Lily Iona MacKenzie's Blog, page 52

Compromising on Compromise: The Power of Words

Words and their origins and meanings have been on my mind a lot lately—not surprising for a writer. So when I was thinking of the word compromise the other day, I wondered why it’s become so abhorred by the ultra conservatives and their representatives in Congress.

For more insight, I turned to the Oxford English Dictionary in order to get closer to its origins and roots. “Com” means together. “Promittere” translates as to promise. Compromise then suggests a merger that eludes some of our current representatives.

For a country that prides itself on its democratic underpinnings, a government style that can’t exist for long without its people making concessions and agreements, its future doesn’t look too promising (pardon the pun on the Latin root “promise”). In a democracy, we must be able to listen to multiple perspectives and respect them. But we also must find middle ground where we can experience consensus.

Otherwise, we’ll live out some of the more negative meanings of the word: we’ll accept standards that are lower than what is desirable. We’ll get into situations where we’ll be compromised and be brought into disrepute or danger by indiscreet, foolish, or reckless behavior. We’ll be vulnerable and function less effectively as when a yo-yo dieting compromises our immune system.

I believe we have fallen into the negative meaning of the word and the health of our system depends on finding balance again.

Relationships, life, are all about compromise. In a family, it would be disastrous if we couldn’t come to some agreement that gives everyone a voice. No one ever get everything s/he wants. On our jobs. In our intimate interactions. Compromise. It’s the only way we can survive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed under: Links Tagged: compromise, congress, democracy, relationships, to promise, together

Language’s Mystery And Its Relationship to Writers

My husband and I got into a discussion of poetry and our different approaches to it. His training is in new criticism. Mine embraces more contemporary work, though I’m eclectic and like many different styles, including John Ashbery’s method of disjointed narrative. My husband recognizes I’m onto something that Melville was alluding to in Moby Dick—the gap between language and what it tries to depict…how language organizes and creates our way of seeing.

After this conversation, we looked at some poems I had written recently, and he was reading them differently than previously. This time he was able to grasp what I was doing. We talked of how our training can shut us down, put blinders on us. He said, “Joseph Brodsky believes language has a life outside of us and uses the writer.”

I agree. I think there’s truth to the statement “in the beginning was the word.” Language is absolutely mysterious in its relationship to humans and the things it touches.

I also see a relationship between impressionism, some kinds of abstract paintings, and the poetry I write. It tends to mainly suggests something. Give only enough information/detail to set the readers’ imaginations working. I don’t want everything spelled out. I want mystery in my poems (and my prose)—new worlds.

I’m reminded of this quote: “Mark Rothko, painting his stripes in Greece, was asked: ‘Why don’t you paint our temples.’ He replied: ‘Everything I paint is a temple.’” I’d like to think that everything I write is one.

There seems some evidence for the idea that we are changed by the things we create—actually shaped by them. Ralph Ellison shares it. He says the novels we write create us as much as we create them. How mysterious language is and its relationship to writers.

Filed under: Links Tagged: john ashbery, joseph brodsky, language, language and mystery, Mark Rothko, melville, perception, poems, poetry, ralph ellison, writers

Embracing Eros and Sex in My Novels

I’ve been surprised by the questions I’ve received at readings and from friends about what is considered my overt treatment of sex in my novel Fling! All of the characters, male and female, experience complications because of it.

From the time I was four until I was eight, I lived on a farm on the Canadian prairies where animals were constantly going at it. The act seemed a normal and essential ingredient of not just being human but also of being part of the natural world. As Annie sings in Annie Get Your Gun, it’s “Doin’ what comes naturally,” and I loved to perform that song as a girl, along with my sister. I don’t think then we knew the suggestiveness of what we were singing, but the words still resonate for me:

Folks are dumb where I come from,

They ain’t had any learning.

Still they’re happy as can be

Doin’ what comes naturally (doin’ what comes naturally).

Folks like us could never fuss

With schools and books and learning.

