Richard Ford – Writing Philosophy in the Genre of Fiction
As my partner Bill lay in bed in our home dying of pancreatic cancer, he told me that there w...moreRichard Ford – Writing Philosophy in the Genre of Fiction
As my partner Bill lay in bed in our home dying of pancreatic cancer, he told me that there was one message that he wanted me to say to his family members and friends during his funeral service: “Tell them to be kind to one another.”
I was reminded of this as I read the final page in Richard Ford’s recent novel “Canada.”
It’s not that Bill’s words and those that Ford has his narrator speak were conveying the same message. Rather, it is that deceptively simple injunctions to others or observations on life or reflections about human nature can carry a wallop far out of proportion to their seeming innocuousness.
Richard Ford has a capacity to communicate profound philosophical insights through casual comments that his characters drop in mostly unselfconscious moments. “Canada” is teeming with them as my highlighting pen gives witness. A few examples drawn randomly: - “… it’s the edging closer to the point of no return that’s fascinating…” - “It’s been my habit of mind, over the years, to understand that every situation in which human beings are involved can be turned on it’s head…knowing this, however, has not made me cynical. Cynical means believing that good isn’t possible; and I know for a fact that good is.” - “…if anyone’s mission in the world was to gain experience, it might be necessary, as I’d already thought, to become someone different—even if I didn’t know who.” - “Which may finally be the only real difference between one place on the earth and another: how you feel about the people, and the difference it makes to you to think that way.” - “What I know is, you have a better chance in life—of surviving it—if you tolerate loss well.”
Grouped together like this might give a sense that Ford’s “Canada” is a ponderous read and yet such personally philosophical and, one might say, existential reflections never obstruct the quietly paced narration of the story. I read the novel more slowly than I read most fiction, in part because I was relishing Ford’s writing, and in part because I was trying to ferret out how Ford is able to convey so much of the internal mindscape of his narrator without succumbing to the tedious descriptions of “I’m-feeling-this-now” and “now-I’m-feeling-that” which make much contemporary fiction boring.
I think that I’ve come up with a few clues. Ford is so skilled in character depiction that he is able to create a credible narrator who can share details of his own thoughts and feelings without coming off as either exhibitionistic or self-absorbed. Secondly, the philosophical reflections emerge organically from the story line. And thirdly, the narrator’s observations strike us as simultaneously novel and familiar—we are jarred by the uniqueness of the insight but then immediately recognize how they resonate with our own perceptions of the world around us and within us.
Which is, after all, why so many of us drawn to reading and writing fiction—to help others and ourselves draw meaning out of the life that we experience and witness. Richard Ford, in my view, is a master at writing philosophy in the genre of fiction.
Richard Kramer’s “These Things Happen” is a beautifully executed parable about trusting your instincts.
Two characters, Theo and George, respond to th...moreRichard Kramer’s “These Things Happen” is a beautifully executed parable about trusting your instincts.
Two characters, Theo and George, respond to their instincts in very different contexts and in so doing change the life of the central character, Wesley.
There are many praise-worthy aspects of “These Things Happen”: the witty dialogue through which the uniqueness of each character is revealed; the seamless melding of internal monologue with external conversation and action in ways that teach the characters things about themselves of which that hadn’t been conscious; the pace of the writing that draws a reader along at times with breathless anticipation of what’s to come and at other times in quiet reflective pleasure.
Kramer handles his material with such aplomb that he makes this brilliantly conceived novel appear effortless. Very impressive. (less)
“This was not an ending anyone would have wanted for him, but it was the one he had chosen.”
The closin...moreThe “to be or not to be” of David Foster Wallace
“This was not an ending anyone would have wanted for him, but it was the one he had chosen.”
The closing sentence of D. T. Max’s exemplary biography “Every Love Story is a Ghost Story – A Life of David Foster Wallace” is succinct and devastating.
David Foster Wallace’s meteoric writing career took the brilliant young American philosopher-turned-author to the pinnacle of acclaim as “the leading light of his generation” and then just as abruptly stalled in a morass of self-doubt and neurosis until he crashed and burned, hanging himself in his home garage.
Despite the popular stereotype, artistic exceptionalism is not often accompanied by personal eccentricity that culminates in such self-destructive behaviour as suicide whether of the protracted or precipitous variety. But when it does, when someone with such extraordinary intellectual and artistic capabilities as Wallace’s comes to the conclusion that continued living is intolerable, we are drawn to reflect not only on the emotional and mental health of the artist in question, but also on what it is about us as individuals, communities, and societies that was sufficiently lacking that they decided, chose, to sever their relationship with us.
Suicide invariably leads to self-recrimination for those of us left behind. I know of what I speak, having lost a brother in an act of will and through a methodology comparable to Wallace’s. There are so many questions that are left unanswered. A great deal of time, energy, and weeping goes into trying to resolve those questions that are in the final analysis unanswerable.
D. T. Max has done all of us a great service, whether we have a direct relationship to suicide or none at all, by detailing David Foster Wallace’s life with unsentimental but sympathetic eloquence. In so doing, Max gives us insight into the intensity with which Wallace lived and thereby helps us understand a bit more of how Wallace came to make the choice he did even if we are still left far from resolving the why.
* * * Information on D. T. Max’s “Every Love Story is a Ghost Story – A Life of David Foster Wallace” available at: http://amzn.to/WXocVe
Information on my memoir “August Farewell” and my novel “Searching for Gilead” available on my website at: http://DavidGHallman.com
I had to keep reminding myself that I was reading a book and not watching a movie - Robert MacLean’s “The Cad” is that entertaining. One gets swept al...moreI had to keep reminding myself that I was reading a book and not watching a movie - Robert MacLean’s “The Cad” is that entertaining. One gets swept along by dialogue that’s acerbically witty, characters that are so well realized you have their images imprinted in your mind within the first few chapters, and a rollicking plot that harkens back to the “Carry On” movies except that there’s a lot more sex. One can’t call Toby, the main character and narrator, a Casanova because he’s not really the pursuer as he is the object of women’s lusts, which is understandable since he acknowledges in all due modesty how rakishly desirable he is to the opposite sex. Robert MacLean has a great touch for ensemble acting/writing among his characters – I see screenwriting and directing in his future. (less)
I’ve just finished reading Alice Munro’s new collection of short stories “Dear Life” and am, once again, in awe of her prodigi...moreAlice Munro’s Asceticism
I’ve just finished reading Alice Munro’s new collection of short stories “Dear Life” and am, once again, in awe of her prodigious skills in the short story genre.
