Ajax Minor's Blog, page 4

See ‘Last Christmas’ this christmas

‘Last Christmas’ was billed, for some reason, as a ‘rom-com’. I suppose I don’t go to enough movies to have known what in hell that was at first. Let me be clear, this movie is not a ‘romantic comedy’ it is a FANTASY! It is supposed to be quirky, loopy and at times quite absurd. I’m not talking about Tolkien here or Game of Thrones, High-Fantasy, but real live, though rare, Not-High Fantasy. The kind written by Neil Gaiman, Phillip Pullman and yours truly (forgive me for including myself in the company of the Crown Prince and the King). I mean, c’mon! Take ‘A Christmas Carol’ with three ghosts and a guy who goes from ‘Bah, Humbug’ to the very spirit ( the fourth spirit and perhaps the most important) of the Christmas season itself!

All that being said, I am writing a short movie review. I think I’ve only done one in this Blog on the film ‘Wonder Woman’ . Linda and I are infrequent movie goers. About every six months a rash of films pops up that we must see then we go dormant. We are now in an active phase. And readers of this Blog know I write on topical themes related to the craft of writing or specifically about subjects of interest in my stories. A review is simply an essay and all genres are important for aspiring authors to explore. So here goes:

I wanted to see ‘Last Christmas’ because I became terribly invested in the character of Daenerys Targaryen in ‘Game of Thrones’ and a fan of Emilia Clarke. I’ve Blogged about what a travesty was perpetrated on her character in ‘Shame of Thrones: Character Assasination’. Her arc is an example of writing at its worst. Nuff said. But I was interested in seeing if she had other dimensions as an actress. Some thespians have one dimension. John Wayne was always John Wayne no matter whom he played. Some are type-cast and trapped, as George Reeves, ‘Superman’, may have been.

Well, Emilia Clarke gave me all I had hoped for and more. She was quirky, funny and lovable. And Yikes! She has some voice. It’s worth seeing the movie if you were a GOT addict just to marvel at the dexterity she exhibits with her craft.

Some thought the plot twist absurd. Again, it’s a FANTASY kids! It was beyond clever and even a touch heartbreaking. Or perhaps heartfelt and touching. This coming from a guy who, like his main character Jaq in the Ur Legend series, can only find a path to his heart through his brain.

Emma Thompson was panned for her accent. She was a Yugoslavian for Christ’s sake not Beatrice in ‘Much Ado About Nothing’! Would the same criticism be made of Meryl Streep? The fact that Ms. Thompson co-wrote, produced, directed and acted in ‘Last Christmas’ is a marvel. She is a marvel.

The movie has Quirky characters like Michelle Yeoh’s hilarious Asian ‘Santa’ and her boyfriend, ‘Boy’. Most of all there is redemption. Katarina is able to shed the shell of self absorption brought about by a traumatic medical episode and find happiness in helping others. Of course, for those of you who know my stories, Second Chances are a big deal.

So go see ‘Last Christmas’ this Christmas. Screw the critics and have some FUN!

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Writing tips for aspiring authors

I have finished the promotional period for my new novel, Kutuzov’s Dream, Book 3 in the Ur Legend series. Phew! Now I’d like to get back to some commentary. I’d like to refresh on the reasons why I began writing. But first I’d like to talk about something more basic

I often hear people say, “I’ve always wanted to write,” or “I’d write, if only I could find the time.”  The second comment is the easiest to address.  Let me tell you, you do have the time.  Can you spare 15 minutes, one day a week?  If not, you will probably die of anxiety or exhaustion, or are so completely fulfilled that you really don’t need, or want, to write after all.

Writing Practice

Consider:  Grab a Composition Book at the local supermarket in the school supplies section.  Or just use your Word Processor.  During those 15 minutes, once a week, write one hundred words.  I think a prose writer can do that.  Do the math.  In one year you will have written 5200 words.  That’s a nice short story.   I Married a Butterfly is only 3000 words and is, while short, a complete story.  The year will pass in any event and, barring death, you will finish it either with a piece of writing or without one.  So, do you want to write or don’t you?  We’ve established that you have the time.