Still we’ve gone from A to Z,

Doin’ what comes naturally (doin’ what comes naturally)

You don’t have to know how to read or write

When you’re out with a feller in the pale moonlight.

You don’t have to look in a book to find out

What he thinks of the moon and what is on his mind.

That comes naturally (that comes naturally).

My uncle out in Texas can’t even write his name.

He signs his checks with “x’s”

But they cash them just the same.

If you saw my pa and ma,

You’d know they had no learning,

Still they’ve raised a family

Doin’ what comes naturally (doin’ what comes naturally)

Cousin Jack has never read an almanac on drinking

Still he’s always on the spree

Doin’ what comes naturally (doin’ what comes naturally).

Sister Sal who’s musical has never had a lesson,

Still she’s learned to sing off-key

Doin’ what comes naturally (doin’ what comes naturally).

You don’t have to go a private school

Not to pick up a penny near a stubborn mule,

You don’t have to have a professor’s dome

Not to go for the honey when the bee’s not home.

That comes naturally (that comes naturally).

My tiny baby brother, who’s never read a book,

Knows one sex from the other,

All he had to do was look,

Grandpa Bill is on the hill

With someone he just married.

There he is at ninety-three,

Doin’ what comes naturally (doin’ what comes naturally).

I especially like the second to last line about the 93 year-old who also is doing what comes naturally, reminding me of my vital 90 year-old character Bubbles. As one reviewer wrote in The California Journal of Woman Writers, “the idea of a ninety year old woman even being interested in sex, let alone looking for a fling in Mexico as the premise of Fling! goes, struck my cynical twenty-three year old self as improbable.”

Later she says, “While the novel is full of rollicking flings and short bursts of mini-climaxes, the healing effects of Bubbles’ and Feather’s experiences are clearly long-lasting. Indeed, the novel seems to resolve (or come close to resolving) some of the most age-old tensions between eternity and transience, life and death. While the experience of reading Fling! for the first time was a fleeting one (as all our experiences are), its lessons and magic have stayed with me and will continue to do so as with all of our more meaningful flings.”

I think the key word in my next to last paragraph is “vital.” People who are alive in their sexuality seem to be more animated—more vigorous. So, yes, the characters in all of my novels, published or not, are doin’ what comes naturally. Though sex may often be hidden, it is an essential aspect of what it means to be human. Most cultures have given men more leeway to be public in embracing this act. But if a woman shares the same interest, she has been pegged as loose or immoral. I would like to move beyond that attitude. In fact, I’ve created a totally amoral character in Curva Peligrosa, the main character in my soon-to-be released novel Bone Songs.

Sex is a big factor in my books because it’s such a major drive in all of us, whether we follow it or not. In some sources, the god Eros is described as involved in the coming into being of the cosmos. Later sources claim, “Eros is the son of Aphrodite, whose mischievous interventions in the affairs of gods and mortals cause bonds of love to form, often illicitly.” The first depiction of Eros suggest just how embedded sexuality is in our natures. I also like the latter description because it connects so intimately the feminine Aphrodite with the masculine Eros. Too, it illustrates how helpless we humans are at times in the face of these basic impulses. So let’s embrace them!

Filed under: Links Tagged: aphrodite, doin' what comes naturally, eros, sex, sex drive, sex in novels

Writers Versus Artist: Is There a Difference?

I’ve been thinking more about my reaction to some writers. One can be a writer…anyone can be a writer in the sense of putting sentences together that form longer narratives…but not everyone is an artist. That’s the distinction I want to make between the work some people are publishing whether the book is self-published or travels the traditional route via a publisher, small or large.

