’m sure. Of course it’s MY list, so it’s obviously going to be colored by my own personal opinions and reading experiences. For example, I know a lot of readers would probably consider me nuts to put Winesburg, Ohio on a list of Top 10 most important American novels – but from all I’ve read, it’s one of the most unique and powerful books written about heartland America and its people out there. It’s arguably the finest portrait of small-town America ever written, and the stories had a deep and profound emotional resonance with me that I’ve rarely experienced anywhere else. Even putting Flannery O’Connor on this list would shock some, but to me that’s a no-brainer – her stories and two novels are utterly unique in all of American (hell, WORLD) literature. And though perhaps a writer like Washington Irving is not as widely known and read today, the stories he created have maintained a permanent place in this country’s mythology and psyche... and he was, in fact, the first American fiction writer to achieve wide readership and renown overseas. In a very real sense, Irving put the entire category of 'American literature' on the map!
Of course, there are other great writers that immediately come to mind as American superstars, and many jaws would be open in astonishment in reading my list due to their absence from it… I’m thinking of the work of Henry James, James Fennimore Cooper, Ernest Hemingway, Edgar Allen Poe, Henry Adams, Edith Wharton, Ralph Ellison, Booker T. Washington, T. S. Eliot, Henry David Thoreau, Willa Cather, Abraham Lincoln, Stephen Crane, Upton Sinclair, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jack Kerouac, Theodore Dreiser, Ayn Rand, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Thorton Wilder or Eugene O’Neill. And yes, it is very hard to imagine American lit without any of them… but somehow to me, these don’t seem like the pillars that, if removed, would cause the entire structure to collapse…
When considering the modern era (as the New York Times was), there are other writers that enter the conversation too, whose work certainly cannot be ignored. There are obvious choices, like Morrison, Saul Bellow, John Updike, Cormac McCarthy, Don De Lillo, Philip Roth and Thomas Pyncheon. But then there are less obvious, but equally worthy, ones, such as Thomas Wolfe, Walker Percy, Stephen Wright, or Raymond Carver. And poets ought not to be ignored either… the work of Emily Dickinson, Robert Lowell, Robert Frost, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Langston Hughes, William Carlos Williams and Richard Wilbur have made an indelible mark on American letters as well.
What about you? Which writers and works would be on YOUR list? Any article or event that keeps the conversation about, and the reading of, American literature going is worth noting, even celebrating. So hats off to Tanenhaus, A.O. Scott, the New York Times Book Review and its contributors for this interesting project.
May the reading never cease… and may Americans keep rising to their potential as true and unique voices of artistic freedom and integrity, in a world that is ever in need of such shining beacons to guide it along its harried and haunted voyage.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Duke Altum's Poem of the Week #32
Last week found me in Nashville on business, so I was not able to put up a poem... this is the one I meant to put up. Partially in celebration of the opportunity I had a few weeks' back to see him read live, and partially because his work is always worth visiting and reflecting upon, I give you another great poem from Seamus Heaney.
This one is from his second poetry collection, Door into the Dark, and as you can see it is the poem that provided the book's title. In classic Heaney style, it is a powerful childhood reminscence that carries along with it deeper and more universal meanings/themes. That line, "All I know is a door into the dark," has intrigued me from the first moment I read it (long before I knew what it referred to). I had to good fortune of hearing him read this very poem at the recent evening, which of course, coupled with his fascinating explanation of certain lines, gave it an even stronger resonance with me. The road over which the blacksmith gazes from the door jamb, recalling a traffic sounding with "a clatter of hoofs," was the same road on which, Heaney explained, his younger brother was struck by a car and killed just a few years later (an event explored in the heartbreaking poem "Mid-Term Break" from his debut collection).
*******
The Forge
All I know is a door into the dark.
Outside, old axles and iron hoops rusting;
Inside, the hammered anvil's short pitched ring,
The unpredictable fantail of sparks
Or hiss when the new shoe toughens in water.
The anvil must be somewhere in the centre,
Horned as a unicorn, at one end square,
Set there immoveable: an altar
Where he expends himself in shape and music,
Sometimes, leather-aproned, hairs in his nose,
He leans out on the jamb, recalls a clatter
of hoofs where traffic is flashing in rows;
Then grunts and goes in, with a slam and flick
To beat real iron out, to work the bellows.
This one is from his second poetry collection, Door into the Dark, and as you can see it is the poem that provided the book's title. In classic Heaney style, it is a powerful childhood reminscence that carries along with it deeper and more universal meanings/themes. That line, "All I know is a door into the dark," has intrigued me from the first moment I read it (long before I knew what it referred to). I had to good fortune of hearing him read this very poem at the recent evening, which of course, coupled with his fascinating explanation of certain lines, gave it an even stronger resonance with me. The road over which the blacksmith gazes from the door jamb, recalling a traffic sounding with "a clatter of hoofs," was the same road on which, Heaney explained, his younger brother was struck by a car and killed just a few years later (an event explored in the heartbreaking poem "Mid-Term Break" from his debut collection).
*******
The Forge
All I know is a door into the dark.
Outside, old axles and iron hoops rusting;
Inside, the hammered anvil's short pitched ring,
The unpredictable fantail of sparks
Or hiss when the new shoe toughens in water.
The anvil must be somewhere in the centre,
Horned as a unicorn, at one end square,
Set there immoveable: an altar
Where he expends himself in shape and music,
Sometimes, leather-aproned, hairs in his nose,
He leans out on the jamb, recalls a clatter
of hoofs where traffic is flashing in rows;
Then grunts and goes in, with a slam and flick
To beat real iron out, to work the bellows.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Journal of a "Novel"-Entry 16
Brief Excerpt
The following is a small excerpt from the Prologue of my "novel", which I would describe as being in the opening stages of development. In this segment, Father Brogan is describing the first evening he encountered a young student journalist, and what happened to him before that encounter. It is only in its first draft and no doubt will experience many revisions in the near future.
The evening our paths first came to intersect fell softly upon the northeastern Pennsylvania landscape one week ago, the second week of May. It was a Friday evening, and I was just emerging from the residence hall where I live with my other Jesuit colleagues, so many of whom have come and gone in the course of the 34 years I have spent here. I had prepared for myself a tolerable supper of baked scrod, vegetable soup from a can and oyster crackers, but had eaten little of it, my appetite no longer bearing much resemblance to that of the young parish priest of the 1950s who thought nothing of retiring to the pubs of Chicago for beer and steaks and theological discourse. Today my appetite is a rabbity, frail creature even in its stronger moments. And on this particular Friday, I could not even bring it to bear on the small repast I had prepared, because of my distraction and, indeed, consternation over the assignment I had been given that very afternoon.
Earlier, I had presided over my last final examination period, and that was not even for my own students. When Brendan Russell, M.A., M. Div., one of our school’s youthful ‘lay theologians in residence’ had had to depart on a family emergency, he had asked me to sit in for him on his final examination. So I had done just that, sitting in the nondescript classroom for three hours while the students of Russell’s celebrated ‘Spirituality and Ecology’ course toiled through their essays on Heaven, earth, sea and sky, and all the connections therein. Far be it from me to weigh in on the possible fruits that all of this very broad, tolerant, far-reaching sort of thought could bear for these young minds. I simply sat mum, collected their exams when they had finished their creative labor, and reflected languidly on the fact that I would never again sit as proctor for my own or for anyone else’s examinations. It didn’t trouble me too much.
Afterwards, I returned to the office I shared with three other theology professors to check my mail box, more out of routine than for any other reason, for I had long since ceased receiving anything of value in the box. No more did young theology students drop off their term papers looking for my comments on their arguments, whether they were my students or another teacher’s. I wasn’t sure if there even were theology students anymore. No more did I receive the more cryptic notes, hand-written by troubled, agitated, or sometimes outright panicked students, asking to meet with me to discuss matters more difficult, perhaps more personal in nature, things that had nothing to do with academics or grades. The notion of approaching one’s priest as a counselor for moral concerns also seemed far in the past. No more did I receive invitations to cocktail parties, retirement parties, and other campus soirees. For many years these things were all frequent occupants of my campus mail box, and how well I remember the days when I felt as though I could not possibly keep my balance with all that I had committed myself to, only to return to the same office after teaching three hours’ straight on Aquinas, my head aching with the effort required to perform such an insane task, to find several more requests for my assistance, my time, my ear, to add to the ever-accumulating pile.
All of these things were gone now, passed into dust, as the Bible promises. Figuratively speaking, of course. So it was without surprise that I found nothing of import in my mail box on this day save a copied letter from the Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences formally reminding all professors of the urgency of turning in their final grades on time and a flyer advertising the last session of the semi-popular ‘Theology on Tap’ series at O’Grady’s, the Irish-style pub they had built into the new Student Center on campus. Occasionally, when my frame of mind drifted off of its normal course into more ambitious waters, I had entertained the thought once or twice in the last few years to drop in on one of these sessions to quaff some beers and try to ‘kick it’ with students about theological matters. But this was something that would have appealed to my younger self, perhaps 20 or 25 years in the receding distance. The truth was I was too tired to seriously consider it, never drank beer anymore, and probably would have halted all semblance of amiable fellowship in its tracks just by crossing the threshold into the pub. I still loved the students. You can’t do this without that love. But their territories were clearly marked and their pursuit of liquid pleasure was not an arena in which an elderly priest would be on top of his game, or should be, anyway.
Having nothing left to detain me further in the office – my grades submitted, my small wooden desk from the 1960s mostly cleared of its contents – I passed into the small office where our rotating student intern and the Theology Department secretary, Jane Whittaker, shared some space. I wanted to greet Jane, who had been with the department for eighteen years, and inquire after her cancer-stricken son, a terrible crucible she had been facing for much of the year. But as I approached, admittedly thinking more about my own fatigue and desire to return home to rest than her son’s condition, she saw me coming, and collared me, as it were, with ‘an important message’.
‘You’re to pay a visit to the president,’ said Jane, a portly, gregarious woman whose gray-black hair had been held back by the same jade clip every day for all of those eighteen years. Why I noticed this sea-washed green color every single time I looked at her is something I never could explain. I blinked at her a few times. But there was no doubt that her ‘important message’ was intended for me.
‘The president, Jane? Are you certain you have that right?’ I asked.
‘Of course, father,’ as she insisted on calling me. ‘There’s no mistaking a call from the president’s office.’
‘I’ll take your word for it on that,’ I replied, wondering about this summons. ‘A debriefing, I suppose, although the timing surprises me. I thought young Jimmy would wait until all the pomp was over before giving me the send-off.’
‘Father Brogan. Come off it, now. No one is going to give you a “send-off”, and you know it well. Don’t say that they will. You know Father Chesterfield would let you stay for another thirty years, if you were willing.’
I chuckled reflexively. ‘Even if I were, Jane, I doubt that God is willing to impose that on this community. But one never knows.’ I winked at her, thanked her, and then promptly wandered off, without asking after her son. In another time, before I became this old and so prone to distractions, I would have asked regardless. Yet, in fairness, a summons to drop by to see the president of the Jesuit University of Northeast Pennsylvania was an unusual occurrence indeed, and might have distracted anyone.
The following is a small excerpt from the Prologue of my "novel", which I would describe as being in the opening stages of development. In this segment, Father Brogan is describing the first evening he encountered a young student journalist, and what happened to him before that encounter. It is only in its first draft and no doubt will experience many revisions in the near future.
The evening our paths first came to intersect fell softly upon the northeastern Pennsylvania landscape one week ago, the second week of May. It was a Friday evening, and I was just emerging from the residence hall where I live with my other Jesuit colleagues, so many of whom have come and gone in the course of the 34 years I have spent here. I had prepared for myself a tolerable supper of baked scrod, vegetable soup from a can and oyster crackers, but had eaten little of it, my appetite no longer bearing much resemblance to that of the young parish priest of the 1950s who thought nothing of retiring to the pubs of Chicago for beer and steaks and theological discourse. Today my appetite is a rabbity, frail creature even in its stronger moments. And on this particular Friday, I could not even bring it to bear on the small repast I had prepared, because of my distraction and, indeed, consternation over the assignment I had been given that very afternoon.
Earlier, I had presided over my last final examination period, and that was not even for my own students. When Brendan Russell, M.A., M. Div., one of our school’s youthful ‘lay theologians in residence’ had had to depart on a family emergency, he had asked me to sit in for him on his final examination. So I had done just that, sitting in the nondescript classroom for three hours while the students of Russell’s celebrated ‘Spirituality and Ecology’ course toiled through their essays on Heaven, earth, sea and sky, and all the connections therein. Far be it from me to weigh in on the possible fruits that all of this very broad, tolerant, far-reaching sort of thought could bear for these young minds. I simply sat mum, collected their exams when they had finished their creative labor, and reflected languidly on the fact that I would never again sit as proctor for my own or for anyone else’s examinations. It didn’t trouble me too much.
Afterwards, I returned to the office I shared with three other theology professors to check my mail box, more out of routine than for any other reason, for I had long since ceased receiving anything of value in the box. No more did young theology students drop off their term papers looking for my comments on their arguments, whether they were my students or another teacher’s. I wasn’t sure if there even were theology students anymore. No more did I receive the more cryptic notes, hand-written by troubled, agitated, or sometimes outright panicked students, asking to meet with me to discuss matters more difficult, perhaps more personal in nature, things that had nothing to do with academics or grades. The notion of approaching one’s priest as a counselor for moral concerns also seemed far in the past. No more did I receive invitations to cocktail parties, retirement parties, and other campus soirees. For many years these things were all frequent occupants of my campus mail box, and how well I remember the days when I felt as though I could not possibly keep my balance with all that I had committed myself to, only to return to the same office after teaching three hours’ straight on Aquinas, my head aching with the effort required to perform such an insane task, to find several more requests for my assistance, my time, my ear, to add to the ever-accumulating pile.
All of these things were gone now, passed into dust, as the Bible promises. Figuratively speaking, of course. So it was without surprise that I found nothing of import in my mail box on this day save a copied letter from the Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences formally reminding all professors of the urgency of turning in their final grades on time and a flyer advertising the last session of the semi-popular ‘Theology on Tap’ series at O’Grady’s, the Irish-style pub they had built into the new Student Center on campus. Occasionally, when my frame of mind drifted off of its normal course into more ambitious waters, I had entertained the thought once or twice in the last few years to drop in on one of these sessions to quaff some beers and try to ‘kick it’ with students about theological matters. But this was something that would have appealed to my younger self, perhaps 20 or 25 years in the receding distance. The truth was I was too tired to seriously consider it, never drank beer anymore, and probably would have halted all semblance of amiable fellowship in its tracks just by crossing the threshold into the pub. I still loved the students. You can’t do this without that love. But their territories were clearly marked and their pursuit of liquid pleasure was not an arena in which an elderly priest would be on top of his game, or should be, anyway.
Having nothing left to detain me further in the office – my grades submitted, my small wooden desk from the 1960s mostly cleared of its contents – I passed into the small office where our rotating student intern and the Theology Department secretary, Jane Whittaker, shared some space. I wanted to greet Jane, who had been with the department for eighteen years, and inquire after her cancer-stricken son, a terrible crucible she had been facing for much of the year. But as I approached, admittedly thinking more about my own fatigue and desire to return home to rest than her son’s condition, she saw me coming, and collared me, as it were, with ‘an important message’.
‘You’re to pay a visit to the president,’ said Jane, a portly, gregarious woman whose gray-black hair had been held back by the same jade clip every day for all of those eighteen years. Why I noticed this sea-washed green color every single time I looked at her is something I never could explain. I blinked at her a few times. But there was no doubt that her ‘important message’ was intended for me.
‘The president, Jane? Are you certain you have that right?’ I asked.