The arithmetic is simpler, but the process harder for poetry.  I can vouch for this, since I’ve written some poems; though I am clearly not a poet.  Novels, of course, require more of a time commitment, either in terms of hours per week or as the sum of months or years.

Writing Fundamentals

One thing that is absolutely necessary is to have a good grasp of the fundamentals of modern exposition.  Unless you are a bona-fide genius with a revolutionary style that resonates with a large audience, you have to observe current conventions: Point of View, dialogue tags, well defined genre.  Then again, since I fail utterly on genre, I should probably say you need to be aware of modern conventions.

But before you begin to write, make sure you have a good grasp of usage, grammar and syntax.  Even if you got A’s in English, you may have forgotten some basic rules after years of plumbing houses, slinging hash or writing memos.  So, “Get the little book!”

Recommended Resources

Read and keep handy at all times  ‘Elements of Style’—it’s been a major help to me for my writing!

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racism, the ‘N’ word and the Ur legend: An Author’s Challenge

There was quite the dust up recently over Trump’s remarks about four Democratic congresswomen, a.k.a. ‘The Squad’. He was accused of Racism. Is this accurate? Hard to say since we can’t get into Trump’s head; nor would we want to. He told them to go back to the countries they came from. But on the surface, while his words were de Facto racist, since he targeted women of color, it’s hard to pin the term ‘racist’ on the words themselves. De Facto. Remember when behavior in the pre-1964 South was either de Facto or de Jure racist? De facto referred to social prohibitions that were not in statute while de Jure referred to laws on the books.

Anyway, as troubling was the clear 21st century version of ‘Love it or Leave it’. ‘Back to your country’ was pure Nativism, first seen here in the U.S. in the 1840s when there was a large influx of Irish immigrants, considered ‘sub-human’, violent and brutish. This is deeply disturbing. However not surprising. The divide in America has been growing wider since Joe Wilson, Congressman from South Carolina, shouted ‘you lie’ at Obama during his State of the Union message in 2009. He was referring to the Affordable Care Act.

But America, as I have stated on numerous occasions, has been divided since the founding. I wrote about this divide in ‘The National Marriage: Red and Blue‘. While the Constitution was ratified unanimously, the votes in some states were very close run things. In The Ur Legend, economic collapse causes the US to fracture along geographic lines, but geographies encompass populations of relatively homogeneous cultures. To some degree we see this in America today. People are moving. Sure, for reasons related to everything from taxes to weather; but also by the existing outlook on life and collective identity in those destinations.

In The Girl from Ipanema, the ‘N’ word is used when Kang confronts Mattie: “Nigger. Isn’t that what they call you in your precious Idaho?”. My question, as an author, becomes whether I should use that word if I’m white. Certainly I heard the word used, when I lived in New York, on the Lexington Avenue line to the Bronx. But not by Caucasians. And there is a tradition of Irish comics telling Irish jokes, Italian comics telling Italian jokes: well, you get the idea.

At a dinner I asked a black friend what he thought of the usage of the word in my book. He said he thought it valid if used in a proper literary context. SPOILER: Kang had reason to regret his words and actions.

In Kutusov’s Dream, soldiers from the Rocky Mountain Republic use the word ‘niggur’. This is for historical reasons. The term was used by trappers in the Rocky Mountain West in the 1830s and 1840s. It was used to refer to black, white, red or to themselves by the trappers. My hope is this is taken in the spirit in which it was meant. If not, apologies.

Finally I use the term ‘sand nigger’ on one occasion to refer to Al No-Side’s horde that confronts the forces of the West at Borodino. Since I’ve been referred to myself by this word, my paternal granddad being from Iraq, I guess I feel all right about using it, by the Lexington Avenue Rule.

