tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77617807634166033492023-11-16T02:42:28.963-05:00Sideways-inwriting my way to clarityJohn Pylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14379211215949426912noreply@blogger.comBlogger78125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7761780763416603349.post-64762811423989182882015-09-20T14:42:00.002-04:002015-09-20T14:42:55.921-04:00The Goldilocks PlanetI recently read two science fiction novels, written some 50 years apart, with similar premises. One was underwhelming, the other was much better.<br />
<br />
At the heart of these two novels was a paradox that's probably endemic to science fiction: the fact that our planet is balanced between precarious conditions that would make it unsuitable for human life. The size of our moon, the thickness of the ozone, the distance of our planet from the sun, the rate of its spin ... the list goes on. Scientists (like Michio Kaku) say our planet inhabits a Goldilocks zone. And yet, the imagination wants to go out into space and find "new worlds and strange civilizations" (to quote an old favorite, though I didn't quite get it right, I think). Given the odds, will we ever find another planet that humans can live on? Could some hypothetical future civilization fare any better?<br />
<br />
Most "sci-fi opera" novels (and films) just ignore this problem. Luke Skywalker can breathe the air on any number of planets. So can Edgar Rice Burroughs' hero, John Carter. But the two novels I read recently are more in the "hard sf" camp, taking the "science" part a lot more seriously.<br />
<br />
Both novels share the premise that a remarkably earth-like planet has been discovered. A team has been sent to take a closer look. Both planets prove to be too earth-like, too livable for coincidence. And so the major puzzle at the heart of each book is ... how? What's really going on here?<br />
<br />
The first one I read was Ben Bova's <i>New Earth</i>, published in 2013. In this novel, humans cannot travel faster than light, and so the humans who arrive at the paradisaical New Earth cannot easily leave or get help from old fashioned earth. Their technology fails them, thanks to the inference of a native species, and they spend the novel trying to find out who these aliens are and why they're messing with the crew.<br />
<br />
The second one I read was Mark Clifton's <i>Eight Keys to Eden</i>, published in 1960. Here, humans have mastered FTL travel, mostly because of a group of super-scientists who exist and operate above the law. A team of settlers is sent to "Ceti II," nicknamed "Eden," and find it very easy to thrive--almost too easy. Until, that is, their technology fails them and a super-scientist-in-training is sent in to help them. The hero here gets trapped with the other settlers and has to solve the puzzle with very limited clues, to finally arrive at a way to release himself from the planet--and other things, as well.<br />
<br />
By far the more exciting and mind-bending was the older one, by Mark Clifton. Bova's novel was slow-paced and turned on a conflict of mistrust, with a minimum of tension about whether that mistrust was misplaced. Clifton's novel left the reader wondering (until the last minute) both about the alien species and the puzzle that was keeping the humans imprisoned on the planet.<br />
<br />
In the end, neither novel solved the riddle, of course. They both concluded (or at least implied) that a planet safe for human life will be too good to be true. But one did this in the interests of encouraging humanity to trust and unity (Bova) and the other in the interests of imagining a higher destiny than space exploration--another level of evolution, so to speak.<br />
<br />
Well, that's it. Thanks for reading. Weigh in below if you have any ideas ... I'd love to hear it.John Pylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14379211215949426912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7761780763416603349.post-60688407608791677292015-02-14T23:29:00.000-05:002015-02-14T23:29:09.748-05:00A Writing Year in ReviewNothing like filing taxes to get you thinking about last year. It wasn't a great year for my writing, but I did log my first story sale (actual money for something I wrote). I won't disclose figures, but it was enough to buy a twelve pack.<br />
<br />
I wrote a children's book that I really liked, called "The Ice Boy." Oh, and another, called "Boris and the Spiders." And I heavily edited a story I wrote apparently in 2012, called "The Rubber Band Man in the Moon." These are all middle grade chapter books, of about the 5000 word variety. I write them, edit them to death, and then don't somehow know what to do with them.<br />
<br />
I also wrote (it looks like) four short stories. Like I said, not a great writing year.<br />
<br />
Apparently I did a lot of editing. I know this because I wrote a note to myself to this effect. For instance, I took a novella and added in a story thread that gives the main character a lot more depth. I added a whole subplot to another. I raked through one of my novels again. And I deeply edited a story that went through a round of critiques.<br />
<br />
Looks like I submitted 22 manuscripts (some as many as 3 times), and almost all of those in the first nine months of the year. This was one those Ray Bradbury "snow flurries of rejections slips" periods, although 22 probably isn't that many. I need to up my game, this I know. Time to get my feet wet submitting the longer stuff, too.<br />
<br />
On the up side: three of those rejections came with compliments, what I could call "near misses." One of those was a major market, a "professional" one. So that was very nice. And, it bears repeating, one came with with a "yes" and a small deposit in my account.<br />
<br />
Oh, and I almost forgot: This blog hit 10,000 all-time views. It might not be a sky-rocket, but I'll take it. Thanks for reading!<br />
<br />
Why am I telling you all this? I don't know. Camaraderie, maybe. The hope that it'll encourage one of us to keep moving forward? Yeah, it's probably that.John Pylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14379211215949426912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7761780763416603349.post-8705796133282102642014-12-07T00:42:00.001-05:002014-12-07T00:42:35.099-05:00Full Moon at MidnightIt's a full moon, and my dog is restless. She keeps looking at me with an expectant expression. More than once she has growled, or just stared, as she does when she needs to go out. But these have been thinly veiled excuses, even for a dog. Her piddling seems hardly urgent. She just wants to go out.<br />
<br />
I get the feeling what she really wants is to go on a hunt. To not just chase, but actually catch something, feel its fur in her teeth, and bring it back to me.<br />
<br />
Or maybe it's to howl at the moon. Another dog down the hill is barking like mad: whiny barks that might be suppressed, half-remembered wolf howls--all he's got left in his throat to let out what's elsewhere in his genes. My dog seems to want to join in. She's been growling and half-barking. And now I've decided to leave her alone in her crate.<br />
<br />
It's after midnight, after all. I should be in bed. But I'm just as restless as she is. Craving some red meat, maybe. Feeling just a little bit wild. But my excuse is that I had too much coffee today, and too late in the day.<br />
<br />
I'm a little further, I guess, from the primal roots of my species. Maybe not historically, but certainly culturally. I've got a thicker veneer of civilization on me. More coats of paint. Maybe some vinyl siding. I'm well hid in here, or so I like to think. "I" being that wild part of me, that just wants to run free like a dog through the woods. Hot on the trail of something ... some excitement or other. While the rest of me is perfectly content to sit in this chair in a warm house and type these fantasies into a text box.<br />
<br />
In fact the better part of me just wants that red-blooded streak to take a nap, so I can sleep. But let's face it: that's not going to happen any time soon.<br />
<br />
So if you hear me howling at the moon, in an hour or so, you'll know why. Just roll on over and go back to sleep. Unless you want to jog with me and my dog through the woods for a pace ...John Pylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14379211215949426912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7761780763416603349.post-60007160741260605992014-10-27T23:06:00.000-04:002014-10-27T23:06:24.740-04:00Forget need: write from joy<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYLXLJ4EZKEp8Q2hjvmzE_5lf2ZhxpxLZ1fHoPneTwwoQcM5rmZESzw3veE07J8j2S67ggVilZaFEmJS6C3smWLHPHOetnHQtTd3RJ_gNQC3TKzMl0tQm2d_DEP0aqy8LlD6yZsNrZ6m-2/s1600/Oh+Joy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Oh Joy (dog running on beach)" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYLXLJ4EZKEp8Q2hjvmzE_5lf2ZhxpxLZ1fHoPneTwwoQcM5rmZESzw3veE07J8j2S67ggVilZaFEmJS6C3smWLHPHOetnHQtTd3RJ_gNQC3TKzMl0tQm2d_DEP0aqy8LlD6yZsNrZ6m-2/s1600/Oh+Joy.jpg" height="300" title="" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Oh Joy!" by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/27236021@N02/4351912743/in/photolist-7CyG3k-8x4oXG-bzisko-8433rd-oVqRmL-8Bfpvk-5HmCEU-6omXuy-7w9cBN-58oqiF-ozA8FW-5gi6YB-egyBtp-6YpKsi-7HSG7r-jocSAq-7DRJDg-iaPVNU-4zEGQp-8eGQGf-5H1npT-6PMWuV-2W6ZfE-c9ZCu-9geyYt-aHtXQZ-8saZbd-67hDmR-bw61Fk-8iVuYB-cuB5b7-9wNZtf-cRHtP-nQjxoZ-ecS8Pz-cPsPbq-7w5nGF-7CibfZ-53tL1g-9evrUM-7w9cxN-dJ7mBh-cuB4Mm-gXqRmy-8NE9Sb-62x9GC-amGJDG-6bGv3W-5cWjEL-6q2zJg-afdTRB" target="_blank">dank1012</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
I'm going to talk to myself out loud for a few paragraphs. You're welcome to listen in.<br />
<br />
I've heard the advice that you should only write that story that grips you and won't let you go. You should write because you have to. You should write out of some kind of dire necessity. And I do believe there's truth in that. A lot of truth, and maybe even most of the truth.<br />
<br />
But that's not the whole truth. From another angle, as I wrote in <a href="http://john-pyle.blogspot.com/2014/10/wind-in-my-sails.html" target="_blank">a recent post reflecting on playing cornet</a> (for no earthly or professional reason), too much of our lives are devoted to duties. Things we have to do, because if we don't do them ... <i>whatever</i> will happen. I won't be able to pay my bills. My kids will grow up to hate me. My such-and-such will get mad at me. Whatever it is. Duty calls, and we jump to our feet (grudgingly, but quickly). And the deeper the need, the quicker our response, the more attention and energy we give that thing, and the harder we push to "do it right."<br />
<br />
Writing, I think, shouldn't be like that at all. Or at least not the kind of writing I'm interested in. A story that has to be written is, well, a newspaper story written for a deadline. Or a sequel to a novel promised by the writer, or demanded by a contract. (I respect both of those kinds of writing, by the way. But it's not what I signed on for here!) Freedom--the kind of freedom that is essential to art--has to come from a different place. It has to come from a kind of joy. Or at least "joy" is one of the places it can come from. A superabundance, an exuberance, an overflow, an excess.<br />
<br />
That, I admit, is its own kind of necessity. And it might be the necessity these advice-givers have in mind. But its primary trait is not, I think, <i>need</i>. Its primary trait is "joy." Or "enjoyment." Delight. Ecstasy. Richness. Excess. A freedom from duty, a desire that transcends the demands of everyday life, that celebrates "waste" and "profligacy." Just look at the endless hours spent clacking at a keyboard to produce a small piece of excellent, exquisite prose. Novels write far slower than they read. If they existed for reading alone, they would never be written. The writer would collapse under the pressure of duty, the duty to produce what was demanded.<br />
<br />
The same could be said about painting. It doesn't exist only to be looked at and seen. If it did, what painter could bear the strain to produce a finished work?<br />
<br />
