Meanwhile, Back on the Farm…..
As of today, the writing is underway for Chapter VI of the novel, tentatively titled “The Black Giant, Obeisance to Mammon”. I am pretty motivated about it right now for at least two reasons. The first reason is a simple one: it did not take me anywhere near as long to begin with Chapter VI after finishing Chapter V as it did to begin Chapter V after writing Chapter IV. Between Chapters IV and V there was a spirit-crushing 6-month interval. The interval between finishing Chapter V and starting this one is more like 6 weeks. Readers, this is progress! With an infant and two other children in my house, it feels worthwhile to celebrate whatever little victories I can achieve in this long, long haul.
The second reason I am excited about getting into this chapter is that it allows me to dig further into the stories I am creating around a few of the “secondary” characters for this novel. Why is this exciting? Well, it mixes it up, for one thing – I won’t be writing exclusively about Walter Brogan’s auto station or P.G. Heinricks’ business endeavors or about Greta Heinricks’ state of mind. All of these things are critical components of my story, and I don’t mean I don’t like writing about them; but like anyone trying to gut their way through a particularly long and difficult task, it is nice to have some variety. And hopefully the same thing will apply for whatever readers this novel may or may not find in the future. Also, on perhaps a deeper level, writing about the stories of other characters in the book expands and broadens the horizons of the fictional universe I am creating. It provides a larger canvas for me, a wider playing field, and given that extra space, my imagination can further stretch out its muscles and plumb its limitations, as it were. A novel, from the writer’s point of view, is partially about new discoveries. It’s about testing how far my mind can take itself and gauging the strength and endurance of my creative abilities. It is an exciting time, I am finding out. You begin to learn that your greatest obstacles are within. It’s one of those things that everyone knows, but going through a process like this bears the adage out.
Also, I must state for the record that this is the ONLY kind of “OJT” or “on the job training” I ever really enjoyed in my life, unless you count parenting.
The first “secondary” character that will be encountered in the opening of Chapter VI, which moves ahead only briefly from the end of Ch. V to the Spring of 1930, is the farmer Cal Wittenburg, who had a significant role in the story in Chapters III and IV, and will certainly have a more prominent role in events as the story rolls on. He will become a pivotal figure in Walter Brogan’s own story, because of the friendship they will continue to forge as Brogan transitions from a gas station manager to a fuel oil distributor and thus Wittenburg’s fuel delivery man. Brogan will soon enough be making regular visits to the Wittenburg farm to conduct his duties in this capacity, and that in turn will allow him to make observations of the farmer’s way of life as the Depression rolls into full swing across the land. Therefore, I think it is important for the reader to see some of that lifestyle ahead of time, and learn some more information about Cal Wittenburg and his story.
In order to gain inspiration and information, I have been reading about farm life in the early 30s, and I just completed a book that might as well have been Heaven-sent for this purpose: a book called Little Heathens by Mildred Armstrong Kalish, which is nothing more than a memoir of daily life in a farm in rural Iowa during the Depression. The book is a nostalgic but unsentimental look back in time to an era that is now gone forever, as no one realizes more than the septuagenarian author. It was recognized as one of the Top Ten Books of 2007 by the New York Times and the Washington Post, and one can see how it garnered this sort of acclaim. It is literally jammed with details about this fascinating, long-forgotten but much simpler and, arguably, healthier way of life. I am lucky to have found the book, which contains colorful anecdotes about almost everything you can imagine, from farming procedures to cooking to saving money to church life to animals to flora to getting an education, in more ways than one. Reading Kalish’s priceless memoir has given me plenty of ideas for fleshing out my own vision of what life must have been like in and around the Wittenburg household, which I must now work into compelling scenes that also advance the story I am telling. A hard task, but let’s keep things in perspective: it’s not as hard as raising an entire family on somewhere around $300-$400 a year’s earnings.
Right now I am putting together a sequence, for lack of a better word, which will present the reader with some up-til-now lacking information on Cal Wittenburg’s back history and will also reveal Wittenburg and his wife and children engaging in a family ritual which will hopefully reveal a lot about their collective character and priorities. Who is Cal Wittenburg? Where did he come from? How long has his family occupied the land he lives on? What sorts of measures will he have to take just to provide for his family? These questions will be answered. Wittenburg for me is a stand-in for legions of faceless men and women from this era who kept America fed while shouldering the crushing burden of some of the worst economic conditions in the history of our country. For these farmers, the Depression started long before some stock market crash. Wittenburg is the sort of man whose indomitable will and unshakeable fidelity to his family, his land and his values will naturally draw Walter Brogan and inspire him to act in certain ways later in the novel which may or may not have a dramatic effect on his own fate – and his family’s as well.
Boom! Like That
Another storyline I am looking to unpack in this next chapter, to an extent that even I am not sure of yet, concerns P.G. Heinricks’ son, Peter, and his adventures in Texas with Pops Wheeler, oil man/con artist extraordinaire. Peter Heinricks hooked up with Wheeler in Chapter I of this story, and has been with him ever since, from around 1924 through 1930, when this chapter begins. For the most part he has been weaving briefly in and out of the narrative only in letter format, sending correspondence the one member of his family he still feels closeness with, his elder sister Greta. To this point his letter have been rambling explanations of the various measures Wheeler and his team have been taking, in vain, to locate and drill for deposits of oil that Wheeler insists must exist underneath the topsoil in the eastern plains of rural Texas. Needless to say, Peter’s letters have been noticeably free of details of however else he might be spending his time, or whatever money he can rustle up, while detached from his family and any other close relations over that slow, meandering six-year stretch.
But things are about to change for Peter. For Pops Wheeler is on the verge of a discovery that will prove all the naysayers were wrong and he was right after all. And this will make Peter, at least for the near future, a rich man. In real life, the “Black Giant” – a more than 1,500 mile reservoir of raw petroleum – was discovered on October 3, 1930, in eastern Texas, causing a major oil boom. Hangers-on, hungry migrants, businesses, executives, scientists – they all came running, and those who discovered the oil and sold it became insanely wealthy almost overnight. This chapter attempts to re-imagine that boom scenario, a windfall at first for Peter Heinricks. But with the boom comes temptations and debauchery and other forms of excess, and the question will be whether Peter can manage these additional pressures while living far away from the shadow of his entrepreneurial father, without restraints.
Soon, he will be driven to other measures to stop his losses and feed his own greedy frenzy for more of everything, measures that may be illegal and dangerous…..
It’s all going to make for some interesting writing experiences for the guy making the attempt to bring it all off. Hopefully the end result will be some arresting and entertaining moments for future readers.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Thursday, August 21, 2008
She Who Must Be Read
Reflections on Rowling’s Harry Potter Series, at the Halfway Point, by a Luddite Muggle
It seems impossible, or maybe magic was involved, but somehow I managed to completely avoid the entire Harry Potter phenomenon up until about a year or so ago when the film version of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was released. By ‘avoid’, of course, all I mean is that I didn’t personally read the books or watch the films. There IS no magic that could make any citizen of the Western world avoid this incredibly popular creative explosion entirely. The simple fact that there’s no need to even expand on their popularity, because everyone already knows all about it, says it all.
But, like just about everyone else who is a part of civilization, I eventually fell under its spell. I think I may have the most backward entry into the series ever, though. I entered the Harry Potter universe through the film just mentioned above. That’s right, I STARTED with the film version of the fifth novel. Huh?? Before then I just wasn’t convinced that the books would hold my interest. It’s not that I thought they weren’t good books. I didn’t really know how they would measure up in terms of literary quality, because I had never cracked one open. But I just didn’t take much of an interest in fantasy, wizards, spells, sorcery, wands, and all of that. I never even made it through the Narnia series. It just hasn’t really been my thing. It still isn’t.
So how did I decide to enter the story, and at the fifth movie? More or less by accident. I was going to the movies with a friend, and he is a huge fan of the series. Neither one of us ever get to go to the movies too often, and at that time Phoenix was just hitting theaters. He’d read all the books to date (the world was still waiting for Book Seven) and was saying that he really wanted to see the newest film, but he knew we couldn’t go because I hadn’t read the book or seen the other films. ‘So what?’ I said. I like going to the movies, and can usually find at least something to enjoy in almost any movie. I was curious to see what sort of job they were doing on the films. I suggested I would go to the movie with him if, over a burger beforehand, he would give me the world’s quickest primer on the first four Harry Potter novels. He did, and off we went.
Most of the films are wonderful, I think, and Phoenix was no exception. But this post is about the novels. You see, in the first few scenes of the fifth film, I knew I was going to have to go back and read every one of the books. In deciding I would not like the Harry Potter series because I wasn’t into wizardry-type stories, I had forgotten the simple power of stories themselves. A good story is a good story. It can be about anything, as long as its creator draws you into the unique world of it through believable characters that you care about. And it became clear to me – after it had already been clear to hundreds of millions of other people – that the entire Harry Potter universe boils down to one great, great story. It drew me right in.
Once I got into the novels, I learned what most others knew – that there is no getting out until you go all the way through. It’s a fantastic story set in a vivid and fully-realized fictional universe. The overarching concept of the orphaned boy with special abilities he doesn’t fully understand trying to get to the heart of the mystery of his own curious existence is certainly nothing new, it’s in everything from Oliver Twist to Star Wars. But it’s still a brilliant conceit, because it hooks our sympathies from the very beginning of the series, and never affords us the opportunity to lose our compassion for Harry Potter. Are you going to lose your sympathy for a kid that’s merely trying to find out why someone murdered both of his parents and what it means? Me neither.
For me, the funny thing about it all is that once I was drawn in to the story, by the circumstances and for the reasons I just explained, I could find, and continue to find, plenty of my own personal motives for continuing to unpack it. Of course I find the storyline compelling, but I find other aspects of this fictional series even more intriguing. Such as the amazing tale of how it got started in the first place, the well-known story of author Joanne Rowling’s fateful 1990 ride on a London train in which she conceived of the entire saga in one tremendous windfall of inspiration. Or the totally unpredictable phenomenon of its worldwide domination as the most popular fictional story in literary history. Or the absolute genius of Rowling’s plotting skills, something I think no one has even approached since Charles Dickens (more comparisons to Dickens come to mind which I may have to explore at greater length in a future installment).
Or, there are the more voluminous but equally interesting questions the series inevitably raises, such as: Is the whole series really unique, or just the cleverest-yet rehashing of old archetypes and myths? But aren't all novels like that? Are plot and story really superior to aesthetic quality? Does its British-ness make any difference? Does the fact that it was written by a woman have significance in terms of what the books know and and are concerned with? Why is the series THIS popular, when similarly-themed stories have been floating around for centuries? Does the story really have any religious implications, dangerous or otherwise?
All of these are fascinating ‘riddles’ to consider, and are freshly evoked every time this series of books comes back into the news, as it will again next year with the release of the film version of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
I can’t hope to answer them now. But here I stand, at the half-way point through the series, having just completed the fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. It was published in 2000 to near-universal acclaim. I remember when it came out: I was working in New York City at the time, right across from what used to be the World Trade Center. If I’m not mistaken, it was the first time they had built up such a frenzy for the Potter books that they did midnight sales parties and people dressed like wizards to go get an early copy of the book. After it was published (not at midnight!) I went across the street to the Borders book shop that only months later would be buried in the rubble. I can vividly recall being astonished at the sheer GIRTH of the book. I knew next to nothing about the series, but it was hard to believe that young kids would go nuts over a book that could also be a door stop. At 734 pages, Goblet of Fire was just about twice as long as any previous Potter tome.
But read it the kids did, and so did everybody else, and by this time even the critics were talking about the books being classics. Recall these remarkable superlatives from the New York Times book critic Janet Maslin in her review in July 2000:
Ms. Rowling, a kindred spirit to both Lewis Carroll and the pre-Jar Jar Binks George Lucas, turns out to be a fantasist who lives inside a thrillingly fertile imagination, mines it ingeniously and plays entirely by her own rules. Talk about supernatural tricks: she has turned this odds-defying new book into everything it promised to be. As the midpoint in a projected seven-book series, ''Goblet of Fire'' is exactly the big, clever, vibrant, tremendously assured installment that gives shape and direction to the whole undertaking and still somehow preserves the material's enchanting innocence. [….] This time she achieves her most lucid, well-plotted and exciting conclusion, complete with a spectacular wand-on-wand confrontation to recall Luke, Darth and their light sabers, enhanced by the identity-twisting tricks in which Ms. Rowling specializes. The book ends on a mournful note with the loss of one character, and with ominous, cliff-hanging hints of a next installment. Two things seem certain: it will involve giants and be awaited with justifiably bated breath.
I have been nothing short of amazed at my response to these books. For a very long time I didn’t have much interest, as I said before. But here at just over the halfway point to the end – three novels wait for me to read, the last two of which I know virtually nothing about save their titles – I am engrossed by them and fascinated by Rowling’s accomplishment.
It’s not the literary quality of the books. Rowling’s prose is serviceable at best. It’s clean, and can be occasionally elegant, but it’s not groundbreaking or beautiful or even particularly interesting, on its own. It gets the job done. It seems to me that Rowling has a novelist’s gift for details, but I wouldn’t even say she has great skills in writing dialogue.
Furthermore, some of the side characters are cardboard-stiff. Draco Malfoy, Harry’s foil, has been using the same twittering harrassment techniques since the first novel. He fails to evolve much as a character, unlike Harry, who is growing and learning and entering further into his own personal darkness with each new year, and finding the realities of life not as enticing or rewarding as he once may have thought. Malfoy’s no real threat to Harry; he’s not up to the job. Perhaps Rowling didn’t intend him to be a truly meaningful character, since we all know Harry has a REAL enemy, Lord Voldemort. This is to say nothing of Malfoy’s two cronies, identified as Crabbe and Goyle, who are nothing but thugs. They may as well be made of cardboard and propped up in the scenes they appear in next to Malfoy. In fact, they usually are. At least that is the case through Book Four. Professor Gilderoy Lockheart from Chamber of Secrets is a recognizable caricature of the egotistical fraud whose bark is far worse than his bite when things start to get a little messy. Rita Skeeter from Goblet is a thinly-veiled stand-in for the paparrazzi, and an easy target at whom someone like Rowling can gleefully hurl her bolts of lightning. Not that I can necessarily begrudge her the fun of doing so, but it doesn’t make the character any more genuine.
However, in terms of characterization, there is a noticable upgrade when it comes to the main cast. It might make for an uneven literary performance by English course textbook standards, but it is still to the books’ gain that Harry himself, Ron Weasley and his entire hardluck family, Albus Dumbledore, Severus Snape, Hermione Granger, and even Voldemort are all engagingly drawn and capable of inspiring strong feelings in us, one way or the other. Voldemort, to this point, has been seen little, and what we know of him reveals him to be more or less a purely evil spawn of Hell with a snake’s nose and terrible claws. Needless to say this gives him little in common with anyone or anything save a really, really awful mother-in-law. But once you’re done with Goblet of Fire, and particularly if you’ve seen Ralph Fiennes’ film-stealing cameo in the film version of same, at least you know you’re dealing with a genuine badass. Voldemort was cast off for dead and literally disembodied for thirteen years. When he finally arrives back in flesh in the conclusion of Goblet, he is not interested in putzing around. It may be ridiculous, but it is shockingly good fun to watch Fiennes scream, “I’M GONNA KILL YOU, HARRY POTTER!!!” One believes him!
But characters, prose, and suspension of disbelief aside - (wait, can you cast those things aside?? it's part of the debate) - it’s clear to me by the fourth novel that Rowling’s books deserve their tremendous success. That’s because they are sheer genius in the only game that really matters: storytelling. The plotting in these stories is magnificent. As I mentioned before, no one since Dickens has created stories that are so complexly plotted and deliver so much satisfaction as these plots come to their resolution. They can get very heady: The Prisoner of Azkaban gets particularly convoluted near its end. But so far, Rowling has managed to keep all of the balls in the air and she makes all the pieces come together exactly enough to keep you asking questions after reading each book, while giving you a satisfactory measure of thrills. Her command of the Potter universe is total and supreme. You never doubt the writer for a moment. This is amazing, when you consider the fact that everything in the stories is utterly unbelievable. As soon as you read that a cat has transformed into a witch in the opening chapter of Sorcerer’s Stone, all plausibility goes out the window. But at that same moment Rowling’s extraordinary imagination takes you prisoner. And she never releases you.
I think the reason for Rowling’s success in crafting these stories, which must have taken such a tremendous jolt of inspiration, only to be followed by years of hard literary labor – for writing novels, as some of us are learning, is very hard work – may be able to be traced back to the circumstances from which she brought the entire saga forth. Once upon a time, Rowling was a single mother on public assistance who had a dream and at least one other mouth to feed. She’d seen hardship in her own life, and even more hardship in the lives of others as an employee of Amnesty International as a young woman. She had a tremendous hunger to write stories and a terrific responsibility to find a way to improve the quality of her life for her child’s sake. I think somewhere in the midst of all that she must have made a firm decision: it’s now or never. My imagination is my only way out of this, and to fail is unacceptable. So she settled on the only course of action a writer can turn to in the end: to get to work.
As for what happened after that, I guess you might call it magic.
It seems impossible, or maybe magic was involved, but somehow I managed to completely avoid the entire Harry Potter phenomenon up until about a year or so ago when the film version of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was released. By ‘avoid’, of course, all I mean is that I didn’t personally read the books or watch the films. There IS no magic that could make any citizen of the Western world avoid this incredibly popular creative explosion entirely. The simple fact that there’s no need to even expand on their popularity, because everyone already knows all about it, says it all.
But, like just about everyone else who is a part of civilization, I eventually fell under its spell. I think I may have the most backward entry into the series ever, though. I entered the Harry Potter universe through the film just mentioned above. That’s right, I STARTED with the film version of the fifth novel. Huh?? Before then I just wasn’t convinced that the books would hold my interest. It’s not that I thought they weren’t good books. I didn’t really know how they would measure up in terms of literary quality, because I had never cracked one open. But I just didn’t take much of an interest in fantasy, wizards, spells, sorcery, wands, and all of that. I never even made it through the Narnia series. It just hasn’t really been my thing. It still isn’t.
So how did I decide to enter the story, and at the fifth movie? More or less by accident. I was going to the movies with a friend, and he is a huge fan of the series. Neither one of us ever get to go to the movies too often, and at that time Phoenix was just hitting theaters. He’d read all the books to date (the world was still waiting for Book Seven) and was saying that he really wanted to see the newest film, but he knew we couldn’t go because I hadn’t read the book or seen the other films. ‘So what?’ I said. I like going to the movies, and can usually find at least something to enjoy in almost any movie. I was curious to see what sort of job they were doing on the films. I suggested I would go to the movie with him if, over a burger beforehand, he would give me the world’s quickest primer on the first four Harry Potter novels. He did, and off we went.