Already in writing this first sentence of my review/reflection, I inadvertently betray how much I have to learn from Munro. It’s unlikely that she would use an adjective like “prodigious,” at least not in one of her compellingly spare stories. Munro writes with a stylistic asceticism that eschews almost all adornment. “Eschews” is also an improbable word to appear in a Munro piece. (Fortunately, since I didn’t have Munro looking over my shoulder as I wrote my novel “Searching for Gilead,” I had the benefit of skilled editors to pare away superfluous descriptors by which I am all too easily seduced.)
Let me open “Dear Life” and select a page at random. Scanning through the roughly 375-word text on this particular page, I find a total of two adjectives (“easy” and “disgusting”) and three adverbs (“actually,” “exactly,” and “primarily.”)
I have two reactions to the lack of literary adornment in Munro’s short stories. On the one hand, her capacity to fashion a gripping narrative with the bare minimum of vocabulary is genius. Picturesque canvasses are drawn, the intimacies of characters’ inner lives are laid bare, and engaging plot scenarios are unrolled with prosaic everyday language. Reading the selections in “Dear Life,” I was never bored or distracted. Munro captured me and carried me along from beginning to end.
On the other hand, I miss savoring the beautifully poetic descriptions that are typical of other eminent fiction writers. I love luxuriating in the rich prose of a Jane Urquhart, Hilary Mantel, David Mitchell, Esi Edujyan, or Allan Hollinghurst, let alone the classics of a Marcel Proust or Charles Dickens or Jane Austen. I’m thrilled by the writings of those who can draw from the teaming resource bank of languages to create powerful narratives that enthrall me and elegant descriptions that take my breath away.
With that (not inconsequential) caveat, let me return to celebrate one other aspect of Alice Munro’s writing. In “Dear Life,” which may possibly be the final book that is published by this Canadian literary giant, Munro demonstrates once again her capacity to create a wide variety of credible and internally consistent voices. Within a paragraph or two of the beginning of each new story, the reader has a clear sense of the narrator or visual of the protagonist. And each voice, in each story, is unique.
Almost. The last four stories in “Dear Life” have autobiographical elements. As Munro says of these four, “I believe they are the first and last—and the closest—things I have to say about my own life.” They are absolute gems and are all focused around the life of a young girl, presumably the same young girl who is, apparently, Alice Munro. My favourite, if I were forced to choose, is “Voices” in which a pre-pubescent girl is witness from a very great distance to the traumatic reverberations of war. The subtlety of the story is awesome—we readers discern what is going on through the child’s narration while the girl herself is left perplexed by what she is seeing and hearing.
My novel “Searching for Gilead” went through five drafts based on feedback that I received from friends whose judgment I valued and two editors who were sympathetic yet ruthless in their advice. The published book is immeasurably improved from the initial versions largely as a result of a protracted exorcising of unnecessary and distracting verbiage (I know—I hear you readers, writers and editors decrying the redundancy of the phrase “unnecessary and distracting verbiage.”) I am now at work on a new writing project—a collection of inter-related short stories with the working title “Booktales.” Hopefully, having read and learned from Alice Munro’s “Dear Life,” I am further ahead than when I started work on “Searching for Gilead.”
Will Schwalbe’s earliest memories involve his mother reading to him and his siblings. Books figured large...moreThe Permeable Membrane between Books and Life
Will Schwalbe’s earliest memories involve his mother reading to him and his siblings. Books figured large in the Schwalbe household. The children were read to every night by their parents until they became voracious readers in their own right. The love of literature was so instilled in him that Will became a professional writer, editor, and book publisher.
The world between the pages was not an escape from the world beyond the front door, especially for Will’s mom Mary Anne. She spent much of her life dedicated to the plight of refugees in distress. Mary Anne made countless trips to countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Liberia, Sudan, and Gaza assisting in building schools and creating women’s shelters. She was a founding member and longtime chairperson of the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children. Her last big project was to raise funds to build a library in Kabul.
Books and life came together in an intensely personal and familial way when Mary Anne was diagnosed in 2007 with advanced pancreatic cancer. Over the eighteen-months between her diagnosis and her death, Will accompanied his mother to many treatment sessions. They decided to help pass the time by reading and discussing books. Thus was born the end-of-your-life book club.
For Mary Anne and Will, there was a permeable membrane between books and life. Books informed their lives and life impacted their appreciation of what they read.
Will makes the observation:
“…one of the things I learned from Mom is this: Reading isn’t the opposite of doing; it’s the opposite of dying. I will never be able to read my mother’s favorite books without thinking of her—and when I pass them on and recommend them, I’ll know that some of what made her goes with them; that some of my mother will live on in those readers, readers who may be inspired to love the way she loved and do their own version of what she did in the world.”
Such is not only the case for many of the luminous books that they read and discussed together over those months such as Marilyn Robinson’s “Gilead”, Alan Bennett’s “The Uncommon Reader”, Joan Didion’s “The Year of Magical Thinking”, and Alice Munro’s “Too Much Happiness”, to name only a few. But this same energy of life is transmitted in spades through Will Schwalbe’s chronicling of those months in “The End of Your Life Book Club.”