‘Of course, father,’ as she insisted on calling me. ‘There’s no mistaking a call from the president’s office.’
‘I’ll take your word for it on that,’ I replied, wondering about this summons. ‘A debriefing, I suppose, although the timing surprises me. I thought young Jimmy would wait until all the pomp was over before giving me the send-off.’
‘Father Brogan. Come off it, now. No one is going to give you a “send-off”, and you know it well. Don’t say that they will. You know Father Chesterfield would let you stay for another thirty years, if you were willing.’
I chuckled reflexively. ‘Even if I were, Jane, I doubt that God is willing to impose that on this community. But one never knows.’ I winked at her, thanked her, and then promptly wandered off, without asking after her son. In another time, before I became this old and so prone to distractions, I would have asked regardless. Yet, in fairness, a summons to drop by to see the president of the Jesuit University of Northeast Pennsylvania was an unusual occurrence indeed, and might have distracted anyone.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
A 21st-Century Generation X’er Reflects Briefly on Reading the Venerable Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales for the First Time
How’s that for a windy title, boys and girls? Somehow it seems weirdly appropriate though, when the subject matter of the post is an epic medieval poem about a group of travelers making a pilgrimage on foot to a holy site in England, telling wild and wooly stories to pass the time… but who would want to read such a thing in 21st century, postmodern, pop-mart America? And how could such an arcane work possibly be relevant or meaningful to anyone in this day and age?
Well, for starters, this is The Secret Thread after all, and that’s one of the things we do here: dig out obscure and overlooked (or underappreciated) classics, give them a good reading, and mine them for truth and insight that applies to all of us, in any age. That’s not to say we don’t read for the pure enjoyment of the thing – that’s the primary goal and function of fiction reading of any sort, if you ask me, or art in general for that matter! – but on this blog, we try to seek out, share and discuss bits of wisdom and creative expression that have the power to make significant, even indelible, impact on modern lives.
Sorry, but that stuff is always worth repeating… at least, to me. (End of commercial! I'm Duke Altum, and I approve of... ah, forget it!)
Secondly, there is the unique universal nature and theme of this work, which makes it not only credible but meaningful to all people everywhere, at any time. I’d like to expound on that, but the great 18th century poet William Blake has already put it more eloquently and accurately than I ever could... so why reinvent the wheel? Here is what Mr. Blake wrote about Chaucer’s most well-known and beloved work:
“Of Chaucer's characters, as described in his Canterbury Tales, some of the names or titles are altered by time, but the characters themselves for ever remained unaltered, and consequently they are the physiognomies or lineaments of universal human life, beyond which Nature never steps… Chaucer is himself the great poetical observer of men, who in every age is born to record and eternize its acts.”
That right there captures the essence of not only of why I wanted to read the book, but why it still very much matters to people of the 21st century, and will likely matter to all people for as long as we’re kicking around on this planet. To put it very, very succinctly: we’re all pilgrims. I know that sounds like a cliché, and perhaps it is, but as in all clichés, it contains a kernel of good old-fashioned truth. For as long as there have been recorded stories and myths, man has continually and faithfully returned again to the metaphor of life as a journey. A line can be traced from the ancient Epic of Gilgamesh to the Odyssey to The Canterbury Tales to The Pilgrim’s Progress to Balzac’s La Comedie Humaine to The Lord of the Rings and beyond.
I would venture to say that most people, no matter what their specific religious persuasion/history may be, tend to look at their lives as a series of steps taken along a certain path. Unless you are a true, dyed-in-the-wool nihilist or atheist who believes that life has no meaning whatsoever and all is random in the cold, unfeeling universe, such a metaphor probably makes sense to you on some level. We can argue endlessly about Who/What may have designed that path, and about whether or not the trail was fixed beforehand or blazed by your ourdecisions and actions… we can even speculate over what might have happened to us if we had taken a turn in a different direction at some key point along the way. But I think we’ve all got a natural inclination to think about our lives in such terms.
Within the Christian tradition of course, the word “pilgrimage” comes loaded up with some significant freight indeed. “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path…” The belief in Divine Providence, of a benign God who loves us and desires to lead us home to the Promised Land, is obviously a key concept within this tradition. And then there is the journey Jesus Christ took from the Manger to the Cross… ever since then, Christians have always seen their lives as a pilgrimage, a via dolorosa (“way of suffering”) in which we must atone and do penance, and prepare ourselves to enter into the Kingdom of God. Such concepts are embedded not only within the Christian tradition, but within the entire mindset of Western culture, in one way or another. (The fact that the German word bildungsroman is still used in our vocabulary to describe novels, and sometimes even films, is an interesting case in point.)
And so in using the pilgrimage to Canterbury as his literary device, Chaucer showed forth his literary genius – the trope has meaning for just about everybody, and what better way to describe the "human comedy" in all of its folly and fallenness? A motley crew from all classes and walks of life find themselves together in a country pub, from which they will leave at dawn the following morning for the long walk on foot to Canterbury Cathedral, where a shrine to St. Thomas a Becket is located. Their host calls them together and suggests that, in order to pass the time on their trek tomorrow, they play a game in which everyone relates some kind of tale, and when it’s done they can vote on which is the most memorable of them all. So the rest of the long narrative poem (more accurately, a series of long narrative poems, which are written, interestingly enough, in different styles and meters) consists of each character relating some kind of outlandish tale, and the other pilgrims reacting to it.
And the amazing thing, despite the arcane language and the obviously different social mores and conditions, is how much we can still recognize and relate to in the stories. Other surprises include how hilarious the book can be at times, and also, how bawdy and downright salacious! I continually found myself impressed by how down-to-earth (perhaps even at the dirt level, to some readers!) the humor and the human voices are in this book from 1387. We look down on people from this era (betraying the "chronological snobbery" that C. S. Lewis so often railed against) as being hyper-religious, prudish, superstitious dolts... but Chaucer’s characters display wit, intelligence, sly humor and, very often, a sort of homespun wisdom that, for this reader anyway, gave off the unmistakable whiff of truth.
One final note: most people are immediately put off by the unfamiliar format of a classic like this… we’re not exactly a culture that has much patience for long, narrative poetry. But this is really a very minor hurdle, that is easily cleared by finding a good, readable modern English version (and there are several available). If you accept such a format as a necessary reflection of the times which produced it, and take it as part of your immersion into another time and culture, what you find is that, perhaps against all reason, you come away with wisdom that still applies to this time, this culture… indeed, still applies to that shuffling parade of weary pilgrims currently making its way along the dusty road towards eternity, a procession within which we all have a place.
Well, for starters, this is The Secret Thread after all, and that’s one of the things we do here: dig out obscure and overlooked (or underappreciated) classics, give them a good reading, and mine them for truth and insight that applies to all of us, in any age. That’s not to say we don’t read for the pure enjoyment of the thing – that’s the primary goal and function of fiction reading of any sort, if you ask me, or art in general for that matter! – but on this blog, we try to seek out, share and discuss bits of wisdom and creative expression that have the power to make significant, even indelible, impact on modern lives.
Sorry, but that stuff is always worth repeating… at least, to me. (End of commercial! I'm Duke Altum, and I approve of... ah, forget it!)
Secondly, there is the unique universal nature and theme of this work, which makes it not only credible but meaningful to all people everywhere, at any time. I’d like to expound on that, but the great 18th century poet William Blake has already put it more eloquently and accurately than I ever could... so why reinvent the wheel? Here is what Mr. Blake wrote about Chaucer’s most well-known and beloved work:
“Of Chaucer's characters, as described in his Canterbury Tales, some of the names or titles are altered by time, but the characters themselves for ever remained unaltered, and consequently they are the physiognomies or lineaments of universal human life, beyond which Nature never steps… Chaucer is himself the great poetical observer of men, who in every age is born to record and eternize its acts.”
That right there captures the essence of not only of why I wanted to read the book, but why it still very much matters to people of the 21st century, and will likely matter to all people for as long as we’re kicking around on this planet. To put it very, very succinctly: we’re all pilgrims. I know that sounds like a cliché, and perhaps it is, but as in all clichés, it contains a kernel of good old-fashioned truth. For as long as there have been recorded stories and myths, man has continually and faithfully returned again to the metaphor of life as a journey. A line can be traced from the ancient Epic of Gilgamesh to the Odyssey to The Canterbury Tales to The Pilgrim’s Progress to Balzac’s La Comedie Humaine to The Lord of the Rings and beyond.
I would venture to say that most people, no matter what their specific religious persuasion/history may be, tend to look at their lives as a series of steps taken along a certain path. Unless you are a true, dyed-in-the-wool nihilist or atheist who believes that life has no meaning whatsoever and all is random in the cold, unfeeling universe, such a metaphor probably makes sense to you on some level. We can argue endlessly about Who/What may have designed that path, and about whether or not the trail was fixed beforehand or blazed by your ourdecisions and actions… we can even speculate over what might have happened to us if we had taken a turn in a different direction at some key point along the way. But I think we’ve all got a natural inclination to think about our lives in such terms.
Within the Christian tradition of course, the word “pilgrimage” comes loaded up with some significant freight indeed. “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path…” The belief in Divine Providence, of a benign God who loves us and desires to lead us home to the Promised Land, is obviously a key concept within this tradition. And then there is the journey Jesus Christ took from the Manger to the Cross… ever since then, Christians have always seen their lives as a pilgrimage, a via dolorosa (“way of suffering”) in which we must atone and do penance, and prepare ourselves to enter into the Kingdom of God. Such concepts are embedded not only within the Christian tradition, but within the entire mindset of Western culture, in one way or another. (The fact that the German word bildungsroman is still used in our vocabulary to describe novels, and sometimes even films, is an interesting case in point.)
And so in using the pilgrimage to Canterbury as his literary device, Chaucer showed forth his literary genius – the trope has meaning for just about everybody, and what better way to describe the "human comedy" in all of its folly and fallenness? A motley crew from all classes and walks of life find themselves together in a country pub, from which they will leave at dawn the following morning for the long walk on foot to Canterbury Cathedral, where a shrine to St. Thomas a Becket is located. Their host calls them together and suggests that, in order to pass the time on their trek tomorrow, they play a game in which everyone relates some kind of tale, and when it’s done they can vote on which is the most memorable of them all. So the rest of the long narrative poem (more accurately, a series of long narrative poems, which are written, interestingly enough, in different styles and meters) consists of each character relating some kind of outlandish tale, and the other pilgrims reacting to it.
And the amazing thing, despite the arcane language and the obviously different social mores and conditions, is how much we can still recognize and relate to in the stories. Other surprises include how hilarious the book can be at times, and also, how bawdy and downright salacious! I continually found myself impressed by how down-to-earth (perhaps even at the dirt level, to some readers!) the humor and the human voices are in this book from 1387. We look down on people from this era (betraying the "chronological snobbery" that C. S. Lewis so often railed against) as being hyper-religious, prudish, superstitious dolts... but Chaucer’s characters display wit, intelligence, sly humor and, very often, a sort of homespun wisdom that, for this reader anyway, gave off the unmistakable whiff of truth.
One final note: most people are immediately put off by the unfamiliar format of a classic like this… we’re not exactly a culture that has much patience for long, narrative poetry. But this is really a very minor hurdle, that is easily cleared by finding a good, readable modern English version (and there are several available). If you accept such a format as a necessary reflection of the times which produced it, and take it as part of your immersion into another time and culture, what you find is that, perhaps against all reason, you come away with wisdom that still applies to this time, this culture… indeed, still applies to that shuffling parade of weary pilgrims currently making its way along the dusty road towards eternity, a procession within which we all have a place.
Monday, May 15, 2006
Journal of a "Novel"-Entry 15
Slow Going
Work on the first draft of the Prologue for my "novel" in development, as yet unnamed, proceeds at a snail's pace, unfortunately, but at least it is still moving. But it's slow going and none of the progress that I have made on it, maybe 25 handwritten pages or so, has come easily for me at all. Part of it is just the nature of my life at the present moment: two small children, one a toddler, one still a baby; both of whom have been ill recently, although they're getting better; some recent travels; my own bout with a massive cold, etc. It doesn't add up to much time to write, but I try to squeeze in what really amounts to about 30-50 minutes' worth per attempt. That's not very much. It's going to take more sustained effort than that to write a novel, I know that without question; but at the same time, I just take whatever I can get. It's better than nothing, and it sure beats giving up.
Another thing is that it is hard to attempt to create a believable dialogue/relationship between an elderly priest and a young journalist/student who also happens to be female, if you're sitting where I'm sitting. I'm not really in the know as to how an older priest would react to a young female and I'm definitely not in the know as to how a young female would react to an old priest, or anything else for that matter; but then again, this is the job at hand. So I am doing my best with it. What I want to do is create a believable situation in which Father Luke Brogan is confronted with a situation he isn't used to, from a source that throws him off-guard, to his own discomfort, and experiences an unexpected result. The 'unexpected result' to which I refer is the desire to tell his father's story, which will lead me to the novel itself, as yet unstarted.
It will be interesting to try to complete the Prologue and rewrite it a bit. I would say that despite the slow progress, I am about 3/4 done with what I envision to be the Prologue. I don't want it to be very long and it's probably too long now as it is. I am messing around with the idea of posting an excerpt, which my brother and TST founder Duke Altum has suggested that I do, not without some provocation. IF I do that, which is definitely still in question, it will not be long, because I don't want to give it all away and I don't want to be sharing too much if I don't even have the story off the ground. We'll see. I think it is sort of lumbering along, the writing is tentative, and I suppose you might say I don't feel limber yet and don't have much momentum going on this novel idea. That's ok. I just want to persist and see what I can get down. I think if any momentum develops, it is going to be later on. But I know enough to know I have to slog through the tough parts to get to the parts that flow. If you don't hang in there when it's tough, you'll never write anything. In other words, I think I can get to something better than what I am doing now, but there is only one way through it. Persistence is key. I wish I could find a way to put in more time in each session. Sometimes I get ready, set up some coffee, sit down, pick up the pencil, and the baby cries on cue. But this is the way it is, and even a novel doesn't come before your own child. Hell no. So, I am just going to keep making the effort when I can and believe in the possibility of this thing taking off.
Critical Meeting
On the weekend of June 9-11, 2006, I also plan to get together solo with my old man, at a hotel suite in Pennsylvania, strictly to discuss his father and details of his childhood in the Depression. It should be very interesting indeed. I have talked with him a lot about both subjects, of course, but this will probably be - or should be - the most detailed conversation we have on such matters, unless we wander off onto other things. I told my Dad repeatedly that I am going to pick his brain as much as I can. It's a great opportunity for me. My Dad's 75 years old, and while luckily he is in relatively good health, he won't be here forever. This is going to be imporant, first-hand recollections. I wonder exactly how he feels about all of this, because as far as he's concerned there is no real reason to think that all of it will lead to anything, but he seems quite game. I am sure he will be pleased to talk about his father and what he remembers. What father wouldn't want to tell those things? I hope to learn a lot about his day-to-day life in the 30s and 40s - to the extent that he can remember - and about the specific details regarding Floyd Lovell. Hopefully it will help me form a clearer impression of a character that is still pretty hazy in my mind's eye.
Oh, and one other thing. We went around the horn for weeks and weeks trying to find the right dates to get together, and finally settled on June 9-11. And it was only after that that we both realized that June 9 was Floyd Lovell's birthday. Accident??? If he were still alive, he would be 103 on June 9, 2006.
Work on the first draft of the Prologue for my "novel" in development, as yet unnamed, proceeds at a snail's pace, unfortunately, but at least it is still moving. But it's slow going and none of the progress that I have made on it, maybe 25 handwritten pages or so, has come easily for me at all. Part of it is just the nature of my life at the present moment: two small children, one a toddler, one still a baby; both of whom have been ill recently, although they're getting better; some recent travels; my own bout with a massive cold, etc. It doesn't add up to much time to write, but I try to squeeze in what really amounts to about 30-50 minutes' worth per attempt. That's not very much. It's going to take more sustained effort than that to write a novel, I know that without question; but at the same time, I just take whatever I can get. It's better than nothing, and it sure beats giving up.
