Peeve

A news story currently making the rounds is about the Carnival cruise ship Splendor which finally made it to port after three days at sea with no power. It seems that when describing passengers leaving the ship, all reporters for every news organization on the planet were required to use the word 'disembark.' Why couldn't they just say 'debark'? After all, I doubt if any of them would say 'disemplane.'

William Safire is sorely missed.

Compelling Telling

Here's a theory that's open for debate: there are (at least) two kinds of novels -- literary (did someone groan?) and genre. 'Genre' as in crime and suspense, fantasy and science fiction, historical, Western, and any other way you care to split 'fiction.' For a specific example, just now I'm 191 pages into Stone's Fall by Iain Pears -- a great, wallowing whale of a novel about England at the turn of the 20th century. The book revolves around a mystery: was the death of Industrialist John Stone, aka Lord Ravenscliff, a suicide or a murder?If murder, then who killed him? However, not only is it a murder mystery, but it's also a historical novel, set in the midst of the Industrial Revolution in England. The characters are carefully drawn, if a shade caricaturish -- though isn't that a given of genre fiction? The easily identifiable hero and villain; the body; the stumble and leap from clue to clue till all is revealed?

Yiyun Li's The Vagrants has a similar historical setting -- the aftermath of the Chinese Revolution which brought the Communists to power. There is also death, but it is state-sponsored death, with no mystery about it. Or is there? Maybe the mystery is how such a thing could happen at all. Why does the state have the right to execute a human being, but a single person does not? Why is it called justice if carried out by the government, but murder if by an individual? Is the difference in the two books that one has a plot and the other a theme?

Both of these books excel at the fundamental ground of a novel: tell a story. It doesn't have to be a good story, an original story, but the style of the narrative must be gripping. In fact, the telling of the story is more important than the story itself. Who cares if the mystery is set in Industrial-Revolutionary England or Cultural-Revolutionary China? All that matters is that the telling compels.

On the other hand, isn't there something different in what we the readers take away from each of these books? If so, what is it? Is it mere entertainment or is it something else? A more robust view of the multilayer world we inhabit? Or is each to be judged solely on how well it distracts us from the mundane?

Disrupting The Fictive Dream

I recently read Articles of War by Nick Arvin. Never has a war story so moved me. Not even The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer. The reason Arvin's book impresses me more than Mailer's is because it's more personal. Rather than following the course of the war through the eyes of several characters, it follows one American soldier, detailing his reaction to the horror, the stupidity, and the boredom. Such a counter-position brings the action much closer to home, making it much more personal and effective. One of my favorite movies is an Australian picture called Gallipoli, directed by Peter Weir, about the Allies' attempted invasion of the Ottoman Empire during World War I.

But actually, this post isn't about war or war novels or war movies. What I want to comment on right now is how historical figures are used in fiction. Several books of fiction are based on the lives of real people. I, Claudius by Robert Graves is a magnificent portrayal of Imperial Rome. Little Big Man by Thomas Berger is a hilarious account of the expansion of the American West, and the effect of European civilization on Native Americans, in which historical and fictional people interact with aplomb. Several key sections of Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernieres detail the rise to power of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, a very real person who led the fight for the foundation of the modern state of Turkey.

I am very fond of Little Big Man and Birds Without Wings, but Articles of War surpasses them both in the wealth of detail about the actual feel of combat. Or at least what I surmise actual combat feels like, having never actually been in combat myself. The portrayal of the main character proceeds without flaw. The meaninglessness of battles and bombings and killings is presented with a calmness that makes turning each page imperative. For most of the book, that is. The point where I felt jolted out of the the fictive dream was the introduction of Private Eddie Slovik who was executed for desertion on 31 January 1945. One of the questions raised by the narrative is how Slovik could have been fearful of combat when he faced execution so fearlessly.

For some reason, though, the introduction of Slovik totally derails the storyline for me. It seems like a huge, red flag. It's as if Heck, the main character, violates the fourth wall of the reading experience (to appropriate a metaphor from stage), and addresses me directly. Sometimes this works as a device. All first-person fiction is based on the premise that someone is telling the reader what happened. However, this cannot work in a piece of serious third-person fiction. If it does happen, the fiction is no longer third-person by definition.

So my point is that the use of a character from history instead of imagination can sometimes backfire. In this case, a most excellent book unravels at the end, with tatters of the story-telling thread left flapping in the breeze. The book itself I will trumpet forever as one of the best war/anti-war novels of all time. It's just too bad about that darn ending.

History comes back to bite the hand that feeds it ... kind of ...

If History repeats itself, is there such a word as 'prepeats'?