So novels are written for another reason altogether. Call it "need" if you want, I prefer "joy." The very best novels are experiments in delight, distillations of endless lingering, idiosyncratic and meandering, exploratory and clever, taking the time to shed light on some aspect of life, or just to tickle some curious itch. There are mercenary novelists, I'm sure. But like I said, I'm talking here to myself about the kinds of novels I enjoy reading and would want to write. They all have that trait of exuberance, even if it's the sparse lines of Hemingway or the voluble passages of Dostoevsky, the vivid descriptions of a Neal Stephenson, the arms-length humor of H. G. Wells, the lush prose of Patricia McKillip, or the ascetic blade of Ursula Le Guin. None of these writers, I think, are writing because they have to--out of some kind of duty imposed on them from an external force. (Dostoevsky sometimes did, I realize, to pay bills. But that's beside my point.) It might not even be that they have to write this particular story because its teeth got into them. It might be that they have found room in their life, in the internal space of their interior life, to play. (Play, either frivolously, or with great earnestness. But play, nonetheless.) And in playing ... out came these delights.<br />
<br />
I don't know if that's the way to say it. But there's something true in what I'm trying to articulate here. Something that the advice to write "what you have to" has never conveyed to me. Writing, for me, has to live outside the realm of "duty." At least for now. It has to exist in a place that's free of those kinds of mercenary constraints. It thrives on exploration, on a rich diet of leisure and thought and space and time. From there a story might well seize me and not let me go. But it seems to me it's more often the reverse: that I seize a story, an idea, an inkling, that emerges from that rich interior life, and I don't let it go until I've found out the insight it's hiding in its murky depths.<br />
<br />
Stories, to me, don't come fully formed, but rather as semi-conscious or even unconscious nudges that I have to seize and follow out if I want to understand them. I can go on without them--and have--but I'd rather take hold of them. This doesn't feel like necessity, but rather opportunity. A chance to find joy, to pursue my bliss.<br />
<br />
<br />John Pylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14379211215949426912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7761780763416603349.post-72891370035192537182014-10-17T21:37:00.000-04:002014-10-17T21:37:54.215-04:00Wind in My Sails<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix01TFlEFs5MrYfU7bbhJjMB_cBFqyAknsH9qjEcRV3W3xnpOu11QofnCEqRPKUfx0JghSCuQt8JQlRVK84rIHzDR-bhye2grFcOgv_GAICJVqGw8NUUo7eVQJjsq6_FojY2gGaSQam005/s1600/Cornet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix01TFlEFs5MrYfU7bbhJjMB_cBFqyAknsH9qjEcRV3W3xnpOu11QofnCEqRPKUfx0JghSCuQt8JQlRVK84rIHzDR-bhye2grFcOgv_GAICJVqGw8NUUo7eVQJjsq6_FojY2gGaSQam005/s1600/Cornet.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://princefrederickstore.com/zencart/king-602-cornet-p-1347.html" target="_blank">This cornet</a> is exactly like mine (including the case)<br />You can get one for under $100</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
After 20 plus years, I recently picked up my cornet and started playing. It's not a fine instrument, my cornet. It has age, and character. The first valve sticks sometimes. The sound is a bit bright, a bit stuffy, and the mouthpiece is bowl-shaped instead of the more typical V you want for a cornet. On the other hand, I haven't had so much fun in years.<br />
<br />
What's fun, oddly, is the discipline of doing something that has no professional purpose or possibility. Writing used to be that way, and then I got the crazy notion of trying to publish some things (not that I try that hard, but I do try). On cornet, I'm just a guy in his forties blowing sound out of a brass pipe.<br />
<br />
But the process of learning to hold the instrument to my lips, and create from my body a sweet sound, is its own reward here. Most of my playing is done in a practice room at the college. If other people can hear me, they mostly have my sympathy. I'm not there to impress anybody. I just want to do it right, not because of some duty but for the sake of creating a pure sound, a sweet and clear tone.<br />
<br />
Not many things in life are like this, I think. Most of what we do is for duty--that's been my experience. Why else do I get up at the crack of dawn? Why else do I read certain books and put in my hours and go here and there running around in the car? All of that--a good chunk of my life--is for nothing but duty.<br />
<br />
But playing a horn that nobody can hear, and disciplining my body to learn to breathe, and my lips to buzz, and my jaw to stay in position ... all this is just completely outside of any necessity whatsoever. I'm doing it because I want to. And nobody else wants me to ... er ... expects me to.<br />
<br />
I guess writing is like that still, even in spite of my feeble efforts to publish what I've written. I don't do any of that because I <i>have</i> to. I'm not a starving artist with no other skill set. (Maybe that's why I'm not more driven to send out my work.) Nobody's expecting me to write something or put it in the mail. The closest I get to that is writing I do for work which, partly for that reason no doubt, feels like drudgery and toil. And I suppose disciplining myself to learn the craft of fiction, how to shape a narrative, how to hone description and bring out voices and delve into the red blood of a character ... all that is for the sake of doing it right, getting that "clear tone," too. I do want to make my stories sing, for myself first and foremost. And here comes the other reason I don't send things out as diligently as I should: I can hardly get a better rush than when I know the story is right, in the quiet of my own study. (And more often it's something far worse than a rush that I get back from my endeavors to interest an editor in my delicacies.)<br />
<br />
At some point, I know, I am going to want to step out of the practice room and play a few tunes in the hearing of human ears. I'm not there yet, but when my horn is responding to me the way I'd like it to, that moment won't be far behind. Even then, it won't be performance that I'm after. I'll want the joy of playing with other musicians, contributing my horn's voice to a larger whole, on the sweet sounds set down by a genius. If writing could somehow be more like that, I suppose I'd be less timid. But every bit of words scratched on paper--even this half-random blog post--feels like a performance, even if only to me. When it's read, there's a finality to it that a musical rehearsal doesn't have. That's not always true--critique groups break the rule there--but it's often enough true. And out there in the world of professional performance, there be wolves and dragons.<br />
<br />
So maybe that's my last hurdle, the reluctance that keeps me close to the vest. Who knows? Who cares? What matters tonight is that I've found little gusts of joy that, in spare moments, refresh me, like a cool wind on the sea, filling my sails.John Pylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14379211215949426912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7761780763416603349.post-80524863506593254972014-09-30T08:00:00.000-04:002014-09-30T23:37:43.334-04:00The Origins of Mythology: "Comparison and Theory"<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
<i>This is an old-school weblog series, tracking my progress through </i>The Origins of the World's Mythologies<i>, by Michael Witzel, a thick monograph published by Oxford University Press in 2012.</i></div>
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEXAXtGD08aYVt06CG5ePsR30XO6SC8MlyftiCApcbC3d8RM-jKiq_HYLRmA9iwmSjfbc30o8ktq-q2GLgBe6VHiN65C1CLnG5MT2AaL8E6N3T9ik5d_kqpKRpyzhof3sJmdORYOFnVkFG/s1600/Witzel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEXAXtGD08aYVt06CG5ePsR30XO6SC8MlyftiCApcbC3d8RM-jKiq_HYLRmA9iwmSjfbc30o8ktq-q2GLgBe6VHiN65C1CLnG5MT2AaL8E6N3T9ik5d_kqpKRpyzhof3sJmdORYOFnVkFG/s1600/Witzel.jpg" height="320" width="211" /></a></div>
My <a href="http://john-pyle.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-origins-of-mythology-introduction.html" target="_blank">initial impressions about this chapter</a> were overly optimistic. I thought I was going to find here a survey of the author's method, with some discussion of the theory of comparison. And that's how it started.<br />
<br />
But about halfway through, I realized that instead I was being given a close-up tour of the method as it applies to the results that I will become more fully acquainted with in the next chapter.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Quick Summary</h3>
The question that drives this chapter is this: "Why do we find the same myths all over the world, even in cultures that don't have any recent connection to each other?" And the solution Witzel provides forms the heart of his method: Humans took these stories with them through all their migrations around the globe.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Two General Impressions</h3>
One, a memory: I was once given a tour of a chapel by an overly enthusiastic organist. About fifteen minutes into it, I realized it was not going to end anytime soon. My guide knew the date and cost of every piece of equipment, from floor to roof tiles; the names of all the key donors; the unique history of every piece of artwork commissioned (at x sum) for placement in the space. For a historian of that particular chapel, it would have been fascinating.<br />
<br />
Witzel's second chapter is a bit like that. I like where his method is taking us, I like the overall design, and some of the decorative fine points are pretty appealing. But the exhaustive explication is a tad wearying. Even so, I have mixed feelings about this chapter. What Witzel is proposing is truly mind-boggling. The dispersion of key mythological bits and pieces, filled out with material recovered from this or that corner of the globe, is going to take us back more than 40 <i>thousand</i> years, to a mythological complex that was practically born with human language. Or at least that's what he's hoping to prove.<br />
<br />
Understandably, the author may be concerned that his project won't be given a fair hearing, and so he layers on methodological justifications, giving weight and clear explanation to the choices he made. Also, Witzel clearly hopes others will carry forward this research, so he's laying the groundwork for future researchers. Cutting a path.<br />
<br />
But the tradeoff (here's my second thought) is that Witzel's account loses all dramatic appeal in the process. He has to give huge chunks of his results away to make sure we understand his method, and that robs the book of any revelatory quality. It's like a strip tease with no tease. That might be an asset in scholarly studies, but it makes the reading quite a bit duller.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Setting Up the Problem</h3>
So let me try to restate some key points I've gotten from the chapter so far, in more dramatic fashion than Witzel has done. I'll try not to distort it too much. Here goes.<br />
<br />
When you compare the earliest recorded mythologies from remote parts of the world, such as Mesoamerica (Mayans, Inca), Polynesia, India, and Greece, certain stories emerge into a kind of three-dimensional clarity. What explanation could exist for the remarkable similarities between myths told in such far-flung places? There are really only four possibilities:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>these stories were spread from major cultural centers to outlying areas by trade routes ("diffusion")</li>
<li>these stories emerge in each culture because human beings are hardwired, neurologically or linguistically or in some more psychically mysterious way, to tell them ("archetype")</li>
<li>these stories emerge in each culture because of environmental factors (say, rainstorms and agriculture), and such things are accidentally explained the same way ("convergence")</li>
<li>these stories have been inherited from a common source and passed down through countless generations as humans migrated to these far-flung places ("common origin")</li>
</ol>
<br />
The first explanation, "diffusion," doesn't work for myths that lie close to the center of a remote culture, because traders and visitors and immigrants don't easily insert their stories into the center of a foreign culture. This is especially true since the myths have religious dimensions and uses. We all know how open traditional religions are to innovations from passing foreigners and trade-partners. Or anybody else. Enough said.<br />
<br />
The second explanation, "archetype," works well in theory as an explanation for the similarities, but it has two strikes against it. One, it sort of looks like mumbo-jumbo (my word, not Witzel's). It takes a bit of hand-waving to get universal archetypes embedded into the human soul as an explanation for <i>anything</i>. Possible, but unprovable. (Jung made the effort; some people still accept that; most scholars of this material don't.) Two, it doesn't work well for explaining the differences between the mythologies of these peoples. In other words, if it's embedded into the human psyche, why over here and not over there? (The myths aren't <i>everywhere</i>, they're just incredibly widespread.)<br />