Most of the films are wonderful, I think, and Phoenix was no exception. But this post is about the novels. You see, in the first few scenes of the fifth film, I knew I was going to have to go back and read every one of the books. In deciding I would not like the Harry Potter series because I wasn’t into wizardry-type stories, I had forgotten the simple power of stories themselves. A good story is a good story. It can be about anything, as long as its creator draws you into the unique world of it through believable characters that you care about. And it became clear to me – after it had already been clear to hundreds of millions of other people – that the entire Harry Potter universe boils down to one great, great story. It drew me right in.
Once I got into the novels, I learned what most others knew – that there is no getting out until you go all the way through. It’s a fantastic story set in a vivid and fully-realized fictional universe. The overarching concept of the orphaned boy with special abilities he doesn’t fully understand trying to get to the heart of the mystery of his own curious existence is certainly nothing new, it’s in everything from Oliver Twist to Star Wars. But it’s still a brilliant conceit, because it hooks our sympathies from the very beginning of the series, and never affords us the opportunity to lose our compassion for Harry Potter. Are you going to lose your sympathy for a kid that’s merely trying to find out why someone murdered both of his parents and what it means? Me neither.
For me, the funny thing about it all is that once I was drawn in to the story, by the circumstances and for the reasons I just explained, I could find, and continue to find, plenty of my own personal motives for continuing to unpack it. Of course I find the storyline compelling, but I find other aspects of this fictional series even more intriguing. Such as the amazing tale of how it got started in the first place, the well-known story of author Joanne Rowling’s fateful 1990 ride on a London train in which she conceived of the entire saga in one tremendous windfall of inspiration. Or the totally unpredictable phenomenon of its worldwide domination as the most popular fictional story in literary history. Or the absolute genius of Rowling’s plotting skills, something I think no one has even approached since Charles Dickens (more comparisons to Dickens come to mind which I may have to explore at greater length in a future installment).
Or, there are the more voluminous but equally interesting questions the series inevitably raises, such as: Is the whole series really unique, or just the cleverest-yet rehashing of old archetypes and myths? But aren't all novels like that? Are plot and story really superior to aesthetic quality? Does its British-ness make any difference? Does the fact that it was written by a woman have significance in terms of what the books know and and are concerned with? Why is the series THIS popular, when similarly-themed stories have been floating around for centuries? Does the story really have any religious implications, dangerous or otherwise?
All of these are fascinating ‘riddles’ to consider, and are freshly evoked every time this series of books comes back into the news, as it will again next year with the release of the film version of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
I can’t hope to answer them now. But here I stand, at the half-way point through the series, having just completed the fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. It was published in 2000 to near-universal acclaim. I remember when it came out: I was working in New York City at the time, right across from what used to be the World Trade Center. If I’m not mistaken, it was the first time they had built up such a frenzy for the Potter books that they did midnight sales parties and people dressed like wizards to go get an early copy of the book. After it was published (not at midnight!) I went across the street to the Borders book shop that only months later would be buried in the rubble. I can vividly recall being astonished at the sheer GIRTH of the book. I knew next to nothing about the series, but it was hard to believe that young kids would go nuts over a book that could also be a door stop. At 734 pages, Goblet of Fire was just about twice as long as any previous Potter tome.
But read it the kids did, and so did everybody else, and by this time even the critics were talking about the books being classics. Recall these remarkable superlatives from the New York Times book critic Janet Maslin in her review in July 2000:
Ms. Rowling, a kindred spirit to both Lewis Carroll and the pre-Jar Jar Binks George Lucas, turns out to be a fantasist who lives inside a thrillingly fertile imagination, mines it ingeniously and plays entirely by her own rules. Talk about supernatural tricks: she has turned this odds-defying new book into everything it promised to be. As the midpoint in a projected seven-book series, ''Goblet of Fire'' is exactly the big, clever, vibrant, tremendously assured installment that gives shape and direction to the whole undertaking and still somehow preserves the material's enchanting innocence. [….] This time she achieves her most lucid, well-plotted and exciting conclusion, complete with a spectacular wand-on-wand confrontation to recall Luke, Darth and their light sabers, enhanced by the identity-twisting tricks in which Ms. Rowling specializes. The book ends on a mournful note with the loss of one character, and with ominous, cliff-hanging hints of a next installment. Two things seem certain: it will involve giants and be awaited with justifiably bated breath.
I have been nothing short of amazed at my response to these books. For a very long time I didn’t have much interest, as I said before. But here at just over the halfway point to the end – three novels wait for me to read, the last two of which I know virtually nothing about save their titles – I am engrossed by them and fascinated by Rowling’s accomplishment.
It’s not the literary quality of the books. Rowling’s prose is serviceable at best. It’s clean, and can be occasionally elegant, but it’s not groundbreaking or beautiful or even particularly interesting, on its own. It gets the job done. It seems to me that Rowling has a novelist’s gift for details, but I wouldn’t even say she has great skills in writing dialogue.
Furthermore, some of the side characters are cardboard-stiff. Draco Malfoy, Harry’s foil, has been using the same twittering harrassment techniques since the first novel. He fails to evolve much as a character, unlike Harry, who is growing and learning and entering further into his own personal darkness with each new year, and finding the realities of life not as enticing or rewarding as he once may have thought. Malfoy’s no real threat to Harry; he’s not up to the job. Perhaps Rowling didn’t intend him to be a truly meaningful character, since we all know Harry has a REAL enemy, Lord Voldemort. This is to say nothing of Malfoy’s two cronies, identified as Crabbe and Goyle, who are nothing but thugs. They may as well be made of cardboard and propped up in the scenes they appear in next to Malfoy. In fact, they usually are. At least that is the case through Book Four. Professor Gilderoy Lockheart from Chamber of Secrets is a recognizable caricature of the egotistical fraud whose bark is far worse than his bite when things start to get a little messy. Rita Skeeter from Goblet is a thinly-veiled stand-in for the paparrazzi, and an easy target at whom someone like Rowling can gleefully hurl her bolts of lightning. Not that I can necessarily begrudge her the fun of doing so, but it doesn’t make the character any more genuine.
However, in terms of characterization, there is a noticable upgrade when it comes to the main cast. It might make for an uneven literary performance by English course textbook standards, but it is still to the books’ gain that Harry himself, Ron Weasley and his entire hardluck family, Albus Dumbledore, Severus Snape, Hermione Granger, and even Voldemort are all engagingly drawn and capable of inspiring strong feelings in us, one way or the other. Voldemort, to this point, has been seen little, and what we know of him reveals him to be more or less a purely evil spawn of Hell with a snake’s nose and terrible claws. Needless to say this gives him little in common with anyone or anything save a really, really awful mother-in-law. But once you’re done with Goblet of Fire, and particularly if you’ve seen Ralph Fiennes’ film-stealing cameo in the film version of same, at least you know you’re dealing with a genuine badass. Voldemort was cast off for dead and literally disembodied for thirteen years. When he finally arrives back in flesh in the conclusion of Goblet, he is not interested in putzing around. It may be ridiculous, but it is shockingly good fun to watch Fiennes scream, “I’M GONNA KILL YOU, HARRY POTTER!!!” One believes him!
But characters, prose, and suspension of disbelief aside - (wait, can you cast those things aside?? it's part of the debate) - it’s clear to me by the fourth novel that Rowling’s books deserve their tremendous success. That’s because they are sheer genius in the only game that really matters: storytelling. The plotting in these stories is magnificent. As I mentioned before, no one since Dickens has created stories that are so complexly plotted and deliver so much satisfaction as these plots come to their resolution. They can get very heady: The Prisoner of Azkaban gets particularly convoluted near its end. But so far, Rowling has managed to keep all of the balls in the air and she makes all the pieces come together exactly enough to keep you asking questions after reading each book, while giving you a satisfactory measure of thrills. Her command of the Potter universe is total and supreme. You never doubt the writer for a moment. This is amazing, when you consider the fact that everything in the stories is utterly unbelievable. As soon as you read that a cat has transformed into a witch in the opening chapter of Sorcerer’s Stone, all plausibility goes out the window. But at that same moment Rowling’s extraordinary imagination takes you prisoner. And she never releases you.
I think the reason for Rowling’s success in crafting these stories, which must have taken such a tremendous jolt of inspiration, only to be followed by years of hard literary labor – for writing novels, as some of us are learning, is very hard work – may be able to be traced back to the circumstances from which she brought the entire saga forth. Once upon a time, Rowling was a single mother on public assistance who had a dream and at least one other mouth to feed. She’d seen hardship in her own life, and even more hardship in the lives of others as an employee of Amnesty International as a young woman. She had a tremendous hunger to write stories and a terrific responsibility to find a way to improve the quality of her life for her child’s sake. I think somewhere in the midst of all that she must have made a firm decision: it’s now or never. My imagination is my only way out of this, and to fail is unacceptable. So she settled on the only course of action a writer can turn to in the end: to get to work.
As for what happened after that, I guess you might call it magic.
Friday, August 08, 2008
On Beauty, part 2
[SCROLL DOWN FOR PART 1]
Zadie Smith’s White Teeth, when it appeared in 2000, was a remarkable debut, a literary sensation. This British wunderkind, the daughter of a white Englishman and a black mother, wrote the novel while still an undergraduate at Cambridge University, and it was published to wide acclaim. Though not perfect, the novel’s flaws were overpowered by its bravado and comic sophistication. It had a bevvy of multi-racial, international characters, witty dialogue, a Dickensian scope, and a zany, madcap conclusion which bordered on overkill but was also impressive for its sheer audacity. White Teeth was the quintessential bellowed announcement of a bold new talent in contemporary literature.
Smith’s second novel, The Autograph Man, was not as well received critically. I have not read it, so I can’t comment on it directly. From what I can glean about it, however, though it may have tried and failed on some levels, it doesn’t appear to be any less confident or ambitious than White Teeth. It must be very difficult to be hailed as a new sensation with one’s first book – you would be under enormous pressure with your second. Inasmuch as The Autograph Man seemed to tackle broad cultural subjects like the nature of celebrity and the influence of popular culture on one’s identity, I can only conclude that Smith was not cowed by high expectations. However successful that novel may or may not have been, it wasn’t timid, and seemed to demonstrate Smith’s confidence in her own abilities.
Then came On Beauty, her third novel, published in 2005. I am late to the party on this by a wide margin, but I’ve had my eye on it since it was hailed by some critics as a near-masterpiece. Sometimes it just takes me a long time to get to the books I want to read. But I am now finally reading it for the first time and I wanted to offer a few reflections on the novel. The book deserves some thought. It is hard for me to imagine another young novelist (Smith is younger than I am) who is as talented and as advanced in her understanding of craft and literature as Zadie Smith, on any side of the Atlantic, and irrespective of gender. There are a lot talented young writers in the world today, both male and female; Smith stands up against, and more than likely surpasses, any of them. I must admit that I am fairly devouring On Beauty, not only making my way through it rapidly, but doing so with relish and the pure joy that comes with reading very good fiction. I feel compelled to examine why I find the book so pleasurable.
The plot has been rehashed and condensed in so many available reviews that it doesn’t make much sense to go into it in detail. Let’s just say the novel is set in New England and in London, and concerns the intertwining destinies of two familes whose patriarchs, both academics, are arch rivals. One family is headed by Howard Belsey, a white Englishman and a liberal professor with a cynical and disappointed view of the world. The other belongs to Sir Monty Kipps, a black intellectual and a conservative Christian. They both have multiple children of various ages. The event that sets the novel in motion is that Kipps agrees to take a position in America at the same small New England college where Belsey teaches art history, and so the two families suddenly find themselves in close quarters with one another.
Smith taught for a year at Harvard while composing On Beauty and clearly has a lot of fun sending up academic life, American culture, and other easy targets such as the Creative Writing workshop. She has the intelligence to approximate the language of such environments and the cultural awareness to be able to contrast it with urban dialect, rap music, and the cynical, information-saturated outlook of college students today. Possessing both a wonderful ear and a wicked sense of humor, Smith demonstrates these to ample effect throughout the novel in exchanges of sharp and often hilarious dialogue. The result is crackling comedy, but I think it’s her concerns with deeper themes that elevate her novel above most others.
The title of the book comes from an essay by Elaine Scarry, and Smith takes on the daunting topic of beauty in a few different ways, exploring everything from body image and female psychology to fine art and specifically the study of Rembrandt. It’s also clear that Smith has compassion for all of her characters and wants to do more than just create a plethora of different voices. As she has said in interviews, she is interested in the souls of these people. She uses the relationship of these characters to the ideal of beauty, as found in both objects of art and in human beings, as a means of discovering what is true about both art and humanity.
These concerns bring the novel a certain heft that it would be lacking without them. It is like the difference between picking up a piece of gold-plated metal and a piece of solid gold. The weight of the thing is evidence of its quality. One gets a similar sensation while reading On Beauty. It may not be flawless, but it has gravity, purity, and grace. A good reader can perceive this a short distance in. But it takes a very talented writer indeed to be able to give a novel that sort of weight to begin with. And it’s doubly unusual in a writer who is still under 35 but whose words bear testimony to a surplus of insight and sophistication.
Of course, it frustrates me as a person who aspires to write novels that I am still scrapping for increased quantities of both, and that it will probably take me many more years to acquire them, if it’s even possible. But I can’t hold that against Zadie Smith, who is blessed with prodigious talent, but has also obviously put in the necessary work to take full advantage of it.
Zadie Smith’s White Teeth, when it appeared in 2000, was a remarkable debut, a literary sensation. This British wunderkind, the daughter of a white Englishman and a black mother, wrote the novel while still an undergraduate at Cambridge University, and it was published to wide acclaim. Though not perfect, the novel’s flaws were overpowered by its bravado and comic sophistication. It had a bevvy of multi-racial, international characters, witty dialogue, a Dickensian scope, and a zany, madcap conclusion which bordered on overkill but was also impressive for its sheer audacity. White Teeth was the quintessential bellowed announcement of a bold new talent in contemporary literature.
Smith’s second novel, The Autograph Man, was not as well received critically. I have not read it, so I can’t comment on it directly. From what I can glean about it, however, though it may have tried and failed on some levels, it doesn’t appear to be any less confident or ambitious than White Teeth. It must be very difficult to be hailed as a new sensation with one’s first book – you would be under enormous pressure with your second. Inasmuch as The Autograph Man seemed to tackle broad cultural subjects like the nature of celebrity and the influence of popular culture on one’s identity, I can only conclude that Smith was not cowed by high expectations. However successful that novel may or may not have been, it wasn’t timid, and seemed to demonstrate Smith’s confidence in her own abilities.
Then came On Beauty, her third novel, published in 2005. I am late to the party on this by a wide margin, but I’ve had my eye on it since it was hailed by some critics as a near-masterpiece. Sometimes it just takes me a long time to get to the books I want to read. But I am now finally reading it for the first time and I wanted to offer a few reflections on the novel. The book deserves some thought. It is hard for me to imagine another young novelist (Smith is younger than I am) who is as talented and as advanced in her understanding of craft and literature as Zadie Smith, on any side of the Atlantic, and irrespective of gender. There are a lot talented young writers in the world today, both male and female; Smith stands up against, and more than likely surpasses, any of them. I must admit that I am fairly devouring On Beauty, not only making my way through it rapidly, but doing so with relish and the pure joy that comes with reading very good fiction. I feel compelled to examine why I find the book so pleasurable.
The plot has been rehashed and condensed in so many available reviews that it doesn’t make much sense to go into it in detail. Let’s just say the novel is set in New England and in London, and concerns the intertwining destinies of two familes whose patriarchs, both academics, are arch rivals. One family is headed by Howard Belsey, a white Englishman and a liberal professor with a cynical and disappointed view of the world. The other belongs to Sir Monty Kipps, a black intellectual and a conservative Christian. They both have multiple children of various ages. The event that sets the novel in motion is that Kipps agrees to take a position in America at the same small New England college where Belsey teaches art history, and so the two families suddenly find themselves in close quarters with one another.
Smith taught for a year at Harvard while composing On Beauty and clearly has a lot of fun sending up academic life, American culture, and other easy targets such as the Creative Writing workshop. She has the intelligence to approximate the language of such environments and the cultural awareness to be able to contrast it with urban dialect, rap music, and the cynical, information-saturated outlook of college students today. Possessing both a wonderful ear and a wicked sense of humor, Smith demonstrates these to ample effect throughout the novel in exchanges of sharp and often hilarious dialogue. The result is crackling comedy, but I think it’s her concerns with deeper themes that elevate her novel above most others.
The title of the book comes from an essay by Elaine Scarry, and Smith takes on the daunting topic of beauty in a few different ways, exploring everything from body image and female psychology to fine art and specifically the study of Rembrandt. It’s also clear that Smith has compassion for all of her characters and wants to do more than just create a plethora of different voices. As she has said in interviews, she is interested in the souls of these people. She uses the relationship of these characters to the ideal of beauty, as found in both objects of art and in human beings, as a means of discovering what is true about both art and humanity.
These concerns bring the novel a certain heft that it would be lacking without them. It is like the difference between picking up a piece of gold-plated metal and a piece of solid gold. The weight of the thing is evidence of its quality. One gets a similar sensation while reading On Beauty. It may not be flawless, but it has gravity, purity, and grace. A good reader can perceive this a short distance in. But it takes a very talented writer indeed to be able to give a novel that sort of weight to begin with. And it’s doubly unusual in a writer who is still under 35 but whose words bear testimony to a surplus of insight and sophistication.
Of course, it frustrates me as a person who aspires to write novels that I am still scrapping for increased quantities of both, and that it will probably take me many more years to acquire them, if it’s even possible. But I can’t hold that against Zadie Smith, who is blessed with prodigious talent, but has also obviously put in the necessary work to take full advantage of it.
On Beauty, part 1
It's a pleasure to post this message with the news of the arrival of TST founder Duke Altum's fourth child and first-ever daughter, Susannah Micheline. Reader(s), this little girl is beautiful and precious!!!! Born August 7 at 3:05 am, she is unfortunately suffering from a few treatable complications and is currently under observation at a University hospital in Baltimore. I talked to Duke yesterday - he and his wife are in the middle of an exhausting emotional journey, but are taking it all on with great faith and love for their daughter. It goes without saying that Duke and his family have all of my prayers and support. I've seen some early pictures, and his family has truly been blessed - she is a teeny, rosy little girl with a ton of dark hair. After 3 sons, it is fascinating and wonderful to see Duke with a little daughter, and a beautiful one at that. God Bless You and welcome, Susannah!!
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Journal of a 'Novel'-Entry 47
Journey to the Center of the Novel
I finished writing Chapter IV of my novel in progress in November 2007, right before my 37th birthday. I finished writing Chapter V about two weeks ago. There was a seven-month interval in between there that I’ve already lamented was too long, although not entirely unproductive. I did manage to write a few other things, including an essay that is headed for publication in The Other Journal called “Hope on the Wing: Encounters with The Innocence Mission”. But I did a lot of stumbling around and not getting a whole lot of writing done. (Also had the small matter of the arrival of my third child, to be fair to myself, so it wasn’t entirely procrastination.) I started to have a number of other ideas for writing projects large and small, fiction and nonfiction, and while I was grateful to be having ideas, the time came when I felt like the motivation and commitment to the novel I am writing was starting to slip away from me. So I vowed to make a ‘massive attack’ on the manuscript. I went back to Chapter V and finished it up. After all that struggle, I must admit that, at least for now, I was pretty pleased with the way the chapter turned out. Now it’s time for me to move on with the story.