A few nights ago I stayed up way too late, finishing Birds Without Wings, a novel by Louis de Bernieres about World War I, the end of the Ottoman Empire, and the establishment of the modern state of Turkey.

The next day I came across this article on the Internet:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7050439.ece

about the Turkish atrocities committed during WWI.

"Birds" tells the story of a small village in the boondocks of the Ottoman Empire before, during, and after World War I. Mr. de Bernieres takes over 400 pages to detail the lives of many of the villagers. The first part of the novel shows what life is like in the idyllic setting where Christians and Moslems live so closely together that they often wander into each other's worship services, and regularly ask each other to pray for them. Intermarriage is no big deal. The basic point is that even though there are two faiths, the people are all of one nation.

When the Ottoman Empire dissolves, breaks apart, and goes down in flames, the outside world begins forcing its own viewpoint on the hapless citizens, which means Christians in this corner, Moslems in that one. Friends turn against friends, then regret it. In the end, love not only doesn't conquer all, but it leads with its glass chin.

An interesting quote from the news article is one of the Turkish leaders saying that Turkey is not the Ottoman Empire, and so has nothing to apologize for. However, even if the national identities are not equivalent, what about the individuals who carried over from one regime to the next? If Germany and Japan both felt the need to own up to the atrocities committed in the name of nationalism during World War II, why doesn't Turkey? Then again, how culpable is Attaturk, the leader of the new country? Did his fight against the former rulers absolve him of any shortcomings? Did the independence for which he fought assuage all guilt? Are all losers guilty? Are all winners right? And anyway, whose point of view is so pristine as to set the standard?

Someone in ancient Greece probably had the same thought

It just occurred to me a moment ago:

Just as there is only one ocean on the planet,

and just as there is only one language throughout history,

there is only one book that has ever been written.

Ten (or so) Rules For Writing Fiction

While browsing the headlines on Google News earlier tonight, I happened upon an article called "Ten Rules For Writing Fiction". (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/20/ten-rules-for-writing-fiction-part-one) My curiosity provoked, I clicked. Turns out it wasn't just one list, but several, compiled by recognizable fiction writers. Here, in no particular order (and numbering far more than ten), are some that impressed me most:

Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue.

Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said."

Never use the word "suddenly."

Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.

Don't go into detail describing places and things.

Hold the reader's attention. But you don't know who the reader is, so it's like shooting fish with a slingshot in the dark.

You most likely need a thesaurus.

There are cliches of response as well as expression.

Only bad writers think that their work is really good.

The reader is a friend, not an adversary, not a spectator.

Write in the third-person unless a really distinctive first-person voice offers itself irresistibly.

Interesting verbs are seldom very interesting.

Cut out the metaphors and similes.

Trust your reader. Not everything needs to be explained.

Write a book you'd like to read.

If description is colored by the viewpoint of the character who is doing the noticing, it becomes, in effect, part of the character definition and part of the action.

Tell the story as if talking to your best friend.

You can either write good sentences or you can't.

The better and more compelling a novel is, the less conscious you will be of its devices.

Novels are for readers.

Be ambitious for the work, not the reward.

Who Eats Whom In The Country Of Lions?

Today's recommended dish --
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/01/obama-in-the-lions-den.html

In 1826, John Hobhouse, a member of Great Britain's parliament, coined the phrase, "His Majesty's Loyal Opposition." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loyal_opposition) The idea is that even if I disagree with you, I will work together with you for our greater good. In order to function, democracies  must have a foundation of mutual respect and good will between those who are in power at any given moment and those who aren't. In a democracy, the people rule: all of the people. They just don't all rule at the same time.

There's a difference between being, as they say in Britain, the Loyal Opposition, and being obstructionist. It seems as if for several years now -- in fact, maybe forever -- in U.S. politics, there has been no Loyal Opposition; there's only been Opposition. From both parties. Everyone is out for one thing: self. Everything divides along the huge chasm of party differences. Of mine and yours. Democrats see Republicans as rampant fascists; Republicans see Democrats as unfettered socialists. Instead of the parties working together to advance civilization one tiny step at a time, whenever either party comes into power, it conducts its business as if its agenda is the only right one forever and ever, world without end, time out of mind.

America has always been a deeply divided nation. The Civil War wasn't about the issue of slavery; slavery was just one facet of the North and South's failure to connect since before the Declaration of Independence, and which extends, ironically, down to Vermont's recent threats of separation. What I want to know is, without Federal taxes, how will conservative Republicans and libertarian Vermonters maintain the Interstate highway system? How will they coordinate mail delivery among 50 different systems? How will they provide for the common defense? What will 50 different space agencies be able to do better than the Federally funded NASA? Ben Franklin said it best when he chided the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, "Gentlemen, if we don't hang together, we shall surely hang separately."