<br />
There's another thing, too, that makes the human-hardwiring explanation hard to fit to the evidence. The mythical bits and pieces we're talking about are <i>interconnected</i>. They follow a storyline or plot that transcends and links together the individual mythical units. What archetypal patterning could account for that? (Could a storyline really be embedded into human brain matter?)<br />
<br />
This last wrinkle causes trouble for the third explanation, too ("convergence"). If human cultures are making these stories up spontaneously, thanks to similar environmental conditions, <i>why are they also slotting them into the same plotline</i>?<br />
<br />
This question cuts deep for the "convergence" model: Witzel can point to clear examples of convergence. And guess what? Despite outward similarities, convergent myths don't serve the same functions within the two myth systems. Not so the stories we're looking at here.<br />
<br />
So that leaves the last option: a common origin. Is that possible? To be clear: the migrations that separated humans who wound up telling tales in the Mayan tongue from the humans who scratched out the <i>Rig Veda</i> and the <i>Theogony</i> of Hesiod go back twenty thousand years or more. That's a long time to pass down a tale.<br />
<br />
There are some supporting clues, though. For instance, in both Hawai'i and central Australia, a great flood myth is told. But neither area is subject to flooding--the one, thanks to mountains, the other, arid conditions. (If this was "diffusion," the only possible alternative here, the Australian aborigines would likely have told the outsiders, "What's a flood?" But if they had inherited the tale before they came to Australia, they're much more likely to hold onto it. See remark above about religious conservativism.)<br />
<br />
Even with this kind of support, though, common origins is an extraordinary claim, so it requires several checks. How to proceed? How to get past guesswork to something more like proof?<br />
<br />
<h3>
Witzel's "Genetic" Solution</h3>
The answer lies in science, actually. Genetics, linguistics, taxonomy. Treat mythical units ("mythemes") like genes. How does an organism come to possess a trait? Through inheritance and mutation. Your possession of a certain trait (say, vertebrae) suggests common descent with many kinds of creatures who share that trait (vertebrae), whereas your five-digit hands and feet suggest a much smaller pool of shared DNA.<br />
<br />
Or look at linguistics (Witzel's primary field). Shared vocabulary, overlapping declension patterns, shared but unique grammatical rules, point to kinship--again, common descent from an earlier language that wasn't exactly either descendent language but, over time, gave birth to both.<br />
<br />
If a similar comparison between traits, genes, vocabulary, grammar, can be undertaken for mythologies, it should be possible to trace out "path dependencies" for myths--mythological elements or traits that have been passed down to more than one mythological system. Close comparative work could allow the researcher to trace these "genes" back to the parent, and so to reconstruct some of that parent's genetic blueprint. The parent (the mythological sequence or plotline) that gave birth to these far-flung descendants will not be identical to any of them. And some of the parent's traits may be difficult to define with certainty. But something of its shape, its contours, should emerge.<br />
<br />
In the process of building up the family tree for these mythologies, layers of divergence and resemblance should appear at higher and lower levels on the genealogical chart--like your backbone and your five-digit hands and feet. So, for instance, traits shared across Eurasia but not found in Mesoamerica would suggest a branching of the mythological "family tree" at the point where humans crossed the land bridge into America. As humans migrated, they took some stories but not others--perhaps because those stories hadn't been told yet. After the migration, the ones who migrated invent new stories again, which will be spread to different parts of America but won't be found among the population that didn't cross to America.<br />
<br />
Once such stories get injected into the DNA of a particular region or language family, some few survive and go on to shape the regional, and then local, mythologies. All the way down to your own tribe's interpretation. The result is obvious, and a lot like genetics: over time, you have tremendous variety, built on an underlying substrate of common inheritance.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Two Key Terms</h3>
Here are two key terms worth defining, as they're central for Witzel's work:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"path dependency" - defined as "the set of <i>foundational</i> topics in each civilization that have exercised extraordinary influence on all its subsequent stages" (p. 39, emphasis original). Witzel uses this concept to explain why particular myths and "doctrines" persist over countless generations of humans. (The idea of an eternity spent in "heaven" or "hell," for instance, he traces back at least 3,000 years to Zoroaster.)</blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"cladistic analysis" - the effort to establish a "family tree" of mythological tales, "just as botanists, zoologists, paleontologists, geneticists, linguists, and philologists habitually construct from their data" (p. 3)</blockquote>
<br />
<h3>
Last Thoughts</h3>
That's the project as I understand it. I'll let you know next time if I need to correct anything in my explanation.<br />
<br />
But meanwhile I hope you can see why this is exciting stuff. Witzel is promising to take us back to a Cro Magnon mythological system, and his method for doing it has at least a decent chance of getting the picture into reasonable focus.John Pylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14379211215949426912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7761780763416603349.post-3956016781407567622014-09-17T08:00:00.000-04:002014-09-17T08:00:07.292-04:00Minecraft Isn't Real<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK_Y0wFAjv5H8eaVo_izfdmLZAS1tFJKJVd4FBXWTwOVZGVVr0Jtygs9l3c_YBJN2-3U7Df_Dsibqc1HPkwouqDZB1BjBsMDtgUYeEr0naZRXaYrPfhR0-kp48ndYvjwKMtEgn3QkUmoTC/s1600/Minecraft.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK_Y0wFAjv5H8eaVo_izfdmLZAS1tFJKJVd4FBXWTwOVZGVVr0Jtygs9l3c_YBJN2-3U7Df_Dsibqc1HPkwouqDZB1BjBsMDtgUYeEr0naZRXaYrPfhR0-kp48ndYvjwKMtEgn3QkUmoTC/s1600/Minecraft.jpg" height="400" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image credit: <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/minecraft/" target="_blank">GameSpot</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
For my own sanity, and yours, and your childrens', I feel I need to point this out. Let me help you and yours come back to a sense of reality.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>People can't chop down trees with their fists. Or, if they did, they wouldn't have enough of a hand left to make a crafting table out of that wood.</li>
<li>While we're at it, you can't make a crafting table out of chunks of wood--without a crafting table. So this becomes a chicken and egg problem, only worse.</li>
<li>People can't carry around 78 blocks of granite. Just can't be done.</li>
<li>Uncooked meat goes bad after a while. And so does cooked meat, too, by the way.</li>
<li>Just because you sleep through the night doesn't mean the bad guys outside aren't really there.</li>
<li>Skip the last one. There aren't any bad guys outside. If you go to sleep through the night, you'll be just fine. Trust me, kids.</li>
<li>Endermen do not exist. I know it's terrifying to see one that's less than two inches tall, but they aren't real. Did I mention that it's safe to go outside in the dark (check with your parent or guardian)?</li>
<li>If you meet a spider the size of your torso, you should definitely not attempt to kill it with a crappy stone sword. You should run as fast as you can.</li>
<li>Hacking a sheep to death makes it more, not less, difficult to capture its wool.</li>
<li>People can't swim with 78 blocks of granite on their person.</li>
<li>When you lose a third of your life to an explosion, a pork chop isn't going to make it come back.</li>
<li>The world is larger than the screen you are staring at.</li>
</ul>
<br />
You're welcome. Now please add your own reminders, and help restore our collective sanity.<br />
<br />
P.S. Thanks, Mojang<br />
<br />
I wasn't the only one who needed to be reminded, apparently: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYwQVZBEV9A" target="_blank">"Why Minecraft Isn't Realistic" (YouTube video)</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />John Pylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14379211215949426912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7761780763416603349.post-77853581392642100602014-09-07T09:00:00.000-04:002014-09-07T09:00:05.439-04:00Quietly Writing<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxXscKS_2k0lw5jItLFIGaZiNbHW7lgqEw7ilCKsoztNcUfomfi8XsbvZuI9agXPQhsAejQsgbybqZl7AITc8g2qzFe_nvwTRHAqf98IBpwkH0b4pg565mubrntF22Ikrs519CrMp_GjJP/s1600/Solitude.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxXscKS_2k0lw5jItLFIGaZiNbHW7lgqEw7ilCKsoztNcUfomfi8XsbvZuI9agXPQhsAejQsgbybqZl7AITc8g2qzFe_nvwTRHAqf98IBpwkH0b4pg565mubrntF22Ikrs519CrMp_GjJP/s1600/Solitude.jpg" height="265" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Solitude" (Flickr: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vonderauvisuals/14029516801/sizes/c/in/photolist-nnJWyH-6MzkEx-MaNrA-dP1Bjw-66VSrx-hz11sF-7EpxVi-5eFKSw-5eSsvr-h87dPw-bipsJT-doPe9K-hiGF3-ynp5G-ke7HV5-bHhpJp-ba26oe-mVUXX2-7DcvKy-9af3FL-cfAVy1-fzJyja-EEfKd-65iz9r-5DZjJ9-SML4A-7yiKyF-otuQb-8oYc5E-nYzX7q-9cDYjM-gJmFDn-cDEJX-5fbRHL-2TQBxw-6ELUQ7-hqMnnT-dDtS6Z-5YnYvr-5gwaQn-8JjqAJ-6FSL3-4B6Y5n-5eFKvo-66GapT-4ZRvsU-9pMoBW-6eQXJ9-9mqGuc-6eQX2G-7Kcihu/" target="_blank">vonderauvisuals</a>)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
In this loud culture of "all talk, all the time," where even taciturn writers like myself are asked to "create a web presence," network like high-powered corporate types, and "market yourself relentlessly," I'm learning to pull back and enjoy a nice long steep in solitude.<br />
<br />
This summer, I spent a lot of time reading, joined a critique group, bought a one-person fishing kayak, edited like mad, and sometimes wrote new material. It was nice to give myself permission to enjoy what we in our house call "alone time." That's where we all go when we get overstimulated, stressed, and in need of a recharge. Maybe you have your own version of alone time. Maybe you golf or go for a jog. My version often involves reading or writing quietly in a chair.<br />
<br />
It occurs to me that one cannot read or write <i>loudly, </i>or in a <i>vivacious and extroverted manner.</i> A writer, alone in a room, with the implements of his trade--laptop or paper--before him, all distractions tuned out. The door closed. This, as we all know who write, is how you get things written. There is, as the old proverb has it, a time for everything under the sun. A time to speak boldly in front of others, a time to be gregarious and delight new acquaintances. Even a time to promote oneself. But of course the quiet labor of writing belongs to a different time from all of that, and can only happen where that separate time is set aside and the outside world is shut out.<br />
<br />
Or, actually, not the outside world per se. The world of nature, the colors and sights and sounds, all enter into the thing. And even the world of human society, from which I will have retreated for the sake of doing the actual writing, nonetheless leaves its echo on my mind. In fact, I think of this tendency to become overstimulated as a gift, because it makes human society vivid in my memory. The brilliant impression of being around others helps me see human interaction clearly when I'm alone in my study, like a well exposed photograph. And that in turn helps me be true to it when I'm writing in solitude. It's a gift, because, again, I can't write except in solitude. And it usually happens that there are going to be people in whatever I'm writing--people I'd like to get down on paper, now that I've taken their measure out there in the real world.<br />
<br />
