Wodehouse Wisdom

 “It’s the plots that I find so hard to work out. It takes such a long time to work one out. I like to think of some scene, it doesn’t matter how crazy, and work backward and forward from it until eventually it becomes quite plausible and fits neatly into the story.”

“Nothing puts the reader off more than a great slab of prose at the start. I think the success of every novel—if it’s a novel of action—depends on the high spots. The thing to do is to say to yourself, “Which are my big scenes?” and then get every drop of juice out of them.”

“All this time I was writing and getting rejections. Because the trouble is when you start writing, you write awful stuff.”

– Interview with PG Wodehouse, Paris Review – The Art of Fiction No. 60, Winter 1975 (published post-mortem).

Wodehouse was 91 (“and a half”) at the time of this interview, and still writing! Read the interview here: http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3773/the-art-of-fiction-no-60-p-g-wodehouse

I’ve just had an apostrophe

“Why did his mind fly uneasily to that void, as if it were the sole reason why life was not thoroughly joyous to him? I suppose it is the way with all men and women who reach middle age without the clear perception that life never can be thoroughly joyous: under the vague dullness of the grey hours, dissatisfaction seeks a definite object, and finds it in the privation of an untried good.” – George Eliot, Silas Marner

I finished reading Silas Marner days ago, a short read of only a few days after the months of work it took to get through Daniel Deronda and Middlemarch. I found in the shortest of Eliot’s novels the largest of epiphanies.

For months I’ve been seeking somewhat desperately the very thing I used to pride myself of doing without. I was thoroughly ashamed of myself; I felt I had betrayed my dignity and the very essence of who I am. But even though I didn’t want to want it – even though when I really examined the issue I could never quite convince myself that it would really amount to any kind of happiness – still I hunted it like a bloodthirsty hound.

I was discontent.

Contentment, contrary to popular belief, is only healthy when circumstances cannot or should not be changed. Discontent can be a sign of selfishness when it’s displayed in a man’s attitude towards his wife, and it can be debilitating when it causes a man on a desert island not to want to gather and cook his dinner because he misses McDonald’s.

But sometimes it’s a signal that the soul has outgrown its surroundings and longs to stretch its legs.

Silas looked out of his house for his lost gold, not from hope of finding it, but from that restlessness of discontent. But while the door was open, Eppie wandered onto his hearth and into his heart. His focus changed from the lifeless pile of gold that wanted or needed, or even knew anything of him, to a life that wanted and needed him to pour himself and all his energy into relationship with it.

I looked for something to hoard, but what I need is something to use me up.

Neverland (Part I)

This is a characterization study I did for a fiction writing class last winter. It’s part of a longer piece that at one time I thought about making into a novel, but it’s a really exhausting character to write and I’m not quite sure I can do him justice right now. Feedback would be great!

***

Neverland

Jin tossed his empty American Spirit box on the ground as he watched the girl next to him light up. He fingered the lighter in the front pocket of his favorite pair of skinny jeans, unlit cig dangling from his mouth as he sized her up: she was a couple inches shorter than he was, that was good; short, messy, dark hair that matched his own; giant plastic glasses frames that overwhelmed her face; slight figure that looked nearly pre-pubescent; scuffed brown boots over leggings and a hideous sweater with giant shoulder pads that looked like it was straight from some Paula Abdul music video: in all, the female version of himself. She stood leaning against the building, looking bored and hip and pretending not to notice him staring at her. He took a step towards her and she threw a quick glance at him.

“Hey,” he said, jerking his head upward and being careful not to smile. “Do you have a light?”

Her only acknowledgement of his greeting was to slightly raise her eyebrows and respond, “Sure.” She held the flame up for him and then resumed her pose, one arm crossed across her body, supporting the elbow of the other arm so that her cig was right by her face. She took a deep drag, blew it slowly through red lips and tilted her head slightly as she looked at him. The corners of her mouth curved into a barely-perceptible smile.