The question still remains as to what is acceptable and what is not in literature. After reading William S Burrough’s Naked Lunch, I’m not sure there are any ‘out of bounds.’ But I’d like to know what you think.

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What’s an indie author to do: a shameless shill for my Ur legend series by ajax minor

Kutusov’s Dream, Book 3 of The Ur Legend series, is about to be published. I’ve finished reading through my editors’ notes and made my own corrections. All is ready but I’ve decided to give it one last read. A project years in the making deserves the extra effort. We want it to be as good as it can be.

So it’s time for a bit of shameless self-promotion. I’m an
Indie author after all and if I don’t promote my work who will? I’d like to
give you some reasons to read the books if you haven’t already finished the
first two.

The genre is mixed, which doesn’t always sell to major houses; but this type of loopy admixture can appeal to readers with eclectic or quirky tastes. Book 1, Sun Valley Moon Mountains, is a combination of Magical Realism and pure fantasy. It should be noted that these books are not High Fantasy, a genre enjoyed by many, including this author, and exemplified by such epics as Lord of the Rings by Tolkien and Game of Thrones, inspired by G.R.R. Martin’s books. If you want High Fantasy, elves and dragons, these novels aren’t for you. If you like Phillip Pullman or Neil Gaiman, then these stories should please. It should be noted that there is a menagerie of weird creatures as well as swordplay and sorcery, though in a Classical setting and not typical Tolkienien medieval times.

Books 2 and 3, The Girl from Ipanema and Kutusov’s Dream, are more Sci-fantasy, and are set in a near, recognizable future. While the future described is dystopian, which appeals to many now, it is hopeful.

All books have a philosophical subtext. Sun Valley Moon Mountains explores how we believe the world to exist outside of our minds, or within them. It is a bit of a different approach but is the ‘magic’ that creates the fantasy. The Girl from Ipanema and Kutusov’s Dream explore the complicated, slippery subject of ethics. These topics are discussed in depth in dialogues but are to the point. If readers wants to think about the world they can, otherwise just sit back and enjoy the ride.

The books were inspired by the birth accident and death of our daughter, Katherine, and are my way of giving Linda and me, as well as Katie, a ‘second chance’. Some were disappointed by Book 1, believing that it would be a straightforward expression of Grief in a realistic setting. But the point of that book was to show the way toward a different type of acceptance. The main characters, Jaq and Kate, as well as Linda and I, are stoics. Grappling with the ‘whys’ of such a catastrophe, we at last found some measure of peace in the Lao Tse’s Tao te Ching: “Nature does not play favorites. She regards her Creations without Sentimentality”. The universe is not a hostile place, it simply is.

But the continuation of the series in Books 2 and 3 gave me a chance to give our daughter a life as a young woman. While she is a unique and quite fantastic being, she still experiences the emotions that come with emerging as an adult. In short, the series is about the process of becoming and it is a love story as well.

Finally, I believe the common thread in The Ur Legend is connection. Human connection. This is something I
myself find difficult at times, for as Kate says to Jaq: “The way to your heart
is through your brain. And I do love you for it.” Those of us who connect with
our brains more than our hearts still can feel and love, though we may only cry
twice a year for practice. I am fortunate that Linda ‘loves me for it’ as much
as Kate loved Jaq.

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baby it’s cold outside: Songs, Singers and Misogyny

Last Christmas there was a huge dust up over the Frank Loesser song ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’. It may have seemed innocent enough in the ’40s but in the new #MeToo world it was regarded as the picture of a persistent, predatory male. Fair enough. Males are predatory and persistent. Our minds conjure up the most colorful imagery, even in what are seemingly banal, everyday situations and encounters. And males are persistent. As Helen, Garp’s wife, said in ‘The World According to Garp’, “men are less demanding” when they’ve been satisfied.

So what to do? Pull a Holiday favorite from the air, as was done by many stations? Maybe. It must be said that the song ends inconclusively but it’s pretty clear where the evening is headed. While there’s not much that can be done about the version by Dean Martin and Marilyn Maxwell, what about going forward?