When I'm out in the world, if I've had time to recharge quietly--like I did this summer--I'm more alive to what I'm seeing. I take all this human flux into me, and all the texture of nature, or city streets, or the thick air of a summer afternoon. When I can get it like that, I can distill it within, until I'm full and it's time to retreat again.<br />
<br />
I wonder what it must be like to ride on the surface of all that sensory input? I'm so deep in its throes that I get overwhelmed. But again, that's a gift, because from where I am down in the pounding pulse of that cacophony of noise and color, I might get lucky and see what drives it.<br />
<br />
Of such good summers are rich autumns made. I expect to be more fully alive to the people and things around me, and so all the richer in my interior life. And that can only go to improve the quality of what I write, or think, when I'm in that solitary place. Quietly writing.John Pylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14379211215949426912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7761780763416603349.post-32789940359681122992014-08-27T08:30:00.000-04:002014-08-27T08:30:01.298-04:00Jack London, old and new<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQvIZOaT-OcSiFawLDhoZxJm6W668oCmDlEJlrmTLSAgp9m2f3VSZJg38wwCtiWyUcNmT4YngAT6n34rtTCIQu8-W2shCqlTEVeOln8DM_bXw482eesRlL_nP5ot4lEn9ywZaomK36a2e6/s1600/Jack+London.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQvIZOaT-OcSiFawLDhoZxJm6W668oCmDlEJlrmTLSAgp9m2f3VSZJg38wwCtiWyUcNmT4YngAT6n34rtTCIQu8-W2shCqlTEVeOln8DM_bXw482eesRlL_nP5ot4lEn9ywZaomK36a2e6/s1600/Jack+London.jpg" height="400" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Source: The Bancroft Library</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Jack London was the writer who ignited my lust for books. Weirdly, I don't remember how old I was. It might have been 10, could have been 12. I had laughed over Dr. Seuss, of course, and I'd read a lot of stuff lying around our rambling old house. But it wasn't until <i>The Call of the Wild</i> fell into my hands that I experienced the impelling desire for books.<br />
<br />
I remember that experience common to a lot of us: searching through the stacks at the library for "another [insert favorite author]." I found and devoured <i>White Fang</i>. But that was all our library had of Jack London. I moved on to other dog stories, thinking (hoping) that it was "dog stories" I wanted. It would have been too unbearable to imagine that I wanted only something that did not exist: more Jack London books.<br />
<br />
In retrospect, it was an unexpected spark, that book. A more unlikely steel to my flint would be hard to imagine. I was a dreamy-eyed kid, anything but hardened by my travails, such as they were. I'd been raised to believe in a different ethic, not the one Jack London preached in all the pages of that book. I was taught to love my enemies; London's hero and mine, the reborn dog Buck, taught me valor, strength, cunning. Survival of the fittest. Later someone would label this for me: it's the heroic code in modern dress, the code of Beowulf and his ilk, and before him of Achilles and Hector, stalking glory on the battlefield. Here you boast, not in weakness, but in strength. Humility, on this field, is taken for weakness. And prowess is valued, not buried in shame.<br />
<br />
There is no accounting for loves. What I devoured when I read those books was not social Darwinism, but the cold austerity of courage, stripped down, made vital. And the language--London's words are often deeply moving, merciless in their confrontation of that wildness he courts. Poetic, inspired, impassioned.<br />
<br />
Maybe it was just that--his passion. Maybe I took that up in my veins through the ink that was, as it were, his blood on the page.<br />
<br />
I couldn't say. I only know this: I revisited <i>The Call of the Wild </i>last month. And still, though I shrink back from that brutality, and though I sense better now the cost of embracing his vision of what and who we animals are, I felt the call of the wild in its pages, even so. It moved me, drew something from me, as Homer still does, and Beowulf.<br />
<br />
And there's more, I think. In my exhausting efforts to lay low, bury my prowess at this or that, not vaunt myself--I start to hear that call drifting down from the timberland. Some day, I will meet that call. Not to become a brute, but to reconcile my desire and my skill with the things I've been taught, the civilizing influences I've taken in.<br />
<br />
<i>You can read The Call of the Wild at <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/215/215-h/215-h.htm" target="_blank">Project Gutenberg</a>, or on an e-reader near you.</i><br />
<i>Here's a nice, brief biography, by <a href="http://london.sonoma.edu/jackbio.html" target="_blank">Dr. Clarice Stasz</a>.</i><br />
<i>Here's a nice summing up of its potency and value, by <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/may/19/100-best-novels-call-of-the-wild-jack-london" target="_blank">Robert McCrum</a>.</i><br />
<i>Here's how you treat this book when you're afraid of the wild: "<a href="https://www.commonsensemedia.org/book-reviews/the-call-of-the-wild" target="_blank">Common Sense" Media</a></i>John Pylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14379211215949426912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7761780763416603349.post-8864395776963650822014-08-17T21:51:00.002-04:002014-09-30T23:37:23.795-04:00The Origins of Mythology: "Introduction"<br />
<i>This is an old-school weblog series, tracking my progress through </i>The Origins of the World's Mythologies<i>, by Michael Witzel, a thick monograph published by Oxford University Press in 2012.</i><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipP70L1nshd1hTa3NMiwjiW7KnT4DzE2gtq06GeAy4o8x980Dmx6ks87xNdiUL-bJwEF4irWLeRkjXR9tGZnLi7SI37lvsuL8zPRqeJsoxBSDtJM8lfsE9juX_RnschalgooxMImCabVxN/s1600/Witzel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipP70L1nshd1hTa3NMiwjiW7KnT4DzE2gtq06GeAy4o8x980Dmx6ks87xNdiUL-bJwEF4irWLeRkjXR9tGZnLi7SI37lvsuL8zPRqeJsoxBSDtJM8lfsE9juX_RnschalgooxMImCabVxN/s1600/Witzel.jpg" height="400" width="263" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo credit: Oxford University Press</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
In the intro, Witzel, a Harvard Sanskrit professor, lays out the terrain for his study, which intrigued me the moment I read this: <a href="http://www.academia.edu/5251193/Review_of_Witzel_-_The_Origins_of_the_Worlds_Mythologies_2013_" target="_blank">review</a> of it. I have formal education in religious studies and mythology, and I like writing what some folks call "mythic fiction" (which isn't actually limited to mythology). So I was intrigued enough to buy a copy, partly because I immediately recognized that the premise for this book is unusual, even unique. Let me explain.<br />
<br />
Witzel claims that the far-flung mythologies of the world can be traced, scientifically (on the model of linguistics), back to an original mythological complex or "storyline." He promises to use various methods to recover this storyline in the upcoming chapters. But here (in the intro) he's setting out what's unique about his approach, and why it just might work. This is common fare for academic books (for good reason), but I won't rehash all the arguments. A brief catalog of the 36-page intro:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>some older theories about why myths from different eras and geographical locations share so many similarities</li>
<li>weaknesses in said older theories</li>
<li>a survey of various attempts to interpret myths</li>
<li>how all of the above differ from the approach of Witzel in what is forthcoming in the book</li>
</ul>
<br />
The take-aways are more interesting than the bits just referred to. Here are a couple.<br />
<br />
Witzel's definition of myth (a bit complex, but worth tackling):<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
a 'true' narrative that tells of cosmology and society as well as of the human condition and that is frequently employed to explain and justify social circumstances (p. 35)</blockquote>
Or, more eloquently:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
myth tries to make a significant statement about human life itself: 'where do we come from, why are we here, where do we go?' Just like Gauguin's enigmatic painting, myth artistically combines many motifs into a meaningful whole, modifying the older (even the reconstructed original) layout according to individual local conditions… Myth still binds humans to their natural habitat and social background; it provides people with reasons for the cyclical seasons of nature, for festivals, rituals, and social strata; myth also tells of a deep underlying meaning of human life itself, satisfying basic spiritual needs (p. 34)</blockquote>
This description nicely brings together some important observations about myth. One, that it "combines many motifs." In fact, its vitality and "meaning" are related to its combinatorial quality, the complex interactions of elements in the myths (see Claude Levi-Strauss). Another, that myth is tied to ritual and festival. That makes it public, social, cultural. And finally, Witzel helpfully keeps in view the religious dimension of myth, or its "spiritual" dimension if you prefer, which is important but surprisingly rare (among scholars of this material).<br />
<br />
Finally, I would be remiss if I failed to give a glimpse of his main methodological point, which is the purpose of his introduction. Witzel's unique contribution here is going to be to take whole complexes of actual mythologies (say in Japan, India, Greece, etc.) and compare them, searching for "path dependencies" or "descent lines" still in evidence across those cultures. Older approaches (some of them groan-worthy if popular) just compare individual stories. So Witzel's work is massive, cross-disciplinary, and so far pretty compelling. I'll let you know when I get through chapter 2, which promises to be a fairly quick run through theories of comparison.<br />
<br />
<i>I linked to Frederick Smith's review of the book above, but <a href="http://www.academia.edu/5251193/Review_of_Witzel_-_The_Origins_of_the_Worlds_Mythologies_2013_" target="_blank">here it is again</a> (PDF).</i><br />
<i>And I found a good shorter review of it here: </i><a href="http://www.isca.ox.ac.uk/fileadmin/ISCA/JASO/2014/Allen.pdf" target="_blank">"Comparing Mythologies on a Global Scale: A Review Article By N.J. Allen" (PDF)</a>John Pylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14379211215949426912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7761780763416603349.post-91782441681256458922014-08-06T21:22:00.001-04:002014-08-09T00:47:06.300-04:00Reading Undine<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYqBnZAQdcMGI_cDRAMDhQSjcp0hg-Zehq-pRiu36xHp9W-VOCD6OQgEvwOFQkm0bRW385jz470PRoe_InxXQwsP2vBjmH1jVq2FfZGWnLXCFviaRRoKgcGqJQZTziObXZH_qpXMIMnAv1/s1600/Ondine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Ondine (photo)" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYqBnZAQdcMGI_cDRAMDhQSjcp0hg-Zehq-pRiu36xHp9W-VOCD6OQgEvwOFQkm0bRW385jz470PRoe_InxXQwsP2vBjmH1jVq2FfZGWnLXCFviaRRoKgcGqJQZTziObXZH_qpXMIMnAv1/s1600/Ondine.jpg" height="240" title="Ondine" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Ondine," photo by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/evaekeblad/3296101195/sizes/m/in/photolist-62go3X-6i3cQF-dvsZt6-7VRhYg-62g2Tw-7cRqCV-aFrM3-9nAgGb-J6PFS-5v8xUc-8WnPDA-4UbfYc-8WjKji-6nfG5e-9nxeLn-8EDEGq-dzKUBB-dzKTJv-cmWnkA-8SpUWf-8SmNZz-8SpVad-6vZTd2-73Vtr2-9L9c8j-Hk76c-dJv49B-dJv3ii-dJAsKd-dJv2AT-dJAwFC-dJAywu-dJAxEN-nkF5fA-nkF53G-nfsjah-nkZMas-nkXwmK-nnJ1zn-73ZnrW-6iYxWW-cmWnMJ-dQ6K8o-dQ7389-dQ6WE5-dQ6M1W-dQ73PW-9S7qZE-cp1LS-LNqEm-5DC7ud/" target="_blank">Eva the Weaver</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: center;">
<b><i> Of all fairytales I know, I think Undine the most beautiful</i></b></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: right;">
- George MacDonald</blockquote>
I'm not ready to go as far as MacDonald, but I will say that reading <i>Undine, </i>the classic fairy story by Friedrich Heinrich Karl de la Motte, Baron Fouqué (how's that for a French-German hybrid name?), was very pleasurable for me. Here's why.<br />
<br />
When I read a new fairy tale, or one I've forgotten, it's like eating a nectarine. You know what it's like. You sit at the table, and in just a moment the soft peel is off that perfectly round fruit. Then it falls apart into slices, tailor made for human mouths. Twelve, thirteen little bites, and it's done--delightful, tangy, juicy, sweet. A perfect snack.<br />
<br />
But never a meal.<br />
<br />
Now imagine you could have a tangerine and you could eat it for a good half hour, like you would a full dinner. Sound nice?<br />