He wasn’t ready to make a move just yet. He flashed her a quick smile, just to keep her on the hook, and mentally ran down his checklist. She wasn’t Asian, so his mom definitely wouldn’t approve. She once threatened to cut him out of her will if he didn’t marry a Korean woman. That was fine – he wasn’t looking for a girl he could bring home to mama. He imagined his friends’ reaction when he introduced her to them, especially Geoff’s. Geoff was his oldest friend in Portland, and he had impeccable taste in everything – food and music and clothes and hobbies and vices, and especially women. He thought of the last few girls Geoff had hooked up with, compared them with this girl, checking off weight, complexion, style, until he was satisfied that she was the same caliber. He pictured her standing next to him in different scenarios: at the Matador drinking PBR, at a house party on Hawthorne, at some indie prog-rock show at the Doug Fir. Through every scene Liz floated like a ghost – she would see them together, Jin and this girl, being happy and sexy and cool, and she would be sorry she dumped him.

At the thought of Liz his stomach tightened into a too-familiar knot. All at once all of his senses tingled with the memories of the smell of her perfume, the springiness of her hair as he gently pulled and released the curls, the flat tones of her voice and the crack in his own when she told him it was over and he begged her not to go, the sight of her with his roommate a week later, the taste of his bile when he woke up on his bathroom floor the next morning. The taste was the strongest. It was always with him. He was constantly trying to wash that taste out of his mouth. Nothing short of whiskey could do it.

The girl shifted her weight so that her hip jutted away from him. She was getting impatient. She flicked some ashes onto the sidewalk. The white paper slowly receded toward the filter, marking the time he had left to make his move as effectively as the sand in an hour glass. Still he said nothing; he just stood there, blowing smoke in the same direction as the wind and watching it swirl madly away from him as the breeze sped it down the street. The stone that had settled in his stomach was only getting heavier. He felt tired. He forgot to carefully hold his face in its careless expression; his eyebrows lowered, his eyes unfocused as they stared through the swirling smoke into his memories. His mouth contracted slightly, his shoulders sagged under the weight that had suddenly been laid on them. He pulled at the cross-body strap of his leather satchel to get it away from his neck, and heard the rattle of pills in a bottle. It sounded impossibly loud, like they were encased in metal instead of plastic; the sound echoed through his imagination. He looked quickly at the girl to see if she had heard. She had turned slightly so her shoulder was angled towards him and was scrolling through text messages on her iPhone. There was only a tiny sliver of white paper left. She flicked the ashes again and looked back at him, one last time. He knew it was the last moment he had to talk to her. A wave of frustration overwhelmed him. It’s no good, he thought. It’ll just be the same thing. It’s always the same thing. The girl dropped the butt on the ground and walked away. Jin flicked his own half-finished smoke into the street and walked home.

Brass Serpents

Last night Solid Rock met in the First Presbyterian building in Downtown Portland. It’s been months since I’ve been in there, and I had forgotten how beautiful it is. It reminded me of a writing exercise I did for a fiction writing class a few months ago that was inspired by the gloomy beauty of First Pres, so I thought I’d share it.

* * *

       She sat there, alone in the abandoned space, still bright with the event. The glitter of it mocked her at every angle. The stately symmetry of the room; the smooth lines and straight backs of the chairs; the long, narrow path down the middle: all the geometry of the room acted as a skeleton for the chaotic joy draped about it. From the chairs were still draped the soft folds of silk tied with ribbon. The dark red carpet of the aisle was covered in small, bright white spots, like sunlight filtered through a leafy canopy. Light bounced to and fro from a thousand surfaces. The brass candlesticks gleamed, the crystal overhead shone, the windows threw their jewel-toned confetti on everything; even the wicks of the candles still glowed faintly orange as the wisps of smoke danced their way up past the gilded pipes to the throne of God, the last offerings of a pleasing sacrifice. She stared at the pipes until the heavy, layered pattern and the ornamental etchings on the cylinders blurred and swam together in a jumble of gold and pink, and the dark mouths at the top of each seemed to gape wider and wider; and then they were alive, a hundred bronze serpents writhing on their stakes, curving their headless mouths towards her to swallow her up, and she wondered why to the wandering Israelites such an image brought healing rather than terror.