But why is being an artist different and does it matter? Art should cause us to see others, the world, and ourselves differently. When it’s functioning best, it shakes our usual way of thinking/perceiving and connects us to something deeper. Transcends the everyday. If I’m just writing purely autobiographical material that’s barely disguised as fiction and not inventing as well, I’m not opening the door for something new to enter. Instead, I’m reiterating what I already know and passing it off as art—regurgitating. That isn’t to say that memoir/autobiography can’t be artful. It can. So can novels that have autobiographical elements. But, again, it’s how it’s written—the literary techniques and imagination the writer has at his/her disposal that transforms the raw material into artistic expression.

I realize I’m creating a hierarchy here, but I do think the best writers are priests/priestesses in their own way, offering through the word, through their words, through our universal language, a vision of something else. For me it’s equivalent to viewing our surroundings from a ground floor window versus climbing to the highest level and seeing how much more there is to know about. A writer who isn’t an artist seems to be stuck with that ground floor view. A writer who is an artist has much more scope in his/her work. He/she is able to transform his/her material, and that’s where the artistry comes in. Transformation is at the basis of many religions, and I think it’s also the basis of art: transmuting base metal into gold as the alchemists attempted to do. Taking the letters that make up our words and giving them magical powers to shape our thinking and seeing.

Filed under: Links Tagged: imagination, invention, perception, publishing, transformation, vision, writers as artists, writers as priestesses, writers as priests, writers versus artists

Electrified by Shostakovich

My husband and I attended the San Francisco Symphony’s presentation of the Shostakovich Violin Concerto #1 featuring soloist Christian Tetzlaff on Sunday afternoon. The exhilarating performance is still reverberating within me, the work a stunning blend of instruments and tonal shifts. The opus also challenges any concert violinist to demonstrate his/her best relationship with his/her instrument and the score. Tezlaff not only lived up to the test, but he also surpassed it. He was one with the music and his instrument: in fact, he became the instrument.

I was particularly entranced by a long section where the violin has a dialogue with itself. One minute it sped along as if on a noisy interstate. In the next instance, there was an abrupt shift into a slower tempo and an almost imperceptible sound from the instrument itself. Back and forth this dynamic went. I felt I was overhearing Russia’s soul communicating with itself, the strident, militaristic aspect of the country’s life that its president Putin embodies, and the more melancholy, soulful quality of its great artists. It was electrifying from start to finish.

I left Davies Hall wondering how I, as a writer, could get a transfusion of Shostakovich’s dynamics into my writing. I would like to snare my readers right from the beginning and keep them enraptured with my characters and their movements as they (readers and characters) find their way through the narrative of a short story or novel. It’s a daunting task. At best, I might set off enough sparks and generate something of a fire that will infuse my fiction. But it takes a special verve and vision to sustain it. I would love to hear how other writers do it.

I do know that music is never far from my mind as I’m composing sentences and watching stories emerge from them. I’m aware of the phrasing and tonalities of various words, the differing textures that vowels and consonants create. Music seems to be at the heart of all good writing.

Filed under: Links Tagged: Christian Tetzlaff, music and good writing, russian artists, russian soul, Shostakovich, writing and music

What’s in a character’s name?

I was having dinner with friends the other night that had read my novel Fling! They wanted to know how I came up with the main characters’ names—Bubbles and Feather. When I tried to pinpoint the moment when the names tumbled onto the page, I couldn’t.

When I worked backwards, I realized that all three generations of women, from the youngest, Feather, to the oldest, Feather’s grandmother and Bubbles’ mother, were named Heather, just as I was originally named after my mother, Lily. Since it would be too confusing to have all characters using the same name, I had to distinguish them. Heather, the grandmother, retained her name. The shift from Heather to Feather was easy because of her hippie/new age origins and interests. It was clear she was going to be out there in many ways, floating like a feather through life.

I think Bubbles came to me in one of those moments when the character actually named herself. Heather would have been too staid a name for this character. It didn’t capture her effervescence and overflowing life force. Bubbles also is rotund, like the ancient statue of the Venus of Willandorf, an image that’s on the front and back cover of the book. So the name captures some of that quality as well. But the word bubbles also has a negative aspect, which the character also does: she acts at times as if she were trapped in a bubble and it prevents her from interacting fully with others at important times.