That means starting on Chapter VI. I only have some vague ideas of what sort of material is going to populate the chapter. That’s all right, because they all start out the same way. Vague, nebulous, like a vapor.
Entering into the drafting of a chapter, I feel like I’m almost floating in a kind of pre-creative state. In a very miniscule but also significant way, it sort of feels to me like the state of things in the beginning, before God created the earth, as described in Genesis 1:2: “The earth was without form, and void; and darkness [was] upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” I realize how pretentious and ridiculous this may sound, but I don’t think it is. If you consider the artistic impulse in terms of a fallible human being’s honest, if insignificant, attempt to imitate his Father, who “created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1), you can see why this feeling may occur in some way inside of me or anyone else who attempts to create something.
Before putting down one’s story, there is a kind of dark place you must go to, your creative pool. Even Stephen King realizes this, and sort of gave it a different and a lot more simplistic form in his novel Lisey’s Story where he developed the concept of a mysterious dream place called “Boo’ya Moon”, the main physical characteristic of which was a big pool of water. Say what you want about Stephen King, but the man is not lacking creativity, nor a well-wrought knowledge of the process. He may well feel that darkness upon the face of the deep just before he concocts his own creations. Of course, the novel also contains more words than have ever been necessary about everyone’s favorite prepared food product, Hamburger Helper – so you might take it all with a grain of salt. Hamburger Helper may be a great metaphor for King’s novels, but I won’t go there; I respect Stephen King.
(If you’re wondering how any single piece of prose could go from the Book of Genesis to Stephen King to Hamburger Helper in just a few paragraphs, well, that’s the beauty of journaling.)
Anyway, now it is on to Chapter VI, and in terms of timeline, the story is now moving into the Great Depression era of history. I remember early on, we’re talking years ago, I always pictured this novel to be a ‘Depression’ novel. Never would I have dreamed that I might have been required to work on writing it for two years before even cracking into the 1930s! That’s a first novel for you – a labor that keeps growing even as you learn how to do the job. But now that I am finally entering into the Depression period of my novel, I understand that it is only at this stage that I really entering into the heart of it – or as William H. Gass might say, “the heart of the heart” of the novel I am writing.
I have my work cut out for me. This novel will not work if it does not effectively bring the Great Depression to some kind of recognizable and hopefully potent life. This country has seen many writers bring the era alive in novels far more accomplished than anything I could write – Steinbeck, Faulkner, Erskine Caldwell, etc. – but not a lot of people are writing novels set in the Depression today. Time is marching forward, and those who actually lived through the Depression are now dying off. My Dad is one of those who still survive who can tell about what living in that time period was like. For people like him, who were only kids when their family was struggling through those times, it was a social and cultural event that marked their lives forever, indelibly. My novel is being written as an attempt to restore that time and all of those struggles to the fore of my own and hopefully to readers’ attention, in order to better understand why it left such a mark.
It’s all very daunting, and this could be the time, more than any other that has gone before, for me to be afraid – very afraid. There must be a million reasons I can think of for why I am not the guy for the job. Yet if I want to be a novelist, it’s my charge to ignore them on and charge ahead. Thus, while it might be a time for fear, it’s really a time for wonder and excitement. THIS is the heart of the struggle. I find myself approaching the center of the novel and what I really feel more than anything else is the thrill of the hunt. It is a ridiculously daunting challenge to think that I might finish this story, revise it, craft it to my satisfaction, send it out, and have someone read it, buy it, and put it on the shelf. But then again, if you told me two years ago I’d have written a total of six chapters and would still be very much alive in the hunt for a first novel, I would have thought even that was insane. So we’ll see.
In spite of the fact that I am not sure where it will go, Chapter VI does have a working title, which is ‘The Black Giant, Obeisance to Mammon’. It will focus somewhat on advancing Walter Brogan’s story into the early Depression, but will also place unusually heavy emphasis on some of the ‘outsider’ characters in the novel – people like Myron Devreaux, Peter Heinricks, and in particular Cal Wittenburg. Witternburg will emerge, if he has not already, as a driving force in the story, for he represents the farming community, and provides a window into that world where Walter Brogan will find his sympathies and his compassion inexorably drawn.
I finished writing Chapter IV of my novel in progress in November 2007, right before my 37th birthday. I finished writing Chapter V about two weeks ago. There was a seven-month interval in between there that I’ve already lamented was too long, although not entirely unproductive. I did manage to write a few other things, including an essay that is headed for publication in The Other Journal called “Hope on the Wing: Encounters with The Innocence Mission”. But I did a lot of stumbling around and not getting a whole lot of writing done. (Also had the small matter of the arrival of my third child, to be fair to myself, so it wasn’t entirely procrastination.) I started to have a number of other ideas for writing projects large and small, fiction and nonfiction, and while I was grateful to be having ideas, the time came when I felt like the motivation and commitment to the novel I am writing was starting to slip away from me. So I vowed to make a ‘massive attack’ on the manuscript. I went back to Chapter V and finished it up. After all that struggle, I must admit that, at least for now, I was pretty pleased with the way the chapter turned out. Now it’s time for me to move on with the story.
That means starting on Chapter VI. I only have some vague ideas of what sort of material is going to populate the chapter. That’s all right, because they all start out the same way. Vague, nebulous, like a vapor.
Entering into the drafting of a chapter, I feel like I’m almost floating in a kind of pre-creative state. In a very miniscule but also significant way, it sort of feels to me like the state of things in the beginning, before God created the earth, as described in Genesis 1:2: “The earth was without form, and void; and darkness [was] upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” I realize how pretentious and ridiculous this may sound, but I don’t think it is. If you consider the artistic impulse in terms of a fallible human being’s honest, if insignificant, attempt to imitate his Father, who “created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1), you can see why this feeling may occur in some way inside of me or anyone else who attempts to create something.
Before putting down one’s story, there is a kind of dark place you must go to, your creative pool. Even Stephen King realizes this, and sort of gave it a different and a lot more simplistic form in his novel Lisey’s Story where he developed the concept of a mysterious dream place called “Boo’ya Moon”, the main physical characteristic of which was a big pool of water. Say what you want about Stephen King, but the man is not lacking creativity, nor a well-wrought knowledge of the process. He may well feel that darkness upon the face of the deep just before he concocts his own creations. Of course, the novel also contains more words than have ever been necessary about everyone’s favorite prepared food product, Hamburger Helper – so you might take it all with a grain of salt. Hamburger Helper may be a great metaphor for King’s novels, but I won’t go there; I respect Stephen King.
(If you’re wondering how any single piece of prose could go from the Book of Genesis to Stephen King to Hamburger Helper in just a few paragraphs, well, that’s the beauty of journaling.)
Anyway, now it is on to Chapter VI, and in terms of timeline, the story is now moving into the Great Depression era of history. I remember early on, we’re talking years ago, I always pictured this novel to be a ‘Depression’ novel. Never would I have dreamed that I might have been required to work on writing it for two years before even cracking into the 1930s! That’s a first novel for you – a labor that keeps growing even as you learn how to do the job. But now that I am finally entering into the Depression period of my novel, I understand that it is only at this stage that I really entering into the heart of it – or as William H. Gass might say, “the heart of the heart” of the novel I am writing.
I have my work cut out for me. This novel will not work if it does not effectively bring the Great Depression to some kind of recognizable and hopefully potent life. This country has seen many writers bring the era alive in novels far more accomplished than anything I could write – Steinbeck, Faulkner, Erskine Caldwell, etc. – but not a lot of people are writing novels set in the Depression today. Time is marching forward, and those who actually lived through the Depression are now dying off. My Dad is one of those who still survive who can tell about what living in that time period was like. For people like him, who were only kids when their family was struggling through those times, it was a social and cultural event that marked their lives forever, indelibly. My novel is being written as an attempt to restore that time and all of those struggles to the fore of my own and hopefully to readers’ attention, in order to better understand why it left such a mark.
It’s all very daunting, and this could be the time, more than any other that has gone before, for me to be afraid – very afraid. There must be a million reasons I can think of for why I am not the guy for the job. Yet if I want to be a novelist, it’s my charge to ignore them on and charge ahead. Thus, while it might be a time for fear, it’s really a time for wonder and excitement. THIS is the heart of the struggle. I find myself approaching the center of the novel and what I really feel more than anything else is the thrill of the hunt. It is a ridiculously daunting challenge to think that I might finish this story, revise it, craft it to my satisfaction, send it out, and have someone read it, buy it, and put it on the shelf. But then again, if you told me two years ago I’d have written a total of six chapters and would still be very much alive in the hunt for a first novel, I would have thought even that was insane. So we’ll see.
In spite of the fact that I am not sure where it will go, Chapter VI does have a working title, which is ‘The Black Giant, Obeisance to Mammon’. It will focus somewhat on advancing Walter Brogan’s story into the early Depression, but will also place unusually heavy emphasis on some of the ‘outsider’ characters in the novel – people like Myron Devreaux, Peter Heinricks, and in particular Cal Wittenburg. Witternburg will emerge, if he has not already, as a driving force in the story, for he represents the farming community, and provides a window into that world where Walter Brogan will find his sympathies and his compassion inexorably drawn.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Duke Altum's POTM #64: Ask Me Why I Love Poetry...
...and a poem like this provides the best answer. This short offering from the British poet Ted Hughes (great friend and sometime mentor to Seamus Heaney) is a perfect example, to my anyway, of what makes poetry fascinating and powerful and worth reading. Here you have a simple little observation about a flower, and not even a very pretty one at that. And yet, through that mysterious alchemy that only a very small number of gifted people seem to be able to conjure up and harness, Hughes somehow summarizes the entire history of a people (in this case, the fighting Scots - as most everyone knows, the thistle is a national symbol of Scotland) in a few short lines. (Could any verse seem to sum up the tragic history of this country and its constant, futile struggle for independence better than these?: "Their sons appear/Stiff with weapons, fighting back over the same ground.")
He manages to convey menace and violence and bloodshed and turmoil all while describing a miniscule purple flower. So much complexity packed into such simple lines. This is what truly captivates and fascinates me, this power of the poet to say so much with so little. To observe the smallest and most seemingly inconsequential detail and somehow squeeze out of it some kind of clue, or at least insight, to the mystery of our existence here on the third rock from the sun. THAT'S why I love poetry, when it is done well - like this.
*******
Thistles
Against the rubber tongues of cows and the hoeing hands of men
Thistles spike the summer air
And crackle open under a blue-black pressure.
Every one a revengeful burst
Of resurrection, a grasped fistful
Of splintered weapons and Icelandic frost thrust up
From the underground stain of a decayed Viking.
They are like pale hair and the gutturals of dialects.
Every one manages a plume of blood.
Then they grow grey like men.
Mown down, it is a feud. Their sons appear
Stiff with weapons, fighting back over the same ground.
He manages to convey menace and violence and bloodshed and turmoil all while describing a miniscule purple flower. So much complexity packed into such simple lines. This is what truly captivates and fascinates me, this power of the poet to say so much with so little. To observe the smallest and most seemingly inconsequential detail and somehow squeeze out of it some kind of clue, or at least insight, to the mystery of our existence here on the third rock from the sun. THAT'S why I love poetry, when it is done well - like this.
*******
Thistles
Against the rubber tongues of cows and the hoeing hands of men
Thistles spike the summer air
And crackle open under a blue-black pressure.
Every one a revengeful burst
Of resurrection, a grasped fistful
Of splintered weapons and Icelandic frost thrust up
From the underground stain of a decayed Viking.
They are like pale hair and the gutturals of dialects.
Every one manages a plume of blood.
Then they grow grey like men.
Mown down, it is a feud. Their sons appear
Stiff with weapons, fighting back over the same ground.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Say You'll Read These Stories
When I heard several months ago that there was a book of short stories coming out about Africa that was written by a Jesuit priest, a product of an American M.F.A. program in fiction writing, I was astonished. I never thought I would see a book of contemporary short stories by a Catholic priest emerge from a major U.S. publishing house. But that is what we have in Say You’re One Of Them, which was published last month by Little, Brown & Company. The author is Uwem Akpan, S.J., from Nigeria.
The book has generated a lot of attention in literary circles, and has received exceptionally strong reviews in almost every major publication I have seen. Indeed, I have yet to find a negative review for it. As Duke and I are Roman Catholics interested in literature and the spiritual life, I remember showing him a news item saying that this book was forthcoming, and commenting on how ideal it was to receive some attention on this blog. I would have liked to have rushed right out and bought the book, which I did not do for budgetary reasons, so I did the next best thing: I asked my local library if they had it. They did not, but ordered it specially upon my request, and it was in house in about a week. Man, you have got to love libraries. The poor artist’s best friend!
This post is no book review, as I have just finished reading the book, and it is still resonating in my mind to a large extent – which is another way of saying that since I am not writing a review, I am not yet completely sure of precisely how I feel about it. One of the reasons I enjoy writing reviews is to fully articulate my response to a book. That is not what I am doing here. I just wanted to write some impressions down.
I am not sure how many people I would even recommend this book to. That statement has nothing to do with the book’s literary quality and elegance of execution, which are both of the highest order, and especially stuning in a first work of fiction from a writer who happens to be almost exactly my age. This is a hell of a book. That phrase can have more than one meaning as well, as I will attempt to explain.
There’s no question that Fr. Akpan is a gifted writer with a flair for language, an ear for interesting dialogue, and eyes with which to see the terribly vivd colors spayed around a tortured and troubled contintent. In a very interesting story in the New York Times, the writer-priest attributed some of his literary success to his religious training, an idea which I found utterly fascinating:
A great help to him, he said, was his order’s tradition of Ignatian spirituality, which encourages the visualization of certain biblical scenes — the Sermon on the Mount, say. “You try to imagine Jesus 2,000 years ago. You try to see the faces, picture the scenery. I used to really get into it, and I thought if I could imagine 2,000 years ago, surely I could do it for the contemporary world.”
Fr. Akpan has certainly done that in this book, which is closer to a collection of three short stories and two longer novellas.
If the book is so good, so well executed, why wouldn’t I recommend it? The answer is that I would – I just don’t know how many people would want to read it or would enjoy it. For ‘enjoy’ is not the best way to describe one’s experience with these stories, unless you are like me and you take pleasure in watching a skilled artist intelligently and beautifully work their magic. The problem is that the stories in Say You’re One Of Them depict unthinkable evils – abusive acts, mob violence, tribal warfare, starvation, prostitution, drug use, religious tyranny, persecution, corruption, even unmitigated slaughter – and they do so forcefully, so that you have trouble forgetting what you’ve ‘seen’ in your mind’s eye.
But that’s not even the worst part. The worst part is that all of the stories are written from the point of view of children. Which means that the children Fr. Akpan creates in his intense fictions are eye-witnesses to the horror, and frequently victims themselves. If you have your own children or even if you don’t, this is the hardest part of the book to contend with. The images will stay with you, all right. It’s a troubling, moving, difficult reading experience.
Now, in my opinion, this makes Fr. Akpan’s achievement all the more laudable. What he has done is give voices to the ones that have no voice, and through the power of his stories – a power that stories only can generate, as opposed to journalism or memoir – he forces the reader to listen to them. Skillfully drawn characters are easy to recognize; the litmus test is whether or not, when you read their stories, you feel like you know them yourself. When you do you’ll know it because, if something terrible happens to them, you’ll feel it. That’s what happens in this book. You get to know these frightened, maligned children, and you fear for what seems inevitable. So that when you reach the utterly terrifying moment when something horrific happens, as in the story “My Parents’ Bedroom”, where a young girl watches her father murder her mother in front of her with a machete, you recoil with stultifying shock.
I know a lot of people though, avid readers all, who would not want to read a story like the one just described no matter how well written it was. No matter how moving it was. It’s a question of why a person reads. So many people I know might say something like, “I barely ever get the chance to pick up a book, and when I do, I want to be entertained, not depressed. I care about what happens to people in less fortunate countries, but I don’t want to read stories about violence, child abuse, murder and poverty.” This isn’t turning a blind eye to the problems of the world; the same person may go on a missionary trip to Africa or Latin American before you ever do. It’s just that this person knows why they read – for entertainment. Who can argue with that?
For me, though, the whole idea of fiction writing is such a source of inspiration and fascination that the act of reading is every bit as much about my own artistc education as it is about entertainment. I want to read anything that genuinely moves me on an emotional level, and I want to see if I can figure out how they did it. I want to write as well as I can, so I should read writers who write well. If I pick up Father Akpan’s book knowing it’s about Africa’s victimized children, I’m not saying to the writer off-handedly, “Don’t go there” as I begin the book. I want him to go there, and since I’m not going there anytime soon, I want him to take me with him. If he succeeds, as this remarkable writer does, he will make me feel as though I have seen the horrors of Africa myself. That’s incredible considering I have never been to Africa, have no prospects of going there, and doubt I will have the opportunity in the future. (You never know.) It should be noted that Say You’re One Of Them’s five stories are all set in different countries, a clever way for Fr. Akpan to demonstrate that these evil forces at play are not simply confined to one nation but to much of Africa.
The title of this collection comes from a piece of advice that the doomed mother gives to one of her children in the story referred to above. She knew she was in peril, and so she told her daughter that if anyone in the civil war-torn nation of Rwanda asked her to state her business, she should say she is “one of them”, meaning a member of whichever tribal group is represented by her questioner. Given the context, is that phrase alone not extraordinarily powerful?
Congratulations to Father Uwem Akpan, who has succeeded in creating an unforgettable testament to the power of literature and in so doing has simultaneously taken a bold stand for those who cannot stand up for themselves. I urge any reader who takes an interest in what is happening in other corners of the world to seek out this book, to read it, feel it, and gain a broader sense of compassion and understanding.
The book has generated a lot of attention in literary circles, and has received exceptionally strong reviews in almost every major publication I have seen. Indeed, I have yet to find a negative review for it. As Duke and I are Roman Catholics interested in literature and the spiritual life, I remember showing him a news item saying that this book was forthcoming, and commenting on how ideal it was to receive some attention on this blog. I would have liked to have rushed right out and bought the book, which I did not do for budgetary reasons, so I did the next best thing: I asked my local library if they had it. They did not, but ordered it specially upon my request, and it was in house in about a week. Man, you have got to love libraries. The poor artist’s best friend!
This post is no book review, as I have just finished reading the book, and it is still resonating in my mind to a large extent – which is another way of saying that since I am not writing a review, I am not yet completely sure of precisely how I feel about it. One of the reasons I enjoy writing reviews is to fully articulate my response to a book. That is not what I am doing here. I just wanted to write some impressions down.
I am not sure how many people I would even recommend this book to. That statement has nothing to do with the book’s literary quality and elegance of execution, which are both of the highest order, and especially stuning in a first work of fiction from a writer who happens to be almost exactly my age. This is a hell of a book. That phrase can have more than one meaning as well, as I will attempt to explain.