<br />
<< Well, no, you might say. Halfway through the meal, my tongue would get so cloyed from the sweet, juicy, intense thing that I'd lose my appetite.<br />
<br />
But suppose I could make it last that long without cloying your palette?<br />
<br />
<< Then it would be so watered down that it wouldn't have any flavor, you might object. Or any nutrition at all!<br />
<br />
Ah, and there's the beauty of <i>Undine</i>. Somehow, reading this story was like reading a fairy tale that lasts and lasts. Its sweetness is strong enough to engage the palette, but not so strong that it cloys. Its substance is light enough to draw you into the magic of faerie, but not so light that it feels empty or watery.<br />
<br />
Somehow--I don't know quite how--<i>Undine</i> draws you into a longer adventure, all framed in the old fairy tale storytelling tradition, with light touches of description and only glimmers of the inner life of the players. Just like a real fairy tale. And yet it doesn't lose your interest in the places where it takes you or the people who live there.<br />
<br />
A meal of tangerine. A meal where the tangerine is somehow transformed into something much larger, more substantial even, without losing its essence.<br />
<br />
So maybe I can see why MacDonald called it the most beautiful fairy story. Still seems like strong praise. But surprisingly good? I can agree with that.<br />
<br />
<i>Note: You can find Undine free at <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/l#a1045">Project Gutenberg</a>, or on an e-reader near you.</i>John Pylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14379211215949426912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7761780763416603349.post-56177615809422411832014-07-31T21:17:00.000-04:002014-07-31T21:17:23.103-04:00Heart's Blood, by Juliet Marillier<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguXEAydcM4pwA8HFGmJO_-JHKV_KwZzDXvpzrUD0lzoT2jIuW_YaTbqVvzsOuhdXxOowjM29F2nLeSXaEF3mPArTS7nfy2JrSAK9qmYmu4xovzLL1NHDNXwsVH9FNGFd0O-IquMa_r0N-a/s1600/Heart's+Blood.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguXEAydcM4pwA8HFGmJO_-JHKV_KwZzDXvpzrUD0lzoT2jIuW_YaTbqVvzsOuhdXxOowjM29F2nLeSXaEF3mPArTS7nfy2JrSAK9qmYmu4xovzLL1NHDNXwsVH9FNGFd0O-IquMa_r0N-a/s1600/Heart's+Blood.jpg" height="320" width="201" /></a></div>
<br />
"Beauty and the Beast" meets <i>Jane Eyre</i>, with a bit of undead in the mix. What's not to like?<br />
<br />
This novel isn't news, I guess, since it was published in 2009 (Roc; released as a mass paperback in 2010). But I just found it, read it, and thought it was worth a few remarks.<br />
<br />
I would class <i>Heart's Blood</i> as "mythic fantasy," because it taps into the fairy tale tradition, though not in a heavy-handed way. It's not simply a retelling of a fairy tale (like "Beauty and the Beast"). The main character, Caitrin, is a bit like Jane Eyre, as I hinted above: she enters a situation that's … well, a lot more complicated than it seems at first. There's not exactly a mad wife stowed up in the attic, but it has that feel at times, and some other details call <i>Jane Eyre</i> to mind. Caitrin's a little like Belle, too: she all but plucks forbidden roses early in the tale. Plus, there's a kind of enchantment over the castle, its grounds (Whistling Tor), and its inhabitants--both the servants and their deformed master, Anluan.<br />
<br />
(I suppose it's fair to wonder whether <i>Jane Eyre</i> is modeled on "Beauty and the Beast" at some remove or other. Or maybe some other fairy tale. Maybe one you (normally quiet) readers has a theory about that?)<br />
<br />
Like Jane, Caitrin is also fleeing an abusive home life, thanks to the sudden death of her father and the misbehavior of distant relatives. Like Belle, she's a looker. And, well, … of course she's got to fall for the crippled master. Right? And vice versa?<br />
<br />
So where this novel succeeded for me wasn't in setting up some new permutation of an old fairy tale (or British novel, or both), though it does that, and it does it well. What made it work was how Marillier judiciously loosened the reins on the old storyline, allowing it to take new directions, satisfying because she's drawing on older traditions, but not stale or predictable.<br />
<br />
I liked that the Norman (military, i.e. "epic") threat wasn't the point of this story, though it makes a meaningful impact.<br />
<br />
And I enjoyed Caitrin's strength. She overcomes real challenges within herself and outside of herself in a credible, heart-warming way. As in countless old folktales, Caitrin finds herself caught in a web of forces beyond her power to control. But with a mixture of hope and small steps of incredible courage, she manages to find her way through--with a bit of fey guidance, to be sure.<br />
<br />
Magic. Romantic tension. Mystery. And a strong heroine. Like I said, what's not to like?<br />
<br />
Read it? Thoughts?<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
John Pylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14379211215949426912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7761780763416603349.post-63192206602945344412014-07-25T23:40:00.002-04:002014-07-25T23:40:45.280-04:00Fairy Tales and Other Short Stories<div>
Before Anton Chekhov and the modern period, people still enjoyed the occasional short story, apparently. These short stories were so good, folks told them over and over again. They memorized their plots, their main characters, and some of the spoken parts, and they passed them along orally from town to town and generation to generation.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In fact, those stories were so good, that you know some of them. What's more, many of those stories' plots have been adapted for film, woven into novels, captured in visual art forms of every kind. The first animated films were based on them, and television shows running this season are still trying to tap into their popularity.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
What modern short story can claim that kind of power -- the power and influence of the traditional folk tale?</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYaEU6XeHLQZ0bW56dmBQe-uwNOQRcjOIbFi_E6T1zSLmwrmfUATPQhv8Jc6ONf4nf9guSyuvWUWiWV1F1E47HxbYJLkvz1wcBc-B6yvybtIgaLKfH9z4_wUvMXLFAdPTjCun4yLiWL1w4/s1600/grimm+(fisherman's+wife)+500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYaEU6XeHLQZ0bW56dmBQe-uwNOQRcjOIbFi_E6T1zSLmwrmfUATPQhv8Jc6ONf4nf9guSyuvWUWiWV1F1E47HxbYJLkvz1wcBc-B6yvybtIgaLKfH9z4_wUvMXLFAdPTjCun4yLiWL1w4/s1600/grimm+(fisherman's+wife)+500.jpg" height="320" width="269" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Recognize this tale? (<i>Photo by JP</i>)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
To get at the issue, let's consider what sets these old tales apart. Not their length, obviously. The presence of magic? Well, no, not if you include fantasy short stories in the mix. Here are some key traits, in no particular order.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><i>They have no known author. </i>But this is only partly true, because some of the most successful examples of this genre were composed by Hans Christian Anderson, Madame Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve, and others. Most weren't -- they were collected and edited, but not invented, by known figures. But even the ones that were draw on a folk tradition of storytelling and, from this tradition (as a support for the personal inventiveness of the author), they draw some of their power. The conscious use of tradition gives these tales a breadth of perspective, rather than the peculiar perspective of one (let's face it: usually not that well adapted) member of society.</li>
<li><i>The characters are sharply drawn. </i>We know folktale characters by what they do, not how they feel about things. A modern critic would say such characters are just "types" or even stereotypes, lacking internal complexity. A post-modern critic will likely complain that "good" and "evil" are too neatly divided between the characters (though this isn't always true). But there is no question that the reader knows who the "hero" is and what sort of persons the hero and antagonist are. Perceptive readers (modern or post-modern) can find ambiguity in both -- a delicious exercise when done well.</li>
<li><i>They take you on a journey. </i>With only one exception I can think of, the hundreds of folk tales I have read all move, they all take the reader to some new place, however bizarre or unanticipated. Unlike many modern short stories, never do folktales study, as in a still-life, a particular moment of the main character's life, or some complex situation peculiar to our society. In fact, short story purists insist that this folktale tradition is wrong. But some genre short stories, in my experience, play with a similar dynamic, extending over days. Few if any cover the same stretch of terrain as, say, the Nix of the Millpond (a man's entire life) or even Cinderella (a girl's birth to coming of age).</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div>
The really tricky part comes when some of us lovers of folktales (myself included) try to write short stories. We obviously can't help the first bullet point above, although we can draw more (or less, but why would we?) on the folktale tradition. We can and probably must choose to flex the borders of bullet point two: We may need to say something about what motivates our characters and how they feel about things, to satisfy today's readers. And we might (for a variety of reasons) feel that humans are morally complex.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But at bullet point three, I think the choice has already been made for us -- at least that's true for me. If you like folktales, you won't get much pleasure from a short story that doesn't go anywhere, that microscopically analyzes the human emotions present in a particular moment. And vice versa, by the way. (I've been told by one of these purists that wanting a story to "go somewhere" means I just don't like short stories!) I would argue for a compromise here: agree to disagree. Recognize that there are (at least) two kinds of short story.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
There's value in both, in my view. One trait traditional folk tales share with modern short stories is an interest in exploring human nature. That's why these tales have this kind of staying power. Many of them -- and above all, the most successful ones -- reveal something profound about what it means to be human, to live here on earth where wild woods infringe and evil desires lurk. Where everyday people are capable of unspeakable horrors and astounding acts of courage. And you get to ask: What sort am I? What if ...?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Thoughts? What sort of short story do you like, if any? What makes one work for you? Any tips or ideas to share for connecting these two very different sensibilities (modern and traditional) in a short tale?</div>
John Pylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14379211215949426912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7761780763416603349.post-40728291183648688022013-05-22T10:36:00.000-04:002013-05-22T10:36:10.589-04:00Vision Care - with gratitudeYesterday I had an eye appointment. It had been three years, but my prescription was fine, my eyes in good condition. I'm thankful.<br />
<br />
I'm thankful because the woman at the counter asked me, not <i>where</i> I was employed, but <i>whether</i>. And I could answer "yes."<br />
<br />
I'm thankful because after somehow reaching my home safely despite the eye drops, I couldn't think of what to do. I couldn't read. I couldn't work a puzzle. Couldn't go outside (too bright) to fiddle in the garden. So I'm thankful that I have vision.<br />
<br />
I guess I wasn't always that way. As a boy, I didn't want to wear glasses. So I hid the note the school nurse sent to my parents. Destroyed it, more like--and suffered for another two years. I remember using the complex refracting properties of my fingers and eyelashes to read the chalkboard. This must be how people used to do it, before they invented glasses.<br />
<br />
Then--well, I thought maybe I should experience some kind of miracle. Raised with faith-healing on television and in revival meetings, I decided that my eyes warranted divine intervention. So I prayed, and then when it didn't happen, I felt guilty. And then when I was tired of that, I sulked.<br />
<br />