In addition to writing, I sing. Used to be Classical but now I do ’60s and early ’70s rock. It turns out that the combination of skills can be useful in this instance. Change a few lyrics and change the tone of the song (no pun). And lyrics can range, with respect to women, from misogynistic to egoistic and male-centric to unsatisfying.

Take ‘Another Saturday Night’ sung first by the ‘immortal’ Sam Cooke. Verse two falls in the first category. I always thought it pretty offensive:

‘Now, another fella told me
He had a sister who looked just fine
Instead of being my deliverance
She had a strange resemblance
To a cat named Frankenstein’

I’ll be singing this in the near future as part of an early ’60s set. So I rewrote the last three lines:

‘But despite my persistence, I ran into resistance And I didn’t get to make no time’

Perfect? Maybe not to some but definitely an improvement.

Then there is the ego bloated male, as in ‘Moondance’: Everytime I touch you YOU just tremble inside and I know how much YOU want ME that YOU can’t hide.

Just flip the first and second person pronouns. The guy just struck me as a self-centered jerk and I said to myself: “Rewite buddy”.

Finally there are the lyrics that are unsatisfying, as in ‘Daydream Believer’. The vocalist seems like a really good guy but he wants Jean to ‘cheer up’. Is Jean really mopey? I decided to give her a voice with a third verse:

‘As I left I ran my hand through your hair of golden sand, You opened up your eyes so bright and blue, You brushed your lips against my face and my heart began to race,’Cause my heart could feel the Happiness in you’

Any who have read my blogs know I love women. The three most important people in my life have been females. I’ve written several Blogs about ladies, WONDER WOMEN AND #METOO, WONDER WOMEN IN SPORTS BROADCASTING and others. And in my fantasy series, The Ur Legend, my women aren’t always right but they’re always STRONG.

So am I a soppy SoyBoy or a philogynist? You decide. But whichever you think I am, I’ll keep on singing and keep on writing.

My suggestion to two inspired jazz vocalists, who don’t like the original: rewrite the last few lines of lyrics to ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’ and re-record for next Holiday season.

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ur and Daenerys: choices by ajax minor

As Daenerys sat atop Drogon at King’s Landing and listened to the bells toll surrender, she had a choice to make. For some odd reason she chose the total destruction of King’s Landing, along with a population of common people she had spent her young life protecting. Inexplicable, bad storytelling in my opinion, but the plotline nonetheless. She chose an Armageddon.

Ur confronts a similar choice in the final battle with the Lie, No-Side, or Bildad Proud as he was called in Sun Valley Moon Mountains. At Borodino should she retreat, attack or use an arsenal of atomics to win the battle. The decision is an ethical one. And as we will see, ethics are messy. Some think there are invariant codes of behavior for all situations. This can’t be because of the nature of the species.

Humans are both a social and a solitary species. This requires different choices depending upon circumstances. This does not suggest all moral systems are equally valid. But it does suggest that we may have to change templates given circumstances. The great social ethical system is Utilitarianism: the greatest good for the greatest number. It is almost an imperative when dealing with large numbers; a war, an epidemic, even something more benign like the choice of a healthcare system for a nation.

However much, or most, of our time is spent, if not in a solitary state then in smaller, more private relationships. What does ‘greatest good’ mean in that context? Here we default to another major western system of thought based on Immanuel Kant’s ‘Categorical Imperative’. As with most of Kant, this is pretty dense stuff. It claims all moral decisions must be able to be applied universally. This is an almost impossible requirement. Exceptions always can be found. But the Categorical Imperative has been compared loosely to the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The Golden Rule is a good approximation and useful in most interpersonal interaction.

While Ur wishes to save both the Northern and Southern forces, to secure a future for them and for the planet, she also realizes that the real issue is not simply global equity, geopolitics or geoeconomic equity. It is a battle for people’s souls. No-Side, the Lie, wants the individual to impute all injustice to forces outside of oneself; to place all blame for circumstance or personal misfortune on others. To rationalize one’s own actions. If she uses WMD’s will she win the battle but lose the war.