Another thing is that it is hard to attempt to create a believable dialogue/relationship between an elderly priest and a young journalist/student who also happens to be female, if you're sitting where I'm sitting. I'm not really in the know as to how an older priest would react to a young female and I'm definitely not in the know as to how a young female would react to an old priest, or anything else for that matter; but then again, this is the job at hand. So I am doing my best with it. What I want to do is create a believable situation in which Father Luke Brogan is confronted with a situation he isn't used to, from a source that throws him off-guard, to his own discomfort, and experiences an unexpected result. The 'unexpected result' to which I refer is the desire to tell his father's story, which will lead me to the novel itself, as yet unstarted.
It will be interesting to try to complete the Prologue and rewrite it a bit. I would say that despite the slow progress, I am about 3/4 done with what I envision to be the Prologue. I don't want it to be very long and it's probably too long now as it is. I am messing around with the idea of posting an excerpt, which my brother and TST founder Duke Altum has suggested that I do, not without some provocation. IF I do that, which is definitely still in question, it will not be long, because I don't want to give it all away and I don't want to be sharing too much if I don't even have the story off the ground. We'll see. I think it is sort of lumbering along, the writing is tentative, and I suppose you might say I don't feel limber yet and don't have much momentum going on this novel idea. That's ok. I just want to persist and see what I can get down. I think if any momentum develops, it is going to be later on. But I know enough to know I have to slog through the tough parts to get to the parts that flow. If you don't hang in there when it's tough, you'll never write anything. In other words, I think I can get to something better than what I am doing now, but there is only one way through it. Persistence is key. I wish I could find a way to put in more time in each session. Sometimes I get ready, set up some coffee, sit down, pick up the pencil, and the baby cries on cue. But this is the way it is, and even a novel doesn't come before your own child. Hell no. So, I am just going to keep making the effort when I can and believe in the possibility of this thing taking off.
Critical Meeting
On the weekend of June 9-11, 2006, I also plan to get together solo with my old man, at a hotel suite in Pennsylvania, strictly to discuss his father and details of his childhood in the Depression. It should be very interesting indeed. I have talked with him a lot about both subjects, of course, but this will probably be - or should be - the most detailed conversation we have on such matters, unless we wander off onto other things. I told my Dad repeatedly that I am going to pick his brain as much as I can. It's a great opportunity for me. My Dad's 75 years old, and while luckily he is in relatively good health, he won't be here forever. This is going to be imporant, first-hand recollections. I wonder exactly how he feels about all of this, because as far as he's concerned there is no real reason to think that all of it will lead to anything, but he seems quite game. I am sure he will be pleased to talk about his father and what he remembers. What father wouldn't want to tell those things? I hope to learn a lot about his day-to-day life in the 30s and 40s - to the extent that he can remember - and about the specific details regarding Floyd Lovell. Hopefully it will help me form a clearer impression of a character that is still pretty hazy in my mind's eye.
Oh, and one other thing. We went around the horn for weeks and weeks trying to find the right dates to get together, and finally settled on June 9-11. And it was only after that that we both realized that June 9 was Floyd Lovell's birthday. Accident??? If he were still alive, he would be 103 on June 9, 2006.
Friday, May 05, 2006
Duke Altum's Poem of the Week #31
Next week, I am going to do something I've wanted to do for a long time, probably ten years: I'm going to hear Seamus Heaney read in person, from his new collection of poems called District and Circle, in Philadelphia. As I've mentioned in this series before, Heaney is among my literary heroes, and is certainly one of my very favorite poets... you can well imagine that this wanna-be is very excited for the event. Next week's poem will almost certainly be another one from Heaney, to celebrate the experience (which will mark the first time in this series that I've selected a work from a poet already featured once before).
For this week's poem, then, a tribute to the most recent Irish Nobel Prize-winner, in the form of a poem from Ireland's first Nobel Prize-winner: William Butler Yeats. I have no doubt that Heaney would be flattered by the association, which has been made before of course (the great American poet Robert Lowell famously called Heaney "the most important Irish poet since Yeats."). I'm actually not too familiar with Yeats' work, and what I know of it has never appealed to me personally all that much... except for this one, which I have loved from the moment I first read it.
There are some lines in one of my favorite Heaney poems, "Postscript," that contain this breathtaking description of swans on a lake:
The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
By the earthed lightening of flock of swans,
Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
Their fully-grown headstrong-looking heads
Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.
For some reason this description has always reminded me of the famous Yeats poem featured here below. I have no idea if the poem was in Heaney's conscious mind or not when he wrote "Postscript" -- without question, it was in his subconscious mind, a permanent resident there -- but I've always connected the two in my head. So, as a tribute to Heaney and to the venerable, age-old tradition of Irish poetry, I present this W. B. Yeats classic... 'Mysterious, beautiful.'
*******
The Wild Swans at Coole
The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty Swans.
The nineteenth autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.
I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.
Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.
But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake's edge or pool
Delight men's eyes when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?
For this week's poem, then, a tribute to the most recent Irish Nobel Prize-winner, in the form of a poem from Ireland's first Nobel Prize-winner: William Butler Yeats. I have no doubt that Heaney would be flattered by the association, which has been made before of course (the great American poet Robert Lowell famously called Heaney "the most important Irish poet since Yeats."). I'm actually not too familiar with Yeats' work, and what I know of it has never appealed to me personally all that much... except for this one, which I have loved from the moment I first read it.
There are some lines in one of my favorite Heaney poems, "Postscript," that contain this breathtaking description of swans on a lake:
The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
By the earthed lightening of flock of swans,
Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
Their fully-grown headstrong-looking heads
Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.
For some reason this description has always reminded me of the famous Yeats poem featured here below. I have no idea if the poem was in Heaney's conscious mind or not when he wrote "Postscript" -- without question, it was in his subconscious mind, a permanent resident there -- but I've always connected the two in my head. So, as a tribute to Heaney and to the venerable, age-old tradition of Irish poetry, I present this W. B. Yeats classic... 'Mysterious, beautiful.'
*******
The Wild Swans at Coole
The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty Swans.
The nineteenth autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.
I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.
Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.
But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake's edge or pool
Delight men's eyes when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?
Monday, May 01, 2006
George Saunders' 'Pastoralia': A Brief Review
Normally I'd say that Mutt Ploughman is our "resident" book reviewer here at The Secret Thread, and an accomplished and excellent one he is... as his recently published review of Stephen Wright's The Amalgamation Polka in the April 10 issue of America magazine proves for the umpteenth time. (Here is a link to that review online for anyone who may have missed it, by the way: http://www.americamagazine.org/BookReview.cfm?articleTypeID=31&textID=4731&issueID=568).
However, this time around I would like to write a few words about an outstanding collection of short stories I just read, by an incredibly talented American writer named George Saunders. Saunders is one of these very rare writers that seems to be wildly praised and appreciated by other accomplished writers, as well as by average American readers of all stripes. He's got a real gift for satire and humor, but he's also got a decidedly softer side, and writes some of the saddest lines I've read in a long time. He's been called everything from a dark futurist, to a cynical liberal satirist, to the heir apparent of Kurt Vonnegut and Thomas Pyncheon. But I don't really know about any of that. That's just stuff I'm repeating that I've read in articles and such. Here's what I can tell you, what I do know, after reading his second short story collection, Pastoralia, for myself.
This is one of the funniest, most original and most interesting short story collections I've read in years. One of the main targets of Saunders' satire is corporate America, whose twisted logic and absurd, euphemistic language is hilariously skewered in the title story "Pastoralia." For a hint of Saunders' outlandish style, this story can only be described as a strange mixture of Quest for Fire and Office Space, if that can be imagined. Perhaps my favorite story of them all is "Winky," a spot-on parody of the ridiculous influence that self-help charlatans (you know, the Tony Robbins and Dr. Wayne Dyer types, "personal power" and all that crap) have on the down on their luck in this country. The way it reveals how hollow their snake-oil promises are in the face of even the slightest challenge from actual, real life is both uproarious and heartbreaking.
"Sea Oak" is memorable on a number of levels, not the least of which is the fact that it's not every day that you read a story told from the point of view of a male stripper working in an aviation-themed restaurant, whose beloved old aunt happens to visit him as a foul-mouthed zombie (her postmortem advice to the main character on how to solve his financial problems: "Show your c**k."). And yet, against all reason and logic, there is a powerful emotional undercurrent to this story as well. How can this be? There's no way to explain it, except to note that Saunders, in his own words, has "a sentimental streak a mile wide," and he seems to favor honest, hardworking, down and out characters that are trying to get by and make a better life for themselves despite numerous (and usually funny as hell) financial, familial and romantic challenges. Despite the fantastic settings, you recognize his characters -- they are the people you work with, stand in line with, and/or commute to work next to every day.
Saunders works his strange, powerful alchemy again in "The Barber's Unhappiness," which is the story of an utterly unlikeable barber, a blatant ogler of pretty women and unwilling participant in a driving course to remove points from his license. He meets a woman he think he might have a chance with in the course, but backs off his advances when he realizes she's not nearly as attractive as he first thought. What's to like in a story like this? Plenty, in Saunders' hands. The scenes in the driver's course are wickedly funny (with their ridiculous cast of offbeat characters), and somehow again by story's end, despite all inclinations to the contrary in your brain, you realize with a start that your heart is rooting for the sad sack.
Two other stories have a more somber, tragic tone, with the final story, "The Falls," packing a real wallop at the end, as a man plagued by indecision all his life (it seems), failing in his career and struggling to support his young family, finds himself in the unlikely position of being the only one who could possibly save a pair of drowning girls. His whole sorry life seems to have been building up this one horrible moment of combat between his hesitant nature and the moral imperative of potentially life-saving action.
The level of talent immediately apparent in Saunders' brilliant sophomore collection is obvious from the first few paragraphs of the first story. With the exception of the immortal work of Flannery O'Connor, I can't think of a short story writer who has been able to make me laugh so hard, while also stirring my heart and soul with a depth of emotion that doesn't seem possible in the context of such wicked satire. And while Saunders' work doesn't offer as much spiritual depth and symbolism as O'Connor's, it would be a mistake to say that it does not touch upon that realm. His characters stumble and struggle through an America that has traded the Church of Christ Crucified for the Church of Consumers Incorporated, and that seems to be condemned now to search the lonely suburbs and crumbling blue-collar towns for the soul it lost in the bargain.
However, this time around I would like to write a few words about an outstanding collection of short stories I just read, by an incredibly talented American writer named George Saunders. Saunders is one of these very rare writers that seems to be wildly praised and appreciated by other accomplished writers, as well as by average American readers of all stripes. He's got a real gift for satire and humor, but he's also got a decidedly softer side, and writes some of the saddest lines I've read in a long time. He's been called everything from a dark futurist, to a cynical liberal satirist, to the heir apparent of Kurt Vonnegut and Thomas Pyncheon. But I don't really know about any of that. That's just stuff I'm repeating that I've read in articles and such. Here's what I can tell you, what I do know, after reading his second short story collection, Pastoralia, for myself.
This is one of the funniest, most original and most interesting short story collections I've read in years. One of the main targets of Saunders' satire is corporate America, whose twisted logic and absurd, euphemistic language is hilariously skewered in the title story "Pastoralia." For a hint of Saunders' outlandish style, this story can only be described as a strange mixture of Quest for Fire and Office Space, if that can be imagined. Perhaps my favorite story of them all is "Winky," a spot-on parody of the ridiculous influence that self-help charlatans (you know, the Tony Robbins and Dr. Wayne Dyer types, "personal power" and all that crap) have on the down on their luck in this country. The way it reveals how hollow their snake-oil promises are in the face of even the slightest challenge from actual, real life is both uproarious and heartbreaking.
"Sea Oak" is memorable on a number of levels, not the least of which is the fact that it's not every day that you read a story told from the point of view of a male stripper working in an aviation-themed restaurant, whose beloved old aunt happens to visit him as a foul-mouthed zombie (her postmortem advice to the main character on how to solve his financial problems: "Show your c**k."). And yet, against all reason and logic, there is a powerful emotional undercurrent to this story as well. How can this be? There's no way to explain it, except to note that Saunders, in his own words, has "a sentimental streak a mile wide," and he seems to favor honest, hardworking, down and out characters that are trying to get by and make a better life for themselves despite numerous (and usually funny as hell) financial, familial and romantic challenges. Despite the fantastic settings, you recognize his characters -- they are the people you work with, stand in line with, and/or commute to work next to every day.
Saunders works his strange, powerful alchemy again in "The Barber's Unhappiness," which is the story of an utterly unlikeable barber, a blatant ogler of pretty women and unwilling participant in a driving course to remove points from his license. He meets a woman he think he might have a chance with in the course, but backs off his advances when he realizes she's not nearly as attractive as he first thought. What's to like in a story like this? Plenty, in Saunders' hands. The scenes in the driver's course are wickedly funny (with their ridiculous cast of offbeat characters), and somehow again by story's end, despite all inclinations to the contrary in your brain, you realize with a start that your heart is rooting for the sad sack.
Two other stories have a more somber, tragic tone, with the final story, "The Falls," packing a real wallop at the end, as a man plagued by indecision all his life (it seems), failing in his career and struggling to support his young family, finds himself in the unlikely position of being the only one who could possibly save a pair of drowning girls. His whole sorry life seems to have been building up this one horrible moment of combat between his hesitant nature and the moral imperative of potentially life-saving action.
The level of talent immediately apparent in Saunders' brilliant sophomore collection is obvious from the first few paragraphs of the first story. With the exception of the immortal work of Flannery O'Connor, I can't think of a short story writer who has been able to make me laugh so hard, while also stirring my heart and soul with a depth of emotion that doesn't seem possible in the context of such wicked satire. And while Saunders' work doesn't offer as much spiritual depth and symbolism as O'Connor's, it would be a mistake to say that it does not touch upon that realm. His characters stumble and struggle through an America that has traded the Church of Christ Crucified for the Church of Consumers Incorporated, and that seems to be condemned now to search the lonely suburbs and crumbling blue-collar towns for the soul it lost in the bargain.
Sunday, April 30, 2006
TST ORIGINAL POEM: "Clerihew for Tom"
Clerihew for Tom
The inimitable Mr. Cruise
Has bought into ol' L. Ron's ruse.
You can too, if you're wealthy and willing!
Just don't think about taking top billing.
The inimitable Mr. Cruise
Has bought into ol' L. Ron's ruse.
You can too, if you're wealthy and willing!
Just don't think about taking top billing.
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Journal of a "Novel"-Entry 14
Septuagenarian on Campus
For the last couple of weeks I have been working, very slowly, on the Prologue to my story, in which Father Luke Brogan, son of Walter Brogan, wanders about the campus of the university he is retiring from, receives one more assignment from the university president, and enters into a dialogue with a former student. The setting is a fictional college in northeast Pennsylvania called JUNEP (Jesuit University of Northeast Pennsylvania), VAGUELY modeled after the University of Scranton, although I have only visited that university twice and very briefly at that. Father Brogan will be drawn into a lengthy reflection on his past, specifically his father's life and legacy, prompted by the insightful questions of the ambitious young journalism student (previously mentioned) who has been assigned to profile him for the campus newspaper.