Will and I are getting to know each other through email and phone conversations. We’ve discovered that we have a lot in common. Will lost a loved one to pancreatic cancer, as did I when my long-term partner Bill died sixteen days after his diagnosis. Both Will and I have written memoirs about the experience, mine entitled “August Farewell – the last sixteen days of a thirty-three-year romance.” Will watched the video book trailer (http://bit.ly/jZrEbf) and immediately wanted to read “August Farewell.” I happily sent him a signed copy. Both Will and I are gay men. And, coincidentally, Will’s partner’s name is David—a mirror image. They are Will and David. We were David and Bill.
Will has now read "August Farewell" and told me in a recent e-mail how "deeply moved" he was by it.
Two of my Bill’s treasured books that I displayed at his memorial service were his leather-bound three-volume set of Proust’s “Remembrance of Things Past” and his dogged-eared copy of “The Complete Nonsense of Edward Lear”, pages smudged with lemonade-stained finger prints of neighbourhood children to whom Bill read the limericks and showed the drawings during lazy summer afternoons on our veranda.
I think Mary Anne and Bill would have liked each other a lot.
* * *
For information on Will Schwalbe’s “The End of Your Life Book Club”, see http://amzn.to/RPiWNu
For information on my memoir “August Farewell” and my novel “Searching for Gilead”, see my website at http://DavidGHallman.com (less)
My review/reflection about Hilary Mantel’s “Bring Up The Bodies” could be very long. The book is a brillian...moreI admire it. A LOT. But love it? Maybe not.
My review/reflection about Hilary Mantel’s “Bring Up The Bodies” could be very long. The book is a brilliant, evocative, literate, and potent piece of writing—an intellectual masterpiece.
Reading “Bring Up The Bodies” fully engaged my head. But—and I already hear the howls of Mantel fans objecting—I regret to report that it did not capture my heart.
But let me start with what is so very right about “Bring Up The Bodies.”
The story of the two years 1535 and 1536 during which Anne Boleyn’s security as Henry VIII’s wife was slipping away is told from the perspective of Henry’s principle secretary Thomas Cromwell.
It amazes me how convincingly Mantel portrays the fractious and duplicitous life in and around the court as if we are seeing it through Cromwell’s eyes without writing a first-person narrative in Cromwell’s voice. Mantel fully inhabits the Cromwell persona and hence we as readers do as well. The public and historical assessment of Cromwell has varied over time vacillating between those who see him as a ruthless political operative and others who credit him with laying the groundwork for Britain as a modern state governed by law as opposed to the whimsy of sometimes capricious sovereigns. Mantel’s Cromwell is closer to the later perspective and though his harsh judgment and clever manipulation is on full display, we are drawn to him out of respect and, at times, even sympathy.
A second attribute of Mantel’s “Bring Up The Bodies” that leaves me awestruck is her capacity to write historical fiction with the intimacy and excitement of a first-class thriller. Before we pick up the book, we already know the history—what is going to happen to Anne and to a certain degree we know how it comes about. But Mantel, through assiduous historical research combined with an incredibly fertile imagination, enlivens those months in the midst of the sixteen-century so that we experience the conversations and arguments as if they were occurring in the next room and with a nervous excitement about what will happen next. No, we’re even closer than the next room—we are in the very same room as Cromwell, standing unseen just slightly behind him.
I could go on and on enumerating the strengths of “Bring Up The Bodies”—the richly poetic writing style, the fulsome depiction of the female characters (a considerable challenge given how little patriarchal historians have documented the lives of women), the brilliantly witty turns-of-phrase and ever-so-slight gestures that Mantel fashions that illumine massive canvasses of the interior lives of the individuals.
As much as I admire Mantel’s craft in the writing of “Bring Up The Bodies” and unreservedly recommend it for others to read, I can’t honestly say that it touched my heart.
The dialectic between craft and emotion in literature impacts all of us as readers and writers. I experience it in the case of my own writing.
From the many very moving testimonials that I have received from readers of my memoir “August Farewell”, I know that it seems to grab most people by the heart. This is the case even though I wrote it in a short six weeks with very little revision and no editorial assistance before it was published. It’s an authentic piece of writing from one with a broken heart but it is not necessarily really well written. On the other hand, my novel “Searching for Gilead” took me much longer and went through many revisions based on feedback from a few close friends whose judgment I highly respect and from a professional editor. It’s not a great piece of literature but I think, in all modesty, that it is quite a good piece of writing. Readers and reviewers seem to agree. They don’t however send me the kind of effusive messages that “August Farewell” engenders.
My point? Some books one really admires because they are written so exceptionally well and other books one really loves even though the craft may not be of as high quality. And that’s okay. It’s a big table. There’s room for all—with a place of honour reserved for those few books that grab both our head and our heart.
* * *
For information on Hilary Mantel’s “Bring Up The Bodies”, see: http://amzn.to/X6okOj The Oct. 15, 2012 edition of “The New Yorker” magazine carries an illuminating article entitled “The Dead Are Real: The imagination of Hilary Mantel.”
For information on my memoir “August Farewell” and my novel “Searching for Gilead”, see my website at http://DavidGHallman.com on which there are YouTube video trailers of the two books, reviews, readers’ comments, and links to my blog and Goodreads.com page where I have posted reviews of other books that I’ve read recently. (less)
David Rakoff lived and loved, wrote and broadcast, suffered and died — an intense life packed into forty-seven years that ended with...moreDamn. What a loss.
David Rakoff lived and loved, wrote and broadcast, suffered and died — an intense life packed into forty-seven years that ended with his death from cancer on August 9, 2012. The outpouring of grief at this far-too-early passing is testimony to how much he was loved by those who knew him personally and those who only knew him through his work, by his radio listeners and readers of his articles and books, by the literary community and the gay community.
Damn. What a loss.
"Shrimp", a reflection on childhood anxieties that Rakoff published in 2006, is placed as the first essay in his book "Half Empty" and includes the trenchant observation, "...everyone has an internal age. A time in life when one is, if not one’s best, then at the very least one’s most authentic self. When your outside and inside are in sync, and soma and psyche mesh as perfectly as they’re ever going to. I always felt that my internal clock was calibrated somewhere between forty-seven and fifty-three years old."
