Kate Baggott's Blog: Cornfields of the Sea - Posts Tagged "fitzgerald"
Creative Conditions
On the surface, three generations living in one house during the depths of winter would seem to have the potential to create a lot of stressful situations. That is also true after a deeper examination.
One of the topics people like to talk about is how difficulties inspire creativity. The Great Depression inspired Steinbeck and Fitzgerald. Championing the poorest of the poor worked out for Dickens.
These days, I find myself caught between privilege and difficulty. I'm not certain what the conflict of awareness and experience is doing to my creativity.
I had always been aware of how class differences play out in terms of economics and education. What I was not aware of was how class shapes identity. The ethnic English living in England, for example, are no more a united culture than multicultural, multilingual Canadians. Their differences, though, are based on class identity and how that influences what they eat for breakfast, how they vote and what sports they play out in the streets.
Canadians of my generation and my parents generation have this idea, even though the economy in most of the country is in bad shape, that class is fluid. That means, you can still work your way up if you work hard enough, meet the right people, buy into the right values and learn how to play the game by the right rules.
It doesn't always work. The rules, and how they are interpreted, are not necessarily taken from the same book. And, if your only goal really is just to make money, there are lots of way to win or lose depending on whom and what you are willing to betray. Or, as my education bent mind wants to believe, what you are willing to learn and from what source.
The great writers from times of difficulty have always tracked and influenced these conflicts of desire and status.
I am not a great writer, and mostly I doubt whether I am even a good enough writer these days. I know we are all living through a significant time in the world's evolution. I cannot even begin to see the narrative, the story in the chaos, but I know it does not lie in the consciousness or awareness of "social problems" among those who remain comfortable. The rules of that reading game are from another book too.
And you would think, I would just sit down and write some new rules as a place to start a new story. But, the snow is thick on the ground and there are three generations hiding from the cold wind in one old house. Every single one of us wants a code for the others to live by, even if it will only free the one who writes it. It's not fair. It's no way to play by the rules, even if that is the kind of time we are living through.
One of the topics people like to talk about is how difficulties inspire creativity. The Great Depression inspired Steinbeck and Fitzgerald. Championing the poorest of the poor worked out for Dickens.
These days, I find myself caught between privilege and difficulty. I'm not certain what the conflict of awareness and experience is doing to my creativity.
I had always been aware of how class differences play out in terms of economics and education. What I was not aware of was how class shapes identity. The ethnic English living in England, for example, are no more a united culture than multicultural, multilingual Canadians. Their differences, though, are based on class identity and how that influences what they eat for breakfast, how they vote and what sports they play out in the streets.
Canadians of my generation and my parents generation have this idea, even though the economy in most of the country is in bad shape, that class is fluid. That means, you can still work your way up if you work hard enough, meet the right people, buy into the right values and learn how to play the game by the right rules.
It doesn't always work. The rules, and how they are interpreted, are not necessarily taken from the same book. And, if your only goal really is just to make money, there are lots of way to win or lose depending on whom and what you are willing to betray. Or, as my education bent mind wants to believe, what you are willing to learn and from what source.
The great writers from times of difficulty have always tracked and influenced these conflicts of desire and status.
I am not a great writer, and mostly I doubt whether I am even a good enough writer these days. I know we are all living through a significant time in the world's evolution. I cannot even begin to see the narrative, the story in the chaos, but I know it does not lie in the consciousness or awareness of "social problems" among those who remain comfortable. The rules of that reading game are from another book too.
And you would think, I would just sit down and write some new rules as a place to start a new story. But, the snow is thick on the ground and there are three generations hiding from the cold wind in one old house. Every single one of us wants a code for the others to live by, even if it will only free the one who writes it. It's not fair. It's no way to play by the rules, even if that is the kind of time we are living through.
Cornfields of the Sea
When I was in high school, I was lucky enough to be part of a writing workshop with author Barbara Greenwood. Every member of the workshop was to write a short story for a group anthology. I thought w
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