So far, it's been a struggle to do this early writing, but that's not so bad. First of all, it is just very difficult to find time to commit to it, with my busy work schedule, two children, etc. If I actually do write an entire novel manuscript, it is going to take me a very long time. Especially since I am planning to rewrite sections of it as I go, instead of trying to rewrite and edit the entire thing once a draft is done. This is a method I have never used before, so it will be interesting. I am looking forward to having sections finished that have already been rewritten and worked on with some degree of seriousness and intensity. It will take much longer to progress through the story, but in theory, when a draft finally does emerge it will be that much closer to where I want the book to be ultimately in terms of quality.
Secondly, it is not easy for me, for obvious reasons, to write from the point of view of a retiring priest in his 70s who also happens to be a university professor. I don't know anything about what it's like to be a priest, don't have a clue of what a person in their 70s feels, thinks, and likes to do, and I certainly don't know anything about being a theologian on top of all of that. I'm a 35 year old Dad with an office job. What can I do to make Father Brogan even remotely believable? I can get a little assistance in this matter from watching/listening to/talking to my own father, who happens to be the same age as Father Brogan (75) and is somewhat similar in temperament. In a way, as I've said, Brogan is based on my father, but he's not the same. Yet, my own father has an interest in theology, if not actually being a theologian, and he's a septuagenarian himself of course, so I can take some of my character's actions and thoughts from my observations of my old man. This helps, but it doesn't get me there. I mean, there is also Brogan's whole identity as a Jesuit, and I am totally winging it there, as is pretty obvious when I review what I have written so far.
It is an interesting spiritual exercise, in a way, to attempt to create a character that is a member of the clergy and fill their brain with thoughts that the writer thinks a religious person would think. And have them say things I think a religious person would say. This part of it is frought with peril, because what one thinks a person in the clergy is apt to do and say may not be, of course, the reality. You don't know what it's like unless you've been there, I am sure. I alternate between giving Father Brogan words and thoughts that I think sound overly pious and cliche, to having him think and do things that any clergy member worth their salt wouldn't think or do. It's a fine line and I'm not at all qualified to negotiate it, really.
So how to deal with this problem? How do I write from the point of view of a 75-year-old priest? I think the answer is not to worry about it. Easier said than done in my case! But the same thing is going to apply when I switch gears and attempt to write about what a young man in the 1920s and 30s thinks and feels. If I worry too much about it, I will not get anywhere. Nothing is going to sound or feel authentic. And the operative word is 'feel' there. What i want to do is not so much create an historically detail-perfect character or setting, but get into what it FELT like to live and work in that time. If I can focus on that, I will be able to make either Brogan credible. It's a huge challenge, since after all I don't have any idea what it felt like to live then, but I think I will just have to continue to read things and work on it until I have something that sounds and feels authentic. Other novelists have done this before me, so I know it is possible.
The book is ultimately about Water Brogan, not Father Luke, but it is through Father Luke that we are going to be taken back in time. For now, my job is to attempt to write from his point of view, and to attempt to relate how a man like him would react to questions from a young and curious journalist that force him to think back on his past - to a time long gone, to a father long dead, whose long shadow nonetheless continues to cast itself over him no matter how much time goes by and no matter how old he gets. Young man, old man, you can't escape the influence and memory of your father. He is always going to be there for you to measure yourself against and attempt to understand. Perhaps somewhat reluctantly, Father Luke Brogran is going to be coerced into going down this road one more time, and the story he tells the journalist is the one I want to write for anyone who cares to read it.
It's great to be writing again, no matter how slow it goes.
For the last couple of weeks I have been working, very slowly, on the Prologue to my story, in which Father Luke Brogan, son of Walter Brogan, wanders about the campus of the university he is retiring from, receives one more assignment from the university president, and enters into a dialogue with a former student. The setting is a fictional college in northeast Pennsylvania called JUNEP (Jesuit University of Northeast Pennsylvania), VAGUELY modeled after the University of Scranton, although I have only visited that university twice and very briefly at that. Father Brogan will be drawn into a lengthy reflection on his past, specifically his father's life and legacy, prompted by the insightful questions of the ambitious young journalism student (previously mentioned) who has been assigned to profile him for the campus newspaper.
So far, it's been a struggle to do this early writing, but that's not so bad. First of all, it is just very difficult to find time to commit to it, with my busy work schedule, two children, etc. If I actually do write an entire novel manuscript, it is going to take me a very long time. Especially since I am planning to rewrite sections of it as I go, instead of trying to rewrite and edit the entire thing once a draft is done. This is a method I have never used before, so it will be interesting. I am looking forward to having sections finished that have already been rewritten and worked on with some degree of seriousness and intensity. It will take much longer to progress through the story, but in theory, when a draft finally does emerge it will be that much closer to where I want the book to be ultimately in terms of quality.
Secondly, it is not easy for me, for obvious reasons, to write from the point of view of a retiring priest in his 70s who also happens to be a university professor. I don't know anything about what it's like to be a priest, don't have a clue of what a person in their 70s feels, thinks, and likes to do, and I certainly don't know anything about being a theologian on top of all of that. I'm a 35 year old Dad with an office job. What can I do to make Father Brogan even remotely believable? I can get a little assistance in this matter from watching/listening to/talking to my own father, who happens to be the same age as Father Brogan (75) and is somewhat similar in temperament. In a way, as I've said, Brogan is based on my father, but he's not the same. Yet, my own father has an interest in theology, if not actually being a theologian, and he's a septuagenarian himself of course, so I can take some of my character's actions and thoughts from my observations of my old man. This helps, but it doesn't get me there. I mean, there is also Brogan's whole identity as a Jesuit, and I am totally winging it there, as is pretty obvious when I review what I have written so far.
It is an interesting spiritual exercise, in a way, to attempt to create a character that is a member of the clergy and fill their brain with thoughts that the writer thinks a religious person would think. And have them say things I think a religious person would say. This part of it is frought with peril, because what one thinks a person in the clergy is apt to do and say may not be, of course, the reality. You don't know what it's like unless you've been there, I am sure. I alternate between giving Father Brogan words and thoughts that I think sound overly pious and cliche, to having him think and do things that any clergy member worth their salt wouldn't think or do. It's a fine line and I'm not at all qualified to negotiate it, really.
So how to deal with this problem? How do I write from the point of view of a 75-year-old priest? I think the answer is not to worry about it. Easier said than done in my case! But the same thing is going to apply when I switch gears and attempt to write about what a young man in the 1920s and 30s thinks and feels. If I worry too much about it, I will not get anywhere. Nothing is going to sound or feel authentic. And the operative word is 'feel' there. What i want to do is not so much create an historically detail-perfect character or setting, but get into what it FELT like to live and work in that time. If I can focus on that, I will be able to make either Brogan credible. It's a huge challenge, since after all I don't have any idea what it felt like to live then, but I think I will just have to continue to read things and work on it until I have something that sounds and feels authentic. Other novelists have done this before me, so I know it is possible.
The book is ultimately about Water Brogan, not Father Luke, but it is through Father Luke that we are going to be taken back in time. For now, my job is to attempt to write from his point of view, and to attempt to relate how a man like him would react to questions from a young and curious journalist that force him to think back on his past - to a time long gone, to a father long dead, whose long shadow nonetheless continues to cast itself over him no matter how much time goes by and no matter how old he gets. Young man, old man, you can't escape the influence and memory of your father. He is always going to be there for you to measure yourself against and attempt to understand. Perhaps somewhat reluctantly, Father Luke Brogran is going to be coerced into going down this road one more time, and the story he tells the journalist is the one I want to write for anyone who cares to read it.
It's great to be writing again, no matter how slow it goes.
Monday, April 24, 2006
Duke Altum's Poem of the Week #30
Here are two absolutely exquisite little snippets of poetry from one of America's foremost living poets, Galway Kinnell. The first is a complete poem... and the second is only the first stanza of a much longer poem, but is so beautiful in and of itself, and so meaningful to those of us who have small children, I had to include it here.
These poems are so well crafted, it seems to me any extra commentary from me could only mar them. Wondrous word-paintings such as these, that penetrate swiftly past the brain to the heart (where they belong), require no further elucidation. To the second little fragment here, I can only add my own weak but fervent "Amen."
*******
Daybreak
On the tidal mud, just before sunset,
dozens of starfisheswere creeping. It was
as though the mud were a sky
and enormous, imperfect stars
moved across it as slowly
as the actual stars cross heaven.
All at once they stopped,
and, as if they had simply
increased their receptivity
to gravity, they sank down
into the mud, faded down
into it and lay still, and by the time
pink of sunset broke across them
they were as invisible
as the true stars at daybreak.
Stanza 1 from
Little Sleep's-Head Sprouting Hair in the Moonlight
1
You scream, waking from a nightmare.
When I sleepwalk
into your room, and pick you up,
and hold you up in the moonlight, you cling to me
hard,
as if clinging could save us. I think
you think
I will never die, I think I exude
to you the permanence of smoke or stars,
even as
my broken arms heal themselves around you.
These poems are so well crafted, it seems to me any extra commentary from me could only mar them. Wondrous word-paintings such as these, that penetrate swiftly past the brain to the heart (where they belong), require no further elucidation. To the second little fragment here, I can only add my own weak but fervent "Amen."
*******
Daybreak
On the tidal mud, just before sunset,
dozens of starfisheswere creeping. It was
as though the mud were a sky
and enormous, imperfect stars
moved across it as slowly
as the actual stars cross heaven.
All at once they stopped,
and, as if they had simply
increased their receptivity
to gravity, they sank down
into the mud, faded down
into it and lay still, and by the time
pink of sunset broke across them
they were as invisible
as the true stars at daybreak.
Stanza 1 from
Little Sleep's-Head Sprouting Hair in the Moonlight
1
You scream, waking from a nightmare.
When I sleepwalk
into your room, and pick you up,
and hold you up in the moonlight, you cling to me
hard,
as if clinging could save us. I think
you think
I will never die, I think I exude
to you the permanence of smoke or stars,
even as
my broken arms heal themselves around you.
Monday, April 17, 2006
Some Notes on the Work of One of my Literary Heroes
There will be nothing too scholarly or erudite about this post, but recently I have come across some hints about a new book from one of my favorite writers and a genuine literary hero of mine: the gifted novelist RON HANSEN.
Interestingly enough, there are a number of writers whose work I really admire who came from the same institution (the celebrated Iowa Writer's Workshop, who rejected my application in 1997 by the way) around the same time (mid-70s), some of whom I have posted about here. Stephen Wright, who I ended up studying under at The New School, and T. Coraghessan Boyle both attended Iowa in the 70s. Ron Hansen is another product of that school from that era, and his work more than stands up to the work of the others - and to that of anyone writing fiction today.
One major difference between Hansen and Wright and Boyle is that Ron Hansen is a practicing Catholic, and he writes from that perspective, which I relate to and admire. Hansen is a writer whose religious beliefs INFORM but do not OVERWHELM his fiction; they flavor it and give it depth and resonance without preaching or appearing to condescend. His identity as a writer is not distinct from his identity as a Catholic, they are one in the same, and I think this is as it should be. I admire this approach and I strive to achieve a similar, regonizable balance in my own writing. The way to do this is not to imitate Hansen's work but to be true and honest in pursuing my own, and if I stick to what I really have to say and don't try to write like someone else would write, my own beliefs and my own faith will also be evident in my work.
I would recommend any book by Ron Hansen to fiction readers, religious and non-religious alike. One of this novels, 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford', will become known to people later this year because it is being made into a feature film starring Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck. But for this post I would like to recommend two books for readers who are interested in Ron Hansen's books.
First, what I consider to be the essential Ron Hansen novel, 1991's 'Mariette in Ecstasy'. This is a superb book that has had a major, major influence on me in my writing. This may not be seen directly in anything I've written, but I'd nonetheless describe this as an absolutely pivotal book in my life. Set in the early 20th century in upstate New York, 'Mariette' tells the story of a young woman who enters the cloistered, isolated environment of a convent as a postulant, preparing to become a nun, and soon thereafter begins to be marked with the stigmata, or the wounds of Christ's crucifixion. She also endures spiritual visions and begins to have a divisive but profound effect on the community around her. The tension and drama of the book centers around the response her fellow nuns have to her spiritual experiences. There is an investigation which further fractures the community, while the reader struggles with their own questions of whether or not these experiences could be genuine or imagined. His Catholic faith notwithstanding, Hansen steers clear of answering these questions for the reader, but presents an objective, fascinating and brilliantly written narrative story. This novel is very impressive for the boldness of its subject matter, the fascinating spiritual questions it introduces, and above all else, the beauty and economy of its poetry-like prose. This book is equally impressive to me for mechanical reasons as it is for spiritual reasons. It is a truly unforgettable novel. I wish I had written it.
If you are someone who would be interested in the way Hansen's faith relates to his writing, then his penetrating and insightful essay collection 'A Stay Against Confusion' is for you. This book showcases Hansen's abilities as an essayist and is most notable for its insights on the relationship between good art and Christian faith. But it also explores other subjects, such as films, the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, the Eucharist, and a riveting, frightening essay on the murdering of Jesuit priests in El Savador that occurred back in the late 80s. Hansen has a clear, commanding prose style and a great deal of wisdom and insight in matters related to writing and literature. His faith also rings true in this volume, which is a great supplement to his novels.
Finally, a little bit of a prediction. I mentioned earlier that I came across a little information about Ron Hansen's next book. It is a forthcoming historical novel about the previously-mentioned poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, particularly centering around the period when he wrote his most well-known poem called 'The Wreck of the Deutschland', in the late 19th century. I think this has the potential to be one of Hansen's signature works if not his masterpiece. Hansen has been work at this for some time and has all of the background and the motivation to write such a book. He serves as the Gerard Manley Hopkins professor of English at Santa Clara University, after all, a position that was created for him, and I think he is going to do this honor proud with this novel. I do not know much about Hopkins, but he is a deep and fascinating figure whose poetry is known to be difficult but is also renowned for it spiritual depth. I think Hansen will find a way to make this figure interesting and believable in the novel. He has proven he can do so before. This seems to be the ideal material for a novelist of this caliber to sink his teeth into. I predict this will be a superb novel, for I know that Hansen has the experience and the abilities to pull something like this off. I can't wait for it.
The novels, stories and essays of Ron Hansen are well worth the time of any serious reader of American literature.
Interestingly enough, there are a number of writers whose work I really admire who came from the same institution (the celebrated Iowa Writer's Workshop, who rejected my application in 1997 by the way) around the same time (mid-70s), some of whom I have posted about here. Stephen Wright, who I ended up studying under at The New School, and T. Coraghessan Boyle both attended Iowa in the 70s. Ron Hansen is another product of that school from that era, and his work more than stands up to the work of the others - and to that of anyone writing fiction today.
One major difference between Hansen and Wright and Boyle is that Ron Hansen is a practicing Catholic, and he writes from that perspective, which I relate to and admire. Hansen is a writer whose religious beliefs INFORM but do not OVERWHELM his fiction; they flavor it and give it depth and resonance without preaching or appearing to condescend. His identity as a writer is not distinct from his identity as a Catholic, they are one in the same, and I think this is as it should be. I admire this approach and I strive to achieve a similar, regonizable balance in my own writing. The way to do this is not to imitate Hansen's work but to be true and honest in pursuing my own, and if I stick to what I really have to say and don't try to write like someone else would write, my own beliefs and my own faith will also be evident in my work.
I would recommend any book by Ron Hansen to fiction readers, religious and non-religious alike. One of this novels, 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford', will become known to people later this year because it is being made into a feature film starring Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck. But for this post I would like to recommend two books for readers who are interested in Ron Hansen's books.