There’s no question that Fr. Akpan is a gifted writer with a flair for language, an ear for interesting dialogue, and eyes with which to see the terribly vivd colors spayed around a tortured and troubled contintent. In a very interesting story in the New York Times, the writer-priest attributed some of his literary success to his religious training, an idea which I found utterly fascinating:
A great help to him, he said, was his order’s tradition of Ignatian spirituality, which encourages the visualization of certain biblical scenes — the Sermon on the Mount, say. “You try to imagine Jesus 2,000 years ago. You try to see the faces, picture the scenery. I used to really get into it, and I thought if I could imagine 2,000 years ago, surely I could do it for the contemporary world.”
Fr. Akpan has certainly done that in this book, which is closer to a collection of three short stories and two longer novellas.
If the book is so good, so well executed, why wouldn’t I recommend it? The answer is that I would – I just don’t know how many people would want to read it or would enjoy it. For ‘enjoy’ is not the best way to describe one’s experience with these stories, unless you are like me and you take pleasure in watching a skilled artist intelligently and beautifully work their magic. The problem is that the stories in Say You’re One Of Them depict unthinkable evils – abusive acts, mob violence, tribal warfare, starvation, prostitution, drug use, religious tyranny, persecution, corruption, even unmitigated slaughter – and they do so forcefully, so that you have trouble forgetting what you’ve ‘seen’ in your mind’s eye.
But that’s not even the worst part. The worst part is that all of the stories are written from the point of view of children. Which means that the children Fr. Akpan creates in his intense fictions are eye-witnesses to the horror, and frequently victims themselves. If you have your own children or even if you don’t, this is the hardest part of the book to contend with. The images will stay with you, all right. It’s a troubling, moving, difficult reading experience.
Now, in my opinion, this makes Fr. Akpan’s achievement all the more laudable. What he has done is give voices to the ones that have no voice, and through the power of his stories – a power that stories only can generate, as opposed to journalism or memoir – he forces the reader to listen to them. Skillfully drawn characters are easy to recognize; the litmus test is whether or not, when you read their stories, you feel like you know them yourself. When you do you’ll know it because, if something terrible happens to them, you’ll feel it. That’s what happens in this book. You get to know these frightened, maligned children, and you fear for what seems inevitable. So that when you reach the utterly terrifying moment when something horrific happens, as in the story “My Parents’ Bedroom”, where a young girl watches her father murder her mother in front of her with a machete, you recoil with stultifying shock.
I know a lot of people though, avid readers all, who would not want to read a story like the one just described no matter how well written it was. No matter how moving it was. It’s a question of why a person reads. So many people I know might say something like, “I barely ever get the chance to pick up a book, and when I do, I want to be entertained, not depressed. I care about what happens to people in less fortunate countries, but I don’t want to read stories about violence, child abuse, murder and poverty.” This isn’t turning a blind eye to the problems of the world; the same person may go on a missionary trip to Africa or Latin American before you ever do. It’s just that this person knows why they read – for entertainment. Who can argue with that?
For me, though, the whole idea of fiction writing is such a source of inspiration and fascination that the act of reading is every bit as much about my own artistc education as it is about entertainment. I want to read anything that genuinely moves me on an emotional level, and I want to see if I can figure out how they did it. I want to write as well as I can, so I should read writers who write well. If I pick up Father Akpan’s book knowing it’s about Africa’s victimized children, I’m not saying to the writer off-handedly, “Don’t go there” as I begin the book. I want him to go there, and since I’m not going there anytime soon, I want him to take me with him. If he succeeds, as this remarkable writer does, he will make me feel as though I have seen the horrors of Africa myself. That’s incredible considering I have never been to Africa, have no prospects of going there, and doubt I will have the opportunity in the future. (You never know.) It should be noted that Say You’re One Of Them’s five stories are all set in different countries, a clever way for Fr. Akpan to demonstrate that these evil forces at play are not simply confined to one nation but to much of Africa.
The title of this collection comes from a piece of advice that the doomed mother gives to one of her children in the story referred to above. She knew she was in peril, and so she told her daughter that if anyone in the civil war-torn nation of Rwanda asked her to state her business, she should say she is “one of them”, meaning a member of whichever tribal group is represented by her questioner. Given the context, is that phrase alone not extraordinarily powerful?
Congratulations to Father Uwem Akpan, who has succeeded in creating an unforgettable testament to the power of literature and in so doing has simultaneously taken a bold stand for those who cannot stand up for themselves. I urge any reader who takes an interest in what is happening in other corners of the world to seek out this book, to read it, feel it, and gain a broader sense of compassion and understanding.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
A Latecomer's Thoughts on 'The Kite Runner'
I must say it feels strange to be posting some thoughts today on a book that has been so wildly popular for at least four years now, and has been talked and raved about all over the world continuously since its release… talk about being behind the curve! But as they say, better to show up late to the party than never arrive at all…
Regardless of my poor sense of timing, I wanted to offer up some thoughts about a book that has obviously struck a chord with millions of readers and continues to be digested and discussed to this day: Khaled Hosseini’s debut novel, The Kite Runner. Now that I’ve finally read it, the book’s overwhelming popularity is an interesting (and somewhat perplexing) phenomenon to me. I realize how that sounds, and I don’t mean to say it’s not a good book worth reading – I think it is, though in my opinion it is not without its flaws either. Rather, what surprises me is the degree of its popular appeal relative to its subject matter. I also find it interesting and worth exploring that the book seems to appeal in particular to women. I have no idea why this would be so, but in my own experience, many people told me I should read this book, and for whatever reason, they were ALL women. Obviously this is purely anecdotal evidence and nothing even remotely scientific, but still, I can’t think of another example of that happening.
At any rate, on to the novel itself. As just about everyone in the free world knows at this point, The Kite Runner is the story of a privileged young boy growing up in the Kabul area of Afghanistan in the 1970’s, just before the Russians occupied the country and everything went to hell. He is from a well-off family and his best friend is the son of the servant who serves (and lives in a small shed on) his father’s estate. A tragic event occurs that permanently mars their friendship and leaves the protagonist, Amir, wracked with guilt. They two boys are separated, the country becomes a war zone, old neighborhoods crumble and Amir escapes to America with his father, with whom he longs to connect emotionally but can never seem to. As an adult, Amir returns home to see what’s left of his old country, and learns that his former best friend has been murdered along with his wife – leaving their only son orphaned and alone. The rest of the book entails Amir’s struggle to rescue the boy from the country and adopt him as his own, which he feels would help him to at least somewhat atone for sins committed against his old friend that led to their painful separation and, at least in Amir’s mind, the friend’s tragic death.
Plot-wise, The Kite Runner is an engaging, albeit somewhat familiar, tale of a man trying to atone for wrongs he has committed in his youth to a childhood friend, with healthy doses of class struggle and father-son difficulties mixed in to magnify his sense of guilt and provide the requisite need for personal redemption and meaningful love. I did not think the storyline was anything particularly original, nor did I find the prose to be remarkable in any way – it’s solid and unadorned, but not especially interesting. Some of the plot twists near the end border on the implausible to me, and there seemed to be plenty more opportunities to directly confront demons of the past than real life would naturally afford. (I was also honestly surprised a bit at some of the clichés that were allowed to be kept in the narrative – things like commonly-used phrases or metaphors, or dream sequences in which Amir relives horrific events he witnessed in the past, only to see the man committing the act turn around and reveal his own face!!)
So yes, I did have some issues with the book – but there is much to recommend about it too. What helps it to if not quite overcome, then at least counterbalance, the problems listed above is its setting - both physical and within the context of recent geopolitical history. I don’t think Hosseini was capitalizing on recent events in his home country with this book either, because as he makes clear in the story he’s telling (and herein lies so much of its value and importance), the cultural and political problems ravaging Afghanistan have been going on for decades now – a long and bloody battle for the soul of a nation crippled by rampant poverty, sectarianism and religious zealotry. First the Russians, then the warlords, from whom rose the ugly specter of the Taliban – regardless of who’s been in power, basic life necessities have been cut off, neighborhoods allowed to descend into chaos and destruction, and women suppressed and abused. In short, it’s immediately clear that Hosseini’s not making this up, he’s lived through it – a fact which lends crucial credibility and weight to the narrative, and makes his earnest desire to share the plight of his people through story both admirable and significant.
I say this in part because I recently listened to an interview with Hosseini in which he explained where the impetus to write both this novel and its much-anticipated follow-up, A Thousand Splendid Suns, came from. I was impressed with how articulate and intelligent Hosseini obviously is, his passion for his people and homeland and his humility in the face of the worldwide popular appeal of his work. He makes clear that while his first and foremost priority is to tell stories that human beings of all stripes and backgrounds will be able to relate to, the fact that he can open peoples’ eyes and minds to what is going on in modern Afghanistan while doing so is an added bonus – and an opportunity that he wants to make the most of. From what he was saying, it sounds like his second novel is particularly valuable in this regard, since Afghan women have been enduring repressions and indignities that modern Westerners can barely comprehend, let alone imagine, for centuries. If A Thousand Splendid Suns succeeds in bringing their plight to the fore of readers’ minds in vivid and accurate detail, as I suspect it does, that alone makes it a book worth sharing, reading and discussing.
But The Kite Runner is the topic of this rambling essay, and I’ll conclude with a few thoughts about a question raised earlier: why has this novel proven to be so incredibly popular over the course of the past four years? It’s not a question that lends itself to any one facile explanation, of course. Trying to explain the ebb and flow of popular appeal is like trying to explain why the wind blows where it will. But it is interesting to speculate on why the story of a man looking back on his half-idyllic, half-nightmarish upbringing in Afghanistan and trying to find healing from wounds he has carried since would capture the attention and imagination of so many people around the globe.
The story has so much to do with past regrets, guilt and remorse over the sufferings of those less fortunate, that I wonder if the same overarching themes/instincts, as human as the tendency towards violence (also vividly on display here), are themselves a key to the riddle of the novel’s enormous and enduring impact. In other words, the near-universal embrace of Hosseini and his anguished characters may say a lot about our feelings as Westerners (and, more specifically, Americans) as the violence and heartbreak of this war-torn corner of the world has now hit home for us in a new and frighteningly personal way. Our recent appearance on the stage in this theater of pain has perhaps awakened in us a new and, one can only hope, enduring sympathy for those asphyxiating in the crushing grip of tyranny, injustice and persecution. Any story that holds out the possibility of hope and escape from such horrible conditions is a sure bet to find purchase in the hearts of people of good will everywhere, who look forward to a day when “all the colors bleed into one," and peace will "flow like a river."
Regardless of my poor sense of timing, I wanted to offer up some thoughts about a book that has obviously struck a chord with millions of readers and continues to be digested and discussed to this day: Khaled Hosseini’s debut novel, The Kite Runner. Now that I’ve finally read it, the book’s overwhelming popularity is an interesting (and somewhat perplexing) phenomenon to me. I realize how that sounds, and I don’t mean to say it’s not a good book worth reading – I think it is, though in my opinion it is not without its flaws either. Rather, what surprises me is the degree of its popular appeal relative to its subject matter. I also find it interesting and worth exploring that the book seems to appeal in particular to women. I have no idea why this would be so, but in my own experience, many people told me I should read this book, and for whatever reason, they were ALL women. Obviously this is purely anecdotal evidence and nothing even remotely scientific, but still, I can’t think of another example of that happening.
At any rate, on to the novel itself. As just about everyone in the free world knows at this point, The Kite Runner is the story of a privileged young boy growing up in the Kabul area of Afghanistan in the 1970’s, just before the Russians occupied the country and everything went to hell. He is from a well-off family and his best friend is the son of the servant who serves (and lives in a small shed on) his father’s estate. A tragic event occurs that permanently mars their friendship and leaves the protagonist, Amir, wracked with guilt. They two boys are separated, the country becomes a war zone, old neighborhoods crumble and Amir escapes to America with his father, with whom he longs to connect emotionally but can never seem to. As an adult, Amir returns home to see what’s left of his old country, and learns that his former best friend has been murdered along with his wife – leaving their only son orphaned and alone. The rest of the book entails Amir’s struggle to rescue the boy from the country and adopt him as his own, which he feels would help him to at least somewhat atone for sins committed against his old friend that led to their painful separation and, at least in Amir’s mind, the friend’s tragic death.
Plot-wise, The Kite Runner is an engaging, albeit somewhat familiar, tale of a man trying to atone for wrongs he has committed in his youth to a childhood friend, with healthy doses of class struggle and father-son difficulties mixed in to magnify his sense of guilt and provide the requisite need for personal redemption and meaningful love. I did not think the storyline was anything particularly original, nor did I find the prose to be remarkable in any way – it’s solid and unadorned, but not especially interesting. Some of the plot twists near the end border on the implausible to me, and there seemed to be plenty more opportunities to directly confront demons of the past than real life would naturally afford. (I was also honestly surprised a bit at some of the clichés that were allowed to be kept in the narrative – things like commonly-used phrases or metaphors, or dream sequences in which Amir relives horrific events he witnessed in the past, only to see the man committing the act turn around and reveal his own face!!)
So yes, I did have some issues with the book – but there is much to recommend about it too. What helps it to if not quite overcome, then at least counterbalance, the problems listed above is its setting - both physical and within the context of recent geopolitical history. I don’t think Hosseini was capitalizing on recent events in his home country with this book either, because as he makes clear in the story he’s telling (and herein lies so much of its value and importance), the cultural and political problems ravaging Afghanistan have been going on for decades now – a long and bloody battle for the soul of a nation crippled by rampant poverty, sectarianism and religious zealotry. First the Russians, then the warlords, from whom rose the ugly specter of the Taliban – regardless of who’s been in power, basic life necessities have been cut off, neighborhoods allowed to descend into chaos and destruction, and women suppressed and abused. In short, it’s immediately clear that Hosseini’s not making this up, he’s lived through it – a fact which lends crucial credibility and weight to the narrative, and makes his earnest desire to share the plight of his people through story both admirable and significant.
I say this in part because I recently listened to an interview with Hosseini in which he explained where the impetus to write both this novel and its much-anticipated follow-up, A Thousand Splendid Suns, came from. I was impressed with how articulate and intelligent Hosseini obviously is, his passion for his people and homeland and his humility in the face of the worldwide popular appeal of his work. He makes clear that while his first and foremost priority is to tell stories that human beings of all stripes and backgrounds will be able to relate to, the fact that he can open peoples’ eyes and minds to what is going on in modern Afghanistan while doing so is an added bonus – and an opportunity that he wants to make the most of. From what he was saying, it sounds like his second novel is particularly valuable in this regard, since Afghan women have been enduring repressions and indignities that modern Westerners can barely comprehend, let alone imagine, for centuries. If A Thousand Splendid Suns succeeds in bringing their plight to the fore of readers’ minds in vivid and accurate detail, as I suspect it does, that alone makes it a book worth sharing, reading and discussing.
But The Kite Runner is the topic of this rambling essay, and I’ll conclude with a few thoughts about a question raised earlier: why has this novel proven to be so incredibly popular over the course of the past four years? It’s not a question that lends itself to any one facile explanation, of course. Trying to explain the ebb and flow of popular appeal is like trying to explain why the wind blows where it will. But it is interesting to speculate on why the story of a man looking back on his half-idyllic, half-nightmarish upbringing in Afghanistan and trying to find healing from wounds he has carried since would capture the attention and imagination of so many people around the globe.
The story has so much to do with past regrets, guilt and remorse over the sufferings of those less fortunate, that I wonder if the same overarching themes/instincts, as human as the tendency towards violence (also vividly on display here), are themselves a key to the riddle of the novel’s enormous and enduring impact. In other words, the near-universal embrace of Hosseini and his anguished characters may say a lot about our feelings as Westerners (and, more specifically, Americans) as the violence and heartbreak of this war-torn corner of the world has now hit home for us in a new and frighteningly personal way. Our recent appearance on the stage in this theater of pain has perhaps awakened in us a new and, one can only hope, enduring sympathy for those asphyxiating in the crushing grip of tyranny, injustice and persecution. Any story that holds out the possibility of hope and escape from such horrible conditions is a sure bet to find purchase in the hearts of people of good will everywhere, who look forward to a day when “all the colors bleed into one," and peace will "flow like a river."
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Journal of a 'Novel'-Entry 46
Massive Attack
The day of reckoning is fast approaching for my ‘first novel’. I was really worried about keeping the project going once my third child arrived. The fact is that the novel was crippled under its own weight weeks in advance of this event. The hiatus between chapters has grown to exceed even the previous record, the 6-month snag I had in producing Chapter III in the Summer of 2007, but at least in that case we had a whole move of my house and home in there to blame it on. Now I have been languishing on producing the fifth chapter of the novel for nearly seven months and counting. I wrote an introductory scene for it, then stalled; later I gained some momentum as the last few journal entries reveal, but now have stalled again. I am trying to make it through to the end of Part I of the novel because I still have two other large Parts planned out and they will probably include 4-5 chapters each, so there is a long road to travel down before this novel is anywhere close to being finished.
The questions creep into your brain. Your confidence falters. Maybe I don’t have what it takes to do this. Maybe I never have. How long have I been writing creatively? I trace my start of ‘serious’ creative writing back to 1990. That’s eighteen years. What do I have to show for it? A 5-figure student loan with a locked interest rate. Payment to last into my 50s or 60s. Six or seven published essays or reviews in relatively small magazines. Zero published stories after around 12 years of sending out short fiction. Why keep at it? Even if I can get a draft of a novel done the odds against getting it published are so long it becomes a laugher when compared to the amount of time it is taking me to write it.
In the dead of night or the silence of the pre-dawn morning, facing a blank page or scrawling away to fill one up in more fortunate moments, a writer really doesn’t know why they persist. Why tell stories? For what? For who? Because some of us must. Perhaps God has called us to this sort of eccentricity. We move through the world thinking about odd connections, interesting tidbits of seemingly useless information, random story ideas or character sketches, and other such stuff that if we really told the people we loved about in all possible detail we’d probably end up institutionalized.
People who don’t write cannot realize how much writers obsess over ideas and possible outlets for their creative impulses. I will give you a taste of some of my own musings:
Maybe this one article I read randomly on Kenyan witch hunts can become fodder for a story some day. Who the hell cares that I’ve never set foot in Africa and don’t know the first thing about Kenya? Maybe I will read a couple books about Africa to see if I can stimulate something. Why do I keep thinking about Thomas Merton and this one guy I met 12 years ago at a retreat who was briefly a novice while Merton was the Master of Novices at Gesthemani monastery in rural Kentucky. I have not forgotten that guy ever in all this time. Answer: there is a story there somewhere. Maybe someday I will tell it. Why have I been thinking so much about Bono lately and the nature of our popular culture’s obsession with this guy? What do I have to say about this topic that has not already been said? By the way, the Swahili word “Uhuru” means ‘freedom’. Maybe Bono and Africa could be in the same story. I could call it “U2ru”. Hey, I never realized this before but my idea about crafting a climactic scene around the old Corn Festivals in Indiana reminds me a lot of the one scene in Madame Bovary where a guy attempts to seduce the title character while an Agricultural Festival is going on in the Provincial French village. Come to think of it, the old Corn Festivals they used to have in the late 30s and early 40s in Indiana are a lot like the festival that is described in Madame Bovary. There are striking similarities. And didn’t my father tell me that when he was growing up in rural Indiana many of the people he knew had French names????