Rakoff’s self-defense from the schoolyard abuse that invariably befalls a scrawny and less-than-macho kid was the early intellectual maturation into a smart and acerbic wit. From childhood through to his last days, he used his tongue and his pen to skewer bullies and puncture pretention. And his own foibles were not immune from brutal analysis—that comes, in part at least, from having a psychotherapist for a mother and a psychiatrist for a father.
David Rakoff was a humourist who struck a fine balance between on the one hand an anti-romantic clear-eyed realism about the world around him and on the other hand a heart wide open vulnerability to a life whose richness resided most of all in the company of good friends and in the exhilaration of good art.
But it was not to be a long and pain-free life for David Rakoff.
The last essay in "Half Empty" entitled "Another Shoe" was written in the context of his lengthy disabling battle with cancer and the attendant surgeries that exacted a devastating toll. I read with gut-wrenching sadness as he writes, "…fear lays waste to one’s best reserves. It foments rot in my stores of grain, eats away at my timbers. If I dwell on the possibility that I might be dead by forty-seven, I can’t really find a useful 'therefore' in that."
Having lost the love of my life to cancer, I too have written from the depths of that dark place. Sure, there’s the thankfulness for the good times. But that’s not enough.
Damn. What a loss.
* * * Short YouTube video of David Rakoff giving a poignant reading of one of his last pieces: http://t.co/xEAUUUxr
In his fictional account of Queen Elizabeth II becoming addicted to reading, the masterful Alan Bennett describes the allure of...moreCan’t Get Enough of It
In his fictional account of Queen Elizabeth II becoming addicted to reading, the masterful Alan Bennett describes the allure of the written word thusly: "…she felt about reading what some writers felt about writing: that it was impossible not to do it and that at this late stage of her life she had been chosen to read as others were chosen to write."
“The Uncommon Reader” is a jewel of a novella in which Bennett imagines the private life of the monarch behind the pomp and circumstance, away from the responsibilities and receptions. In this behind-the-curtain glimpse, we find Elizabeth estranging herself from her onerous role and secluding herself increasingly in books. But it’s not escapism for her as much as the unexpected unveiling of the many worlds of the head and the heart which writers have created both fictional and non-fictional versions.
In an endearing touch, Alan Bennett places a young gay man as the conduit for the Queen’s marvelous discovery of the joy of reading.
And back to Bennett’s point about the sense of calling—there is indeed pleasure that Elizabeth derives from her newly found passion but it is overlaid with a thirst or a need that can only be met as she sits quietly, book in hand, lost in the words.
I resonate with this sense of compulsion.
As an author, I felt compelled to write a memoir “August Farewell” and then a novel “Searching for Gilead” as a way to help make sense of my world that had been shattered by a series of tragedies. I had to write. I could do nothing else. And I wrote almost non-stop for eighteen months until both books were finished.
Now, I feel the same compulsion to read. It’s as if the intense writing period left me parched with an insatiable thirst that can only be slaked by immersing myself in other people’s writings.
What a joyful imperative to envelop ourselves in the brilliantly crafted stories of talented writers, like those of a certain Alan Bennett.
I commend “The Uncommon Reader” to those who create books and those who consume them.
* * * For information on Alan Bennett’s “The Uncommon Reader” see: http://amzn.to/Qkhkfc
For information on my memoir “August Farewell” and my novel “Searching for Gilead”, see my website: http://DavidGHallman.com (less)
I’ve read Jack A. Urquhart’s short story “They say you can stop yourself breathing” several times. Or rather, I’ve let th...moreWriting so beautiful it sings
I’ve read Jack A. Urquhart’s short story “They say you can stop yourself breathing” several times. Or rather, I’ve let the evocative descriptions and the southern Georgian dialogue wash over me repeatedly.
I can’t get enough of it.
The short story is a gripping narrative story but it resonates like an exquisite plaintive ballad.
Part of its impact is attributable to the poignancy of the storyline.
Another element that makes “They say you can stop yourself breathing” such a treasure is the tenderness of the relationship that Urquhart depicts between the two young boys. There’s not a trace of sloppy sentimentality about how he constructs the evolution, fluctuations, and culmination of the connection between Billy and Tibaut. But with an economy of detail and a relentless masterfully-paced progression he fashions a portrait of tenderness and mutual discovery.
Further, Urquhart has written dialogue (as well as Billy’s narration to us the readers) with the chopped and lilting cadence of what I assume to be authentic to the Southern setting in which the story is placed.
“They say you can stop yourself breathing” is a veritable jewel of a short story.
* * * For more information on Jack A. Urquhart’s “They say you can stop yourself breathing”, see http://amzn.to/RfWoaB
Beginning Arthur Wooten’s most recent novel “Leftovers” is like sitting on a shaded veranda drinking a gin and tonic watching a late su...moreSuch a Pleasure
Beginning Arthur Wooten’s most recent novel “Leftovers” is like sitting on a shaded veranda drinking a gin and tonic watching a late summer sunset over the lake. All feels good with the world. The G&T is slipping down your throat so very smoothly. And yet, there’s a slight bitterness to the gin that catches ever so lightly in the throat and the chilly breeze brushing your face forebodes night’s arrival and summer’s end.
Yes, it may feel initially that all is well with the world in “Leftovers” but Wooten subtly lifts the lid to tell a story that is rich in textures, some of which are a lovely pastel shade, but others of which are not.
As one progresses through the novel, it becomes increasingly clear that Wooten’s writing in “Leftovers” is as assured and pitch perfect as ever. The characters radiate from the page, drawn with note-perfect dialogue and visually-rich description. The atmospherics of 1950s Americana life are evoked with attention to the smallest of details.
It is in the plotline that modulates back and forth between exhilaration and distress that Wooten demonstrates most convincingly his skill. The endearing story is leavened with the poignant humanity that we have come to appreciate from his earlier novels and short stories.