Ur also realizes that there is another side to ethics, one found in Eastern philosophy. Nothing, no one, is either all good or all bad. This makes the issue more complicated and means that any moral choice may have both good and bad consequences. Many choices are 51-49 decisions and, so, unsatisfying for those who prefer precise moral clarity.

Daenarys Targaryen had special powers. She could take a blowtorch to the body like no one else. Ur also has enormous powers. She can travel time and worldlines, she can spin through walls and she can dissolve reality if she wishes. But she is constrained by her own rules to not become involved in decisions. She merely ‘suggests’, as she says. But this choice at Borodino has deep consequences. What will she decide?

‘Kutusov’s Dream’, Book 3 of the ‘Ur Legend’ will be out, I hope, in July. You will find the answer there and decide for yourself if Ur’s choice is the one you would have made.

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Shame of thrones’ character assassination: a writer’s viewpoint by Ajax minor

Over the last two weeks I’ve lost two friends. My superb social media guru, Evelyn Helminen, changed jobs, and the move put too many demands on her time to continue to provide the great graphics you’ve all come to expect and enjoy. I’ll do the best I can.

And I lost Daenerys Targaryen. I invested seven years engaged in her development and was shocked to find she morphed from Heroine to Hitler. Or perhaps Liberator to Lucifer is more apt given her fall. Okay, I’m sure all GOT fans have read enough critiques, even if they’re not writers, to get the concept of the arc of a character and the arc of a story. Basically, shit happens and characters adapt and develop. Most characters have deficiencies or flaws. Remember Oedipus and the concept of the fatal flaw from high school. A lot of bad things happened to Daenerys and she may have had a rogue gene or two, but for seven years she pursued her vision of a government free of tyranny. I think many of us were rooting for her.

All of my novels are set within a philosophical context. Sun Valley Moon Mountains was about epistemology. How we come to know things. Are they outside of us or inside of our minds or something else? The Girl from Ipanema and the forthcoming Kutusov’s Dream explore ethics. And this is why I cared so much about Daenerys. She was the most Metamoral person in the series. Her ethical perspective was on a large scale, and while at times individuals were treated ruthlessly, her aim was always the greatest good for the greatest number, a.k.a. Utilitarianism. It is almost a required choice for a leader. As Tyrion said, the people she crucified, torched and executed were evil.

Contrast with Jon Snow. His morality was deeply personal. One on one. He was, ethically, a Kantian. Kant proposed the Categorical Imperative. It asserted that the only valid moral principles were those that are universalizable (I know, it’s not a word; it is now). Problem is there are always exceptions; so the Categorical Imperative has been most closely summarized as the ‘Golden Rule’. Nice for a Mother Theresa but not a ruler. In fact in his first stab (pun) at a leadership role he got himself murdered. Trust must be carefully conferred as a sovereign.

But as a writer, disregarding my own prejudice, the storyline was deeply flawed. When you invite an audience to invest themselves in a character or characters be careful about burning their capital. Look, I believe good people have to die in a story, especially a fantasy, or you’ve simply written a script for a cartoon or a Hallmark movie (BTW I love Hallmark; at the end everyone is happy!). And there are main characters that die. It happens to Robert Jordan in Hemingway’s ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’. But the guy was fighting a war! Ahab buys it, and he wasn’t all bad. But in those cases we saw it coming. Or at least the possibility. In GOT’s last episode the only hints were in the rear view mirror and shown dimly. Why did Varys decide to throw in with Jon Snow. What had he seen of Daenerys that so disturbed him? As I said above, Snow is the last guy you’d want running the show. And okay, she had been ruthless. And she wasn’t exactly received with open arms in the North, but when had she ever been fully embraced? And she had the gene. But no real serious clue. Maybe if Jon Snow had opened his mouth and talked with her about their own genetic tie or about the coming attack on King’s Landing, which Tyrion did to anyone that would listen, maybe we would have been able to accept the mass slaughter we saw.