Somehow it took me another thirty years to discover that the miracle was there all along. I can see! With lenses, I have 20/20 in both eyes. What a gift that is. And this morning, even though my eyes ache a bit from the drops and the torment the doctor put them through, I'm not taking for granted the sight of sunlight on the green leaves of the dogwood, or the flicker of green lights on my router, or the ability to read what I've just written.<br />
<br />
When I finally got the glasses, the first thing I noticed were the gray hairs on my mother's head. I was young and dumb enough to say that out loud. But in a sense, gray hair is also something to be thankful for. I should know; I've got some of that, too.John Pylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14379211215949426912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7761780763416603349.post-65446975533423111792013-04-28T21:50:00.003-04:002013-05-23T17:05:38.106-04:00Thoughts on The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO5MoNQqGqaFlxnc49LnAR76Ix9dmUXjgBTMUjV6DQ4Za5tEMPNdUpLryLrYpfXmJmmCp_iwSYSFWx55KpUgp_juUDvBe7S_t0dgUg1aNf1tPx6niQme4RqrUc-GBAKIWaCX1xQ_QQSSx0/s1600/handmaids.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Handmaid's Tale (cover)" border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO5MoNQqGqaFlxnc49LnAR76Ix9dmUXjgBTMUjV6DQ4Za5tEMPNdUpLryLrYpfXmJmmCp_iwSYSFWx55KpUgp_juUDvBe7S_t0dgUg1aNf1tPx6niQme4RqrUc-GBAKIWaCX1xQ_QQSSx0/s400/handmaids.jpg" title="Handmaid's Tale (cover)" width="261" /></a></div>
I can't prove it, because after reading several interviews and descriptions, she hasn't told me, but I suspect Margaret Atwood followed a kind of intuitive approach in writing <i>The Handmaid's Tale</i>.<br />
<br />
By intuitive, I mean that kind of writing in which you allow character, setting, dilemma, to lead the way, rather than a pre-arranged plot. You, the writer, don't know what's going to happen--or at least, not very clearly how you'll get there--when you sit down to write the first chapter. Some people call this the "pantser" (vs. "plotter") approach--writing by the seat of your pants. Bradbury put it like this: "Find out what your hero wants, then just follow him."<br />
<br />
Here are my reasons for thinking Atwood tackled <i>The Handmaid's Tale</i> this way:<br />
<br />
1. The scenery/environment is well developed, but the trajectory of the main character (Offred) is episodic for much of the book. It lacks a clearly defined "plot."<br />
<br />
2. Offred is fully realized; her inner life is available to the reader--or at least as much as it is available to her. This is virtually impossible to achieve, as far as I can tell, in a highly plotted novel, for the simple reason that the characters become cogs in the machinery of plot. In such a novel, the complex, layered thoughts of a character tend to be more hindrance than help, since they'll often lead to unpredictable actions that derail the plot.<br />
<br />
3. Atwood remarks that she knew where the story was going, so she didn't have to query herself about it; this suggests that she sometimes does have to query herself--meaning she doesn't plot out in advance. So did she this time? I doubt it. Knowing where the story is heading is a sign of a very realized sense of the character in relation to the situation in which she's been placed--her limitations, or parameters, within that situation, and within her particular personality.<br />
<br />
This, in my view, would not mean there would be no persons, situations, or even characters arising in the unfolding of the story that the conscious mind has not planned in advance. For instance, when Atwood placed Offred in a relationship with a married man (in her past; "Luke"), did she foresee the tension this would create with Serena Joy, the wife of the Commander for whom she's a "handmaid"? Or did this rather come to her in the telling of the story, a "lucky happenstance," a chance encounter that presented another layer to the story? Because, to me at least, this element complicates a simple before=good/after=bad equation. And I find it convenient to suppose that Atwood's subconscious resisted that equation, more than (or as much as) her conscious mind.<br />
<br />
But, of course, I'm only guessing. Call it intuition.<br />
<br />
Well, I promised "thoughts" and really have only given you one. So let me add another, unrelated: Somehow it doesn't bother me that Atwood has distanced herself from sci-fi. In one article I found (in the Guardian), she admits to writing sci-fi, "or speculative fiction, if you prefer." A writer like her, working in "literary" fiction as well as speculative (or sci-fi), can be excused for wanting to distance herself from space octopi. Just saying.<br />
<br />
If you've read the novel (or better yet, an interview or confession I couldn't find; or better still, you <i>are</i> Margaret Atwood) and you'd like to weigh in, I'm all ears.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Update</b>: I overlooked an interview with Margaret Atwood in <i>The Paris Review</i> when I was writing this post. It turns out I was right. Here's what she says:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
When I’m writing a novel, what comes first is an image, scene, or voice. Something fairly small. Sometimes that seed is contained in a poem I’ve already written. The structure or design gets worked out in the course of the writing. I couldn’t write the other way round, with structure first. It would be too much like paint-by-numbers. As for lines of descent—that is, poem leading to novel—I could point to a number of examples. In my second collection of poems, The Animals in That Country, there’s a poem called “Progressive Insanities of a Pioneer.” That led into the whole collection called The Journals of Susanna Moodie and that in turn led into Surfacing. Or, another line of descent, the poems in parts of True Stories have obvious affiliations with the novel Bodily Harm. It’s almost as if the poems open something, like opening a room or a box or a pathway. And then the novel can go in and see what else is in there. I’m not sure this is unique. I expect that many other ambidextrous writers have had the same experience.</blockquote>
<br />
<br />John Pylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14379211215949426912noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7761780763416603349.post-38591301519906803552013-04-18T21:56:00.000-04:002013-04-18T21:56:43.840-04:00The Saturday of Spring<br />
You know it's been a rough spring when your baseball team is 10-4 and you haven't watched a single inning, haven't looked at a single box score, don't know who's new on the roster, couldn't name three players still on the team with any conviction at all.<br />
<br />
Such has my spring been. The grass in the back yard--did I say grass? I meant clover--is mid-calf. The squash I planted in the greenhouse has grown to monstrous proportions, and yet I haven't started peppers. I haven't mended the garden fence, which I destroyed after seeing deer in the yard. I haven't even bought the supplies to do it.<br />
<br />
Ironically, part of the blame falls to baseball. I have two boys now in the littlest leagues, one still hitting off a tee and daydreaming on the infield, and the other hitting real pitches hard (sometimes) and trying his darnedest to throw like a man. Fabulous quantities of practices so far, with the game schedule creeping inexorably toward us. If you've been there, you know. I won't see a clear Saturday until June.<br />
<br />
Ah, Saturday. You my lost friend. Leisurely time to mow the lawn, mend the fence, hack at old tree stumps, light a pipe, whittle, toss a ball … Will I never know you again? The quiet Saturday of Spring, the dull chatter of baseball announcers, the hum of the crowd in the background, the exaggerated crack of the ball in the mitt or on the bat, the roar of the Fenway faithful as the ball soars out toward the Green Monster.<br />
<br />
So that's what I'm missing. Time to kill. The leisure of a game that says, "Hey you! Slow down and watch this pitch. Nothing may happen. Or everything may happen. And there will be three hundred of these pitches today, over the next three hours. And you will watch every one of them. And feel not one ounce of guilt."<br />
<br />
As I said, it's been a tough Spring.<br />
John Pylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14379211215949426912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7761780763416603349.post-40029435581272878562013-04-13T21:28:00.003-04:002013-04-13T21:28:27.463-04:00Twice-Read Authors
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:DocumentProperties>
<o:Template>Normal</o:Template>
<o:Revision>0</o:Revision>
<o:TotalTime>0</o:TotalTime>
<o:Pages>1</o:Pages>
<o:Words>273</o:Words>
<o:Characters>1561</o:Characters>
<o:Lines>13</o:Lines>
<o:Paragraphs>3</o:Paragraphs>
<o:CharactersWithSpaces>1917</o:CharactersWithSpaces>
<o:Version>11.1539</o:Version>
</o:DocumentProperties>
<o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
<o:AllowPNG/>
</o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:DoNotShowRevisions/>
<w:DoNotPrintRevisions/>
<w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>
<w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>
<w:UseMarginsForDrawingGridOrigin/>
</w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--StartFragment-->
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I recently listed some “<a href="http://john-pyle.blogspot.com/2013/02/twice-read-books.html">twice-read books</a>” as a way to share
my interests as a reader. But some of my favorite authors were left off,
because though I’ve read more than one book of theirs, I haven’t necessarily
read any of their books twice.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But if reading a book says something about you, I think
reading more than one book by an author might, too. After all, these are folks
I came back to because they offered me something—however lowbrow or highbrow
that was. They represent only a small percentage of all the authors I’ve read.
Life is full, and there are many books. If I’ve dipped back into the well of an
author, that probably means something.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Not counting trilogies and series as more than one book, or
authors that after reading a second one I knew it was mistake, here are the
ones I remember, in roughly the order in which I read them (or came back to
them):</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Jack London<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
C. S. Lewis<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Mark Twain<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
H. G. Wells<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
J.R.R. Tolkien<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Stephen Lawhead<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
George MacDonald<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Patricia McKillip<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ray Bradbury<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Fyodor Dostoevsky<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Pushkin<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Tolstoy<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Shakespeare (not just for school!)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Franz Kafka<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ernest Hemingway<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Isaac Asimov<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Orson Scott Card<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ursula K. Le Guin<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Jane Austin<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nathaniel Hawthorne<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Gabriel Garcia Márquez<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Dean Koontz<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Daphne Du Maurier<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Henry James<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
George Eliot<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Stephen King<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Jane Yolen<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
W. P. Kinsella<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Paulo Cuelho<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Neil Gaiman</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I think that list shows a few things about me: I tend to
gravitate toward (and enjoy!) classical authors. If I’m adventurous (and
sometimes I am), it’s only for a short fling—so they don’t make the list.
Paperback writers are almost unknown to me (this is quite true). For me reading
is an event, a cultural experience. That might make me limited in some ways,
particularly in knowing what may appeal to the masses. But we are what we are.