First, what I consider to be the essential Ron Hansen novel, 1991's 'Mariette in Ecstasy'. This is a superb book that has had a major, major influence on me in my writing. This may not be seen directly in anything I've written, but I'd nonetheless describe this as an absolutely pivotal book in my life. Set in the early 20th century in upstate New York, 'Mariette' tells the story of a young woman who enters the cloistered, isolated environment of a convent as a postulant, preparing to become a nun, and soon thereafter begins to be marked with the stigmata, or the wounds of Christ's crucifixion. She also endures spiritual visions and begins to have a divisive but profound effect on the community around her. The tension and drama of the book centers around the response her fellow nuns have to her spiritual experiences. There is an investigation which further fractures the community, while the reader struggles with their own questions of whether or not these experiences could be genuine or imagined. His Catholic faith notwithstanding, Hansen steers clear of answering these questions for the reader, but presents an objective, fascinating and brilliantly written narrative story. This novel is very impressive for the boldness of its subject matter, the fascinating spiritual questions it introduces, and above all else, the beauty and economy of its poetry-like prose. This book is equally impressive to me for mechanical reasons as it is for spiritual reasons. It is a truly unforgettable novel. I wish I had written it.
If you are someone who would be interested in the way Hansen's faith relates to his writing, then his penetrating and insightful essay collection 'A Stay Against Confusion' is for you. This book showcases Hansen's abilities as an essayist and is most notable for its insights on the relationship between good art and Christian faith. But it also explores other subjects, such as films, the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, the Eucharist, and a riveting, frightening essay on the murdering of Jesuit priests in El Savador that occurred back in the late 80s. Hansen has a clear, commanding prose style and a great deal of wisdom and insight in matters related to writing and literature. His faith also rings true in this volume, which is a great supplement to his novels.
Finally, a little bit of a prediction. I mentioned earlier that I came across a little information about Ron Hansen's next book. It is a forthcoming historical novel about the previously-mentioned poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, particularly centering around the period when he wrote his most well-known poem called 'The Wreck of the Deutschland', in the late 19th century. I think this has the potential to be one of Hansen's signature works if not his masterpiece. Hansen has been work at this for some time and has all of the background and the motivation to write such a book. He serves as the Gerard Manley Hopkins professor of English at Santa Clara University, after all, a position that was created for him, and I think he is going to do this honor proud with this novel. I do not know much about Hopkins, but he is a deep and fascinating figure whose poetry is known to be difficult but is also renowned for it spiritual depth. I think Hansen will find a way to make this figure interesting and believable in the novel. He has proven he can do so before. This seems to be the ideal material for a novelist of this caliber to sink his teeth into. I predict this will be a superb novel, for I know that Hansen has the experience and the abilities to pull something like this off. I can't wait for it.
The novels, stories and essays of Ron Hansen are well worth the time of any serious reader of American literature.
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Duke Altum's Poem of the Week #29
Best wishes to everyone for a blessed Holy Week... and to that end, here is a powerful poem that looks forward to the glorious resurrection of Christ, and with the eyes of faith wide open, hopes for our participation in that Great and Final Victory!
It's interesting to note that Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906), a son of two slaves from Dayton, OH, was the first African-American poet to gain any kind of recognition for his gifts on a national stage. He was praised by the likes of Mark Twain, William Dean Howells and Frederic Douglas. His work appeared regularly in such prominent publications as The New York Times and Harper's Weekly, and he produced several collections of poems and short stories, as well as a novel, before his life was tragically cut short by tuberculosis at only 33 years of age. Dunbar is the originator of that oft-quoted, famous lament for the oppressed, "I know why the caged bird sings!"
HAPPY EASTER ONE AND ALL... HE IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN INDEED!
*******
An Easter Ode
To the cold, dark grave they go
Silently and sad and slow,
From the light of happy skies
And the glance of mortal eyes.
In their beds the violets spring,
And the brook flows murmuring;
But at eve the violets die,
And the brook in the sand runs dry.
In the rosy, blushing morn,
See, the smiling babe is born;
For a day it lives, and then
Breathes its short life out again.
And anon gaunt-visaged Death,
With his keen and icy breath,
Bloweth out the vital fire
In the hoary-headed sire.
Heeding not the children's wail,
Fathers droop and mothers fail;
Sinking sadly from each other,
Sister parts from loving brother.
All the land is filled with wailing,
Sounds of mourning garments trailing,
With their sad portent imbued,
Making melody subdued.
But in all this depth of woe
This consoling truth we know:
There will come a time of rain,
And the brook will flow again;
Where the violet fell, 'twill grow,
When the sun has chased the snow.
See in this the lesson plain,
Mortal man shall rise again.
Well the prophecy was kept;
Christ "first fruit of them that slept"
Rose with vic'try-circled brow;
So, believing one, shalt thou.
Ah! but there shall come a day
When, unhampered by this clay,
Souls shall rise to life newborn
On that resurrection morn.
It's interesting to note that Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906), a son of two slaves from Dayton, OH, was the first African-American poet to gain any kind of recognition for his gifts on a national stage. He was praised by the likes of Mark Twain, William Dean Howells and Frederic Douglas. His work appeared regularly in such prominent publications as The New York Times and Harper's Weekly, and he produced several collections of poems and short stories, as well as a novel, before his life was tragically cut short by tuberculosis at only 33 years of age. Dunbar is the originator of that oft-quoted, famous lament for the oppressed, "I know why the caged bird sings!"
HAPPY EASTER ONE AND ALL... HE IS RISEN! HE IS RISEN INDEED!
*******
An Easter Ode
To the cold, dark grave they go
Silently and sad and slow,
From the light of happy skies
And the glance of mortal eyes.
In their beds the violets spring,
And the brook flows murmuring;
But at eve the violets die,
And the brook in the sand runs dry.
In the rosy, blushing morn,
See, the smiling babe is born;
For a day it lives, and then
Breathes its short life out again.
And anon gaunt-visaged Death,
With his keen and icy breath,
Bloweth out the vital fire
In the hoary-headed sire.
Heeding not the children's wail,
Fathers droop and mothers fail;
Sinking sadly from each other,
Sister parts from loving brother.
All the land is filled with wailing,
Sounds of mourning garments trailing,
With their sad portent imbued,
Making melody subdued.
But in all this depth of woe
This consoling truth we know:
There will come a time of rain,
And the brook will flow again;
Where the violet fell, 'twill grow,
When the sun has chased the snow.
See in this the lesson plain,
Mortal man shall rise again.
Well the prophecy was kept;
Christ "first fruit of them that slept"
Rose with vic'try-circled brow;
So, believing one, shalt thou.
Ah! but there shall come a day
When, unhampered by this clay,
Souls shall rise to life newborn
On that resurrection morn.
Thursday, April 06, 2006
Journal of a "Novel"-Entry 13
The Writing Begins
In this post, I will not go on at length as I have on the other recent posts. Fortunately for anyone who might be reading these entries. But I do think it is important to record for the sake of good "journaling" and posterity the following important milestone: which is that I have begun writing a first draft of the "novel" that I have undertaken to write, with the primary goal of removing the quotation marks and someday being able to say that I did write a novel, legitimately.
If my structure withstands the dual tests of time and revisionism, my novel will begin with a "short" - although the way I'm blabbering on early, it doesn't look that short yet - Prologue section, set in the present day of 2006. The time of year is early May. The setting is a small Catholic university in eastern Pennsylvania. And the first character we come across is a 75-year-old man nearing retirement, a resident of the campus, by the name of Luke Brogan, S.J.
In the Prologue, Luke Brogan will be given one final assignment before venturing off into the unknown of post-retirement life, and he will meet a youthful acquaintance one more time who will convince him to tell his story. But, as fate would have it, it's not his story that he will end up telling. Rather, Father Brogan will spend a week, in evening sessions with this young journalism student, talking at length not about himself, but of his father, Walter Brogan, of Bentonville, Indiana......
At which point, if all goes as planned, the novel will step back in time to the year 1922....
In this post, I will not go on at length as I have on the other recent posts. Fortunately for anyone who might be reading these entries. But I do think it is important to record for the sake of good "journaling" and posterity the following important milestone: which is that I have begun writing a first draft of the "novel" that I have undertaken to write, with the primary goal of removing the quotation marks and someday being able to say that I did write a novel, legitimately.
If my structure withstands the dual tests of time and revisionism, my novel will begin with a "short" - although the way I'm blabbering on early, it doesn't look that short yet - Prologue section, set in the present day of 2006. The time of year is early May. The setting is a small Catholic university in eastern Pennsylvania. And the first character we come across is a 75-year-old man nearing retirement, a resident of the campus, by the name of Luke Brogan, S.J.
In the Prologue, Luke Brogan will be given one final assignment before venturing off into the unknown of post-retirement life, and he will meet a youthful acquaintance one more time who will convince him to tell his story. But, as fate would have it, it's not his story that he will end up telling. Rather, Father Brogan will spend a week, in evening sessions with this young journalism student, talking at length not about himself, but of his father, Walter Brogan, of Bentonville, Indiana......
At which point, if all goes as planned, the novel will step back in time to the year 1922....
Friday, March 31, 2006
NEWSFLASH: DUKE ALTUM BREAKS INTO PRINT WITH CLEVER MUSE ON LIFE'S "PHRASES"
Congratulations are in order to The Secret Thread's own DUKE ALTUM, who has recently learned he will become a PUBLISHED POET for the first time. We here at the Thread consider this to be a celebratory event, and the editors send our fervent and well-deserved (we feel) congratulations.
Published under a different name, Duke's "Phrases I'm Going Through" is going to appear in the Spring/Lent 2006 issue of an online Catholic journal called "Dappled Things", which itself is named from the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins.
"Phrases" is an exceptionally clever collection of small poems that each begin with a common cliche - phrases we're all used to hearing so many times that many of them have lost their meaning. In Duke's poems, each phrase is taken as starting point to a new meaning, an often enlightening and revelatory one. This is truly one of Duke's most original and interesting works as an aspiring poet and they must be read to be appreciated.
The poems will be published online. "Dappled Things" can be seen at http://www.dappledthings.org. It's an attractive site and a great place to air out Duke's first published poem in a public setting.
Perhaps this post will lead TST's many readers to begin a groundswell of demand for Duke to share some of his "phrases", and the insights he's found in them, with Secret Thread readers in his celebrated, near-legendary POTW series. If enough of you write in......
CONGRATULATIONS, DUKE - WHO JOINS THE ANCIENT TRADITION AND UNIVERSAL ARMY OF POETS FOR ALL TIME........TST readers, it's only the beginning.......
Signed,
Mutt Ploughman
Secret Thread contributor and co-editor
Published under a different name, Duke's "Phrases I'm Going Through" is going to appear in the Spring/Lent 2006 issue of an online Catholic journal called "Dappled Things", which itself is named from the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins.
"Phrases" is an exceptionally clever collection of small poems that each begin with a common cliche - phrases we're all used to hearing so many times that many of them have lost their meaning. In Duke's poems, each phrase is taken as starting point to a new meaning, an often enlightening and revelatory one. This is truly one of Duke's most original and interesting works as an aspiring poet and they must be read to be appreciated.
The poems will be published online. "Dappled Things" can be seen at http://www.dappledthings.org. It's an attractive site and a great place to air out Duke's first published poem in a public setting.
Perhaps this post will lead TST's many readers to begin a groundswell of demand for Duke to share some of his "phrases", and the insights he's found in them, with Secret Thread readers in his celebrated, near-legendary POTW series. If enough of you write in......
CONGRATULATIONS, DUKE - WHO JOINS THE ANCIENT TRADITION AND UNIVERSAL ARMY OF POETS FOR ALL TIME........TST readers, it's only the beginning.......
Signed,
Mutt Ploughman
Secret Thread contributor and co-editor
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Duke Altum's Poem of the Week #28
The Nigerian poet/playwright/novelist/literary critic and first-ever black African Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka has never been one to shy away from shining a bright, harsh light on racial discrimination, hypocrisy, tyranny and other forms of human cruelty. His is a moving, powerful and sometimes bitter voice crying out from the wilderness of West Africa, and he has suffered through long periods of imprisonment and exile for his courageous criticism of various brutal governments in his home country. His work combines elements of the great Western literary tradition with African myths, legends and folklore.
Though I don't know it well, what I have read of Soyinka's poetry reveals it to be powerful work that is deeply emotional, at times very moving and tender and at other times, harsh and uncompromising (especially when attacking the injustices that have been inflicted on his own people over the years). This particular poem touches on all of these things, and serves as a real eye-opener for those of us who have grown up within the celebrity-obsessed entertainment culture, and therefore sometimes don't see how arrogant and air-headed we must seem to the rest of the watching world. By contrasting these two very different deaths (and the ways in which they were marked), Soyinka makes us question and ponder what truly makes a human life worth celebrating and memorializing (and what doesn't). These heart-stirring lines will stick with me for a long time:
Courage is its own crown, sometimes
Of thorns, always luminous as martyrdom.
IMPORTANT: Here is Soyinka's note that goes along with the poem, which is essential for we ignorant Westerners to grasp its meaning:
Kudirat Abiola, the wife of the elected Nigerian President M.K.O. Abiola, was assassinated by agents of the usurping dictator, Sanni Abacha, in June 1996, the year before Princess Diana died in a motor accident.
*******
Some Deaths are Worlds Apart
(for Kudirat)
No bed of flowers bloomed for Kudirat
She was not royal, white or glamorous
Not one carnation marked the spot of death.
Though undecreed, a ban on mourning spoke
Louder than cold-eyed guns that spat
Their message of contempt against the world.
Oh, there were noises from the diplomatic world
A protest diskette ran its regulation course -- but
She was no media princess, no sibling
Of hagiomanic earls. All too soon it was:
Business as usual. Dark sludge
And lubricant of conscience, oil
Must flow, though hearts atrophy, and tears
Are staunched at source.
Death touches all, both kin and strangers.
The death of one, we know, is one death
One too many. Grief unites, but grief's
Manipulation thrusts our worlds apart
In more than measurable distances -- there are
Tears of cultured pearls, while others drop
As silent stones. Their core of embers
Melts brass casings on the street of death.
She was not royal, white or glamorous
No catch of playboy millionaires.
Her grace was not for media drool, her beauty
We shall leave to nature's troubadors.
Courage is its own crown, sometimes
Of thorns, always luminous with martyrdom.
Her pedigree was one with Moremi,
Queen Amina, Aung Sung Kyi, with
The Maid of Orleans and all who mother
Pain as offspring, offer blood as others, milk.
She seeks no coronet of hearts, who reigns
Queen of a people's will.
Oh let us praise the lineage
That turns the hearth to ramparts and,
Self surrendered, dons a mantle that becomes
The rare-born Master of Fate.
Though I don't know it well, what I have read of Soyinka's poetry reveals it to be powerful work that is deeply emotional, at times very moving and tender and at other times, harsh and uncompromising (especially when attacking the injustices that have been inflicted on his own people over the years). This particular poem touches on all of these things, and serves as a real eye-opener for those of us who have grown up within the celebrity-obsessed entertainment culture, and therefore sometimes don't see how arrogant and air-headed we must seem to the rest of the watching world. By contrasting these two very different deaths (and the ways in which they were marked), Soyinka makes us question and ponder what truly makes a human life worth celebrating and memorializing (and what doesn't). These heart-stirring lines will stick with me for a long time:
Courage is its own crown, sometimes
Of thorns, always luminous as martyrdom.
IMPORTANT: Here is Soyinka's note that goes along with the poem, which is essential for we ignorant Westerners to grasp its meaning:
Kudirat Abiola, the wife of the elected Nigerian President M.K.O. Abiola, was assassinated by agents of the usurping dictator, Sanni Abacha, in June 1996, the year before Princess Diana died in a motor accident.
*******
Some Deaths are Worlds Apart
(for Kudirat)
No bed of flowers bloomed for Kudirat
She was not royal, white or glamorous
Not one carnation marked the spot of death.