Bottom line you don’t create a believable arc then have the character simply plummet out of the sky and into the abyss. Maybe the show’s creator’s and Martin liked the concept. Maybe I’d understand Daenerys better if I’d read the books. However the guy hasn’t finished the series and I’m not about to waste that much time if he CAN’T finish. It’s not a crime against humanity if he fails to finish. It happens to writers. Gogol burned both attempts at volume II of Dead Souls. Martin also, I understand, didn’t want the almost required battle between Good and Evil with Good triumphant in High Fantasy. I don’t write ‘high fantasy’ but his twist is intriguing. However, I could have written half a dozen endings that would have accomplished that and still maintained the integrity of the protagonists.

Bottom line the storyline was not credible and it was a cheat. It was thievery. GOT stole seven years of emotional involvement on my part. Bad. The only parallel I can think of is rooting for Lance Armstrong for seven long and brilliant years only to find myself cheated emotionally and robbed of my time.

Postscript: the above was written after Episode 5. I suppose in a way Daenerys got what she wanted. The Wheel was Broken. But we simply went from autocracy to oligarchy. The only person who got what she had been after all along was Sansa. She went to King’s Landing in the beginning wanting to be a Princess and a Queen. She wore Cersei’s smirk well.

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North korea: rocket man and ramblin’man: Redux

Given the recent aggressive moves by Kim Jong-un and escalating tensions just about everywhere on the globe, I thought I’d reprint a post on the two main personalities in the conflict.

North Korea is an issue I have addressed, since the first part of ‘The Girl from Ipanema’ takes place in the DPRK. I needed a country that has an authoritarian system so it would be easier for the main characters to exercise ‘extreme prejudice’, as they say, with few constraints. The DPRK is topical and, with a fair degree of understatement, controversial. Bottom line, I thought the setting would be fun. It did raise some hackles. One reader, who very much liked SVMM, was offended by the North Korean fighter jet on the jacket cover. And he was Canadian!

I also wanted to color the DPRK with a hopeful hue. The subtle message was that perhaps at some time in the future, or maybe in an alternative reality, a leader with qualities like Jumong, in The Girl from Ipanema, might emerge to lead the country into the light. In my mind, there is good precedent with Lee Kwan Yew, who led Singapore to prosperity and a degree of freedom with an iron, though enlightened, fist.

Jumong and his evil twin, Kang, present an interesting juxtaposition.
While Kang is manipulative and, one might say, a bit of a psychopath,
he is also a realist who knows it is only Jumong the people will follow.
Jumong, though far more thoughtful and empathetic, lacks the drive and
ruthlessness to feel at ease running the whole show. But both seem to
care, in very different ways, about their country.

What about the two individuals currently locking horns, Kim Jong-un and the Donald? Are they psychopaths, sociopaths or really geniuses playing three dimensional chess while everyone else is playing checkers? I’m going to exercise editorial privilege and rule out the ‘genius’ thing. Kim certainly seems to have the credentials to lay claim to being a psychopath, if reports of his liquidations are true.There are a number of articles that can be Googled on psychopathy and political leaders, CEOs and generals. So many I leave it to the reader to choose their own. But the point has been made that one of the characteristics held in common by all three of the classes mentioned is their propensity to view people as objects who exist only for their own aggrandizement. I think both Kim and the Donald probably share this trait in common.But I’d like to make an additional point about Trump that hasn’t been raised. He came in heralded as a businessman that could straighten the country out, rather than having it run by bureaucrats and a bunch of “First thing, kill all the LAWYERS”! But the distance that separates Trump from, say, a Rex Tillerson may be wider than that which separates either from the professional class. Trump IS a businessman but not a corporate exec. He has been a sole proprietor. Now Sole Proprietors are different ducks. And I know. Both my father and my father-in-law were effectively sole proprietors. Sole Proprietors answer to no one. They have absolute power and often exercise it. Many are also tyrants. They rule by fear. My father would sometimes rule by reason and at other times would take a problem employee out back for a good right cross. My father-in-law didn’t resort to physical coercion but would belittle, berate and leave those who worked for him never sure they had made the right decision and always afraid they’d made the wrong one. ‘Wrong’ being defined as a choice their boss didn’t like. Tyrants like to keep their minions off balance.