The pleasure in reading “Leftovers” is an indication of the professionalism of the writing. Arthur Wooten knows how to write. He makes it seem easy. Those of us who try to write, know it is not easy.
All of us as readers are the lucky beneficiaries of Wooten’s impressive talent. (less)
What was going on in David Mitchell’s head while he was writing his stunning novel “Cloud Atlas”?
Brain scie...more“Cloud Atlas” – the miracle of imagination
What was going on in David Mitchell’s head while he was writing his stunning novel “Cloud Atlas”?
Brain scientists could probably have mapped the electrical and chemical activity. His wife would have been able to detail his distractedness from the day-to-day demands of family life in their home in Ireland.
None of that technical or domestic information would give us much of a clue about how Mitchell conceived of a 19th century notary by the name of Adam Ewing writing a journal in the Pacific that gets discovered in 1931 by a frustrated composer Robert Frobisher working in Belgium who writes letters to his friend (and apparent lover) Rufus Sixsmith who becomes involved in a 1975 case of corruption involving a California nuclear power plant which is investigated by journalist Luisa Rey and then turned into a novel that falls into the hands in the early 21st century of a British publisher Timothy Cavendish imprisoned against his will in an eccentric nursing home a movie of which is watched by Somni~451 a futuristic clone rebelling against her totalitarian state which itself becomes the subject of a holographic projection viewed by primitive tribesman Zachry in a far off post-apocalyptic future which turns out to be the apex of the novel that then rewinds chronologically revisiting and picking up the story from where it left off earlier involving Somni~451, Timothy Cavendish, Luisa Rey, Rufus Sixsmith, Robert Frobisher, and Adam Ewing.
Are you still with me?
David Mitchell’s imagination somehow came up with this gargantuan story line and then committed it to prose that ranges from lyrically beautiful phrasing to ancient and futuristic dialects that, I presume, are at least in part of Mitchell’s creation.
I’m in awe of the miracle of the imagination, not just the exemplary case-in-point of David Mitchell’s, but of all creative artists.
I’ve had some first-hand experience watching the imagination at work and am as confounded by the process close-up as I am when appreciating the product of someone else’s mind.
I’ve recently written a memoir “August Farewell” and a novel “Searching for Gilead.” The memoir is based on my life with and the death of my long-term gay partner and hence is biographical. But how did I conceive of the structure of integrating vignettes of our thirty-three-year relationship into the day-by-day chronology of the two weeks between his cancer diagnosis and his death? The novel writing is even more of a mystery to me. I knew the general storyline that I wanted to produce but when I would begin a new chapter I often had no idea how it would progress. Like an out-of-body experience, I watched the characters take on a life of their own as they interacted, argued, made love, conspired against one another, and reconciled. It was all coming out of my head, my imagination, but how it evolved seemed only partially a matter of my conscious will and very largely a volatile creative force for which I felt I was not much more than the channel.
Thank goodness for the imagination – one of the miracles of life.
See it on full display in David Mitchell’s “Cloud Atlas”.
For information on my memoir “August Farewell” and my novel “Searching for Gilead” including short YouTube book trailers, see my website at http://DavidGHallman.com
Drake Braxton’s first novel “Missing” is evidence of a very promising writer.
Two aspects in particular impressed me.
Braxton writes realistic and con...moreDrake Braxton’s first novel “Missing” is evidence of a very promising writer.
Two aspects in particular impressed me.
Braxton writes realistic and convincing dialogue. Each of the voices of his characters is unique allowing them to be distinguished one from the other and to evoke compelling impressions.
Secondly, Braxton has created a complex storyline that is full of unexpected and exciting twists as well as unrolling on multiple dimensions that give the novel depth.
I very much enjoyed reading “Missing” and look forward to further work from Braxton. (less)
There is no doubt that Kamal Al-Solaylee’s new book “Intolerable – A Memoir of Extremes” has all the elements of a fascinati...moreThe Story Behind the Story
There is no doubt that Kamal Al-Solaylee’s new book “Intolerable – A Memoir of Extremes” has all the elements of a fascinating biographical and socio-historical epic: a young boy growing up in an Arabic family in Yemen, Egypt, and Lebanon that gets caught up in the economic, religious, and political upheavals of the region over the past fifty years; his fascination with the allure of western pop and artistic culture that is denigrated by family members and his society; a dawning sense of his gay sexual identify and his desperate struggle to liberate himself from the strictures of his upbringing so as to carve for himself a life in a different part of the world where he can pursue freely his intellectual and emotional aspirations.
“Intolerable” hopefully will be adapted for the screen some day. It would make a great film.
But I found myself drawn not so much to the dramatic narrative as to—I’m not sure what to call it—the backstory or the subtext or the metastory. I was profoundly moved by Al-Solaylee’s on-going internal monologue as he struggles to understand what is happening to him and his world, grapples mightily with the limited options available to him to escape from what he finds so intolerable, and then, most poignantly, deals with the consequences of his decisions as they relate to his self-induced separation from his family and cultural roots.
This on-going personal reflection by Al-Solaylee about the psychological and ethical dimensions of his life choices is often heart wrenching for us as readers to witness. While he is thrilled with the life that he eventually creates for himself in his new adopted home of Toronto, his enthusiasm is overlaid by two dampeners: firstly, a persistent melancholy because of the suffering that his displacement has caused to his family, particularly his mother and his sisters, that is compounded by a deterioration in his family’s quality of life as a result of the political upheavals in the region; and secondly, an existential insecurity linked to his self-identity as Arabic and his feelings about Arabic culture which fluctuate dramatically over the course of the story.
To bear one’s soul in public like Al-Solaylee has done requires a great deal of guts. It can also be cathartic.
I speak from experience. After my long-term partner died suddenly from cancer, I wrote a memoir “August Farewell” in which I detailed the sixteen days between Bill’s diagnosis and his death and integrated into the chronology vignettes from our thirty-three years together as a gay couple. Writing, for those of us who feel drawn to it, can help us make sense of the vicissitudes of life. But of even more consequence, at least for me, are the intimate conversations and depth of relationships with readers who respond to our soul-bearing.