I like an intensely well crafted story, careful language, depth of
meaning—except when I don’t.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Who’s on your list?</span><!--EndFragment-->
John Pylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14379211215949426912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7761780763416603349.post-15613733345015928692013-03-28T21:42:00.000-04:002013-03-28T21:42:54.922-04:00Spring Flowers are Not Delicate<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWhug-nRyBOyQi6UWd-xFtCCyllrZ03d_6cwOhrdjPQP02wphUJSGqoENAnIfncYCwOKOf1DDIGAyCVGWYqrS3LDFDLvVki9lADYg0USjiu0bpkAKNDaGZrn8ue_f1bHJe6GNjE41ClRho/s1600/800px--_Forsythia_intermedia_01_-.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWhug-nRyBOyQi6UWd-xFtCCyllrZ03d_6cwOhrdjPQP02wphUJSGqoENAnIfncYCwOKOf1DDIGAyCVGWYqrS3LDFDLvVki9lADYg0USjiu0bpkAKNDaGZrn8ue_f1bHJe6GNjE41ClRho/s400/800px--_Forsythia_intermedia_01_-.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo credit: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Nino_Barbieri</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Daffodils. Forsythia. Their names suggest freshness and delicacy. They come, tender and yellow and lovely, out of the soil or from old stalks, when the air warms up. One is tempted to think they are weak in their fragile courage. After all, doesn't the summer heat scare them away?<br />
<br />
This year, when the weather has been halting between extremes, this lesson has come home to me: these flowers are anything but fragile. Two days ago it was 30 degrees. I, softened by the warm weather and too many years in this temperate climate, could hardly stand the sharp wind. My winter coat was at the dry-cleaners and I had only a thin jacket to keep off the cold. A couple of hours out of doors without sunshine and I was miserable. The daffodils … they suffered too. They looked droopy, their yellow heads hung down, and I thought they were doomed. But come a little warm sun and they perked up again. They're bright and healthy today again.<br />
<br />
The tiny yellow forsythia blossoms, so delicate they seem to be made of butterfly wings, should be dead, too, by my logic. It's frosted the windshield more than once since they made their appearance on those old bare stalks. And yet here they were again today, looking unfazed by the weather's whims.<br />
<br />
I could go on. Other people probably have known this all along. I'm sure there's some perfectly logical, ecological explanation for all this. The flowers have adapted for this cold weather; they're able to endure swings of temperature common to springs the world over. They have to be or they wouldn't have survived. Yes, yes, of course, all that must be true. And yet, in some fundamental way, I mistook delicacy of beauty for delicacy of constitution. No doubt men (like me) have been doing this for endless ages. And so I register my fault.<br />
<br />
But even more, since in the rhythm of nature I experience spring as a dawning of hope, a promise of newness after the barren winter, I take a lot of solace from those resilient blooms.<br />
<br />
No, spring flowers are not delicate. They are as tough as an old tree. And so is their promise.<br />
<br />
<i>I'm not the only one thinking about this:</i><br />
<a href="http://hamptonroads.com/2013/03/daffodil-hardy-bloomer-heralding-spring">The daffodil: a hardy bloomer, heralding spring</a><br />
John Pylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14379211215949426912noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7761780763416603349.post-58638105885848528912013-03-23T11:35:00.003-04:002013-03-24T11:52:45.698-04:00Editing as Following the Story<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDJOv_37AuTOX0PD8XBwye8DPu1TPHO3bDUx_IKqly2AZuBaY5Ed_iRedA1Kd8Vyw7CgiY32NIQ-xIYPb9g83aj2S0I2HU-7x4JXAqucy8pj292QSUAOu6_2NYl81Pkkx4XC1JE2p4Rbdz/s1600/450px-Stream_in_the_redwoods.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="stream in the redwoods" border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDJOv_37AuTOX0PD8XBwye8DPu1TPHO3bDUx_IKqly2AZuBaY5Ed_iRedA1Kd8Vyw7CgiY32NIQ-xIYPb9g83aj2S0I2HU-7x4JXAqucy8pj292QSUAOu6_2NYl81Pkkx4XC1JE2p4Rbdz/s640/450px-Stream_in_the_redwoods.jpg" title="stream in the redwoods by inajeep" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19px;"><table class="wikitable filehistory" style="background-color: #f9f9f9; border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-collapse: collapse; border-left-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; color: black; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 1em;"><tbody>
<tr><td dir="ltr" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; padding-bottom: 0.2em; padding-left: 0.2em; padding-right: 0.2em; padding-top: 0.2em; text-align: center; vertical-align: top;">Photo credit: http://flickr.com/photos/92804037@N00 inajeep</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I've made no secret that I'm perpetually reworking a story I wrote several years ago (See <a href="http://john-pyle.blogspot.com/2012/03/snow-white-and-her-shepherd.html">Snow White and Her Shepherd</a>). Recently I took it up again, after another break. Some parts still aren't jelling for me. But after all these several rewrites, what more can I do?<br />
<br />
What I've come to see this time through the story is that I've gotten better at what feels like an essential skill of my craft: following the story. Seem obvious? At the rewrite stage, this is very difficult to do. There's a kind of inertial drift to the story. It goes this way, because it's already down on paper this way. And something in me has tended to resist upsetting the order or the drift of the words already there. One has to get past that readerly impulse that treats a story as a thing complete, wrapped around in cellophane, observable but beyond shaping. "Following the story" is different than reading what you've already written. It may mean <i>ignoring</i> what you've written.<br />
<br />
The whisper of the story comes, for me, by way of nagging sensations of doubt. What is my hero doing here? What happened to the wound he received on page 12? Why is this land lush and green and not dry and wind-blown? Or why is it built up like a medieval fortress when it should be earthy and wild?<br />
<br />
The key, the thing I feel I'm getting better at with practice, is the capacity to trace the offending element to its root and excise it. But rarely can you get away with a surgical removal. The thing that's offending is bound up with your original misperception of the story. In taking it out, you are changing the fabric of the whole. And so, at least for me, you have to begin following the story forward again, from <i>that</i> point. You have to listen patiently for every change that your excision requires, as you read, edit, rewrite, rework, mold the materials of the story.<br />
<br />
But it's this constant listening, this ear to the story, to following its course as you would a fragile stream in a thick wood, under heavy brush and leaves, not knowing--<i>again</i>--where precisely it will take you. It's the admission that you're <i>following</i>--not <i>reading</i>, but searching out the story again. That's key.John Pylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14379211215949426912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7761780763416603349.post-14686023724094060482013-03-14T20:51:00.001-04:002013-03-14T20:51:17.173-04:00Gunmen in the Park<br />
The last words you want to hear at a public park, out with your children, especially these days: "Put your hands in the air."<br />
<br />
It took me a moment to register this. I'd heard the sirens--they aren't that uncommon--and I'd been watching my boys play on the "fort" some fifteen feet away. The policeman's voice came from over my shoulder, and I turned my head to look.<br />
<br />
"Hands where I can see them," he repeated. The officer was big, and more sirens were screeching behind us. I followed his gaze and then I saw them. My children were between me and three young men in black and fatigues, standing with their arms raised. I stood and walked to the play set.<br />
<br />
"Boys, come on down from there," I said, calmly. Maybe too calmly. I didn't want to scare them. But the park, a bustle of happy cries a moment before, had gone quiet as a museum. My boys were transfixed, too. Then my youngest slid down, while the other stood his ground, watching it unfold.<br />
<br />
"Come down. Hurry up," I said. The reality of the situation was starting to set in. The tallest two youngsters, boys really, wore long black trench coats, and they were not thirty feet away. And my oldest was still between me and them. I tugged him off the play set, corralled his younger brother, and crouched down behind the laughable protection of a chain ladder countless children had used to climb into the "fort."<br />
<br />
The police officer had raised his voice again and he was now nearer the youngsters. I don't remember that he had a gun drawn. I don't remember a taser. I do, though, remember the moment he reached them and took their guns. They were long, assault-rifle-looking guns. And he said something like, "You scared people."<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFp7GVmZphk_tTthbPrQ5a5ASwmHRvfL3iQDG1z7u9GGWcYLQ7MP6VPsACtbQg_KcQ_Sg6_3ymSQwvGGz87vFkbFMafkebZwcjo9F3wNmr9MUqPC3BiFqNRIWDAOwAgN6MVRPwVYbl3-XK/s1600/sale4a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="toy guns" border="0" height="309" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFp7GVmZphk_tTthbPrQ5a5ASwmHRvfL3iQDG1z7u9GGWcYLQ7MP6VPsACtbQg_KcQ_Sg6_3ymSQwvGGz87vFkbFMafkebZwcjo9F3wNmr9MUqPC3BiFqNRIWDAOwAgN6MVRPwVYbl3-XK/s320/sale4a.jpg" title="" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image from http://moretoyguns.com/MoreToyGuns/product/4GUNDT.html</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I don't know what happened after that. The guns, I think, were toys, or maybe BB guns. The tallest kid should have known better; he might have been in eighth grade, and he had a long, blank face--maybe surly, maybe annoyed, but not obviously sorry. The middle child was maybe in fifth or sixth grade; he was the one with the fatigues. The youngest was only a small child, maybe a year older than my second-grader.<br />
<br />
It took a long time for the situation to dissolve, though, I do know that. The police cars sat for several minutes with their flashers pulsing, and more still without them. The arresting officer took the young men behind a building and, presumably, to his cruiser parked out of sight. He was carrying their guns, and I was left with the boys, wondering how soon was too soon to let them play normally.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, as I held on to them, reassuring them, explaining that it was only a mistake, keeping my voice steady because … <i>oh my God, it could have been something a lot worse</i> … I realized something I hadn't before: only after the crisis had passed did I understand what could have happened. Like most people, I assume more innocence in the world than evil, even after all I've watched unfolding on the news. I just don't have it in me to expect mass murder. Neither did anybody I saw in the park that day. Nobody fled in a panic. And I can't say I'm sorry for that. In fact, I think it's those of us who <i>don't</i> expect it or think it's normal who will ultimately press for the real changes that are needed: an end to bullying, an end to hate-speech, to stock-piling and paranoia, to the glorification of violence. Sensible gun regulations. Kindness in public places. Care for outcasts. These are the kinds of changes that could make for a world where I won't have to do more than I did in the park that day.<br />
<br />
And, as it turns out, when you think about it, I was right, wasn't I? Those boys weren't bent on killing us all, now were they? So maybe believing the best about people isn't such a bad place to start after all.John Pylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14379211215949426912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7761780763416603349.post-91205607452346510242013-03-09T17:10:00.000-05:002013-03-09T17:10:12.688-05:00Border Crossing<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo4tob-PuJaO7aZIT3HC4I8G_nL-wt_6uEL1v56lz0dbNjZANtpLOjAAGrmqCr-fusHlCiF9nvn529uDqTzsfOi8TA9-QEU24rI3MIS-wH4KELrWkKRkYn5exKCmUAiVOPWdpQDMbBMYwT/s1600/deer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="doe in the yard" border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo4tob-PuJaO7aZIT3HC4I8G_nL-wt_6uEL1v56lz0dbNjZANtpLOjAAGrmqCr-fusHlCiF9nvn529uDqTzsfOi8TA9-QEU24rI3MIS-wH4KELrWkKRkYn5exKCmUAiVOPWdpQDMbBMYwT/s400/deer.jpg" title="" width="340" /></a></div>