So neither Trump nor Kim may be chainsaw wielding, or missle launching, psychopaths (yet), but either have been or behave as if they have been tyrants and sole proprietors.

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secede!

We hear a lot of cries to ‘take our country back’, to ‘give
us our rights as a legitimate minority’ and to ‘free us from a foreign
oppressor’. The first is probably more common today rising from the ardent
nationalists, the second from specific demographic groups such as religious or
ethnic. The last is less common as the era of colonialism has begun to
evaporate into the mists of history; although it could be argued that economic
colonialism is still a potent force.

But ‘Secede’? This implies not only a strategy of an
oppressed minority but of an area that is geographically distinct and
relatively homogeneous ethnically and culturally. In ‘The Girl from Ipanema’ we
find the US fractured into a number of distinct, small republics. Most
prominent in the story are the new Confederate States of America, the Republics
of New York and Venice and the Rocky Mountain Republic.

Today there are fewer examples of calls for secession. Of course the most famous and infamous historically was the War between the States, or Civil War, in the US in the 1860s. Now we hear faint cries from Texas and California. An odd couple if ever there was one! Scotland of course is likely the most prominent of all contemporary examples. It did happen in the Sudan but with, so far, disastrous consequences.

In the past the Basque region comes to mind as does the separation of Ireland from Britain. Some are relatively peaceful as with Czechoslovakia, but that may be rare. And then there is Quebec.

Je me souviens/ Que né sous le lys/ Je croîs sous la rose.

I remember/ That born under the lily/ I grow under the rose.

These lines are from a poem by E.E. Tache’. The literal significance is clear. The province, born under the ‘fleur de lis’ of France grew under the ‘rose’ of England. But its meaning seems to hold more emotional and historical relevance. It may be argued it calls on the Quebecois to remember not only their cultural heritage but also their inferior status under an Anglo majority.

Linda and I just returned from a trip to the city of Quebec with 50 odd of my college classmates and their spouses. First let me say that it is without a doubt one of the most lovely old cities we’ve ever visited. Not only that but the people are gracious and friendly and unabashedly enthusiastic about their province. Remarkable since temperatures can range from -40 C/F in the winter to over 100 F in the summer with humidity of 98%!

While there appears to be no strong push at the moment to break away from Canada, there are a few interesting facts I’d like to share from our trip. First, technically, Quebec might not actually have to secede. It was never included in the Canadian constitutional proclamation issued by Queen Elizabeth II in 1982. Interestingly though, Quebec is still part of the commonwealth system and so tied to the UK.

So where does this all leave us? We have our own serious problems in the US now. I wrote about this in a Blog in 2018, The National Marriage: Red and Blue. The US has had major cultural differences and disagreements about the role of a central government since the founding. For those that take the time to read my old blog and are interested in a more thorough treatment of that subject I would suggest reading Pauline Maier’s brilliant ‘Ratification‘. Our ‘experiment’ was, though ratified 13-0, a very close run thing. Maier’s book makes this clear. The question is: do we break up, ‘divorce’, or muddle through and hope that history will ultimately unfold favorably. The Quebecois seem to be ‘muddling through’ quite well. But I’d like to hear from some of them.

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Sylvia Plath’s ‘Mary Ventura and the ninth kingdom’: a review by ajax minor

First, let me clear up any misunderstanding concerning my opinion of Sylvia Plath. She was a genius and is my favorite lyric poet of all time. My favorite work in literature is the Iliad, but epic poetry is a a different duck.