My fondest wish for Kamal Al-Solaylee is that he will find in having written and published “Intolerable” some measure of this gratification at both the personal and relational levels.
* * * For information on Kamal Al-Solaylee’s “Intolerable – A Memoir of Extremes” see http://amzn.to/SbKkap
Reading Colm Tóibín’s collection of short stories “The Empty Family”, I was reminded of Nobel Prize winner Or...moreMelancholia - Tóibín’s, Pamuk’s, and Mine
Reading Colm Tóibín’s collection of short stories “The Empty Family”, I was reminded of Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk’s poignant evocation of his hometown in his part-history part-memoir entitled “Istanbul – Memories and the City.” The pervasive ethos throughout “Istanbul” is melancholy—for a lost childhood innocence, for a family diminished in its once prominent social standing, and for a city whose culture is but a shadow of its former grandeur.
There are certainly contrasts between the two books. Pamuk maintains a consistency of despairing tone from the first to last pages of “Istanbul” that is relentless. Tóibín’s “The Empty Family” on the other hand has a wide variety of characters, settings, and tonal fluctuations. But they are just that, fluctuations, around that similar emotional state of melancholy.
“The Empty Family”, as the title suggests, is more micro-focused than “Istanbul.” Each of Tóibín’s exquisitely crafted short stories focuses around some dynamic of family. There is regret about the loss of a loved one, guilt about one’s self-imposed inaccessibility as a parent is dying, anxious hope for a relationship or at least companionship or at a minimum sex in a context of social and cultural repression.
Tóibín is not writing stories with happy endings, for the most part, in “The Empty Family.” On occasion, a story will conclude with some hope. But the predominating tenor in all of them is one of sadness, regret, frustration, and guilt.
I resonate with the melancholy in “The Empty Family” and “Istanbul”. I should say that I resonate it with it now. Over the past three years while I was writing my memoir “August Farewell” and my novel “Searching for Gilead”, I was in a far different universe than that of melancholia. While working on the memoir and novel I was raging, frothing at the mouth, tearing into my memory stocks and mining my artistic imagination to try and make sense of the tragedies and multiple griefs that threatened to overwhelm me.
Melancholy suggests to me a certain despairing resignation to the vicissitudes of life. I read that in “The Empty Family”, in “Istanbul”, and in my own life at this point.
* * *
Information on my memoir “August Farewell” and my novel “Searching for Gilead”, including short YouTube video book trailers, is available on my website at http://DavidGHallman.com
It is an awesome privilege to belong to the gay artistic community.
I’ve just finished reading Christopher Bram’s “Eminent Outlaws...moreAn Awesome Privilege
It is an awesome privilege to belong to the gay artistic community.
I’ve just finished reading Christopher Bram’s “Eminent Outlaws – The Gay Writers Who Changed America.” I’m an inveterate highlighter when reading a well-written book with thought-provoking material. Almost every page of my copy of “Eminent Outlaws” has phrases, sentences, and on occasion whole paragraphs that are highlighted.
"Eminent Outlaws " provides wonderful biographies of the authors that Bram argues laid the foundation for gay liberation including Truman Capote, Gore Vidal, Tennessee Williams, James Baldwin, Christopher Isherwood, Allen Ginsberg, Edward Albee, Edmund White, Armistead Maupin, Mart Crowley, and Tony Kushner. (He acknowledges and explains in the introduction why he is only treating gay male literature.)
Bram describes how these writers interacted with each other (sometimes not a pretty picture) and provides literary critiques of their works. He talks about the social reaction to these writers including the responses from the straight and in later years gay press. The book is wonderfully researched and replete with insightful analysis. Even though I knew these authors, I learned a great deal more about them and their times.
Much more though than the intellectual stimulation, what moved me so deeply about “Eminent Outlaws” was the emotional sense of being linked to a community of gay authors that stretches over time and whose work has provoked responses from gay (and straight) readers that have contributed to the creation of community and to political, human rights, and artistic progress.
I have only recently begun writing gay-themed books. For many years during my professional career, I wrote books on environmental ethics.
Then my lover died suddenly of cancer and I felt compelled to write a memoir “August Farewell” about the two weeks between his diagnosis and his death and to integrate vignettes from our thirty-three years together as a gay couple. It was an artistic and cathartic experience. But still roiling with issues of love and loss in my head and heart, I decided to tackle them through the medium of writing my first piece of fiction. The novel “Searching for Gilead” is the product.
It is an awesome privilege to be able to dialogue with other gay authors about our challenges and joys in writing and to converse with readers who have felt moved to share their reactions to my books. The relationships that have been fostered with these writers and readers are occurring in real time, now in the second decade of the twenty-first century. But somehow, reading “Eminent Outlaws” has linked me to gay artistic predecessors who laid the foundation on which we now build.
What a thrill.
* * *
Information on my memoir “August Farewell” and my novel “Searching for Gilead”, including short YouTube video book trailers, is available on my website at http://DavidGHallman.com
I read a lot of fiction. There are very few books that I can describe as taking my breath away. Francis Chalifour’s “After” did jus...moreTook My Breath Away
I read a lot of fiction. There are very few books that I can describe as taking my breath away. Francis Chalifour’s “After” did just that. Repeatedly.
The story itself is tragic, poignant, and ultimately redemptive.
But as powerful as the story is, it is more the quality of writing that blew me away.
Told through the very convincing voice of a teenager, there are many lines that stopped me cold: • “Papa, I’m tired of you being dead.” • The hands seemed to move madly, grabbing the minutes. • That old Grief Monster had its own schedule.” • “The Suicide’s Son times the Shrink equals Weirdness squared.”
A could go on and on. Exquisite writing.