Though undecreed, a ban on mourning spoke
Louder than cold-eyed guns that spat
Their message of contempt against the world.
Oh, there were noises from the diplomatic world
A protest diskette ran its regulation course -- but
She was no media princess, no sibling
Of hagiomanic earls. All too soon it was:
Business as usual. Dark sludge
And lubricant of conscience, oil
Must flow, though hearts atrophy, and tears
Are staunched at source.
Death touches all, both kin and strangers.
The death of one, we know, is one death
One too many. Grief unites, but grief's
Manipulation thrusts our worlds apart
In more than measurable distances -- there are
Tears of cultured pearls, while others drop
As silent stones. Their core of embers
Melts brass casings on the street of death.
She was not royal, white or glamorous
No catch of playboy millionaires.
Her grace was not for media drool, her beauty
We shall leave to nature's troubadors.
Courage is its own crown, sometimes
Of thorns, always luminous with martyrdom.
Her pedigree was one with Moremi,
Queen Amina, Aung Sung Kyi, with
The Maid of Orleans and all who mother
Pain as offspring, offer blood as others, milk.
She seeks no coronet of hearts, who reigns
Queen of a people's will.
Oh let us praise the lineage
That turns the hearth to ramparts and,
Self surrendered, dons a mantle that becomes
The rare-born Master of Fate.
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
'Bridge' Over Troubled Water: Celebrating an Unjustly Forgotten Literary Masterpiece
The "unjustly forgotten literary masterpiece" referred to in my grandiose post title is actually a work that, in my mind, could not be praised enough for its depth of feeling, wisdom and understanding of the human condition. It is, in its own way, a long love letter to a part of the world that has been torn apart over and over again -- like some figure in a classical myth -- by war, bigotry, ignorance and, it must be said, religious intolerance. It is also a vivid, compassionate and heartbreaking meditation on community, and could easily serve as an allegory for all of human history in its joys and sorrows. This novel, as has long been noted by past critics, more or less single-handedly won for its author the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1961, and yet somehow in our time, less than a half-century later, it seems to be almost completely forgotten. How could a book of such obvious power and significance for the human race be relegated to almost total obselesence in such a short time? That is a question I couldn't possibly attempt to answer here, although many knee-jerk responses come to mind, not the least of which is the simple fact that we as a culture simply don't place much value on reading in general anymore.
But to all you serious readers out there, anyone who still values and appreciates the significance of literature and its power to mold and shape our intellectual, moral and even spiritual lives (both as children and as adults), I have this urgent message, in case you hadn't heard: Ivo Andric's epic novel The Bridge on the Drina is without a doubt one of the most important novels of the 20th century, and deserves a place next to other modern national epics such as Marquez' One Hundred Years of Solitude, Laxness' Independent People and Rushdie's Midnight's Children on the Great Bookshelf of Civilization.
Ivo who? The Drina what?
If that's your reaction to what I just wrote, well, I can only nod and admit that I reacted the same way when I first heard the novel referred to (when or where, I can't for the life of me recall now). As should be obvious by now to readers of TST, I am drawn to books (fiction or non-fiction) about other countries, other races and other cultures, because I believe that no one people or ideology holds a monopoly on truth, and that because we share a common human condition, we can all learn from each other's accumulated wisdom. I feel that my world and my consciousness have been expanded by reading authors such as Dostoevsky, Hugo, Marquez, Shusaku Endo, Tarjei Vesaas, Kafka, Laxness, Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Wislawa Szymborska, and others that have already been discussed in this blog. If I happen to read about a novel or non-fiction work from another culture that seems to be highly regarded or is considered a classic, I'm almost certainly going to be interested in it, and in the author. Some examples of writers from other countries that I have heard much about and look forward to reading one day are Bruno Schulz (from Poland), Orhan Pamuk (Turkey), and Ismail Kadare (Albania).
Regardless of where I may have heard about Andric's book, as soon as I was able to get my hands on a copy and begin reading it, I knew I was reading a world classic. There are certain rare books in which you can tell, even within the first few pages, that you are reading something that will stay with you for a long long time, maybe even for the rest of your life. This is definitely that kind of book. One thing that is interesting to me is that very often, when it comes to the kind of book I'm describing, it's very hard to actually put one's finger on precisely why the book is so valuable and rewarding: is it the complex plot? The vividly drawn characters? The quality of the prose? Usually it is all of that, yes, but it's also a case of the whole being so much greater than the sum of its parts. Literature is an art form, and like any art, its effect is more to be felt than analyzed. The ultimate aim of any true work of art is always the heart, not the head.
Some books strike you in an intellectual way, such as the one I am reading now (The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture by Shane Hipps). But some books grab you by the heart and don't let go, or they punch you in the gut, or both. In the case of The Bridge on the Drina, I can't think of a book that's more successful in terms of getting the reader to relate to and empathize with the people of a specific region -- people of not only different races, but different religions, ideologies, and generations as well. And we all know that this particular region of Eastern Europe, the area comprising the countries of Bosnia, Yugoslavia and Montenegro, is one that has endured almost unimaginable sufferings over the course of many centuries. Andric's epic of course brings us face to face with these brutal realities, yet it somehow still maintains a hopeful outlook, even though its central symbol (which is in many ways the protagonist of the book, the bridge itself) meets its inevitable destruction in the final chapters of the novel. How is this possible? It's possible because Andric is so skilled at getting us to know and care for the poor, longsuffering Muslims, Christians and Jews that inhabit the villages surrounding the bridge, that we quite simply believe in their inherent goodness and will to survive, no matter what tragedies befall them. Andric never shies away at all from the political, religious and racial rivalries and animosities that continue to threaten to undo all that has been built up in these regions, yet he penetrates far deeper beneath these layers and gets to the soul of the people -- the common ties that bind us to one another, whether we want to recognize that or not.
This is an incredible novel that deals with issues of great complexity, and yet manages to remain at heart a very human story. It covers several hundred years of history and touches on politics, religion, love, death, local mythologies and folklore, fear and hatred, acts of incredible self-sacrifice and unthinkable human cruelty. It vividly conveys a sense of place, love of homeland and the sustaining power of community. It justly celebrates the endurance and vitality of not only the people of Bosnia/Hersegovnia, but also of the human spirit. For this reason I am confident that it will long endure as a classic of world literature, and I hope that anyone who reads this post will seriously consider reading the book for themselves. I can guarantee that if you do, it is a decision you will not regret.
But to all you serious readers out there, anyone who still values and appreciates the significance of literature and its power to mold and shape our intellectual, moral and even spiritual lives (both as children and as adults), I have this urgent message, in case you hadn't heard: Ivo Andric's epic novel The Bridge on the Drina is without a doubt one of the most important novels of the 20th century, and deserves a place next to other modern national epics such as Marquez' One Hundred Years of Solitude, Laxness' Independent People and Rushdie's Midnight's Children on the Great Bookshelf of Civilization.
Ivo who? The Drina what?
If that's your reaction to what I just wrote, well, I can only nod and admit that I reacted the same way when I first heard the novel referred to (when or where, I can't for the life of me recall now). As should be obvious by now to readers of TST, I am drawn to books (fiction or non-fiction) about other countries, other races and other cultures, because I believe that no one people or ideology holds a monopoly on truth, and that because we share a common human condition, we can all learn from each other's accumulated wisdom. I feel that my world and my consciousness have been expanded by reading authors such as Dostoevsky, Hugo, Marquez, Shusaku Endo, Tarjei Vesaas, Kafka, Laxness, Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Wislawa Szymborska, and others that have already been discussed in this blog. If I happen to read about a novel or non-fiction work from another culture that seems to be highly regarded or is considered a classic, I'm almost certainly going to be interested in it, and in the author. Some examples of writers from other countries that I have heard much about and look forward to reading one day are Bruno Schulz (from Poland), Orhan Pamuk (Turkey), and Ismail Kadare (Albania).
Regardless of where I may have heard about Andric's book, as soon as I was able to get my hands on a copy and begin reading it, I knew I was reading a world classic. There are certain rare books in which you can tell, even within the first few pages, that you are reading something that will stay with you for a long long time, maybe even for the rest of your life. This is definitely that kind of book. One thing that is interesting to me is that very often, when it comes to the kind of book I'm describing, it's very hard to actually put one's finger on precisely why the book is so valuable and rewarding: is it the complex plot? The vividly drawn characters? The quality of the prose? Usually it is all of that, yes, but it's also a case of the whole being so much greater than the sum of its parts. Literature is an art form, and like any art, its effect is more to be felt than analyzed. The ultimate aim of any true work of art is always the heart, not the head.
Some books strike you in an intellectual way, such as the one I am reading now (The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture by Shane Hipps). But some books grab you by the heart and don't let go, or they punch you in the gut, or both. In the case of The Bridge on the Drina, I can't think of a book that's more successful in terms of getting the reader to relate to and empathize with the people of a specific region -- people of not only different races, but different religions, ideologies, and generations as well. And we all know that this particular region of Eastern Europe, the area comprising the countries of Bosnia, Yugoslavia and Montenegro, is one that has endured almost unimaginable sufferings over the course of many centuries. Andric's epic of course brings us face to face with these brutal realities, yet it somehow still maintains a hopeful outlook, even though its central symbol (which is in many ways the protagonist of the book, the bridge itself) meets its inevitable destruction in the final chapters of the novel. How is this possible? It's possible because Andric is so skilled at getting us to know and care for the poor, longsuffering Muslims, Christians and Jews that inhabit the villages surrounding the bridge, that we quite simply believe in their inherent goodness and will to survive, no matter what tragedies befall them. Andric never shies away at all from the political, religious and racial rivalries and animosities that continue to threaten to undo all that has been built up in these regions, yet he penetrates far deeper beneath these layers and gets to the soul of the people -- the common ties that bind us to one another, whether we want to recognize that or not.
This is an incredible novel that deals with issues of great complexity, and yet manages to remain at heart a very human story. It covers several hundred years of history and touches on politics, religion, love, death, local mythologies and folklore, fear and hatred, acts of incredible self-sacrifice and unthinkable human cruelty. It vividly conveys a sense of place, love of homeland and the sustaining power of community. It justly celebrates the endurance and vitality of not only the people of Bosnia/Hersegovnia, but also of the human spirit. For this reason I am confident that it will long endure as a classic of world literature, and I hope that anyone who reads this post will seriously consider reading the book for themselves. I can guarantee that if you do, it is a decision you will not regret.
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Journal of a "Novel"-Entry 12
Well, my man Duke has been tied up with other stuff, so.....
Walter Brogan: Early Sketches, Indiana, 1920s
In this edition of my journal, I am going to put the concept to work a little bit by recording some earlier speculations/sketches of the story of Walter Brogan. Hopefully I won't be giving away too much of what will eventually become my story, but I have a lot of just vague ideas and concepts kicking around my head, and I'd like to air some of them out. This journal seems to be the place to do it. And hey, nobody reads this anyway.
Originally my intention was to write exclusively about the 1930s and the Depression, and that is where most of my research has taken me. But I see now that you can't just take the Depression years of 1929-1942(3?) and put them in their own little box and that's it. I could limit the events of the story chronologically only to the 1930s, but there would still have to at least some backstory from the previous decade. And for that to happen I need to know about the 1920s also. Some of this I have read about already. I am hoping I will get a lot more specifics from the next book I read, coming up soon, Indiana Through Tradition and Change, 1920-1945. Seems reasonable to expect that I will.
The part of that era that really interests me, at least at the moment, is the period between 1929, when the stock market crash first occurred, and say, 1932, when just about everyone knew and felt that there was a Depression going on. It doesn't seem to have been an instantaneous thing in small town, middle-Western America. I think it probably took at least a year for the effects of the crash to ripple out to an area like western Indiana. But it also has to be remembered that this area was largely agricultural, and the farm community was already in hard times when the Depression hit. The 20s didn't roar for farmers, they were already getting hammered. It just got worse in the 30s. So a lot of the people in the part of the state that Walter Brogan would have lived in were already living under economic hardship. What about Brogan himself? What kind of situation was he in?
Warning: Early Story Fragments! This may ruin some parts of a story that has not yet been written by a writer who's never written a real novel before! Ask yourself if it is worth the risk!
Brogan's no farmer, not having come from that sort of background. His father, Claudius, was a salesman. He died, however, when Brogan was 18, and Brogan did not attend college, opting instead to return home and work to help support his mother and other siblings. Brogan kicked around from job to job until meeting Greta Heinricks, his eventual wife. Her father, H. L. Heinricks, was a restaurant owner in the Indiana town of Bentonville, but he was also an entrepeneur and opportunist. When it becomes clear that Walter Brogan and his daughter have intentions to be married, Heinricks conceives of a plan to add to his businesses by purchasing a gas station and a small motel in the same town. He has foreseen the boom of the automobile industry and realizes that the town is a potential pit stop for those on the road between Chicago, IL and Indianapolis. As a means of assisting the young couple, soon to be married, Heinricks tells Brogan he will offer him the job of running the gas station. This employs the young man and keeps his daughter in the general area. This is how Brogan is able to establish himself in early adult life, thanks to the vision of his father in law.
My story, then, would open in the early 1920s with the wedding of Walter Brogan and Greta Heinricks. Things would begin optimistically. I picture a small town stone church, little wedding ceremony and a restaurant reception. Brogan and his new wife settle down in Bentonville in a tiny house and begin a new life, with Brogan ganifully employed. But then certain pressures come to bear on the young man. It's 1924 or so and the Ku Klux Klan has rapidly risen to power all across the state. Surprisingly, their main target is not black people - there are very few of them in Indiana. No, the Klan's main targets are Catholics, and also Jews. Brogan's father in law is not only a prominent businessman, but he is also a Catholic - and German. Anti-German zeal lingers from the end of the World War. Of course, that makes Brogan's wife Catholic and German too. What might have happened? Did the Klan take action against Heinricks? Did they try to run him and his businesses out of Bentonville, and thereby attempt to ruin Brogan in the process?
I think you start with questions like this, and your story becomes a way for you to find some answers. At least, that's what I am hoping will be the case. I don't think anything like I suggested above happened to my own grandfather, at least not as far as I know, but it's possible that some things like this could have. That's all I wanted to get into in exploring this material. What was going on in that part of the country during that era. Because these are the conditions and situations that my own Dad came out of, and I just find that to be interesting. They're so fundmentally different from the way things were when I grew up, in a totally different place and in a vastly different time. And they're NOTHING like what my kids are growing up into. Writing this kind of story is a way to go back and rediscover an era that is lost to us now.
Walter Brogan: Early Sketches, Indiana, 1920s
In this edition of my journal, I am going to put the concept to work a little bit by recording some earlier speculations/sketches of the story of Walter Brogan. Hopefully I won't be giving away too much of what will eventually become my story, but I have a lot of just vague ideas and concepts kicking around my head, and I'd like to air some of them out. This journal seems to be the place to do it. And hey, nobody reads this anyway.
Originally my intention was to write exclusively about the 1930s and the Depression, and that is where most of my research has taken me. But I see now that you can't just take the Depression years of 1929-1942(3?) and put them in their own little box and that's it. I could limit the events of the story chronologically only to the 1930s, but there would still have to at least some backstory from the previous decade. And for that to happen I need to know about the 1920s also. Some of this I have read about already. I am hoping I will get a lot more specifics from the next book I read, coming up soon, Indiana Through Tradition and Change, 1920-1945. Seems reasonable to expect that I will.
The part of that era that really interests me, at least at the moment, is the period between 1929, when the stock market crash first occurred, and say, 1932, when just about everyone knew and felt that there was a Depression going on. It doesn't seem to have been an instantaneous thing in small town, middle-Western America. I think it probably took at least a year for the effects of the crash to ripple out to an area like western Indiana. But it also has to be remembered that this area was largely agricultural, and the farm community was already in hard times when the Depression hit. The 20s didn't roar for farmers, they were already getting hammered. It just got worse in the 30s. So a lot of the people in the part of the state that Walter Brogan would have lived in were already living under economic hardship. What about Brogan himself? What kind of situation was he in?