See what I mean? Am I mental? Who knows. But writers are like this, or at least this one is, and I really doubt I am so different from others, except in terms of success!
I’ll tell you what I do know. The day of reckoning is at hand, like I said. My novel is foundering. I cannot allow that! How can I?! I have been at work on this thing for almost 2 ½ YEARS. The lack of faster progress is frustrating.
********
Now here I am again, three days later. I decided I am going to initiate a massive attack on my manuscript. I have to keep writing it no matter how poorly it has gone in the past. There are probably a million reasons to continue, but the one that is hitting me so hard at the moment is simply this. If I do not press on with my novel now, I will never find out for sure if I have what it takes to write one. And writing a novel is something I have dreamed about for almost 20 years. It would be a terrible tragedy to hold on to a dream for that long and then give it up after so much time just because I have some earthly struggles and may have hit a few rough patches here and there.
My brother and the co-founder of this blog, “Duke Altum”, had the audacity to suggest to me that I may be focusing too much on reviews, essays, and even short story ideas right now rather than putting all of my focus on moving the novel along. I explained to him that at certain times in the last two years when I hit a blockage in writing the novel but still wanted to keep fresh creatively, I have written essays and a story or two just to keep my muscles limber. Then I try to sell them; I figure if I’m not going to be writing the novel at least I can see if anyone will publish some smaller pieces in an attempt to ‘make a name for myself’. It’s a nice idea, and a hell of a rationalization for delaying any further work on the novel. The problem, though, is that Duke was dead right. I should be forcing myself to work on the novel and muscle through my problems with it. You’re either a novelist or you aren’t one. You are either going to tell the story, or stop pretending that you’re going to.
My attack is already underway. I picked up the manuscript and blew the dust off of it. I started writing on a scene in which the main character’s son is born – and now, I am able to draw on my own experience from the recent past, since my own son is now five weeks old, even though I was still waiting to experience it when I began the scene. The Lord works in mysterious ways.
As soon as I started writing again it became obvious to me that I am trying to do much in my fifth chapter and must therefore close this chapter off and write a sixth, which will be included in Part I. There’s no reason why Part I has to have only 5 chapters, and I don’t want the final chapter of the first part to be an arduous slog that no one can make it through. Thus, suddenly I am close to the end of Chapter V, or at least the draft of it, and that, friends, can be considered progress. The chapter has a new title: “Spinning the Golden Wheel, Before the Crash”. I will finish the chapter, edit it, type it up, add it to the other four, and continue planning and drafting Chapter VI, in the hopes of rounding out Part I of the novel. So the first part of the book will be as follows:
Prologue
Part I
Chapter I: Sweet Music, Pretty Flowers
Chapter II: A Premature Death, New Experiences
Chapter III: The Fiery Cross, Revelations
Chapter IV: A Lawyer’s Return, Life After Death
Chapter V: Spinning The Golden Wheel, Before The Crash
Chapter VI: ??
And in this way the dream clings to life.
The day of reckoning is fast approaching for my ‘first novel’. I was really worried about keeping the project going once my third child arrived. The fact is that the novel was crippled under its own weight weeks in advance of this event. The hiatus between chapters has grown to exceed even the previous record, the 6-month snag I had in producing Chapter III in the Summer of 2007, but at least in that case we had a whole move of my house and home in there to blame it on. Now I have been languishing on producing the fifth chapter of the novel for nearly seven months and counting. I wrote an introductory scene for it, then stalled; later I gained some momentum as the last few journal entries reveal, but now have stalled again. I am trying to make it through to the end of Part I of the novel because I still have two other large Parts planned out and they will probably include 4-5 chapters each, so there is a long road to travel down before this novel is anywhere close to being finished.
The questions creep into your brain. Your confidence falters. Maybe I don’t have what it takes to do this. Maybe I never have. How long have I been writing creatively? I trace my start of ‘serious’ creative writing back to 1990. That’s eighteen years. What do I have to show for it? A 5-figure student loan with a locked interest rate. Payment to last into my 50s or 60s. Six or seven published essays or reviews in relatively small magazines. Zero published stories after around 12 years of sending out short fiction. Why keep at it? Even if I can get a draft of a novel done the odds against getting it published are so long it becomes a laugher when compared to the amount of time it is taking me to write it.
In the dead of night or the silence of the pre-dawn morning, facing a blank page or scrawling away to fill one up in more fortunate moments, a writer really doesn’t know why they persist. Why tell stories? For what? For who? Because some of us must. Perhaps God has called us to this sort of eccentricity. We move through the world thinking about odd connections, interesting tidbits of seemingly useless information, random story ideas or character sketches, and other such stuff that if we really told the people we loved about in all possible detail we’d probably end up institutionalized.
People who don’t write cannot realize how much writers obsess over ideas and possible outlets for their creative impulses. I will give you a taste of some of my own musings:
Maybe this one article I read randomly on Kenyan witch hunts can become fodder for a story some day. Who the hell cares that I’ve never set foot in Africa and don’t know the first thing about Kenya? Maybe I will read a couple books about Africa to see if I can stimulate something. Why do I keep thinking about Thomas Merton and this one guy I met 12 years ago at a retreat who was briefly a novice while Merton was the Master of Novices at Gesthemani monastery in rural Kentucky. I have not forgotten that guy ever in all this time. Answer: there is a story there somewhere. Maybe someday I will tell it. Why have I been thinking so much about Bono lately and the nature of our popular culture’s obsession with this guy? What do I have to say about this topic that has not already been said? By the way, the Swahili word “Uhuru” means ‘freedom’. Maybe Bono and Africa could be in the same story. I could call it “U2ru”. Hey, I never realized this before but my idea about crafting a climactic scene around the old Corn Festivals in Indiana reminds me a lot of the one scene in Madame Bovary where a guy attempts to seduce the title character while an Agricultural Festival is going on in the Provincial French village. Come to think of it, the old Corn Festivals they used to have in the late 30s and early 40s in Indiana are a lot like the festival that is described in Madame Bovary. There are striking similarities. And didn’t my father tell me that when he was growing up in rural Indiana many of the people he knew had French names????
See what I mean? Am I mental? Who knows. But writers are like this, or at least this one is, and I really doubt I am so different from others, except in terms of success!
I’ll tell you what I do know. The day of reckoning is at hand, like I said. My novel is foundering. I cannot allow that! How can I?! I have been at work on this thing for almost 2 ½ YEARS. The lack of faster progress is frustrating.
********
Now here I am again, three days later. I decided I am going to initiate a massive attack on my manuscript. I have to keep writing it no matter how poorly it has gone in the past. There are probably a million reasons to continue, but the one that is hitting me so hard at the moment is simply this. If I do not press on with my novel now, I will never find out for sure if I have what it takes to write one. And writing a novel is something I have dreamed about for almost 20 years. It would be a terrible tragedy to hold on to a dream for that long and then give it up after so much time just because I have some earthly struggles and may have hit a few rough patches here and there.
My brother and the co-founder of this blog, “Duke Altum”, had the audacity to suggest to me that I may be focusing too much on reviews, essays, and even short story ideas right now rather than putting all of my focus on moving the novel along. I explained to him that at certain times in the last two years when I hit a blockage in writing the novel but still wanted to keep fresh creatively, I have written essays and a story or two just to keep my muscles limber. Then I try to sell them; I figure if I’m not going to be writing the novel at least I can see if anyone will publish some smaller pieces in an attempt to ‘make a name for myself’. It’s a nice idea, and a hell of a rationalization for delaying any further work on the novel. The problem, though, is that Duke was dead right. I should be forcing myself to work on the novel and muscle through my problems with it. You’re either a novelist or you aren’t one. You are either going to tell the story, or stop pretending that you’re going to.
My attack is already underway. I picked up the manuscript and blew the dust off of it. I started writing on a scene in which the main character’s son is born – and now, I am able to draw on my own experience from the recent past, since my own son is now five weeks old, even though I was still waiting to experience it when I began the scene. The Lord works in mysterious ways.
As soon as I started writing again it became obvious to me that I am trying to do much in my fifth chapter and must therefore close this chapter off and write a sixth, which will be included in Part I. There’s no reason why Part I has to have only 5 chapters, and I don’t want the final chapter of the first part to be an arduous slog that no one can make it through. Thus, suddenly I am close to the end of Chapter V, or at least the draft of it, and that, friends, can be considered progress. The chapter has a new title: “Spinning the Golden Wheel, Before the Crash”. I will finish the chapter, edit it, type it up, add it to the other four, and continue planning and drafting Chapter VI, in the hopes of rounding out Part I of the novel. So the first part of the book will be as follows:
Prologue
Part I
Chapter I: Sweet Music, Pretty Flowers
Chapter II: A Premature Death, New Experiences
Chapter III: The Fiery Cross, Revelations
Chapter IV: A Lawyer’s Return, Life After Death
Chapter V: Spinning The Golden Wheel, Before The Crash
Chapter VI: ??
And in this way the dream clings to life.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Book Review: Suffering the Storm
Reviewed by Mutt Ploughman
Exiles, by Ron Hansen. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. 224 pages.
I notice a funny thing when I read reviews of historical novels. Many times, probably more often than not, the reviewer will make some kind of passing judgment about whether the novelist “got the details right” about, say, village life in the Ming Dynasty, or if the writer “did their homework” well in drawing a convincing portrait of 12th century Lisbon, or Chicago during Prohibition, or pre-historic Egypt, or what have you. But how would they know? When you think about it, the only way the average reviewer knows whether the writer actually “got it right” or “did their homework” is if they did the exact same homework. How likely is that?
For most readers – meaning those of us who do not get compensated to review books – I have to assume that the criteria for determining whether a novelist has succeeded in recreating another place and time has less to do with whether the writer has described a world that was historically true, and a lot more to do with whether they have described one that feels true. As the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Edward P. Jones commented rather prosaically a few years ago, “If I say it’s 1855 Virginia, then you’ll believe me until I say something to contradict that.”[1] What a power trip! No wonder people often think of writers as narcissists.
The thing is, Jones is correct. I mention his words here because they kept coming back to me as I read the harrowing dramatization of the demise of a German ocean liner called the Deutschland that occupies a large portion of Ron Hansen’s moving and eloquent new novel, Exiles. I have no idea whether Hansen, who is in possession of excellent credentials when it comes to writing historical novels (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Hitler’s Niece, Mariette in Ecstasy), actually got the details “right” in his minute-by-minute charting of the ship’s fateful course, for example, or his explanation of what sort of cuisine was available on the dinner menu on December 6, 1875, the night the ship ran aground in the Thames River. I trust that he did the necessary research.
What I do know is how foreboding and gripping it felt to read about these details, and many others. I could clearly visualize the décor inside of the ship’s restaurant; I could shudder in the bitterness of the icy December winds strafing the passengers along the rails; and later, horribly, I was forced to experience, uncomfortably, the agonizing final moments of a young nun’s life as she was swept under the merciless waves and into the void of the sea.
Consider the following artfully-constructed sentences to decide if you feel it too:
A great wave boomed against the ship, and cannoning white seawater that seemed high and heavy as a house hit Sister Henrica full on, joining her to its onwardness. She screamed and could hear other men and women screaming as she and they were carried on the raft of its swift, stinging journey across the width of the ship. She flailed in a last chance for the ship’s railing, but she was plunged over the side of the Deutschland and into the coldest cold of water she’d ever felt.
Exiles – Ron Hansen’s finest novel since 1996’s Atticus – is about more than just a shipwreck, however. It is both inspired by and steeped in the life and work of the Jesuit priest and poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, who submerged his own passion for writing stunningly original religious poetry in favor of the unheralded lifestyle of a humble but misunderstood teacher and clergyman.
The novel opens with a young Hopkins’ discovery of a London Times news item reporting on the fate of the German liner and its passengers, which included five young nuns en route to the United States, themselves exiled by Chancellor Otto von Bismarck’s crackdown on Roman Catholicism during Germany’s Second Reich. Moved by the suffering of his sisters in the Catholic faith, one of whom was reported to have howled into the gales, “Oh Christ, come quickly!”, Hopkins is inspired to create. We see him laboring over and reluctantly sharing his now-classic poem “The Wreck of the Deutschland” with his friends and colleagues, and are privy, thanks to surviving correspondence and Hansen’s imaginings, to their less than enthusiastic responses.
From there, Exiles ventures forth on two fronts, intertwined with one another: Hopkins’ early apprenticeship, ordination, and increasingly inglorious assignments in Wales and Ireland as a young Jesuit; and the fated voyage of the Deutschland, related from the point of view of the five young nuns. The somewhat strange juxtaposition of these two narratives can be held responsible for one of the novel’s few flaws. There is a marked, almost startling downshift in tone and momentum that occurs in the passages between an account of an ocean liner in the throes of a disastrous journey and the muted, somber life experiences of a physically frail, intellectually incisive but often anguished Jesuit priest of the 19th century.
With each transition from the terrifying melee aboard the doomed ship back to the interior landscape of Father Hopkins’ religious and artistic struggles, even the most spiritually attuned readers will feel at least an initial letdown. Readers of fiction always have the foremost expectation to be entertained, and rightfully so. Even though we know from the beginning what happens to the suffering passengers on the Deutschland, we yearn to experience it viscerally. Hansen delivers on this front, but he also demands that we slow down frequently to ruminate on the consequences of Hopkins’ crucial but far less dramatic spiritual tempest, and this may tax some readers’ patience.
Yet weaving these two storylines together also accounts for the utter singularity of Hansen’s accomplishment. Given his track record of writing books like the exceptionally detailed and thrilling The Assassination of Jesse James... and the luminous, spiritually intoxicating Mariette in Ecstasy, this is a novel that only Ron Hansen could have written. One might make the case that he was destined or even called to do so. For Hansen understands perfectly well that while these alternating stories may not align in terms of their aesthetic impression, they cleave to one another on the metaphorical level.
Hopkins immediately identified with the deceased nuns because they were ‘exiles’, like himself: he was an Anglican convert whose family never accepted or understood his embrace of Roman Catholicism, let alone his vocation to the priesthood. As Hansen details the arc of his religious and artistic career, both burdened with limitations and frustrations, we recognize that Hopkins’ own course is steadily running aground, and his early death exposes the tragic consequences.
When, late in the novel, an ailing Hopkins (he died of typhoid at age 44) comments to a fellow Jesuit that he ‘just needs some change, some relief’, we feel that in spite of its muted expression, the soul that utters this lamentation is in similar peril to the one who cried out for Christ in the midst of a terrifying vortex. Additionally, both the five young nuns and Hopkins achieved a certain type of martyrdom, in that they floundered and ultimately suffered while on earth, but maintained their fidelity to God in the face of it all, and the fruits of their labor outlived them and nourished others by their eventual confluence in Hopkins’ classic poem.
Ron Hansen, a Roman Catholic deacon himself who happens to hold the title of the Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J. Professor of English at Santa Clara University, has erected a unique and engrossing platform upon which to deliver an uncommon and beautiful performance. Exiles exploits his considerable insight into and fascination with matters of the spirit as well as his natural gifts as an engaging storyteller and graceful prose stylist. When you read Exiles, you will vicariously experience both the horror and anguish of a terrible tragedy aboard a doomed ocean vessel and the agonizing struggle of a heart yearning to discover God and bring honor to Him through the expression of its deepest desires and doubts.
The fact that both of these experiences will resonate powerfully in your own heart afterwards bears testimony to Hansen’s victory in this wonderful novel. To purloin a phrase once used by Thomas Merton to profile another religious figure, while it may be a dark and perilous journey, Exiles ultimately ends in glory.
[1] The Washington Post, October 30, 2003.
Exiles, by Ron Hansen. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. 224 pages.
I notice a funny thing when I read reviews of historical novels. Many times, probably more often than not, the reviewer will make some kind of passing judgment about whether the novelist “got the details right” about, say, village life in the Ming Dynasty, or if the writer “did their homework” well in drawing a convincing portrait of 12th century Lisbon, or Chicago during Prohibition, or pre-historic Egypt, or what have you. But how would they know? When you think about it, the only way the average reviewer knows whether the writer actually “got it right” or “did their homework” is if they did the exact same homework. How likely is that?
For most readers – meaning those of us who do not get compensated to review books – I have to assume that the criteria for determining whether a novelist has succeeded in recreating another place and time has less to do with whether the writer has described a world that was historically true, and a lot more to do with whether they have described one that feels true. As the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Edward P. Jones commented rather prosaically a few years ago, “If I say it’s 1855 Virginia, then you’ll believe me until I say something to contradict that.”[1] What a power trip! No wonder people often think of writers as narcissists.
The thing is, Jones is correct. I mention his words here because they kept coming back to me as I read the harrowing dramatization of the demise of a German ocean liner called the Deutschland that occupies a large portion of Ron Hansen’s moving and eloquent new novel, Exiles. I have no idea whether Hansen, who is in possession of excellent credentials when it comes to writing historical novels (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Hitler’s Niece, Mariette in Ecstasy), actually got the details “right” in his minute-by-minute charting of the ship’s fateful course, for example, or his explanation of what sort of cuisine was available on the dinner menu on December 6, 1875, the night the ship ran aground in the Thames River. I trust that he did the necessary research.
What I do know is how foreboding and gripping it felt to read about these details, and many others. I could clearly visualize the décor inside of the ship’s restaurant; I could shudder in the bitterness of the icy December winds strafing the passengers along the rails; and later, horribly, I was forced to experience, uncomfortably, the agonizing final moments of a young nun’s life as she was swept under the merciless waves and into the void of the sea.
Consider the following artfully-constructed sentences to decide if you feel it too:
A great wave boomed against the ship, and cannoning white seawater that seemed high and heavy as a house hit Sister Henrica full on, joining her to its onwardness. She screamed and could hear other men and women screaming as she and they were carried on the raft of its swift, stinging journey across the width of the ship. She flailed in a last chance for the ship’s railing, but she was plunged over the side of the Deutschland and into the coldest cold of water she’d ever felt.
Exiles – Ron Hansen’s finest novel since 1996’s Atticus – is about more than just a shipwreck, however. It is both inspired by and steeped in the life and work of the Jesuit priest and poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, who submerged his own passion for writing stunningly original religious poetry in favor of the unheralded lifestyle of a humble but misunderstood teacher and clergyman.
The novel opens with a young Hopkins’ discovery of a London Times news item reporting on the fate of the German liner and its passengers, which included five young nuns en route to the United States, themselves exiled by Chancellor Otto von Bismarck’s crackdown on Roman Catholicism during Germany’s Second Reich. Moved by the suffering of his sisters in the Catholic faith, one of whom was reported to have howled into the gales, “Oh Christ, come quickly!”, Hopkins is inspired to create. We see him laboring over and reluctantly sharing his now-classic poem “The Wreck of the Deutschland” with his friends and colleagues, and are privy, thanks to surviving correspondence and Hansen’s imaginings, to their less than enthusiastic responses.