Then there is Chalifour’s capacity to evoke the gritty and poignant reality of the main character’s life with the most seemingly pedestrian of observations. That’s the sign of a very fine writer – one who doesn’t feel compelled to detail on the page all the characters’ emotions but lets their words, actions, and even the physical setting convey the inner landscape.
Moreover, “After” is not a fictionalized novel. It is real life, a memoir of Chalifour’s life AFTER his father’s suicide. Having produced a memoir myself ("August Farewell"), I know something of what is entailed in writing about the tragic loss of a loved one. It’s not easy. Chalifour has done it with grace and awe-inspiring lyricism.
Francis Chalifour’s “After” well deserved its recognition as a finalist in the Governor General’s Literary Awards.
Jeffrey Luscombe’s first novel “Shirts and Skins” takes us on a journey of a life that has lots of valleys and a few peaks.
Luscombe writes convincing dialogue and much of the novel tracing the first thirty-odd years of the life of Josh, the main character, proceeds through his conversations and frequent arguments with family members. And he does have a colourful family indeed.
Some of the most powerful writing in “Shirts and Skins” occurs as Josh is struggling in his early years with a cantankerous father and desperate mother compounded by bullying and academic problems at school. I had to go back and check to see whether those early chapters had been written in the first person. They are not. But so authentic was the voice of the young alienated Josh that I remembered those sections as if Luscombe had had Josh narrating the storyline directly.
“Shirts and Skins” is a coming out story in a number of senses. No need for a spoiler alert - I won’t give away any of the critical plot developments. What I would observe is that through Josh’s journey we witness his struggling with a variety of demons some of which are imposed on him from external sources and some of which are self-generated. Luscombe takes us very effectively inside Josh’s head and heart as he wrestles with these various challenges.
There are plenty of dark moments in Josh’s journey and they are presented with candour and a lack of sentimentality for which I as a reader was grateful. There are also bright and comic moments that bring a ready smile and chuckle.
I look forward to adding more fiction works by Luscombe to my bookshelves in the years to come. (less)
In “Journey through Darkness”, Alina Oswald has written a detailed and compelling biography of Kurt Weston whose life was one...morePain in Art, Art in Pain
In “Journey through Darkness”, Alina Oswald has written a detailed and compelling biography of Kurt Weston whose life was one suffused with artistic excellence and human suffering.
Weston was on a trajectory toward a promising career as a photographer when he was diagnosed with HIV. He developed AIDS and contracted some of the associated complications including cytomegalovirus. CMV and the aggressive therapies intended to treat it ended up robbing Weston of much of his sight.
A photographer with extremely limited sight would seem to be a non-starter. But Kurt Weston’s determination as an artist was not to be under-estimated. Over the years, he used his new visual perspectives on the world to create powerful award-winning photographs.
By tracing Weston’s life through the years after contracting HIV, Oswald not only describes a single man’s journey but also contextualizes it in the medical, social, and political dynamics of the AIDS pandemic. “Journey through Darkness” is both a biography and an HIV historical primer.
AIDS impacted Weston’s art and his art has impacted many HIV+ people and AIDS organizations with whom Weston has been involved. “Journey through Darkness” is a fascinating and inspiring story of the inter-relationship of art and pain at both the personal and societal levels.
Authors of fiction have differing strengths. Some find that narrative description comes easily to them and they are effective a...moreThe man is a playwright
Authors of fiction have differing strengths. Some find that narrative description comes easily to them and they are effective at painting luminous pictures for their readers. Others have great skill in developing riveting plotlines. The creation of engrossing characters that stay in one’s mind long after having finished reading a novel is another type of gift that some writers have in spades.
And then there is dialogue.
It strikes me as extraordinarily difficult to produce credible dialogue. Readers are quick to recognize if it doesn’t feel authentic. Every character is different one from another and that has to be apparent through what words the author puts into their mouths. If characters come from regions or classes that have distinctive speaking patterns, a good writer will be able to capture those nuances.
I’ve just finished reading Brandon Shire’s novel “Listening to Dust.” Brandon is a terrific writer of dialogue. Through his dialogue, one gets a compelling vision of each character with all their strengths and difficulties. The principal characters in “Listening to Dust” are the lovers Stephen and Dustin and Dusty’s younger brother Robbie. Each of these three is dramatically different one from another. From the first to the final page, Brandon articulates their uniqueness, their pain, their inner conflicts, and their respective sources of love primarily through the words that he has them speak.
Other characters including an abusive father, a crusty teacher, and an endearing aunt appear relatively briefly but as the reader I readily gained a visceral understanding of them through their comments and conversations.
An author who is as good a dialogue-writer as Brandon Shire is strikes me as being a playwright-in-waiting. I can’t wait. (less)
“Mind and Body – Edmund White’s 'Sacred Monsters'”
Edmund White is such a paradox to me.
On the one hand, he has written exceptionally intelligent and...more“Mind and Body – Edmund White’s 'Sacred Monsters'”
Edmund White is such a paradox to me.
On the one hand, he has written exceptionally intelligent and articulate literary criticism. What stays with me from his 1993 biography of Jean Genet is not the chronology of Genet’s tortured life but White’s brilliant analysis of Genet’s writing. His novels are similarly engaging and beautifully written.
On the other hand, there is the unfettered hyper-sexualized White whose life and loves are published in florid detail for all to read in his series of autobiographies.
I’ve just finished reading White’s newly-published "Sacred Monsters"—a compilation of essays that he has written about twenty-two of the most legendary artists and writers of the past one hundred years. For me, both dimensions of Edmund White come together in this collection.
At times bitchy and scathing and at times endearingly affectionate, White trains his considerable aesthetic acuity on his subjects some of whom he knew personally. We get delightful personal anecdotes interspersed with astute observations of their professional strengths and failings.
Among my favourites are his essays on Glenway Westcott, David Hockney, Truman Capote, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Paul Bowles.
I recently was at the Rainbow Book Fair at the LGBT Community Centre in New York City. White was there as well but unfortunately his presentation conflicted in the schedule with my reading from my new novel. I missed out on the chance to encounter the whole integrated man.