This week a one-antlered buck stood on my leaf pile, surveying the yard. Three does were with him, munching on my lawn. The eldest curled herself up by the fence. The younger ones ranged around her, one by the bird bath, chewing endlessly on a tuft of grass; the other worked her way from the bare-limbed pear tree to the ivy at the edge between my yard and my neighbors', where she, like her mother or sister, nested in the shade.<br />
<br />
I went away, changed clothes, did something or other. And after a while I came back and they were all gone. At least I know now, I thought, why my garden fence is in such disrepair. I know what happened to that parsnip I planted in the fall. I know what the coyotes are yowling at outside my study window after the moon has risen.<br />
<br />
It's nice to know.<br />
<br />
This year, I'm told, was the warmest in 4000 years. It hasn't been this warm since before Moses walked up Sinai into the cloud that had led his people through the wilderness. Those were days when a pillar of fire led the people by night. But it wasn't as hot as it is now. In the decades to come, say the scientists, it'll peak record temperatures since the last ice age. Which is to say, I'm guessing, since as long as we can tell. I have the feeling, the suspicion, that the last ice age is the limit of our meteorological knowledge. What they're telling us, maybe, is that earth has never been hotter than it's going to get, at least since human life has been here.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, a family of deer have camped in my yard. I don't have much hope for my garden, though I'll try. I'll do my best. And I'll keep my kids indoors at night in case of coyotes.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
But it seems odd that the turning of the climate should coincide with the renewal of wildlife in my neighborhood. It seems like this apocalyptic turning should be dire, and I have no doubt it eventually could (and maybe will) be. But just now, it seems only like the first harbingers have crossed back from the wild into unfamiliar places. And it's hard not to welcome them, in spite of my garden.John Pylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14379211215949426912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7761780763416603349.post-59168786699785789532013-03-03T11:55:00.000-05:002013-03-03T11:55:04.077-05:00Winter's Long FingersSince last weekend, when I declared the end of Winter and welcomed the beginning of Spring, my faith has been tested.<br />
<br />
Monday came chill, and the week unfolded colder and colder by degrees. Sleet tapped at our metal roof, and on the way to town, we saw bare tree branches dressed out in thin layers of ice. Lovely, true; but ever so cold, that damp kind of cold that is winter here in North Carolina.<br />
<br />
Yesterday, meager clusters of snowflake fell to the wet ground. By afternoon, I was playing baseball with the boys in the yard, pitting the sunshine against a stiff breeze.<br />
<br />
Today, seven days later, the temperature is hovering beneath freezing. And snow is in the forecast for Wednesday. And what will I do? Nothing in me, or the daffodils pushing through the ground, wishes to yield quarter to Old Man Winter. Lovely as his painted trees and delicately engraved flakes are, his time is coming to an end. What will I do? Find the good in a longer winter? Yes, I could do that. Forestall my eagerness for spring? I could try. Admit that I was too eager ... that I was wrong to welcome Spring? I could, but I won't. The birdsong won't allow for it.<br />
<br />
I know what I'll do. I'll begin planning my garden. I'll take out the small, portable greenhouse and set it up indoors. I'll plant seeds in peat-pots. I'll mend the garden fence. I'll begin hauling the compost to the beds. I'll plant some hardy crop, and watch it grow--maybe broccoli, for once. Then, when Old Man Winter withdraws his long, cold fingers, I won't be caught unprepared.John Pylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14379211215949426912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7761780763416603349.post-90129620146478709582013-02-24T21:19:00.000-05:002013-02-24T21:19:25.355-05:00The First Day of Spring came in FebruaryCalendars notwithstanding, today was the first day of Spring.<br />
<br />
Proof:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>my son found a flower growing in the yard</li>
<li>I went on a bike ride with my son</li>
<li>I was hoeing in my garden, and red potatoes I had planted in the Fall came out, like little eggs given to us by the Easter Bunny</li>
<li>I grilled hamburgers for lunch (check and mate!)</li>
</ul>
<br />
Most of all: I wanted it to be Spring. And so did my sons, and my wife, and the birds, especially the one that sang outside my bathroom window this morning. Him especially. He was dying for Spring to be here. No, not dying. He was announcing its arrival.<br />
<br />
<div>
One must always listen to birds in these matters. They know.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So Happy Spring, if you're lucky enough to live where it came today. And if not, if you're still in winter, hold on. Your hope is soon to be rewarded. Or if you're in summer, rejoice with me, because today Spring came.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It's here. Everything is new again. Bright with promise. And the garden awaits me, its soil dark and damp. Life will come up through the earth, weeds will sprout, trees will bud, birds will ta-ta-tap at my house, bees will eat holes in my porch ... All this is upon me. And this week, with any luck, I'll get the first seeds into the potting soil, and I'll start my plans, ever elaborate and full of schemes, ever derailed by life and accidental seedling deaths -- but not yet. Today all is fresh and green and blooming in my mind. The broken-down garden fence calls to me, pushing aside the last of my winter chores. The rain gutters need my care. My bicycle chain needs oil. My legs need stretching. I'm dreaming of hiking in the woods. I'm gazing at this and that, thinking of paint and hammer and nails. I'm a homeowner astir. I'm a beaver come out of the winter chill.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Yes, Spring is here. I know it in my bones.</div>
John Pylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14379211215949426912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7761780763416603349.post-23819227953710629792013-02-15T22:45:00.000-05:002013-02-15T22:45:18.001-05:00Meeting Brer Rabbit<br />
When I was a boy, my father, who was always too busy, would sometimes refer to (but not tell) stories of Brer Rabbit. I suppose, in retrospect, he didn't remember the actual stories, just the gist. Or maybe he feared he wouldn't get the dialect right.<br />
<br />
Even so, it awoke in me a thirst to meet this compelling creature, and find out about his mischievous deeds. I did, too, many years later--perhaps as many as thirty years, to be exact.<br />
<br />
It happened like this: I had a gift card for a bookstore. A friend, apologizing needlessly for the "lack of thought," had sent me something I would actually use and that felt like a luxury. I used most of it to buy a hardcover edition of <i>The Hobbit</i>, to replace the old paperback that I had foolishly tossed out in a move. (Well, donated to the library ...)<br />
<br />
Then, a couple of weeks later, or perhaps a month, I was back at the bookstore with my youngest son, then four years old. He liked to play with the train set they keep in the kids' section of the store. So I went back with him and started browsing the kids' books. You maybe haven't looked in a while; I hadn't. There were depressing quantities of "series" and relatively few stand-alone books. Shelves and shelves and shelves of these series, all with look-alike spines. And then in one corner, half a shelf or so, some "fairy tales."<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEDQB2wl2K8JVWlGS3HsOOGubod0DXz_APU4ecREggFaitz-C9dH3slKIYglLS8U-6tvafufVdjodCG60wyu4h9pLfltg7Iu1tEyst0ImkIuWWstwb7Z-XBEJbwtfQZ0x-v3nnvSLIV60l/s1600/Remus+spine+web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Shelf of books" border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEDQB2wl2K8JVWlGS3HsOOGubod0DXz_APU4ecREggFaitz-C9dH3slKIYglLS8U-6tvafufVdjodCG60wyu4h9pLfltg7Iu1tEyst0ImkIuWWstwb7Z-XBEJbwtfQZ0x-v3nnvSLIV60l/s320/Remus+spine+web.jpg" title="Remus spine" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is my shelf, but you get the idea. Can you spot Uncle Remus?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
I snooped through them. Most were reproductions of classic tales. But tucked among them, small, in a yellow cover, with a reddish-orange spine, there it was:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
JULIUS LESTER The Tales of Uncle Remus PUFFIN. </div>
<br />
I took it off the shelf. You know the feeling: a little tingle goes up your arm. The book has a bit of magic in it. It's been waiting for you. I get that sometimes at the library. Only this time, it could be mine.<br />
<br />
The front cover:<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
PUFFIN MODERN CLASSICS</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
THE TALES</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
OF UNCLE REMUS</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
The Adventures of Brer Rabbit</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
AS TOLD BY JULIUS LESTER</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
ILLUSTRATED BY JERRY PINKNEY</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuqYy77o8yw50Ljaexoy8mL-KMxZHEu-qIhWmJiJTn4LeFIF-YcVBUYCNgZP_P0nEBKnkr46DPJwBo5qaOhLnMKrchyphenhyphen-qRUVZNKKQIGLvTCTF2bnjxssKq7hxUWLPxiEMmuUdBN-gVfVOb/s1600/remus+front+web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Uncle Remus (book cover)" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuqYy77o8yw50Ljaexoy8mL-KMxZHEu-qIhWmJiJTn4LeFIF-YcVBUYCNgZP_P0nEBKnkr46DPJwBo5qaOhLnMKrchyphenhyphen-qRUVZNKKQIGLvTCTF2bnjxssKq7hxUWLPxiEMmuUdBN-gVfVOb/s320/remus+front+web.jpg" title="Remus cover" width="229" /></a></div>
<br />
I flipped to the introduction. The LAST thing I wanted was a bowdlerization of a set of tales I'd heard of (but never heard) my whole life. But then again, it was Puffin … A charming introduction by Augusta Baker, dated 1985, calmed my fears. I read part of a story (to the tune of my son's choo-choo). And that was that. I took it to the register and handed it to the clerk.<br />
<br />
"Someone's getting a treat," she said, looking at my son.<br />
<br />
"Well, we both are," I said, with a shy smile.<br />
<br />
I took out my gift card, depleted the last penny of my balance, added a couple of bucks, and it was mine.<br />
<br />
Postscript: I read these tales to my boys, with much pleasure, over the course of the next couple of months. I followed it up with a free iBook collection of original Joel Chandler Harris tellings. I like those old ones, yes; but Lester's renderings have a soft spot with me.<br />
John Pylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14379211215949426912noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7761780763416603349.post-37235311973681379502013-02-12T23:15:00.001-05:002013-02-12T23:15:25.669-05:00I come (to faerie) becauseLike most of you, I stumbled into faerie, following some half-heard pipe over a half-seen hill.<br />
<br />
Through the wood-shade, across the voices of a stream. Lay back on grass there, with tall blooming lace and the green perfume of a thousand stems. Dangled my fingers in the water there, among the pebbles and the flitting guppies. Made a house for a grasshopper in my hands, felt the scratch of his feet on my palm. Raced through its pasture. Swung from the branches of a tree.<br />
<br />
I come back because the world of the city of men is more blurry. It's more blurry here, the beauty harder to find, winking out between eyelashes. And I need the keen edge of faerie to find it. Or the city-world becomes, for me, too dull for words. Too void of sensation, that layer of feeling, like a cocoon of forgetting.<br />
<br />
That's why.<br />
<br />
<br />
Postscript. This in reply to a question by Terri Windling: "What brought us here to the numinous landscape of Faerie, and why do we stay?" See the conversation at <a href="http://windling.typepad.com/blog/2013/02/the-desire-for-dragons.html">Myth & Moor: The Desire for Dragons</a>John Pylehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14379211215949426912noreply@blogger.com16