Once the main characters’ names became clear to me, so too did their personalities and how they needed to be developed. In many ways, the foundations of the work fell into place at that point, though, of course, I still had many hundreds of words yet to write.

Filed under: Links Tagged: art, bubbles, characterization, feather, fling, heather,

The Origins of Fling!

At my readings, many have asked me what the impetus was for writing Fling! I’ve explained that I started keeping notes for the book in 1999. At that time, I wanted to write a lovely lyrical novel, a serious work that would allow me to explore the grandmother on my mother’s side who was very unusual for her era.

How unusual? Some background. Her husband, the one grandparent I did interact with when I was growing up, had given up his job as a Scottish schoolmaster at Achiltibuie, a tiny village in the highlands. He traveled to Canada on his own, hoping to make a better life for himself, his wife, and his five children. One problem: WWI broke out, and it was impossible for the family to board a ship at that time. They had to wait until the war ended before making the crossing, a total of seven years. By then it was almost 1920.

His oldest son, Alasdair, refused to leave Skye, but the other three boys, my mother, and my grandmother did leave behind all of their family to join my grandfather. It wasn’t a happy reunion. They gave up a community they had been part of all of their lives for the frigid, barren prairies. Mum has told me that Grandpa was physically and verbally abusive with my grandmother. A feminist before her time, she refused to put up with his behavior and moved out. She found a housekeeping job in Mount Royal, a wealthy area of the city.

Apparently, she had an affair with her married boss and joined him in a trip to Mexico City where she stayed. He must have returned, leaving her there to fend for herself. She never did return. At some point, a priest contacted Grandpa because she was dying. He was about to send the money for her to return to Canada, but she didn’t make it.

This woman has haunted me over the years. Who was she and how did she find the courage to step out of a conventional life, choosing instead to explore a country hundreds of miles away? These were the questions that prompted me to attempt to capture her story in Fling! and the repercussions for all involved. It led me to unveil four generations of women and the challenges they had faced in their lives. Instead of the book being a serious exploration of these ancestors, it turned out to be more comic, as I discovered the funny bone in myself and the lighter side of their adventures. It was a way of dealing with painful material without it becoming lugubrious. According to the reviews I’ve had so far, I succeeded.

Filed under: Links Tagged: fling, isle of sky, Mexico City, scotland

Writing back to life

It’s wonderful to be writing again after my daily commitment was severely interrupted by launching and marketing Fling! I felt hollow during that time, as if something vital were missing from my daily diet. What is it about writing that is so necessary for me and I’m sure for other writers?

When I sit down at my computer, or in front of a sheet of paper, another world opens up to me. It’s not unlike what I experience at night before I fall asleep. The word “fall” seems key here: during those hours, we descend into the unconscious, into another level from our surface life. While the brain may be cranking out a conglomeration of images we’ve collected throughout the day, I don’t believe that’s all we’re doing when we sleep. I think dreams are more mysterious than that explanation implies.

How do you explain the imagination and all it encompasses? How do you constrain it by rationally trying to identify its source, its ability to help us soar on the back of words and create new configurations that end up being stories or poems? You don’t. If you’re a writer, you wed memory, words, and imagination in a marriage that always surprises. And that’s what I missed during those dry days when I didn’t have access to that realm. I’m happy to be back.

Filed under: Links Tagged: dreams, images, imagination, mystery, unconscious, writer, writing

Book Marketing 101: Part Three

Okay. So far I’ve talked about the various efforts I’ve made to publicize Fling! And each day I anxiously check my Amazon and Goodreads’ pages to see if anyone has posted a new review or rating. Then I look at Bookscan’s sales’ figures, which don’t seem to budge much in spite of all my efforts.

It’s depressing!

I also have put out feelers to book groups, libraries, and senior residences/centers for readings or speaking opportunities. I’m still waiting for their responses.