Through the heavy doors she could hear the muffled sounds of talking and laughing. The warmth of the red polished wood all around her left her feeling cold inside; the empty seats around and above her stifled her. She dreaded going through those doors into a sea of shining, happy faces; but neither could she stand the shining, faceless sea surrounding her. Casting her eyes about for an escape she noticed a door beside the stage, half hidden with a heavy velvet drapery behind the grand piano. She half ran around the stage toward it, cursing her echoing footsteps for trying to reveal her escape, and giving wide berth to the cloth-covered altar as if it were booby trapped.  She turned the handle, holding her breath in fear that it was locked, and she wondered if Mary Lennox’s robin would appear and show her the key to the secret behind it. It turned and gave way, however, and rather than a garden she discovered a small library, though its musky smell of old books and shadowy corners were more welcome to her senses than all the colors and fragrance of Mistress Mary’s silver bells and cockle shells and marigolds all in a row. She passed quickly through to a door on the opposite side and found herself on the sidewalk on the back side of the church. She laughed quietly as she reveled in her escape, and once again breathed air that was free from the sickly incense of happy-ever-after.

Moses and the Brass Serpent, oil on oakwood, 63.5 x 96 cm. 17th century. Anonymous Flemish painter.

Detour ahead

I haven’t had much time to read since I finished Deronda. I’m in the midst of preparations to move across the country (stressful), and last week I spent days and days helping my little sister make some super awesome DIY decorations for her birthday party. So today instead of literary musings, I thought I’d share all the crafty awesomeness:

My baby sis is all grown up. ❤

Painted toilet paper rolls!

Owl garland made from scrapbooking paper

Instead of paying a fortune for a decorated cake, we made a cake and had the guests doodle designs themselves. Soooo much fun

Beautiful! 

All in all, the night was a huge success. It was the best party ever for the best sister ever! 🙂

No pain, no gain

I finished reading Daniel Deronda. I’m still processing it, but I can say for sure that it’s an absolutely brilliant book, and I really enjoyed reading it. I found myself in not one, but three characters, each perfectly encompassing an element of my past or present. It was at the same time a reminder of who I am, who I was, and who I hope to be.

The characters in this book are delicately intricate, and most of the commentary I’ve read too easily dismiss many of them as too idealistic. I find them very realistic in this way: the characters who seek to rid themselves of pain and suffering quickly and by any means possible are by result shallow and selfish, often pushing their burdens onto others’ shoulders; the ones who internalize their sorrows, dealing with issues slowly and painfully, yet privately, are very often the shoulders that find themselves bearing the burdens of the former – their hearts, that have been hollowed and deepened by pain, have the strength and capacity for suffering that the shallow hearts lack.

Muscle can only be built by activity that demands more than it can bear – that’s why it has to increase.

Promises, promises

Here was a surprise – the entrance of a new character, one who changed the entire tone of the story. Here was a revolutionary, a dreamer, a man whose soul was too big for his body. A man called mad; yet proven correct nearly three quarters of a century after Deronda was published.

Mordecai.

He had no bitterness to his zeal, no danger, no resentment. He merely believed and looked for others who would share his belief. He was not mocked so much as pitied – a much worse judgment on the proud. But he could endure the sad looks and the shaking of heads, because his pride was not for himself; it was for something to which he belonged: a heritage. A glorious past, and the promise of a still more glorious future.

When Eliot wrote Deronda, anti-Semitism was the cultural norm. Victorian literature is littered with cultural stereotypes of 19^th century Jews, and none of them flattering. The Roman dispersion of the Jews had taken place over 1700 years earlier. For seventeen centuries the Jewish nation had known no home. They lived amongst strangers for the better part of two millennia and yet never lost their identity.