From there, Exiles ventures forth on two fronts, intertwined with one another: Hopkins’ early apprenticeship, ordination, and increasingly inglorious assignments in Wales and Ireland as a young Jesuit; and the fated voyage of the Deutschland, related from the point of view of the five young nuns. The somewhat strange juxtaposition of these two narratives can be held responsible for one of the novel’s few flaws. There is a marked, almost startling downshift in tone and momentum that occurs in the passages between an account of an ocean liner in the throes of a disastrous journey and the muted, somber life experiences of a physically frail, intellectually incisive but often anguished Jesuit priest of the 19th century.
With each transition from the terrifying melee aboard the doomed ship back to the interior landscape of Father Hopkins’ religious and artistic struggles, even the most spiritually attuned readers will feel at least an initial letdown. Readers of fiction always have the foremost expectation to be entertained, and rightfully so. Even though we know from the beginning what happens to the suffering passengers on the Deutschland, we yearn to experience it viscerally. Hansen delivers on this front, but he also demands that we slow down frequently to ruminate on the consequences of Hopkins’ crucial but far less dramatic spiritual tempest, and this may tax some readers’ patience.
Yet weaving these two storylines together also accounts for the utter singularity of Hansen’s accomplishment. Given his track record of writing books like the exceptionally detailed and thrilling The Assassination of Jesse James... and the luminous, spiritually intoxicating Mariette in Ecstasy, this is a novel that only Ron Hansen could have written. One might make the case that he was destined or even called to do so. For Hansen understands perfectly well that while these alternating stories may not align in terms of their aesthetic impression, they cleave to one another on the metaphorical level.
Hopkins immediately identified with the deceased nuns because they were ‘exiles’, like himself: he was an Anglican convert whose family never accepted or understood his embrace of Roman Catholicism, let alone his vocation to the priesthood. As Hansen details the arc of his religious and artistic career, both burdened with limitations and frustrations, we recognize that Hopkins’ own course is steadily running aground, and his early death exposes the tragic consequences.
When, late in the novel, an ailing Hopkins (he died of typhoid at age 44) comments to a fellow Jesuit that he ‘just needs some change, some relief’, we feel that in spite of its muted expression, the soul that utters this lamentation is in similar peril to the one who cried out for Christ in the midst of a terrifying vortex. Additionally, both the five young nuns and Hopkins achieved a certain type of martyrdom, in that they floundered and ultimately suffered while on earth, but maintained their fidelity to God in the face of it all, and the fruits of their labor outlived them and nourished others by their eventual confluence in Hopkins’ classic poem.
Ron Hansen, a Roman Catholic deacon himself who happens to hold the title of the Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J. Professor of English at Santa Clara University, has erected a unique and engrossing platform upon which to deliver an uncommon and beautiful performance. Exiles exploits his considerable insight into and fascination with matters of the spirit as well as his natural gifts as an engaging storyteller and graceful prose stylist. When you read Exiles, you will vicariously experience both the horror and anguish of a terrible tragedy aboard a doomed ocean vessel and the agonizing struggle of a heart yearning to discover God and bring honor to Him through the expression of its deepest desires and doubts.
The fact that both of these experiences will resonate powerfully in your own heart afterwards bears testimony to Hansen’s victory in this wonderful novel. To purloin a phrase once used by Thomas Merton to profile another religious figure, while it may be a dark and perilous journey, Exiles ultimately ends in glory.
[1] The Washington Post, October 30, 2003.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Duke Altum's POTM #63
And you thought this series was dead??
Charles Simic has said very openly that film noir has had an artistic influence on his poetry. Well nowhere, perhaps, is that more apparent than in this cryptic, existential masterpiece... I love everything about this poem, but especially those haunting last few lines. You can almost hear the lonely, muted trumpet wailing in the background... and, like the best of the films these lines so powerfully echo, you get the feeling that in the end, the hero has lost it all... and for what??
*******
Club Midnight
Are you the sole owner of a seedy night club?
Are you its sole customer, sole bartender,
Sole waiter prowling around the empty tables?
Do you put on wee-hour girlie shows
With dead stars of black and white films?
Is your office upstairs over the neon lights,
Or down deep in the dank rat cellar?
Are bearded Russian thinkers your silent partners?
Do you have a doorman by the name of Dostoyevsky?
Is Fu Manchu coming tonight?
Is Miss Emily Dickinson?
Do you happen to have an immortal soul?
Do you have a sneaky suspicion that you have none?
Is that why you throw a white pair of dice,
In the dark, long after the joint closes?
Charles Simic has said very openly that film noir has had an artistic influence on his poetry. Well nowhere, perhaps, is that more apparent than in this cryptic, existential masterpiece... I love everything about this poem, but especially those haunting last few lines. You can almost hear the lonely, muted trumpet wailing in the background... and, like the best of the films these lines so powerfully echo, you get the feeling that in the end, the hero has lost it all... and for what??
*******
Club Midnight
Are you the sole owner of a seedy night club?
Are you its sole customer, sole bartender,
Sole waiter prowling around the empty tables?
Do you put on wee-hour girlie shows
With dead stars of black and white films?
Is your office upstairs over the neon lights,
Or down deep in the dank rat cellar?
Are bearded Russian thinkers your silent partners?
Do you have a doorman by the name of Dostoyevsky?
Is Fu Manchu coming tonight?
Is Miss Emily Dickinson?
Do you happen to have an immortal soul?
Do you have a sneaky suspicion that you have none?
Is that why you throw a white pair of dice,
In the dark, long after the joint closes?
Friday, June 20, 2008
Mutt's Top Ten Movie Openings
Note: If you're seeing before seeing Duke Altum's post preceding this one, GO BACK AND READ DUKE'S FIRST.
Inspired by Duke Altum's outstanding list, below are my all-time movie openings. I had fun assembling this list - note several differences with Duke's!!
Raiders of the Lost Ark. Dir. Steven Spielberg. To agree with Duke’s excellent observation, this opening sequence is not only one of the most exciting introductory set pieces in cinema history, and a brilliant evocation of the old-time Saturday morning matinee pictures from before my time, but it is also the perfect tone-setter for the entire remainder of the Indiana Jones films. This iconic opener is fun and exciting every single time you see it.
Chariots of Fire. Dir. Hugh Hudson. The moving eulogy speech in the beginning of the film dissolving into the youthful feet running bare through the surf with the overlap of Vangelis’ memorable score is absolutely unforgettable and justly famous around the world. Even better is that the film delivers on the promise of this opening all the way through which you can’t say for every film on this list.
8½. Dir. Federico Fellini. Again to borrow from Duke’s list. A man sits in the middle of a horrific traffic jam. He’s literally suffocating in the claustrophobic space of his own boxy metal car. Suddenly he rises straight up out of the vehicle, floating on the air, and floats forward over the top of all the hapless cretins stuck in their vehicles into the blazing sunlight. The surrealistic beauty and the extraordinary realism of this amazing scene makes this opening to a truly unique and memorable film a classic.
The Boxer. Dir. Jim Sheridan. This may be where my list diverges from everyone else’s, but since it is my list, this happens to be one of my all-time favorite movies, and the opening is also one of my all-time favorites (obviously). A black screen opens the film, over which we hear audio snippets of famous politicians giving speeches after brokering a peace agreement in Northern Ireland. “The sun is shining,” says former President Bill Clinton, “and I hope it’s an omen for peace in Northern Ireland.” There is a crescendo of soft, somber strings, the title of the film appears, and an ominous bell rings. Cut immediately to a striking shot from a distance of Daniel Day-Lewis as Danny Flynn, who is seen shadow-boxing through the iron fence of a prison yard. The backdrop is stark and the technical brilliance of Day-Lewis’ acting is immediately obvious, but what makes it is Gavin Friday’s haunting, pulsing drum track-and-ringing bell music. It is eerily modern and portentious. Day-Lewis is brought in to the prison to be released for good, and his outprocessing is intercut with the striking visual images of a bride in white entering the prison to marry an Irish political prisoner. The historical context of the film is established along with Danny Flynn’s sober, scarred grit, in one beautifully executed opening.
Dreams. Dir. Akira Kurosawa. This entire film is so memorable in so many different ways. Just the fact that it is a kind of film version of a book of short stories is incredible in itself. It is a series of unrelated sequences based on the great Japanese director’s actual dreams. I love many of the different segments, but the opening ‘dream’, called “Sunshine Through the Rain”, is a cinematic experience I will never forget. In the beginning of the short segment, a boy wanders into the woods and spies on a wedding procession of “foxes”, mythically-costumed people whose powers are unexplained, but who have forbid “humans” to observe their ceremonies. The scene where the little boy watches their procession coming through a veil of white mist in a glittering forest after a rainstorm is one of the most beautifully crafted – and yet suspenseful – film sequences I have ever seen.
Blade Runner. Dir. Ridley Scott. Another of my personal favorites, this film is famous for being visually stunning all the way through. There are many very memorable aspects of this cult science-fiction classic, from the dark color palette to the bombed-out atmosphere of post-nuclear fallout to the dated but effective score from Vangelis, but for me it’s the first moment in which these all come together – the very first shot of the film – in which the camera cruises in behind flashing spacecraft over a traumatized version of futuristic Los Angeles, with fireballs blazing into the air, that really establishes the entire film’s tone. Then the camera zooms through the window of an Orwellian police building, where the opening ‘interrogation’ scene takes place, as a hopelessly out-matched detective tries to determine if the man across from him is human or ‘replicant’…..
Saving Private Ryan. Dir. Steven Spielberg. Duke is right. The opening sequence of this World War II film, which brilliantly depicts the terrifying “fog of war” experienced by the American soldiers who invaded Normandy beach on D-Day in 1994, is shocking and unforgettable. The incredible achievement of this set piece is that I had heard about this day, this invasion all of my life, and had never thought about it ever in the way I did after I saw this film. It is horrible to watch, shatteringly realistic, and technically flawless. It forces you to consider the bravery of these men in a totally new light, and that is a true tribute to what they did, for it was this bravery that helped save Europe and change the course of history. You feel the filmmaker’s intense commitment to these soldiers and to getting it ‘right’ in this sequence. An incredible achievement by Steven Spielberg.
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. Dir. Peter Weir. Australian Peter Weir in my opinion is one of the finest directors in the world; unfortunately, he makes films sparingly. But when he makes them he has made some brilliant ones: Witness, Dead Poets Society, The Truman Show, and this film, Master and Commander. This is one of my favorite opening scenes of all time without a doubt; everything in it is brilliantly executed. Russell Crowe stars as Captain Jack Aubrey, who commands a British naval vessel in Her Majesty’s service in 1805, and engages himself in a sea-borne tug-of-war with a French battleship. In the incredibly suspensful and explosive (literally) opening, all is quiet until a member of the crew is unsure if he is seeing the shadowy outlines of an enemy ship tracing their own through the low-hanging mists. Aubrey is called on board, and peers at length through a spyglass but sees nothing. Then, suddenly, a blazing flash of orange is seen through the vapor, under a cloack of silence due to the great distance, and there is a but a few seconds before the cannonball that has just been discharged will come slamming into the hull of the ship – enough time for Aubrey to scream a warning to the terrified crew……a brilliant, thrilling opening “salvo”.
The Big Lebowski. Dir. Joel Coen. A little bit different choice here, but not every selection needs to be an epic or a drama. This consistently hilarious movie opens with a combination of a slow-roasted voiceover from Sam Elliot as “The Stranger” – who introduces us to the iconic character known as The Dude, played with bumbling perfection by Jeff Bridges – and a zany scene in which The Dude arrives home at his apartment only to be jacked by a couple of incompetent hired thugs who have confused him for someone else. The monologue introduces the Coen’s quirky but intelligent writing style, neatly places the story in the context of world events (around the time of the first Gulf War), and then caps off with the hysterical mistaken-identity rough stuff, when The Dude finally explains, having already had his head stuffed into a toilet repeatedly, that he’s the wrong man. The final shot of this opening with The Dude sitting on the crapper with scraggly wet hair, a soaked bathrobe, and Blues Brothers sunglasses says it all about this very, very funny character in a howlingly funny and unique film.
The Sound of Music. Dir. Robert Wise. A VERY different choice here, but not every selection….wait, I said that already. This isn’t even one of my personal favorite films, but I really tried to think far and wide for this list. And because I have two little girls, I have certainly had occasion to revisit some old-time musical movies, particularly ones with Julie Andrews. I came to realize that in this movie and in Mary Poppins, Julie Andrews gives two of the most iconic female performances in all of cinema. They are incredible performances, with her beautiful singing, flawless diction and overall likeability, and I will always be impressed with her for this work. She has always had grace and class. But it is the beginning of this film in particular that I have been thinking about recently again, and I don’t know a single person who isn’t familiar with or has some kind of affection for the opening camera shot of Andrews on the Austrian hilltop, spinning around and singing ‘The hills are alive…..’. It is one of the most recognizable opening shots in all of cinema history. It’s a gorgeous opening to a wonderful family film.
Mutt's Honorable Mentions: Pan's Labyrinth; Once Upon a Time in the West; Star Wars; Casino Royale; Schindler's List; Ikiru.
Inspired by Duke Altum's outstanding list, below are my all-time movie openings. I had fun assembling this list - note several differences with Duke's!!
Raiders of the Lost Ark. Dir. Steven Spielberg. To agree with Duke’s excellent observation, this opening sequence is not only one of the most exciting introductory set pieces in cinema history, and a brilliant evocation of the old-time Saturday morning matinee pictures from before my time, but it is also the perfect tone-setter for the entire remainder of the Indiana Jones films. This iconic opener is fun and exciting every single time you see it.
Chariots of Fire. Dir. Hugh Hudson. The moving eulogy speech in the beginning of the film dissolving into the youthful feet running bare through the surf with the overlap of Vangelis’ memorable score is absolutely unforgettable and justly famous around the world. Even better is that the film delivers on the promise of this opening all the way through which you can’t say for every film on this list.
8½. Dir. Federico Fellini. Again to borrow from Duke’s list. A man sits in the middle of a horrific traffic jam. He’s literally suffocating in the claustrophobic space of his own boxy metal car. Suddenly he rises straight up out of the vehicle, floating on the air, and floats forward over the top of all the hapless cretins stuck in their vehicles into the blazing sunlight. The surrealistic beauty and the extraordinary realism of this amazing scene makes this opening to a truly unique and memorable film a classic.
The Boxer. Dir. Jim Sheridan. This may be where my list diverges from everyone else’s, but since it is my list, this happens to be one of my all-time favorite movies, and the opening is also one of my all-time favorites (obviously). A black screen opens the film, over which we hear audio snippets of famous politicians giving speeches after brokering a peace agreement in Northern Ireland. “The sun is shining,” says former President Bill Clinton, “and I hope it’s an omen for peace in Northern Ireland.” There is a crescendo of soft, somber strings, the title of the film appears, and an ominous bell rings. Cut immediately to a striking shot from a distance of Daniel Day-Lewis as Danny Flynn, who is seen shadow-boxing through the iron fence of a prison yard. The backdrop is stark and the technical brilliance of Day-Lewis’ acting is immediately obvious, but what makes it is Gavin Friday’s haunting, pulsing drum track-and-ringing bell music. It is eerily modern and portentious. Day-Lewis is brought in to the prison to be released for good, and his outprocessing is intercut with the striking visual images of a bride in white entering the prison to marry an Irish political prisoner. The historical context of the film is established along with Danny Flynn’s sober, scarred grit, in one beautifully executed opening.
Dreams. Dir. Akira Kurosawa. This entire film is so memorable in so many different ways. Just the fact that it is a kind of film version of a book of short stories is incredible in itself. It is a series of unrelated sequences based on the great Japanese director’s actual dreams. I love many of the different segments, but the opening ‘dream’, called “Sunshine Through the Rain”, is a cinematic experience I will never forget. In the beginning of the short segment, a boy wanders into the woods and spies on a wedding procession of “foxes”, mythically-costumed people whose powers are unexplained, but who have forbid “humans” to observe their ceremonies. The scene where the little boy watches their procession coming through a veil of white mist in a glittering forest after a rainstorm is one of the most beautifully crafted – and yet suspenseful – film sequences I have ever seen.
Blade Runner. Dir. Ridley Scott. Another of my personal favorites, this film is famous for being visually stunning all the way through. There are many very memorable aspects of this cult science-fiction classic, from the dark color palette to the bombed-out atmosphere of post-nuclear fallout to the dated but effective score from Vangelis, but for me it’s the first moment in which these all come together – the very first shot of the film – in which the camera cruises in behind flashing spacecraft over a traumatized version of futuristic Los Angeles, with fireballs blazing into the air, that really establishes the entire film’s tone. Then the camera zooms through the window of an Orwellian police building, where the opening ‘interrogation’ scene takes place, as a hopelessly out-matched detective tries to determine if the man across from him is human or ‘replicant’…..
Saving Private Ryan. Dir. Steven Spielberg. Duke is right. The opening sequence of this World War II film, which brilliantly depicts the terrifying “fog of war” experienced by the American soldiers who invaded Normandy beach on D-Day in 1994, is shocking and unforgettable. The incredible achievement of this set piece is that I had heard about this day, this invasion all of my life, and had never thought about it ever in the way I did after I saw this film. It is horrible to watch, shatteringly realistic, and technically flawless. It forces you to consider the bravery of these men in a totally new light, and that is a true tribute to what they did, for it was this bravery that helped save Europe and change the course of history. You feel the filmmaker’s intense commitment to these soldiers and to getting it ‘right’ in this sequence. An incredible achievement by Steven Spielberg.
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. Dir. Peter Weir. Australian Peter Weir in my opinion is one of the finest directors in the world; unfortunately, he makes films sparingly. But when he makes them he has made some brilliant ones: Witness, Dead Poets Society, The Truman Show, and this film, Master and Commander. This is one of my favorite opening scenes of all time without a doubt; everything in it is brilliantly executed. Russell Crowe stars as Captain Jack Aubrey, who commands a British naval vessel in Her Majesty’s service in 1805, and engages himself in a sea-borne tug-of-war with a French battleship. In the incredibly suspensful and explosive (literally) opening, all is quiet until a member of the crew is unsure if he is seeing the shadowy outlines of an enemy ship tracing their own through the low-hanging mists. Aubrey is called on board, and peers at length through a spyglass but sees nothing. Then, suddenly, a blazing flash of orange is seen through the vapor, under a cloack of silence due to the great distance, and there is a but a few seconds before the cannonball that has just been discharged will come slamming into the hull of the ship – enough time for Aubrey to scream a warning to the terrified crew……a brilliant, thrilling opening “salvo”.