Maps, Money, and Culture

While browsing the news on the Web tonight, I stumbled across something which, the more I ponder it, the more puzzled I am. A story by Brett Zongker of the Associated Press gives details about a map of the world drawn in 1602 at the request of Emperor Wanli of China. The creator of the map was a Jesuit missionary from Italy by the name of Matteo Ricci, whom Mr. Zongker describes as "among the first Westerners to live in what is now Beijing in the early 1600s."

In October (presumably of 2009), the Ricci map was purchased from a private collector in Japan for $1 million by the James Ford Bell Trust, a fund started by the founder of General Mills. Eventually, the map will be housed in the Bell Library at the University of Minnesota.

Ford W. Bell, the magnate's grandson and co-trustee of the fund, explained that custodians at the Bell Library focus "on the development of trade and how that drove civilization — how that constant desire to find new markets to sell new products led to exchanges of knowledge, science, technology and really drove civilization" and so the map "fits in beautifully."

What strikes me as odd is that credit for the impetus for science and technology, even for civilization itself, is lavished on trade and the "constant desire to find new markets to sell new products". I suppose since mathematics and writing sprang up as a way to keep track of how many bushels of wheat the peasants had grown in order for the king to get his fair share of taxes, the case could be made that civilization accreted from bookkeeping. However, do we really want to credit greed and lust as the basis of art and beauty? Do we really want to say that poetry and story-telling, portraiture and music are all grounded in avarice? Are the things that make us human the same things that make us accountants?

In some sense, yes, human activity is economic activity. Having said that, though, how do we account for beauty? Why are we so impelled by it? Do we love things because they're beautiful, or because their beauty will bring a good price? Do we prize beauty for what we can get for it, or for its own sake? Is there some tiny bubble of our lives that resists reduction to commerce? What compels so avid a businessman as the elder Bell to establish a trust? What benefit would he derive from something that would outlast him by at least a couple of generations? The love of beauty can certainly be exploited by businessmen, but what about beauty itself? Is there some pure, ethereal, Platonic ideal of beauty we can't grasp? Put another way, is there some value that transcends valuation?

Happy Anniversary, Tin, wherever you are

Today is our ... let me see, Tin and I married in 1975, and this is 2010, so that makes this our ... 35th wedding anniversary. It's also the 27th anniversary of the filing for our divorce. Since I was working for a suite of lawyers at the time, I did all the paperwork myself, and arranged it so that the decree was actually signed by a judge and made official on St. Patrick's Day. For a while, I laughed about it, referring to March 17 as the 'Tearing of the Greens.' It didn't take long for the punchiness of the joke to wear off, and when my mother died on that date in 1994, all other connotations were blasted to tiny, insignificant pieces. Now, sixteen years later, even that event no longer carries the emotional charge it once did. Being human means that, given long enough, even the most searing pains scab over.

While Tin and I were married, we had a lot of fun. At least it seemed like fun at the time. We had a home, bought a sailboat, learned to scuba dive; we had a dog and three cats. We laughed a lot. Ultimately, though, mere things proved insufficient to hold our fragile coalition together. A terrible automobile accident in the middle of the Mexican desert proved the breaking point for us. I'll admit Tin stuck by me all through my recovery, but once I had healed enough to take care of myself, she let me know that it was time for her to head out in search of fresher pastures. I had no qualms about saying, "Adios." Maybe if I had shown more concern about us splitting, I might have talked her out of it, but at the time, I felt nothing but relief at her decision. It was a decision I would never have made on my own, not because of love or loyalty, but because of apathy. Things were going all right for me, so why rock the boat?

Even if we had had kids, I'm sure we wouldn't have stayed together anyway, and at least as it was, no one else was hurt by our decision. Actually, when you think about it, that statement is glib and hateful, isn't it? Of course someone was hurt by it. We were. Or if not hurt, then changed significantly. Whole life histories were yanked out of kilter and re-aligned. Looking back, I can't say if I would have changed anything if I had known then what I know now. Actually, if the past were that moldable, I'd change where I went to school, and so I wouldn't have met Tin in the first place, and things would have diverged to the point of being unrecognizable.

Having said all that, though, what I'm left with is the unchangeable nature of the past. And since the present is predicated on the past, that's pretty iron-clad, too. Which leaves the future as the only thing we have the option of changing. However, since we can't see past our noses, we really have no say over what our future will be. We can only float along on life's current, and hope we aren't headed for Angel Falls.