* * * For information on my memoir "August Farewell" and my novel "Searching for Gilead", see my website at http://DavidGHallman.com(less)
I don’t know what the 2011 Man Booker Prize jury was smoking when they ignored Alan Hollinghurst’s “The Stranger’s Child...moreAlan Hollinghurst Shines Again
I don’t know what the 2011 Man Booker Prize jury was smoking when they ignored Alan Hollinghurst’s “The Stranger’s Child” and selected instead Julian Barnes’s “The Sense of an Ending.” I’ve already vented my disappointment with the Barnes book in my review of it. I’m here now to praise Hollinghurst’s novel which I finished reading this afternoon.
There are so many things I adore about “The Stranger’s Child.”
Hollinghurst has such an elegant writing style. His descriptive sentences, some of them of almost Proustian length, never distracted me from the narration but rather carried me along with unselfconscious simplicity so that only in retrospect did I become aware of their complexity.
I found the storyline equal parts mystery, historical texturing, character study, and relationship drama. With an effortlessness that echoes his writing style, the story unfolds delicately and inexorably. I always wanted to know what would happen next but was never once tempted to skip or skim ahead—such was my enjoyment of the read, chapter by chapter, paragraph by paragraph, sentence by sentence.
I do have two quibbles that I expect will evaporate on a second read and probably reflect more my problem than any inadequacy in Hollinghurst’s writing. The story is told through the eyes of various of the characters depending on the historical period of the sections. I was so thoroughly drawn into their particular viewpoint it was as if the narrative were written in the first person. I then found myself jarred when we were suddenly seeing the world through the eyes of another person. Secondly, and related, the last section caught me quite off-guard as our principle narrator of what had preceded it was being assessed, judgmentally, by others who had abruptly become our accompaniers.
Nevertheless, I strongly recommend “The Stranger’s Child.” I have read almost everything else that Alan Hollinhurst has published including the stunning “Line of Beauty” which won the 2004 Man Booker (the jury was on their toes that year.) I will reread “The Stranger’s Child” again down the road and will surely savor it at least as much as on the first occasion.
* * * Information on Alan Hollinghurst's "The Stranger's Child" at http://amzn.to/R13DOk
For information on my memoir "August Farewell" and my novel "Searching for Gilead", see my website at http://DavidGHallman.com(less)
Philosophers, physicists, and poets have drawn on a wide variety of metaphors to capture the essence of time, some of which are mor...moreThe Duality of Time
Philosophers, physicists, and poets have drawn on a wide variety of metaphors to capture the essence of time, some of which are more successful than others.
At the personal level, we all have our own interpretations of the significance of the passage of time for us as individuals and as communities.
Two seemingly contradictory conclusions emerge – on the one hand, time seems to change everything, and yet on the other hand, immutable consistencies remain.
Kergan Edwards-Stout’s novel “Songs for the New Depression” captures this duality.
In beautiful description and compelling dialogue, the principal character Gabriel Travers narrates twenty dramatic years of his life, and he does so with poignancy and humour. As readers taken along on the bumpy ride of Gabe’s struggles, we have front row seats to witness the highs and the lows, the ecstasy and the despair, and, it should be noted, lots and lots of sex.
Through it all, Gabe experiences that persistent duality of time. Somethings that he hopes will change, don’t. Somethings that he wishes would remain forever unaltered, vanish.
But Kergan Edwards-Stout isn’t content to tell us the story of Gabe’s life in a straight-forward narrative. Exhibiting the creativity and courage that has made him the fine writer he is, he employs a fascinating literary device—he tells the story backwards.
“Songs for the New Depression” is an engrossing and exhilarating read.
Arthur Wooten has a finely honed ear and very skilled pen.
Wooten utilizes the subtle nuances of language to ca...moreRaucous Humor and Life-lesson Poignancy
Arthur Wooten has a finely honed ear and very skilled pen.
Wooten utilizes the subtle nuances of language to capture both the dramatic and the mundane in his characters’ lives and to tell their stories in ways that give us alternating giggles and lumps in our throats.
His newest book entitled “Arthur Wooten’s Shorts” is an imaginative compilation of a short story and a series of columns that he had written while he was the humorist for the London magazine reFRESH.
It is not easy to write humor well. Wooten knows how. There is raucousness to many of his scenes yet the idiosyncratic behavior of his characters doesn’t slide off into slapstick. Rather, his comedy acts as a light veneer over a poignancy from which I always take away some deeply-felt and finely-crafted lesson for life.
Having enjoyed “Arthur Wooten’s Shorts”, it now rests on my bookshelves along side an impressive and growing collection of the published works that I have appreciated by author Arthur. Keep them coming, Mr. Wooten.
Scott Alexander Hess’s “Diary of a Sex Addict” would not be everyone’s cup of tea.
But if you like William S. Burroughs, I think you wou...moreSearing Poetry
Scott Alexander Hess’s “Diary of a Sex Addict” would not be everyone’s cup of tea.
But if you like William S. Burroughs, I think you would enjoy a full pot of Scott’s writing – no sugar or milk added, taken black, and slightly scalding to the lips.
Burroughs was who came to mind as I wound my way through the December days of Scott’s novel.
In part, it was the gritty no-holds-barred storyline of a man on the edge in multiple senses of that metaphor.
Scott’s narration takes us inside a tortured mind, struggling with pain and the impacts of excess, honest and transparent, intelligently self-reflective, at times totally amoral (as opposed to immoral) in social interactions, existentially balanced on a knife edge as to whether to continue to be or to choose not to be.
But what struck even a more resonant bell (and I am no Burroughs authority) was the writing style: clear, economical, incisive, delusionary, brutal, moving incessantly and precipitously forward, never maudlin or melodramatic or romanticized.
“Diary of a Sex Addict” is not for the faint-of-heart. But it is a novel for those who appreciate a gifted writer. (less)
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