This is the source of Mordecai’s pride.

But when a promise is long in being fulfilled, it’s easy to write it off. It’s safer to assume it was a fluke, a figment of an errant imagination, than to place one’s hope and desire in it. So it was that many of Mordecai’s most prominent scorners were those of his own nationality.

“Almost everything seemed against him: his countrymen were ignorant or indifferent, governments hostile, Europe incredulous. Of course the scorners often seemed wise.” (DD, Book VI, Chpt. XLII)

Ravenous

The coffee roaster that I work for just spent a week catering an outdoor music festival. It was wild. The only down side was that all the movement and excitement and noise made it hard to focus on headier reading. The up side is that it forced me out of my comfort zone (19^th century Brit lit) and into uncharted territory: the modern(ish) sci-fi novel, specifically Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card.

There were certainly problems with the novel – I had a hard time accepting the idea that all of the characters were children; Card seemed to think that genius and maturity are synonyms – but it was a very entertaining story that I found myself looking forward to reading every day.

I don’t really do much of that anymore – reading for the sake of reading, not to expand my mind. When I was a kid I read whatever I could get my hands on. I read great classic kids’ books, like The Hobbit and The Phantom Tollbooth (still one of my all-time favorites). I read kids’ picture books. I read preteen novellas. I read teenage horror novels. When I was ten or eleven I read a 1300 page historical novel about Sacagawea by Anna Lee Waldo. One time when my parents were visiting a family from our church I found a box full of dirty romance novels under the guest bed. I stopped reading those pretty quickly. I read my uncle’s old comic books. I read cheesy gospel tracts about how Christian rock music was blessed by devil worshippers in naked Satanic rituals (I have no idea how I got a hold of that one). If I didn’t have a book or magazine at hand I would read the packaging of whatever happened to be close by.

So why am I a snob now? When did I decide that I shouldn’t enjoy reading for its own sake?

How do I return to my former love?

Witchy Woman

It’s been a while. Last week between full-time barista training classes, hermeneutics homework that involved reading a small tree’s worth of articles, and a nasty stomach bug, I ended up just passing out every time I picked up a book to relax.

At one point, however, as I was sitting on the porch swing watching the fireflies I came to the realization that I love a good villainess. Something about combining beauty and evil is just really fascinating. Most of the novels I read lack an obvious antagonist – the characters struggle instead against circumstance, or society, or inner demons. That’s why I love the mystery genre – the clear delineation between good and evil. And when that evil is elegant and alluring, it’s even more intriguing.

So, here are my top 5 wicked women:

#5: The White Witch
Such an ice queen.

#4: Catwoman
Yes, comic books DO count as classic lit. So there.

#3: Lilith
She doesn’t like to play fair. Get it? Get it?

#2: Bellatrix LeStrange
I’m not gonna lie, Helena Bonham Carter’s portrayal of Bellatrix is the main reason she’s on this list.

#1: Lydia Gwilt
Redhead. Need I say more?

 

Engaged

I love reading other people’s favorite books.

Books are unlike movies in that they require enormous amounts of time and energy, and fully engage one’s senses. An emotional connection is forged that movies can’t quite replicate, no matter how much I love or relate to a particular film. And there certainly are films that I have resonated with, but no matter how touched or moved I am by a plot line or character on a movie, it’s just never quite on the same level as my connection to certain books. Why is that?

Movies require passivity. Books require engagement.

When there is a book that I return to again and again, investing even more time and energy and attention into it, it’s because there’s something there that speaks to me. It’s not just that I’ve bonded with a character, or a place, or an idea; it’s that I’ve found a piece of my own soul therein.

So I love to read other people’s favorite books, and I try to find them in the pages. It’s a glimpse into their souls.

What’s your favorite book?

(This is my favorite.)