Warning: Early Story Fragments! This may ruin some parts of a story that has not yet been written by a writer who's never written a real novel before! Ask yourself if it is worth the risk!
Brogan's no farmer, not having come from that sort of background. His father, Claudius, was a salesman. He died, however, when Brogan was 18, and Brogan did not attend college, opting instead to return home and work to help support his mother and other siblings. Brogan kicked around from job to job until meeting Greta Heinricks, his eventual wife. Her father, H. L. Heinricks, was a restaurant owner in the Indiana town of Bentonville, but he was also an entrepeneur and opportunist. When it becomes clear that Walter Brogan and his daughter have intentions to be married, Heinricks conceives of a plan to add to his businesses by purchasing a gas station and a small motel in the same town. He has foreseen the boom of the automobile industry and realizes that the town is a potential pit stop for those on the road between Chicago, IL and Indianapolis. As a means of assisting the young couple, soon to be married, Heinricks tells Brogan he will offer him the job of running the gas station. This employs the young man and keeps his daughter in the general area. This is how Brogan is able to establish himself in early adult life, thanks to the vision of his father in law.
My story, then, would open in the early 1920s with the wedding of Walter Brogan and Greta Heinricks. Things would begin optimistically. I picture a small town stone church, little wedding ceremony and a restaurant reception. Brogan and his new wife settle down in Bentonville in a tiny house and begin a new life, with Brogan ganifully employed. But then certain pressures come to bear on the young man. It's 1924 or so and the Ku Klux Klan has rapidly risen to power all across the state. Surprisingly, their main target is not black people - there are very few of them in Indiana. No, the Klan's main targets are Catholics, and also Jews. Brogan's father in law is not only a prominent businessman, but he is also a Catholic - and German. Anti-German zeal lingers from the end of the World War. Of course, that makes Brogan's wife Catholic and German too. What might have happened? Did the Klan take action against Heinricks? Did they try to run him and his businesses out of Bentonville, and thereby attempt to ruin Brogan in the process?
I think you start with questions like this, and your story becomes a way for you to find some answers. At least, that's what I am hoping will be the case. I don't think anything like I suggested above happened to my own grandfather, at least not as far as I know, but it's possible that some things like this could have. That's all I wanted to get into in exploring this material. What was going on in that part of the country during that era. Because these are the conditions and situations that my own Dad came out of, and I just find that to be interesting. They're so fundmentally different from the way things were when I grew up, in a totally different place and in a vastly different time. And they're NOTHING like what my kids are growing up into. Writing this kind of story is a way to go back and rediscover an era that is lost to us now.
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Journal of a "Novel"-Entry 11
FDR, Walter Brogan, and Floyd Lovell
As I make my way through to the end of Stud Terkel's lengthy oral history of the Depression called "Hard Times", there is a great deal there to consider and muse on, but some things come through more strongly than others in reading about the stories of so many different Americans. One of those things is that the views people had of the President of the United States through most of the Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt, were ALL OVER THE MAP. The opinions of this man seemed to vary so widely across the United States, even though he was popularly elected four times, that you can't possibly conclude anything other than that he was a complicated, ambitious, enigmatic man. Depending on who Terkel was talking to, I have been reading about him as a savior, Communist, hero, criminal, devil, angel, visionary, complete buffoon, savvy politician, outright lunatic, or just about anything else. Kind of reminds me of what people say about Ronald Reagan too, closer to my generation.
Roosevelt was a man whose fate led him to the perfect moment in time when the nation needed someone, ANYONE, to step up with some fresh ideas and provide enthusiasm and optimism, and he had the ability to see the moment for what it was and seize it. He was the Democratic governor of New York who rose from relative obscurity on the basis of his observation that the people wanted their government to take ACTION, and they were not getting any of it from the guy sitting in the White House (Herbert Hoover). Hoover exacerbated the problem by assuring people that brighter days were "just around the corner" and that they should basically hang in there and stay the course and the ship would right itself if you allowed the system to work. His famous "chicken in every pot" comment came back to bite him when people were all out of work and something that looked a lot like poverty descended on much of the country. FDR stood up in Chicago in July 1932 to accept the Democratic nomination for President and said he was propsing a "new deal" to the American people, and the rest has become history.
This is the guy that made my Dad into a lifelong Democrat, I would guess, a guy who came in and took some steps to make things better rather than what the Republicans of the time were doing, which was not a whole lot. It's interesting how there were similarities between the philosophies of the respective parties towards the role of government to what you find today: Democrats were for broad, large-scale government intervention to the point where the Federal Government played an every day role in people's lives. This is the period that Social Security and Welfare came from. Republicans, on the other hand, wanted the government to interfere with people's lives as little as possible, and to leave as much as they could in the hands of the working men and women of the country to guide their own lives. The problem was, nobody was working. And this was a case in time where the government, in hindsight, clearly HAD to intervene. They did, passing tons of legislation in the first 100 days of Roosevelt's presidency and essentially putting millions of people back to work. From this era the Democratic party came to be seen as "on the side of the little man" by rescuing a great number of people from poverty and unemployment. From the time my Dad was 2 years old to his early 20s, Democrats ran the country and led us through Depression and colossal World War.
Thinking about all of this made me wonder which side of the fence my grandfather, Floyd, would have been on, and hence to try to imagine what sort of view a guy like Walter Brogan might have towards FDR and politics in general. I don't really know the answer. My grandfather wasn't a farmer, and it doesn't seem like he ever suffered from unemployment outright, even in the 1930s, so it's tough to say whether he directly benefitted from any New Deal programs. He seemed to have steady employment in the oil industry throughout the 1930s and early 40s. And the oil industry itself went through a massive boom in the 1920s, moreso in states like Oklahoma and Texas than Indiana, but I don't think that industry in particular ever had it very rough because of the industrialization of the country and the emergence of the automobile. So he had a job. He didn't have to apply for federal relief that I know of, and he never had to stand in a bread line. I doubt there were any bread lines in a small town like Fowler, Indiana, and I don't know if any other grand sign of the Depression hit in that town such as the failure of local banks. But did Floyd feel sympathetic to those who DID have to stand in lines, or did he think more down Republican lines that Federal relief was a hand-out, a free ride, and one that eventually would steal away the fight and spirit of the American worker, to the point where they expected it? The Welfare State, in other words - which DID come to pass in some places and in some times. What did Floyd think of the New Deal? Did he even think about it at all or simply try to get by and provide for his family and roll with the times?
Something makes me feel like he might not have liked FDR much, that he might have been disillusioned by his charismatic speeches, his "fireside chats", but I really don't know if that's the case. Perhaps he saw him as the hero others did. It would not surprise me if he would not have agreed with the politics his eldest son would, but I seroiusly doubt they ever got into it very much. They seemed to have little to talk about whenever they were together, which, after my Dad turned 18, was not very often, from what I can tell.
If Brogan was in the oil industry, keeping a steady job, trying to keep his company in the black in a time when the Secretary of the Interior, Harold Ickes, was given unprecedented powers to regulate the oil industry so as to keep the economy rolling steady, then it seems to me that there might be a good chance that he wasn't a big fan of Roosevelt or the New Deal. But was he necessarily a Republican? Would he have voted for someone like Alf Landon in 1936 (Governor of Kansas, who got severely pummeled)? Or would he have been attracted to more radical points of view, such as socialism? Remember, this was a time when many people thought that the "American system" was in its death throes, and bound to collapse entirely.....people were becoming organized, radicalized.......
I am going to have to question my Dad about what he knows about Floyd's politics. It seems to be some crucial background for the formation of the character of Walter Brogan. Stay tuned.
As I make my way through to the end of Stud Terkel's lengthy oral history of the Depression called "Hard Times", there is a great deal there to consider and muse on, but some things come through more strongly than others in reading about the stories of so many different Americans. One of those things is that the views people had of the President of the United States through most of the Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt, were ALL OVER THE MAP. The opinions of this man seemed to vary so widely across the United States, even though he was popularly elected four times, that you can't possibly conclude anything other than that he was a complicated, ambitious, enigmatic man. Depending on who Terkel was talking to, I have been reading about him as a savior, Communist, hero, criminal, devil, angel, visionary, complete buffoon, savvy politician, outright lunatic, or just about anything else. Kind of reminds me of what people say about Ronald Reagan too, closer to my generation.
Roosevelt was a man whose fate led him to the perfect moment in time when the nation needed someone, ANYONE, to step up with some fresh ideas and provide enthusiasm and optimism, and he had the ability to see the moment for what it was and seize it. He was the Democratic governor of New York who rose from relative obscurity on the basis of his observation that the people wanted their government to take ACTION, and they were not getting any of it from the guy sitting in the White House (Herbert Hoover). Hoover exacerbated the problem by assuring people that brighter days were "just around the corner" and that they should basically hang in there and stay the course and the ship would right itself if you allowed the system to work. His famous "chicken in every pot" comment came back to bite him when people were all out of work and something that looked a lot like poverty descended on much of the country. FDR stood up in Chicago in July 1932 to accept the Democratic nomination for President and said he was propsing a "new deal" to the American people, and the rest has become history.
This is the guy that made my Dad into a lifelong Democrat, I would guess, a guy who came in and took some steps to make things better rather than what the Republicans of the time were doing, which was not a whole lot. It's interesting how there were similarities between the philosophies of the respective parties towards the role of government to what you find today: Democrats were for broad, large-scale government intervention to the point where the Federal Government played an every day role in people's lives. This is the period that Social Security and Welfare came from. Republicans, on the other hand, wanted the government to interfere with people's lives as little as possible, and to leave as much as they could in the hands of the working men and women of the country to guide their own lives. The problem was, nobody was working. And this was a case in time where the government, in hindsight, clearly HAD to intervene. They did, passing tons of legislation in the first 100 days of Roosevelt's presidency and essentially putting millions of people back to work. From this era the Democratic party came to be seen as "on the side of the little man" by rescuing a great number of people from poverty and unemployment. From the time my Dad was 2 years old to his early 20s, Democrats ran the country and led us through Depression and colossal World War.
Thinking about all of this made me wonder which side of the fence my grandfather, Floyd, would have been on, and hence to try to imagine what sort of view a guy like Walter Brogan might have towards FDR and politics in general. I don't really know the answer. My grandfather wasn't a farmer, and it doesn't seem like he ever suffered from unemployment outright, even in the 1930s, so it's tough to say whether he directly benefitted from any New Deal programs. He seemed to have steady employment in the oil industry throughout the 1930s and early 40s. And the oil industry itself went through a massive boom in the 1920s, moreso in states like Oklahoma and Texas than Indiana, but I don't think that industry in particular ever had it very rough because of the industrialization of the country and the emergence of the automobile. So he had a job. He didn't have to apply for federal relief that I know of, and he never had to stand in a bread line. I doubt there were any bread lines in a small town like Fowler, Indiana, and I don't know if any other grand sign of the Depression hit in that town such as the failure of local banks. But did Floyd feel sympathetic to those who DID have to stand in lines, or did he think more down Republican lines that Federal relief was a hand-out, a free ride, and one that eventually would steal away the fight and spirit of the American worker, to the point where they expected it? The Welfare State, in other words - which DID come to pass in some places and in some times. What did Floyd think of the New Deal? Did he even think about it at all or simply try to get by and provide for his family and roll with the times?
Something makes me feel like he might not have liked FDR much, that he might have been disillusioned by his charismatic speeches, his "fireside chats", but I really don't know if that's the case. Perhaps he saw him as the hero others did. It would not surprise me if he would not have agreed with the politics his eldest son would, but I seroiusly doubt they ever got into it very much. They seemed to have little to talk about whenever they were together, which, after my Dad turned 18, was not very often, from what I can tell.
If Brogan was in the oil industry, keeping a steady job, trying to keep his company in the black in a time when the Secretary of the Interior, Harold Ickes, was given unprecedented powers to regulate the oil industry so as to keep the economy rolling steady, then it seems to me that there might be a good chance that he wasn't a big fan of Roosevelt or the New Deal. But was he necessarily a Republican? Would he have voted for someone like Alf Landon in 1936 (Governor of Kansas, who got severely pummeled)? Or would he have been attracted to more radical points of view, such as socialism? Remember, this was a time when many people thought that the "American system" was in its death throes, and bound to collapse entirely.....people were becoming organized, radicalized.......
I am going to have to question my Dad about what he knows about Floyd's politics. It seems to be some crucial background for the formation of the character of Walter Brogan. Stay tuned.
Monday, March 13, 2006
Duke Altum's Poem of the Week #27
Here's a mindbender from a writer known for mindbenders, the great Argentinian poet and short story wizard Jorge Luis Borges. Borges is probably best known for the latter (his short stories), which don't seem to have any parallel in modern times... but he was also a prolific and gifted poet. He loved to plumb the depths of the ineffable, the unsearchable mysteries of realms physical and metaphysical, in his art... and few mysteries this side of heaven are more deep and profound than the darkness of the night. Here is his fascinating take on a natural phenomenon that has been vexing us since the first man stepped out of his cave and gazed dumbstruck at the stars. (I love the inspired phrase "inexhaustible/like an ancient wine".)
*******
History of the Night
Throughout the course of the generations
men constructed the night.
At first she was blindness;
thorns raking bare feet,
fear of wolves.
We shall never know who forged the word
for the interval of shadow
dividing the two twilights;
we shall never know in what age it came to mean
the starry hours.
Others created the myth.
They made her the mother of the unruffled Fates
that spin our destiny,
they sacrificed black ewes to her, and the cock
who crows his own death.
The Chaldeans assigned to her twelve houses;
to Zeno, infinite words.
She took shape from Latin hexameters
and the terror of Pascal.
Luis de Leon saw in her the homeland
of his stricken soul.
Now we feel her to be inexhaustible
like an ancient wine
and no one can gaze on her without vertigo
and time has charged her with eternity.
And to think that she wouldn't exist
except for those fragile instruments, the eyes.
*******
History of the Night
Throughout the course of the generations
men constructed the night.
At first she was blindness;
thorns raking bare feet,
fear of wolves.
We shall never know who forged the word
for the interval of shadow
dividing the two twilights;
we shall never know in what age it came to mean
the starry hours.
Others created the myth.
They made her the mother of the unruffled Fates
that spin our destiny,
they sacrificed black ewes to her, and the cock
who crows his own death.
The Chaldeans assigned to her twelve houses;
to Zeno, infinite words.
She took shape from Latin hexameters
and the terror of Pascal.
Luis de Leon saw in her the homeland
of his stricken soul.
Now we feel her to be inexhaustible
like an ancient wine
and no one can gaze on her without vertigo
and time has charged her with eternity.
And to think that she wouldn't exist
except for those fragile instruments, the eyes.
Monday, March 06, 2006
Journal of a "Novel"-Entry 10
Still Researching!