The Big Lebowski. Dir. Joel Coen. A little bit different choice here, but not every selection needs to be an epic or a drama. This consistently hilarious movie opens with a combination of a slow-roasted voiceover from Sam Elliot as “The Stranger” – who introduces us to the iconic character known as The Dude, played with bumbling perfection by Jeff Bridges – and a zany scene in which The Dude arrives home at his apartment only to be jacked by a couple of incompetent hired thugs who have confused him for someone else. The monologue introduces the Coen’s quirky but intelligent writing style, neatly places the story in the context of world events (around the time of the first Gulf War), and then caps off with the hysterical mistaken-identity rough stuff, when The Dude finally explains, having already had his head stuffed into a toilet repeatedly, that he’s the wrong man. The final shot of this opening with The Dude sitting on the crapper with scraggly wet hair, a soaked bathrobe, and Blues Brothers sunglasses says it all about this very, very funny character in a howlingly funny and unique film.
The Sound of Music. Dir. Robert Wise. A VERY different choice here, but not every selection….wait, I said that already. This isn’t even one of my personal favorite films, but I really tried to think far and wide for this list. And because I have two little girls, I have certainly had occasion to revisit some old-time musical movies, particularly ones with Julie Andrews. I came to realize that in this movie and in Mary Poppins, Julie Andrews gives two of the most iconic female performances in all of cinema. They are incredible performances, with her beautiful singing, flawless diction and overall likeability, and I will always be impressed with her for this work. She has always had grace and class. But it is the beginning of this film in particular that I have been thinking about recently again, and I don’t know a single person who isn’t familiar with or has some kind of affection for the opening camera shot of Andrews on the Austrian hilltop, spinning around and singing ‘The hills are alive…..’. It is one of the most recognizable opening shots in all of cinema history. It’s a gorgeous opening to a wonderful family film.
Mutt's Honorable Mentions: Pan's Labyrinth; Once Upon a Time in the West; Star Wars; Casino Royale; Schindler's List; Ikiru.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Duke Altum's Top 10 Movie Openings of All Time
A few weeks ago Mutt had an idea embedded into one of his posts that I thought would make for a fun little diversion here on the blog, and maybe even get a conversation going… the question he posed went something like this: what would you list as your most memorable movie opening scenes/sequences of all time??
Well like a lot of people I enjoy making and reading “top 10 lists” like this, so I thought why not, let’s answer the call for Mutt’s challenge… and of course, creating such a list never comes completely free of frustration and agonizing decision-making in the eleventh hour. However, I think I have come up a with a solid list that, if nothing else, is a good personal survey of films that have made a deep impact on me in some way and are worth celebrating for their creative vision and execution. There are so many movies that open in striking and interesting ways, but these are openings that I am fairly confident I will never forget. Some hearken back nostalgically to memorable movie-viewing experiences had as a child, some I’ve only seen recently… but all have left their mark upon an already scuffed-up brain!
Needless to say, this is not nor does it claim to be an exhaustive list surveying all of movie history… it’s a personal list. No doubt there are countless perfect opening scenes that deserve to be included on a list like this, but I can only talk about what I remember from what I’ve seen…
Some ground rules: for my list, I decided to cast a broad net. I chose not to limit myself to single opening scenes/shots or credit sequences. For me, it’s about the experience and the impression, not the exact length or sequence. So, it could be a single shot at or near the opening, or it could be a sequence of shots… and may be an entire opening chapter of a film, such as my first selection…
But without any further ado, here is my list (not in order), along with some honorable mentions that I had so much trouble not including that I had to get them in somehow… what would make the cut for you??
*******
The Empire Strikes Back – Doesn’t get any more indelible and classic than this one, for me. I will never forget sitting in the darkened theater (with my brothers and old man), the screen going black, the camera zooming over the ice and the Imperial probe droid rising from the snow… the greatest opening to the greatest film in one of the greatest franchises of all time.
2001: A Space Odyssey – All of human history in one 15-20 minute opening sequence?? The mysterious black obelisk, the electronic drone, the murderous proto-humans, and of course, one of cinema’s most famous transitional shots (from flying bone to space ship)… it all adds up to one word: GENIUS.
Chariots of Fire – Everyone knows the music of course, but the transition from the funeral of Harold Abrahams to the naked feet running on the beach, as the voice-over wistfully recalls a time when they ran “with hope in their hearts, and wings on their heels” is, to me, the most exhilarating (and spiritually uplifting) opening scene in movie history.
Raiders of the Lost Ark – Without a doubt, this is one of the most exciting movie openings of all time – and can anyone think of an opening sequence that sets the tone of an entire franchise more effectively than this one?? Hardly anyone remembers now that the greedy dude who swiped the idol and then took a spike through the face was a young Alfred Molina!?!
Citizen Kane – This innovative and justly famous opening to what many still refer to as the greatest film of all time introduces us to a mystery that won’t be resolved until the very last shot of the movie… who or what is “Rosebud??” A child’s snow globe falling from a dying man’s hand… such a simple image, but it carries so much power and meaning.
8 ½ - The beginning of the movie has to be recognized as one of the greatest, and possibly THE greatest, dream sequence of all time… it’s impossible to be sitting stuck in traffic and not imagine oneself escaping from the car and floating into the ether… the influence of this scene, and this movie, on subsequent films is beyond all calculation.
Children of Men – A very recent one here, but the opening tracking shot and explosion that introduces Children of Men is one of the most realistic and jarring catastrophes I’ve ever seen on film – you feel like you’re watching it from a few buildings over, because, well, you are. Incredibly, the intensity and realism of this scene is matched by an ambush sequence in a moving car only a few scenes after this one, in the same film. Stunning and shattering (quite literally!) filmmaking by Alfonso Cuaron.
Once Upon a Time in the West – To date, this Sergio Leone classic is my all-time favorite Western, and the opening scene is a HUGE part of that… the mysterious, unnamed Man with a Harmonica steps off the train and confronts three killers sent to do him in. They have three horses with them and when he asks if there’s one for him, they say they’re one short. His response? “You brought two too many.” Half a second later, three men lay dead on the ground…
Blue Velvet – I love this opening because not only is it totally unforgettable and a perfect summation of the entire film in a few shots, but it could also serve as a visual synopsis of David Lynch’s entire career… beautiful happy suburbia gleams in the sun, a string-soaked lush 50’s ballad plays, a man waters his immaculate lawn in front of a white picket fence, and then… wait, what’s this? Man clutches chest and falls to the ground, in obvious agony? Camera descends below the surface and shows menacing bugs crawling through the dirt to the tune of a metallic drone… all is not exactly right in Shangri-la (nor in Lynch’s head)!!
Saving Private Ryan – The beach-storming scene at the beginning of this film is not only one of the most harrowing, realistic portrayals of combat I’ve ever seen, it actually made me completely re-think what actually happened on D-Day and the scope of the sacrifice that was made there by kids considerably younger than I was when I saw it… absolutely astonishing sequence. It made you feel like you were right there amidst the “storm of steel”…
Honorable mention:
Jaws, Terminator 2, Dawn of the Dead (both versions!), Jurassic Park, Magnolia, In the Name of the Father
Well like a lot of people I enjoy making and reading “top 10 lists” like this, so I thought why not, let’s answer the call for Mutt’s challenge… and of course, creating such a list never comes completely free of frustration and agonizing decision-making in the eleventh hour. However, I think I have come up a with a solid list that, if nothing else, is a good personal survey of films that have made a deep impact on me in some way and are worth celebrating for their creative vision and execution. There are so many movies that open in striking and interesting ways, but these are openings that I am fairly confident I will never forget. Some hearken back nostalgically to memorable movie-viewing experiences had as a child, some I’ve only seen recently… but all have left their mark upon an already scuffed-up brain!
Needless to say, this is not nor does it claim to be an exhaustive list surveying all of movie history… it’s a personal list. No doubt there are countless perfect opening scenes that deserve to be included on a list like this, but I can only talk about what I remember from what I’ve seen…
Some ground rules: for my list, I decided to cast a broad net. I chose not to limit myself to single opening scenes/shots or credit sequences. For me, it’s about the experience and the impression, not the exact length or sequence. So, it could be a single shot at or near the opening, or it could be a sequence of shots… and may be an entire opening chapter of a film, such as my first selection…
But without any further ado, here is my list (not in order), along with some honorable mentions that I had so much trouble not including that I had to get them in somehow… what would make the cut for you??
*******
The Empire Strikes Back – Doesn’t get any more indelible and classic than this one, for me. I will never forget sitting in the darkened theater (with my brothers and old man), the screen going black, the camera zooming over the ice and the Imperial probe droid rising from the snow… the greatest opening to the greatest film in one of the greatest franchises of all time.
2001: A Space Odyssey – All of human history in one 15-20 minute opening sequence?? The mysterious black obelisk, the electronic drone, the murderous proto-humans, and of course, one of cinema’s most famous transitional shots (from flying bone to space ship)… it all adds up to one word: GENIUS.
Chariots of Fire – Everyone knows the music of course, but the transition from the funeral of Harold Abrahams to the naked feet running on the beach, as the voice-over wistfully recalls a time when they ran “with hope in their hearts, and wings on their heels” is, to me, the most exhilarating (and spiritually uplifting) opening scene in movie history.
Raiders of the Lost Ark – Without a doubt, this is one of the most exciting movie openings of all time – and can anyone think of an opening sequence that sets the tone of an entire franchise more effectively than this one?? Hardly anyone remembers now that the greedy dude who swiped the idol and then took a spike through the face was a young Alfred Molina!?!
Citizen Kane – This innovative and justly famous opening to what many still refer to as the greatest film of all time introduces us to a mystery that won’t be resolved until the very last shot of the movie… who or what is “Rosebud??” A child’s snow globe falling from a dying man’s hand… such a simple image, but it carries so much power and meaning.
8 ½ - The beginning of the movie has to be recognized as one of the greatest, and possibly THE greatest, dream sequence of all time… it’s impossible to be sitting stuck in traffic and not imagine oneself escaping from the car and floating into the ether… the influence of this scene, and this movie, on subsequent films is beyond all calculation.
Children of Men – A very recent one here, but the opening tracking shot and explosion that introduces Children of Men is one of the most realistic and jarring catastrophes I’ve ever seen on film – you feel like you’re watching it from a few buildings over, because, well, you are. Incredibly, the intensity and realism of this scene is matched by an ambush sequence in a moving car only a few scenes after this one, in the same film. Stunning and shattering (quite literally!) filmmaking by Alfonso Cuaron.
Once Upon a Time in the West – To date, this Sergio Leone classic is my all-time favorite Western, and the opening scene is a HUGE part of that… the mysterious, unnamed Man with a Harmonica steps off the train and confronts three killers sent to do him in. They have three horses with them and when he asks if there’s one for him, they say they’re one short. His response? “You brought two too many.” Half a second later, three men lay dead on the ground…
Blue Velvet – I love this opening because not only is it totally unforgettable and a perfect summation of the entire film in a few shots, but it could also serve as a visual synopsis of David Lynch’s entire career… beautiful happy suburbia gleams in the sun, a string-soaked lush 50’s ballad plays, a man waters his immaculate lawn in front of a white picket fence, and then… wait, what’s this? Man clutches chest and falls to the ground, in obvious agony? Camera descends below the surface and shows menacing bugs crawling through the dirt to the tune of a metallic drone… all is not exactly right in Shangri-la (nor in Lynch’s head)!!
Saving Private Ryan – The beach-storming scene at the beginning of this film is not only one of the most harrowing, realistic portrayals of combat I’ve ever seen, it actually made me completely re-think what actually happened on D-Day and the scope of the sacrifice that was made there by kids considerably younger than I was when I saw it… absolutely astonishing sequence. It made you feel like you were right there amidst the “storm of steel”…
Honorable mention:
Jaws, Terminator 2, Dawn of the Dead (both versions!), Jurassic Park, Magnolia, In the Name of the Father
Friday, June 06, 2008
WELCOME, SON OF MUTT!!!
It gives me great joy (and a considerable amount of pride as an uncle!) to announce the arrival of co-founder Mutt Ploughman's first son!
Mutt's "little man" came into the world on this past Monday, June 2, 2008, which just so happens to be the birth date of his aunt (and our sister), born in 1976. Mutt Jr. weighed in at a whopping 10 pounds, 6 ounces and is, as you can imagine, healthy and strong as can be.
On behalf of the entire Secret Thread community around the globe, I want to take a moment to heartily congratulate Mutt, his wife (who is also doing well, I hear from the proud poppa himself) and Mutt Jr.'s two older sisters on this momentous occasion in their lives. As for (not so) lil' Mutt, welcome to the world buddy!! It's a blessing to have you here and we wish you a happy, healthy and holy life.
Mutt my friend, I know how long you have been anticipating this day with great joy and hope. Let your own father-son journey begin, just as Walter Brogan's has... I know you are going to love having a son of your own! What a glorious gift of the Lord.
Ad majorem Dei gloriam!
Mutt's "little man" came into the world on this past Monday, June 2, 2008, which just so happens to be the birth date of his aunt (and our sister), born in 1976. Mutt Jr. weighed in at a whopping 10 pounds, 6 ounces and is, as you can imagine, healthy and strong as can be.
On behalf of the entire Secret Thread community around the globe, I want to take a moment to heartily congratulate Mutt, his wife (who is also doing well, I hear from the proud poppa himself) and Mutt Jr.'s two older sisters on this momentous occasion in their lives. As for (not so) lil' Mutt, welcome to the world buddy!! It's a blessing to have you here and we wish you a happy, healthy and holy life.
Mutt my friend, I know how long you have been anticipating this day with great joy and hope. Let your own father-son journey begin, just as Walter Brogan's has... I know you are going to love having a son of your own! What a glorious gift of the Lord.
Ad majorem Dei gloriam!
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Journal of a 'Novel'-Entry 45
A Special Edition entry which concerns Fathers and Sons
I dedicate this entry to my own son.
As I am writing this latest entry in my journal, it is Thursday, May 29. Tomorrow morning, May 30, if all goes according to (the latest) plan, my wife is scheduled to be induced into labor, leading to the birth of our third child. Avid readers of this blog, should they exist, may remember Duke's generous post concerning the birth of my second child, Jane Charlotte, in November 2005 (see the archives!). Since this new child is not here yet, I am unable to reveal the baby's name, but I can disclose this: that this third child is our very first boy. Yes, I stand on the cusp of the dream of most men - to meet my first born son. Needless to say we are very much in slightly nervous anticipation mode in our household, but as some faithful family members have pointed out to me, May 30 is the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and I have confidence that Jesus' universal love for all of us will include my wife and my newborn son tomorrow, and that, as William Shakespeare put it, 'all manner of things shall be well'.
But this journal is about the making of a novel, and has been following on that course for more than 2 years now; so what does my family situation have to do with it?? By coincidence, or by Providence, the two things seem to be co-mingling in a way I don't think I ever, ever would have expected. I'll explain how.
Currently I am at work on Chapter V of the novel, the concluding chapter to Part I of a planned three parts, as has been pointed out in this journal. In spite of all the upheaval soon to visit our home, I would say I am 'hard at work' on this chapter, and I hope to continue working as hard as I can on it even after my new son comes home and all schedules and routines are overturned. It won't be easy but I will try to do my best. This entire chapter has been difficult in coming and I have had many lapses of discipline in writing it. But I would say that now, probably a little over halfway through the chapter, I am fortunate to be getting that now-familiar feeling I have when I know a chapter will get done. I count on that to occur if I stick to the job, and although this time it came later on in the process, by now it has come. I know I will finish at least this chapter. I am never 100% confident that I will finish the book; but to me it doesn't matter so much as long as I persis with the chapter at hand and worry about getting that one done. The idea is that one day, God willing, I will turn around and one day realize I have the end of the novel well in my sights. As long as I keep persisting, there is no logical reason why that cannot happen.
For the last few days, I have been working on the chapter, and have arrived at a point in the story that, incredibly, happens to correspond almost directly with my own personal experience right now. I never would have predicted this to happen, since the story has been developing organically, and yet it is. The scene I am working on right now in the story takes place in July 1928, just as the protagonist, Walter Brogan, is waiting expectantly on the birth of his firstborn son, Luke. I have him seated on the front porch of his own home, drinking a small tumbler of whiskey (to calm himself - even though it's the era of Prohibition!), while the actual birthing process is taking place in the upper bedchamber right above his head. This scene is partly based on the circumstances of my own father's birth, in 1930, right in the house his family lived in. Of course, fathers in those days would not have been present in the 'delivery room' while their wives gave birth, at least in most circumstances, so Walter Brogan sits and waits elsewhere while his wife struggles through the experience. Later in the scene, I plan to have Ilse, his mother-in-law, join him on the porch while the birth is finishing up, where they will have an exchange that may have significant overtones for later on in the story.
It probably won't be very interesting to anyone else reading this (but the same can be said for the entire journal!), but to me I find it very fascinating indeed that 2+ years into writing the novel my own character and I would arrive at the same significant life moment at the same time. After all, when I write this character, the primary inspiration for me is an imagined version of my own grandfather, upon whom Walter is based. As I never knew him, for me this character is all about an attempt to give him or a version of him some kind of life in my own imagination. In that sense, then, this writing project, if NOTHING else, has actually afforded me a unique opportunity - in the sense that it could only come to a fiction writer attempting something as audacious as this - to experience the anticipation and the subsequent joy of fatherhood along with my own grandfather, in a way.
This, readers, is among the many reasons why the novelist's job is a unique one and filled with its own rewards. This, in short, is one of the fundamental reasons why I write. How else might I be able to have this experience? And it was utterly unplanned and unanticipated, since I didn't know I was ever going to have my own son, didn't know if I was going to include this birth 'scene' in my own novel, and didn't really know where ANY of my story was going to go when I started writing it in March 2006.
Does this, ultimately, point to the hand of Providence in this project? It's a question for me to ponder and perhaps sometime later decide - if I haven't already.
I dedicate this entry to my own son.
As I am writing this latest entry in my journal, it is Thursday, May 29. Tomorrow morning, May 30, if all goes according to (the latest) plan, my wife is scheduled to be induced into labor, leading to the birth of our third child. Avid readers of this blog, should they exist, may remember Duke's generous post concerning the birth of my second child, Jane Charlotte, in November 2005 (see the archives!). Since this new child is not here yet, I am unable to reveal the baby's name, but I can disclose this: that this third child is our very first boy. Yes, I stand on the cusp of the dream of most men - to meet my first born son. Needless to say we are very much in slightly nervous anticipation mode in our household, but as some faithful family members have pointed out to me, May 30 is the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and I have confidence that Jesus' universal love for all of us will include my wife and my newborn son tomorrow, and that, as William Shakespeare put it, 'all manner of things shall be well'.
But this journal is about the making of a novel, and has been following on that course for more than 2 years now; so what does my family situation have to do with it?? By coincidence, or by Providence, the two things seem to be co-mingling in a way I don't think I ever, ever would have expected. I'll explain how.