I’ve often written here that writers should explore major genres outside of their own specialty. I prefer the novel but feel the short story encourages economy and poetry allows writers to expand their literary vocabulary in unconventional ways. A few months ago I read an article by the critic Parul Sehgal about the newly released, previously unpublished short story by Ms. Plath, ‘Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom.’ Sehgal wrote about its publication that “No news could be more disheartening to a true Plath fan.” Respectfully I disagree.

As I said, it’s important for writers to experiment with other major genres. I don’t expect them to exhibit the same facility, or brilliance, with major genres outside of their chosen literary form. But it can be instructive to the reader, as much as to the writer, to observe the experiment. It may even lead to a greater appreciation of the author in their chosen literary category.

Sehgal had felt ‘Mary’ to be heavy handed, even clumsy. She felt description to be overly ‘elaborate’, and the use of the ‘sinister mood’ set by the ubiquitous color red I assumed displayed the ‘heavy hand.’ On a first read, while I did not agree with Ms Sehgal’s characterization of the prose, I found it a solid effort by Plath. Then, in fairness and prodded by Sehgal’s review, I reread Plath’s story.

I found her descriptions at the beginning of the journey lovely and appropriate. They lent a feeling of normalcy to the trip and put the reader, as the setting did Mary, “in soft ease.” Where is this going, I wondered, but like Mary I simply settled in.

Description. There is a variety that is over stuffed and ‘purple.’ But description done well, even if highly detailed, can work well. No better example than Anne Rice. I’m not a big fan of horror but on a trip to New Orleans toured the city and ended up reading the ‘Mayfair Witch’ trilogy, which I enjoyed immensely. Rice’s detailed descriptions put the reader directly into both the scene and the action. Funny thing was Rice may have described the same room several times in the same way over the course of the series, but I never grew tired of reading it. After all, if I admire Goya’s ‘Third of May 1808,’ I will come back to it again and again. Hell, I’ve read ‘War and Peace’ a half dozen times.

But as the story unfolded and a sense of panic set in, for both Mary and the reader, Plath’s ‘nightmare imagery’, as Sehgal describes Plath’s extraordinary talent with tropes, began to emerge. Plath’s genius lay, I think, in the trope. And true genius with that form of expression lies in a paradox. When deconstructed, a brilliant trope makes little sense, objectively. From ‘Mary:’ “His eyes were black, bottomless, but flecked now with cold spots of laughter.” I get black and bottomless. But what in hell are cold spots of laughter? There is no such thing, objectively, but we know, feel, exactly what the author means. Plath writes that the “train wheels clucked like round black birds.” This, deconstructed, does make perfect sense and is quite beautiful. Then, as Mary escapes, Plath hits us with another masterstroke: the train is “rumbling away into the frozen core of the earth with a sound like sunken thunder.” My god, ‘sunken thunder!’ I cannot explain the phenomenon to you but instinctively I feel its message.

Sehgal writes that the story is “stirring, in sneaky, unexpected ways.” And THIS is what I found ‘disheartening.’ I write fantasy and the most unfortunate aspect of ‘Mary Ventura’ is that Plath didn’t ravel a full tale out of these exciting threads in the storyline. But, hey, Plath was a poet. I write some doggerel which you can sample on this site. And as I said I love the Iliad. But I don’t expect to be writing an epic poem any time soon.

About the review, I would have to say that one disappointment for me was that of eleven paragraphs, only four were about the short story itself. It deserved more.

Finally, I will admit that as a prose author I keep a copy of Plath’s ‘Ariel’ close at hand at all times. It reminds me what I can aspire to occasionally. There are a few prose authors that mastered the trope; and we must remind ourselves that we are not writing poetry and can’t expect to come up with brilliant figures of speech all the time. As an aside I would recommend John Cheever’s Collected Works both for pure storytelling and a masterful use of metaphor

Finally, finally, buy “Mary Ventura.” Pricey on Kindle but worth the ten bucks. And do buy ‘Ariel.’ The poem I come back to again and again is ‘Morning Song.’ You will too.

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