Research for my fiction project continues unabated, and it has been a great deal of fun and informative as all get-out so far. I feel as though I have learned quite a bit about the Depression and the solutions/steps taken by the government and by regular people to combat its effects. Right now I am working my way through a lengthy collection called "Hard Times", not the Dickens novel (Dickensfest V is later this summer or fall), but an oral history of the Depression compiled by the legendary Chicago radio man Studs Terkel. Oral histories may seem touch and go, depending on who is doing the storytelling I guess, but it is a great way to get multiple voices on whatever the topic is. And in the case of Terkel's book, which was published in 1970 (the year I was born), "multiple voices" is putting it mildly. He interviewed literally hundreds of people for the book and they are from ALL walks of life, different races, social classes, occupations, and even different generations. He frequently talks to children of people who made their way through the Depression (like I am) and gathered their impressions together as well. Reading the stories of people from such a diverse cross-section of the United States is fascinating and helps me to glean a kind of general picture of the "state of the nation" during this era. It is interesting to note that in a lot of cases, people didn't suffer financially from the Depression. Some people, fortunate ones, had the opposite experience. The movie industry flourished, for example (they could probably use some of that excess now given the box office figures in this day and age). Some businessmen made a lot of money from selling stocks 'short'. Those who knew how to take advantage of the situation did the best, but most Americans just wanted to be put to work and make a living for themselves and those close to them. A common theme in the stories is the desire to be working and the dignity and self-confidence that having gainful employment brought to people.
Next up for me in the research is the Indiana-specific volume "Indiana Through Tradition and Change: 1920-1945" which should really help me narrow down on the specific region I want to set my tale in. I am looking forward to that a great deal. I probably know next to nothing about Indiana history, but my father sure will recognize a lot of things in the book, I am sure. Since it focuses on the state itself, and doesn't address the national situation as much, I am sure it will give me plenty of details to make my story, set in Indiana, credible. At least, that is the hope, and it sounds good on paper (or online)......
Question: How Am I Going to Do This?
I saw a friend over the weekend who knows I am involved in research for a "novel". He hasn't read much of what I write and I am sure he is wondering how I could possibly expect to pull this off, to really write a credible novel. He said to me something down the lines of, "It is going to be interesting to see how you plan do this." He's right, it is going to be interesting. I don't think he doesn't think I am capable of doing it. But he's right to wonder how.....the next logical question, which he didn't ask, is "How ARE you going to go about it?" That's a darn good question. If he had asked me I would have said, "I'm looking forward to finding that out."
By way of response to this question, I will attempt to make a few observations. I think the way to get to where I want to go is not to have a map. Or at least, not a formal one. Over the years I have thought very, very often - probably more so than is healthy, really - about how to write a novel. That's just the sort of thing I think about, what can I say. Another friend who I went to grad school with me once observed that he lives "constantly" in his "writer's world". I think I am like that too. It doesn't mean I am a "real" "writer", but it means I think of things more often than not in terms of story or writing or future writing or what it would be like to write about whatever that thing is. Odd stories I hear, true or not, will suggest writing topics to me. Gatherings or family events almost always suggest journal writing or some kind of way to preserve experiences in some written way. Reading books suggest new topics for exploration in fiction in nonfiction. Ditto films. What I am trying to say is to confirm that adage that "everything is grist", which I don't remember who to attribute to. (Duke probably would know.)
With this kind of brain, for what it is worth (to this point, not much), I also spend a lot of time reading the work of and learning about other writers: those gone before me or masters of the present that I admire. And one of the things I always hear from the writers that I admire the most has to do with how one gets a novel or work of fiction going. Many writers may work with a complete outline or a chapter-by-chapter "plan". But the ones I admire the most either for their artistry or their values (and in the best cases, both) don't seem to. They seem to begin with an idea, an impression, a small 'scene', a moment. They attempt to write that down, and then follow it where it leads. Sounds easy, right? Of course it is not, as anyone who has ever tried to write fiction can attest to, but nonetheless I think that this is the way to work. There has to be an allowance for the creative process of writing to do what it does - both on the page itself, when you are writing, and off the page, when you are NOT writing. The subconscious mind will work on your story even while you are not actually writing the story. I have learned this to be true through my experience with writing stories. You think about it, you work it over day by day, and it kind of works you over at the same time.
So, I am not saying that I have absolutely no idea what I want my Indiana story to be about; this blog has stated otherwise. I have some general ideas as far as the period of time I want it to cover, and who at least two of the main characters in the book are - Walter Brogan, the main character, and his son, Father Luke Brogan, S.J. [Names subject to change] And I also have some vague ideas around how I want the book to be structured, where the part of the "novel" that centers on Walter Brogan's life will begin (circa 1922 or so) and where I want his story to end (circa 1960 or so). But I don't want to do a WHOLE lot more 'planning' about the plot of the book or the specific events that will take place in it. I just want to begin writing about this character and let it flow. My hope is that with enough research I will get some sense of the world I want to create for these people, and with that some ideas of how they might have gone about their lives. Then I want to find a place that might be a good place to begin - a particular setting and scene, make an attempt to write that scene, and go with that.
Will it work? Hell, I don't know. But I think it is as good a method as any. I think there is a whole subconscious part of this story waiting to be unearthed from my imagination. I think these characters can be brought up from my mental substrata and breathed through with life. The question is whether I will have the stamina and the will and the vision to actually do that digging. The persistence to ride through those days, and I know them, when NOTHING you write works and the entire story seems like it's empty, meaningless and trite. Or when you just do not know WHERE to take it. I think persistance is the main quality that is needed with a project like this - perseverance, determination, drive, whatever you want to call it. I don't have this in a lot of areas in my life but I feel like I do have it when it comes to this.
Does that mean I am going to get this done? Not necessarily, time will tell if I have what it takes. Someone I know once commented to me recently that what I am talking about doing is a "major undertaking". And so it is.
That's how I want it.
Research for my fiction project continues unabated, and it has been a great deal of fun and informative as all get-out so far. I feel as though I have learned quite a bit about the Depression and the solutions/steps taken by the government and by regular people to combat its effects. Right now I am working my way through a lengthy collection called "Hard Times", not the Dickens novel (Dickensfest V is later this summer or fall), but an oral history of the Depression compiled by the legendary Chicago radio man Studs Terkel. Oral histories may seem touch and go, depending on who is doing the storytelling I guess, but it is a great way to get multiple voices on whatever the topic is. And in the case of Terkel's book, which was published in 1970 (the year I was born), "multiple voices" is putting it mildly. He interviewed literally hundreds of people for the book and they are from ALL walks of life, different races, social classes, occupations, and even different generations. He frequently talks to children of people who made their way through the Depression (like I am) and gathered their impressions together as well. Reading the stories of people from such a diverse cross-section of the United States is fascinating and helps me to glean a kind of general picture of the "state of the nation" during this era. It is interesting to note that in a lot of cases, people didn't suffer financially from the Depression. Some people, fortunate ones, had the opposite experience. The movie industry flourished, for example (they could probably use some of that excess now given the box office figures in this day and age). Some businessmen made a lot of money from selling stocks 'short'. Those who knew how to take advantage of the situation did the best, but most Americans just wanted to be put to work and make a living for themselves and those close to them. A common theme in the stories is the desire to be working and the dignity and self-confidence that having gainful employment brought to people.
Next up for me in the research is the Indiana-specific volume "Indiana Through Tradition and Change: 1920-1945" which should really help me narrow down on the specific region I want to set my tale in. I am looking forward to that a great deal. I probably know next to nothing about Indiana history, but my father sure will recognize a lot of things in the book, I am sure. Since it focuses on the state itself, and doesn't address the national situation as much, I am sure it will give me plenty of details to make my story, set in Indiana, credible. At least, that is the hope, and it sounds good on paper (or online)......
Question: How Am I Going to Do This?
I saw a friend over the weekend who knows I am involved in research for a "novel". He hasn't read much of what I write and I am sure he is wondering how I could possibly expect to pull this off, to really write a credible novel. He said to me something down the lines of, "It is going to be interesting to see how you plan do this." He's right, it is going to be interesting. I don't think he doesn't think I am capable of doing it. But he's right to wonder how.....the next logical question, which he didn't ask, is "How ARE you going to go about it?" That's a darn good question. If he had asked me I would have said, "I'm looking forward to finding that out."
By way of response to this question, I will attempt to make a few observations. I think the way to get to where I want to go is not to have a map. Or at least, not a formal one. Over the years I have thought very, very often - probably more so than is healthy, really - about how to write a novel. That's just the sort of thing I think about, what can I say. Another friend who I went to grad school with me once observed that he lives "constantly" in his "writer's world". I think I am like that too. It doesn't mean I am a "real" "writer", but it means I think of things more often than not in terms of story or writing or future writing or what it would be like to write about whatever that thing is. Odd stories I hear, true or not, will suggest writing topics to me. Gatherings or family events almost always suggest journal writing or some kind of way to preserve experiences in some written way. Reading books suggest new topics for exploration in fiction in nonfiction. Ditto films. What I am trying to say is to confirm that adage that "everything is grist", which I don't remember who to attribute to. (Duke probably would know.)
With this kind of brain, for what it is worth (to this point, not much), I also spend a lot of time reading the work of and learning about other writers: those gone before me or masters of the present that I admire. And one of the things I always hear from the writers that I admire the most has to do with how one gets a novel or work of fiction going. Many writers may work with a complete outline or a chapter-by-chapter "plan". But the ones I admire the most either for their artistry or their values (and in the best cases, both) don't seem to. They seem to begin with an idea, an impression, a small 'scene', a moment. They attempt to write that down, and then follow it where it leads. Sounds easy, right? Of course it is not, as anyone who has ever tried to write fiction can attest to, but nonetheless I think that this is the way to work. There has to be an allowance for the creative process of writing to do what it does - both on the page itself, when you are writing, and off the page, when you are NOT writing. The subconscious mind will work on your story even while you are not actually writing the story. I have learned this to be true through my experience with writing stories. You think about it, you work it over day by day, and it kind of works you over at the same time.
So, I am not saying that I have absolutely no idea what I want my Indiana story to be about; this blog has stated otherwise. I have some general ideas as far as the period of time I want it to cover, and who at least two of the main characters in the book are - Walter Brogan, the main character, and his son, Father Luke Brogan, S.J. [Names subject to change] And I also have some vague ideas around how I want the book to be structured, where the part of the "novel" that centers on Walter Brogan's life will begin (circa 1922 or so) and where I want his story to end (circa 1960 or so). But I don't want to do a WHOLE lot more 'planning' about the plot of the book or the specific events that will take place in it. I just want to begin writing about this character and let it flow. My hope is that with enough research I will get some sense of the world I want to create for these people, and with that some ideas of how they might have gone about their lives. Then I want to find a place that might be a good place to begin - a particular setting and scene, make an attempt to write that scene, and go with that.
Will it work? Hell, I don't know. But I think it is as good a method as any. I think there is a whole subconscious part of this story waiting to be unearthed from my imagination. I think these characters can be brought up from my mental substrata and breathed through with life. The question is whether I will have the stamina and the will and the vision to actually do that digging. The persistence to ride through those days, and I know them, when NOTHING you write works and the entire story seems like it's empty, meaningless and trite. Or when you just do not know WHERE to take it. I think persistance is the main quality that is needed with a project like this - perseverance, determination, drive, whatever you want to call it. I don't have this in a lot of areas in my life but I feel like I do have it when it comes to this.
Does that mean I am going to get this done? Not necessarily, time will tell if I have what it takes. Someone I know once commented to me recently that what I am talking about doing is a "major undertaking". And so it is.
That's how I want it.
Thursday, March 02, 2006
Duke Altum's Poem of the Week #26 -- Lent 2006
Well, I suppose this had to happen some time... summon up all your courage, all ye faithful TST readers!
This week I wanted to post a poem that had a Lenten theme, seeing as today happens to be the day after Ash Wednesday, the second day of Lent 2006... as we enter into this traditional period of penitence, sacrifice, fasting and almsgiving in preparation for the holiest season of the Church year, I thought it might be useful/inspirational to offer some words of wisdom from an experienced poet that could help to focus our minds and hearts on what Jesus endured on our behalf...
...unfortunately, no such poets were available, so I had to call on an amateur for help... had to call upon the scrub team... the understudy of the understudy of the understudy...
Seriously, I feel pretty sheepish doing this, but seeing as I did want my theme to be Lent, and not finding a poem that was a perfect fit in my own collection/searching around... and realizing that I had written a poem myself with Lent as its theme/subject... well, what the heck. Why try to explain or justify myself any longer? Here is my own brief meditation on Lent for this week's poem. I don't promise brilliance here, only sincerity, and a mind/heart that yearns (in my better moments) for a deeper understanding of the Church's great mysteries. In this particular poem, I was going for a chant-type rhythm (obviously, although I'm not sure I achieved that), and also was expressing my fascination over the fact that we get our modern word "quarantine" from the Latin for "forty"... I thought it was interesting how when we quarantine someone, we separate them from all others... as Jesus once "separated" Himself from everyone to do spiritual battle with Satan... I thought there were some interesting connections to explore there, and this was my attempt to do so. The poem was scribbled back in 2001.
I hope readers will forgive the outrageous presumption of including a poem of mine within this series of masters... obviously my intention is not to identify myself with such illustrious company!?! My only goal here is to post something that brings to mind the holy season we are entering into, and helps us think about what we might want to sacrifice for ourselves to "prepare the way of the Lord" in our own hearts.
*******
Quarantine: A Lenten Chant
quar an tine (n.): from the Latin "quaranta" = forty; 1. A period of forty days... 4. A state of enforced isolation.
Forty days of desert wind
and biting sand to scrape your skin.
Forty days to rub you raw
with loneliness and hunger’s gnaw.
Forty days devoid of rain
to quench your thirst and ease your pain.
Forty days of searing sun –
a test for greater trials to come.
Forty days for you to doubt
that Spirit which had led you out.
Forty days of suffering’s scourge
and hesitations, harshly purged.
Forty days to try your soul
while Satan vied for your control.
Forty days so long endured
to make good on your father’s Word.
This week I wanted to post a poem that had a Lenten theme, seeing as today happens to be the day after Ash Wednesday, the second day of Lent 2006... as we enter into this traditional period of penitence, sacrifice, fasting and almsgiving in preparation for the holiest season of the Church year, I thought it might be useful/inspirational to offer some words of wisdom from an experienced poet that could help to focus our minds and hearts on what Jesus endured on our behalf...
...unfortunately, no such poets were available, so I had to call on an amateur for help... had to call upon the scrub team... the understudy of the understudy of the understudy...
Seriously, I feel pretty sheepish doing this, but seeing as I did want my theme to be Lent, and not finding a poem that was a perfect fit in my own collection/searching around... and realizing that I had written a poem myself with Lent as its theme/subject... well, what the heck. Why try to explain or justify myself any longer? Here is my own brief meditation on Lent for this week's poem. I don't promise brilliance here, only sincerity, and a mind/heart that yearns (in my better moments) for a deeper understanding of the Church's great mysteries. In this particular poem, I was going for a chant-type rhythm (obviously, although I'm not sure I achieved that), and also was expressing my fascination over the fact that we get our modern word "quarantine" from the Latin for "forty"... I thought it was interesting how when we quarantine someone, we separate them from all others... as Jesus once "separated" Himself from everyone to do spiritual battle with Satan... I thought there were some interesting connections to explore there, and this was my attempt to do so. The poem was scribbled back in 2001.
I hope readers will forgive the outrageous presumption of including a poem of mine within this series of masters... obviously my intention is not to identify myself with such illustrious company!?! My only goal here is to post something that brings to mind the holy season we are entering into, and helps us think about what we might want to sacrifice for ourselves to "prepare the way of the Lord" in our own hearts.
*******
Quarantine: A Lenten Chant
quar an tine (n.): from the Latin "quaranta" = forty; 1. A period of forty days... 4. A state of enforced isolation.
Forty days of desert wind
and biting sand to scrape your skin.
Forty days to rub you raw
with loneliness and hunger’s gnaw.
Forty days devoid of rain
to quench your thirst and ease your pain.
Forty days of searing sun –
a test for greater trials to come.
Forty days for you to doubt
that Spirit which had led you out.
Forty days of suffering’s scourge
and hesitations, harshly purged.
Forty days to try your soul
while Satan vied for your control.
Forty days so long endured
to make good on your father’s Word.
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