Currently I am at work on Chapter V of the novel, the concluding chapter to Part I of a planned three parts, as has been pointed out in this journal. In spite of all the upheaval soon to visit our home, I would say I am 'hard at work' on this chapter, and I hope to continue working as hard as I can on it even after my new son comes home and all schedules and routines are overturned. It won't be easy but I will try to do my best. This entire chapter has been difficult in coming and I have had many lapses of discipline in writing it. But I would say that now, probably a little over halfway through the chapter, I am fortunate to be getting that now-familiar feeling I have when I know a chapter will get done. I count on that to occur if I stick to the job, and although this time it came later on in the process, by now it has come. I know I will finish at least this chapter. I am never 100% confident that I will finish the book; but to me it doesn't matter so much as long as I persis with the chapter at hand and worry about getting that one done. The idea is that one day, God willing, I will turn around and one day realize I have the end of the novel well in my sights. As long as I keep persisting, there is no logical reason why that cannot happen.
For the last few days, I have been working on the chapter, and have arrived at a point in the story that, incredibly, happens to correspond almost directly with my own personal experience right now. I never would have predicted this to happen, since the story has been developing organically, and yet it is. The scene I am working on right now in the story takes place in July 1928, just as the protagonist, Walter Brogan, is waiting expectantly on the birth of his firstborn son, Luke. I have him seated on the front porch of his own home, drinking a small tumbler of whiskey (to calm himself - even though it's the era of Prohibition!), while the actual birthing process is taking place in the upper bedchamber right above his head. This scene is partly based on the circumstances of my own father's birth, in 1930, right in the house his family lived in. Of course, fathers in those days would not have been present in the 'delivery room' while their wives gave birth, at least in most circumstances, so Walter Brogan sits and waits elsewhere while his wife struggles through the experience. Later in the scene, I plan to have Ilse, his mother-in-law, join him on the porch while the birth is finishing up, where they will have an exchange that may have significant overtones for later on in the story.
It probably won't be very interesting to anyone else reading this (but the same can be said for the entire journal!), but to me I find it very fascinating indeed that 2+ years into writing the novel my own character and I would arrive at the same significant life moment at the same time. After all, when I write this character, the primary inspiration for me is an imagined version of my own grandfather, upon whom Walter is based. As I never knew him, for me this character is all about an attempt to give him or a version of him some kind of life in my own imagination. In that sense, then, this writing project, if NOTHING else, has actually afforded me a unique opportunity - in the sense that it could only come to a fiction writer attempting something as audacious as this - to experience the anticipation and the subsequent joy of fatherhood along with my own grandfather, in a way.
This, readers, is among the many reasons why the novelist's job is a unique one and filled with its own rewards. This, in short, is one of the fundamental reasons why I write. How else might I be able to have this experience? And it was utterly unplanned and unanticipated, since I didn't know I was ever going to have my own son, didn't know if I was going to include this birth 'scene' in my own novel, and didn't really know where ANY of my story was going to go when I started writing it in March 2006.
Does this, ultimately, point to the hand of Providence in this project? It's a question for me to ponder and perhaps sometime later decide - if I haven't already.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Blog-Exclusive: A New Essay by Mutt Ploughman
Deliver Us From Nowhere
Family; Springsteen; the last lone American night.
by Mutt Ploughman
I was 14 years old, riding a bike with a couple of $5 bills in my pocket to the music shop to pick up a record for my older brother, Luke. He had heard that I planned to venture ‘downtown’, to the commercial center of the small New Jersey suburb we grew up in during the 1980s, in order to buy some new music. He gave me a five and issued strict instructions to purchase him a copy of Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A. By comparison, the record I bought that day was Mötley Crüe’s infantile manifesto for pimple-faced misfits, Shout at the Devil. The eventual chasm between Springsteen and Mötley Crüe in terms of cultural significance illustrates the pronounced disparity between my brother’s judgment and my own at the time. Luke, the oldest of six siblings, was a smart kid. I, second son and one of a set of identical twins, was still finding my way, let’s say.
Aside from the memory itself, there are two things from that otherwise unremarkable day in our slumbering suburb that have endured: Springsteen’s music and my family. Both of them would return and provide the impetus for a most memorable occasion 24 years later. It was Super Bowl weekend 2008, and Luke was celebrating his 40th birthday the day after the big game. I traveled from the East coast with two of my siblings to Ohio to surprise him with an unannounced visit and a weekend party. Sharp as he is, Luke did not see it coming. Needless to say the weekend rapidly degenerated into ridiculous eating, drinking, and overall regressive behavior, even though by now all of us had children of our own and had more or less grown into responsible adults.
It’s so easy for me, and I suspect the same for my siblings, to associate our older brother with Springsteen. He was the original Bruce Springsteen fan in our family, the only one who recognized relatively early on that Springsteen was a classic and here to stay. Most of us arrived at the same conclusion, but only later; for me it took until I was 21 years old to see the light.
Luke was the one who attended the classic Giants Stadium concerts in 1985; he was the one who had the white concert t-shirt that became a fashion fixture for the period whether you liked Bruce or not. My wife tells me she never liked Bruce at any time, but she still owned the t-shirt. (Never managed to make sense of that one, but I’m not exactly known for having my finger on the pulse of fashion.) Luke bought all of his LPs; he had Greetings from Asbury Park and The River and Nebraska and everything else in his legendary record collection – the one my other brothers and I used to wander through like some forbidden forest when he was safely removed from home.
Even back then, especially back then, Bruce was ‘the Boss’. He had energy, stamina, a Fender Stratocaster on his shoulder, big guns under his rolled-up sleeves, and the girls went nuts over him. Every song on U.S.A. seemed to be a hit nationwide, but most people we knew felt that he was singing about us – average, hard-working New Jerseyans.
In our family, or at least among the kids, Luke was Boss. He was a natural leader; everybody looked up to him. He used to take on all five younger siblings in sporting contests that I don’t know how we even conceived of – 1-on-5 kickball, 1-on-5 soccer, etc. – let alone executed. No matter; he always crushed us anyway. One time he was photographed specially for the high school year book; they turned the picture into a silhouette and plastered it onto a full page with a banner that read “Are You a Typical Senior?”, then added tiny labels pointing to various parts of his wardrobe and school accessories. The point of this space-filler was, if you were ‘in’, your profile ought to closely resemble his.
People liked my big brother. One of the most miserable job experiences I ever had in high school was when my twin brother and I were hired to work for some computer parts company mainly because the owner had previously hired, and loved, Luke. That guy hated my twin and me, and never seemed to forgive us for not being Luke. He gave us miserable, menial jobs that had nothing to do with computers, such as cleaning gutters or cutting grass at various properties he owned. These tasks felt like a kind of cruel and unusual punishment for our general shortcomings.
Needless to say, I didn’t much enjoy my position with respect to my brother at the time, and wanted to cut my own path, which I like to think partially explains why I was buying Shout at the Devil that day. A bad move: but, sometimes, we manage to live those down.
Of course time eventually passes, and you grow up to some extent, and one day it occurs to you that it was probably not so easy to be the oldest. Luke probably had his own share of insecurities, for which he had no outlet: he was Luke; he was supposed to handle stuff. Never mind the fact that he was the first to high school, the first to college, the first to get a ‘real’ job, the first to get married, and the first Dad. All these thresholds took courage to transcend; we took it on faith that they were cleared with ease. When it came time for the rest of us to do those things, we figured we could manage it because someone had done it before us. Luke had to take every new challenge in stride, for others were perpetually watching. This phenomenon continues to this day.
Then, suddenly, it’s 2008 in the wintertime. Luke’s turning 40, and a few of us show up on the doorstep of his lovely home in, you guessed it, a suburb. We barrel in, making a lot of raucous noise, thoroughly upending his ‘quiet’ Super Bowl weekend. What does he do? He takes it in stride. Within an hour after our arrival, on a clear Friday evening, we’re out in the backyard, standing near their big deck, grilling huge steaks, drinking beers, horsing around with his young kids, cackling our heads off. And it was great fun. But then, the whole moment went somewhere else: enter the Boss.
Here’s what happened: Luke’s wife, Dana, decided some tunes were required to round out the experience. So, in a moment of genuine inspiration, she went into the house and put Springsteen’s Nebraska on the sound system. As Dana knew so well, this was Luke’s weekend; the Boss was mandatory. Since their house is equipped with external speakers, the night air was soon resonant with the melancholy but oddly nostalgic sounds of the title track from the 1982 album. It seems curious to make my next observation – given the fact that that song concerns a serial killer on a spree, and the entire album that follows is a somber, dark-hued patchwork of vivid stories about dispossessed individuals. But the mood abruptly changed, and I think all of us enjoying that winter night somehow became a more tightly-knit family as a result.
It is hard to articulate exactly how this happened. As far as I know, no one in my family has spent any time in Nebraska, and we are more than fortunate that we have never come in contact with the aberration of a serial killer. No one we knew in suburban New Jersey would have been desperate enough to board a Coast City bus in hopes of scoring a big payoff, and the truth is that our home, though not extravagant, was probably closer to a mansion on a hill than anything Springsteen lived in as a kid. We didn’t count any state troopers among our friends; our father was consistently there for us, if not always warm and cheery; nobody in my family knew what a carburetor even looked like, let alone had the ability to clean one out. And the closest I ever came to knowing someone called “Johnny 99” was having a twin brother named John, and he sure as hell has never done anything that put him before a judge.
And yet…. it is true that when we were young teens, these same songs were playing from behind our oldest brother’s closed door. We were New Jerseyans, and Bruce was Boss, all along the way. We all moved down separate roads in college, but Nebraska and the other albums always went with us. Later, as we progressed into our 20s and discovered the mirage of freedom that appears hazily in one’s early adult life, it was the reality found in the fine details of those Springsteen songs that resonated with us and drew attention to the fact that life was not a frivolous enterprise. Year by year, we shed away our youth, and arrived by divergent means upon the recondite knowledge that the American way of life had a cost. The price was your own blood, your toil, your money; possibly even your dreams. All the while, Springsteen’s music played on in the background, enforcing those lessons we were all in the process of learning.
By 2008, we all had those children I mentioned, and innumerable other gracious blessings. We were all working in different ways to support our families, but now we knew about what it took. All of us had faced struggles of one sort or another. For some of us, it was working one or two jobs supporting your wife and children on your own ability to earn money. For some it was giving up your own career ambitions to put family first. For others it was working and parenting simultaneously, while enduring the skyrocketing costs and rigors of higher education for the possibility of a more comfortable lifestyle later. In the midst of the struggle, I think, and in a time of war, high gas prices, a faltering economy and a vacuous spiritual landscape, it had become increasingly easy to feel inconsequential, adrift in some nameless void where even your best was not going to be good enough.
But not that night. On that milestone occasion, with those children running around, and under that beautiful dark fabric punched through with stars, all seemed at peace, and I have rarely felt less like I was marooned in a void. We had family around us, my twin brother was clinking his bottle of beer against mine, my sister-in-law was spinning up tunes, my little sister was on the backsteps looking like all she needed was an ice cream cone. And where was the boss? Posted at the grill, of course, taking the orders, giving the orders, keeping everyone fed and contented, on his own patch of dirty ground. Nothing feels better, the poet reminded us through those outdoor speakers, than blood on blood.
Family; Springsteen; the last lone American night.
by Mutt Ploughman
I was 14 years old, riding a bike with a couple of $5 bills in my pocket to the music shop to pick up a record for my older brother, Luke. He had heard that I planned to venture ‘downtown’, to the commercial center of the small New Jersey suburb we grew up in during the 1980s, in order to buy some new music. He gave me a five and issued strict instructions to purchase him a copy of Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A. By comparison, the record I bought that day was Mötley Crüe’s infantile manifesto for pimple-faced misfits, Shout at the Devil. The eventual chasm between Springsteen and Mötley Crüe in terms of cultural significance illustrates the pronounced disparity between my brother’s judgment and my own at the time. Luke, the oldest of six siblings, was a smart kid. I, second son and one of a set of identical twins, was still finding my way, let’s say.
Aside from the memory itself, there are two things from that otherwise unremarkable day in our slumbering suburb that have endured: Springsteen’s music and my family. Both of them would return and provide the impetus for a most memorable occasion 24 years later. It was Super Bowl weekend 2008, and Luke was celebrating his 40th birthday the day after the big game. I traveled from the East coast with two of my siblings to Ohio to surprise him with an unannounced visit and a weekend party. Sharp as he is, Luke did not see it coming. Needless to say the weekend rapidly degenerated into ridiculous eating, drinking, and overall regressive behavior, even though by now all of us had children of our own and had more or less grown into responsible adults.
It’s so easy for me, and I suspect the same for my siblings, to associate our older brother with Springsteen. He was the original Bruce Springsteen fan in our family, the only one who recognized relatively early on that Springsteen was a classic and here to stay. Most of us arrived at the same conclusion, but only later; for me it took until I was 21 years old to see the light.
Luke was the one who attended the classic Giants Stadium concerts in 1985; he was the one who had the white concert t-shirt that became a fashion fixture for the period whether you liked Bruce or not. My wife tells me she never liked Bruce at any time, but she still owned the t-shirt. (Never managed to make sense of that one, but I’m not exactly known for having my finger on the pulse of fashion.) Luke bought all of his LPs; he had Greetings from Asbury Park and The River and Nebraska and everything else in his legendary record collection – the one my other brothers and I used to wander through like some forbidden forest when he was safely removed from home.
Even back then, especially back then, Bruce was ‘the Boss’. He had energy, stamina, a Fender Stratocaster on his shoulder, big guns under his rolled-up sleeves, and the girls went nuts over him. Every song on U.S.A. seemed to be a hit nationwide, but most people we knew felt that he was singing about us – average, hard-working New Jerseyans.
In our family, or at least among the kids, Luke was Boss. He was a natural leader; everybody looked up to him. He used to take on all five younger siblings in sporting contests that I don’t know how we even conceived of – 1-on-5 kickball, 1-on-5 soccer, etc. – let alone executed. No matter; he always crushed us anyway. One time he was photographed specially for the high school year book; they turned the picture into a silhouette and plastered it onto a full page with a banner that read “Are You a Typical Senior?”, then added tiny labels pointing to various parts of his wardrobe and school accessories. The point of this space-filler was, if you were ‘in’, your profile ought to closely resemble his.
People liked my big brother. One of the most miserable job experiences I ever had in high school was when my twin brother and I were hired to work for some computer parts company mainly because the owner had previously hired, and loved, Luke. That guy hated my twin and me, and never seemed to forgive us for not being Luke. He gave us miserable, menial jobs that had nothing to do with computers, such as cleaning gutters or cutting grass at various properties he owned. These tasks felt like a kind of cruel and unusual punishment for our general shortcomings.
Needless to say, I didn’t much enjoy my position with respect to my brother at the time, and wanted to cut my own path, which I like to think partially explains why I was buying Shout at the Devil that day. A bad move: but, sometimes, we manage to live those down.
Of course time eventually passes, and you grow up to some extent, and one day it occurs to you that it was probably not so easy to be the oldest. Luke probably had his own share of insecurities, for which he had no outlet: he was Luke; he was supposed to handle stuff. Never mind the fact that he was the first to high school, the first to college, the first to get a ‘real’ job, the first to get married, and the first Dad. All these thresholds took courage to transcend; we took it on faith that they were cleared with ease. When it came time for the rest of us to do those things, we figured we could manage it because someone had done it before us. Luke had to take every new challenge in stride, for others were perpetually watching. This phenomenon continues to this day.
Then, suddenly, it’s 2008 in the wintertime. Luke’s turning 40, and a few of us show up on the doorstep of his lovely home in, you guessed it, a suburb. We barrel in, making a lot of raucous noise, thoroughly upending his ‘quiet’ Super Bowl weekend. What does he do? He takes it in stride. Within an hour after our arrival, on a clear Friday evening, we’re out in the backyard, standing near their big deck, grilling huge steaks, drinking beers, horsing around with his young kids, cackling our heads off. And it was great fun. But then, the whole moment went somewhere else: enter the Boss.
Here’s what happened: Luke’s wife, Dana, decided some tunes were required to round out the experience. So, in a moment of genuine inspiration, she went into the house and put Springsteen’s Nebraska on the sound system. As Dana knew so well, this was Luke’s weekend; the Boss was mandatory. Since their house is equipped with external speakers, the night air was soon resonant with the melancholy but oddly nostalgic sounds of the title track from the 1982 album. It seems curious to make my next observation – given the fact that that song concerns a serial killer on a spree, and the entire album that follows is a somber, dark-hued patchwork of vivid stories about dispossessed individuals. But the mood abruptly changed, and I think all of us enjoying that winter night somehow became a more tightly-knit family as a result.
It is hard to articulate exactly how this happened. As far as I know, no one in my family has spent any time in Nebraska, and we are more than fortunate that we have never come in contact with the aberration of a serial killer. No one we knew in suburban New Jersey would have been desperate enough to board a Coast City bus in hopes of scoring a big payoff, and the truth is that our home, though not extravagant, was probably closer to a mansion on a hill than anything Springsteen lived in as a kid. We didn’t count any state troopers among our friends; our father was consistently there for us, if not always warm and cheery; nobody in my family knew what a carburetor even looked like, let alone had the ability to clean one out. And the closest I ever came to knowing someone called “Johnny 99” was having a twin brother named John, and he sure as hell has never done anything that put him before a judge.
And yet…. it is true that when we were young teens, these same songs were playing from behind our oldest brother’s closed door. We were New Jerseyans, and Bruce was Boss, all along the way. We all moved down separate roads in college, but Nebraska and the other albums always went with us. Later, as we progressed into our 20s and discovered the mirage of freedom that appears hazily in one’s early adult life, it was the reality found in the fine details of those Springsteen songs that resonated with us and drew attention to the fact that life was not a frivolous enterprise. Year by year, we shed away our youth, and arrived by divergent means upon the recondite knowledge that the American way of life had a cost. The price was your own blood, your toil, your money; possibly even your dreams. All the while, Springsteen’s music played on in the background, enforcing those lessons we were all in the process of learning.
By 2008, we all had those children I mentioned, and innumerable other gracious blessings. We were all working in different ways to support our families, but now we knew about what it took. All of us had faced struggles of one sort or another. For some of us, it was working one or two jobs supporting your wife and children on your own ability to earn money. For some it was giving up your own career ambitions to put family first. For others it was working and parenting simultaneously, while enduring the skyrocketing costs and rigors of higher education for the possibility of a more comfortable lifestyle later. In the midst of the struggle, I think, and in a time of war, high gas prices, a faltering economy and a vacuous spiritual landscape, it had become increasingly easy to feel inconsequential, adrift in some nameless void where even your best was not going to be good enough.
But not that night. On that milestone occasion, with those children running around, and under that beautiful dark fabric punched through with stars, all seemed at peace, and I have rarely felt less like I was marooned in a void. We had family around us, my twin brother was clinking his bottle of beer against mine, my sister-in-law was spinning up tunes, my little sister was on the backsteps looking like all she needed was an ice cream cone. And where was the boss? Posted at the grill, of course, taking the orders, giving the orders, keeping everyone fed and contented, on his own patch of dirty ground. Nothing feels better, the poet reminded us through those outdoor speakers, than blood on blood.
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