And that seems to be the message I’m getting: Wait.

I’m also waiting to hear back from two potential local radio interviews.

I’m waiting for word from the film and foreign agents I’ve contacted.

I’m waiting to see if my novel will become an audio book as well.

Patience seems to be the key here. I need to let go of my need for instant gratification and realize that the publishing scene has its own pace. It may speed up at times. It may slow down at other times. But it will be less discouraging if I think more in terms of a year than a few months. Next summer I’ll look back and evaluate from that perspective. Then I’ll be ready to write Book Marketing 101 (Part Four).

Filed under: Links

Karl Ove Knausgaard’s Slow Movement

I have resisted reading the Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgaard’s work for several reasons. I wasn’t interested in a major dose of navel gazing for hundreds of pages. He seemed to represent the worst of our narcissistic culture, the constant selfies and focus on me me me. Why would I spend hundreds of pages following him through his past memories? What could a Norwegian writer offer me, a naturalized American (Canadian by birth) female of another generation?

Therefore, when my reading group decided to take on Knausgaard, I wasn’t happy about the choice, but I tried not to let my resistance interfere with the book selection. I’ve been mistaken before. A Constellation of Vital Phenomena didn’t interest me at first, but it was one of the best books I read in 2014, along with Traveler of the Century, in importance and depth. So I tried to be open to this new writer (new for me) and his approach to fictionalizing his life. We agreed to read and discuss My Struggle, even though memoir is not an accurate depiction of a person’s past or a truthful depiction of a writer’s historical self. Instead, it’s an idealized rendering that transforms through language what actually happened to someone. The act of putting our memories under the microscope of the pen alters those moments we are trying to capture. I was willing to witness how Knausgaard handled this problem.

The title itself put me off, as did the picture of Knausgaard on the cover. There’s something tremendously egocentric about the title, as if he’s the only one who has had such difficulties. Why should his be any more compelling than some other person’s? And then there’s the picture: Though he’s in his late 40s (I think), deep creases create craters in his face and he stares at us through anguished eyes. It seemed in bad taste to call even more attention to himself in this way.

But I struggled through my prejudices and eventually started reading the 441 page book. My bias put me in an odd relationship to the narrative when I first started reading it. As I entered into Knausgaard’s life as a teenager, I kept asking myself, why am I reading this? What is this writer showing me here that I couldn’t experience more profoundly in a novel? But it wasn’t long before I got caught up in his world and his fraught relationship with his family, especially his father. I was particularly intrigued by how he seemed committed to capturing as many details as possible to relay a particular moment, at times describing in agonizing thoroughness certain scenes. Here’s an example:

“Still wearing the clothes from yesterday made me feel very uneasy, a feeling that grew as the memory struck e of what we had actually done. I pulled them off. There was heaviness about all the movements I made, even getting up and standing on two feet took energy, not to mention what raising my arms and reaching for the shirt on the clothes hanger over the wardrobe door did to me. But there was no option, it had to be done. Right arm through, left arm through, do up the buttons on the sleeves first, then at the front….”

When I later read a critique of a contemporary poet by Tony Hoagland in the American Poetry Review, I realized what Knausgaard was doing. Hoagland says,

“In his novel Slowness, Milan Kundera asserts that if you observe people walking down the street, you can easily tell the ones who are trying to forget from the ones who are remembering something. Forgetting speeds people up; remembering slows them down. In America, in the 21st century, we seem cursed and doomed by amnesia; we can remember nothing. We can’t even remember to look at the present, much less remember the past.”

Knausgaard forces his readers to slow down and join him in reminiscing. He’s saying ‘Look at this with me. Feel it with me. Join in this mutual attempt to recall and rediscover moments that we originally glided over.’ And that, I think, is one major value of his work: we become part of the slow movement that wants our full attention.

Filed under: Links Tagged: Karl Ove Knausgaard, memoir, Milan Kundera, My Struggle, norwegian writer, slow movement, Tony Hoagland