Cheryl Snell's Blog, page 40

LitFic

Merits of literary fiction versus genre fiction are still hotly debated in dorm rooms and groups with names like My Genre Fiction Can Kick Your LitFic's Ass. Accusations hurled from practitioner and aficionado alike are cliches by now -- pretentious language goes up against formulaic plots and stock characters, inscrutable meaning takes precedence over entertainment. But how to define literary fiction? I found this on SheWrites:

1.Literary fiction puts strong focus on how the story is told. "Literary" writers play with form, point of view, and language. Readers find themselves paying as much attention to the manner of telling the story as to the story itself.

In Shiva's Arms,I employed a multiple POV technique that recalled film's Rashomon Effect for one critic. And my use of language, strongly influenced by my work as a poet, affected many readers positively, but one thought my language was "fractured for effect".

2.In literary fiction, readers are asked to do some work–make connections, deduce motivations, recognize turning points. There's plot (or there should be!) but the plot is there to reveal themes, not just for the fun of the action.

Although I included glossaries in both of my novels, I hope the readers' exploration won't stop with unfamiliar words. The theme of altruism in Rescuing Ranu,for instance,is revealed through the relationship between Nela and Ranu. It transforms Nela, and might encourage a reader to familiarize herself with the mathematics that underscores that transformation: Hamilton's Rule, and how questions of loyalty and relatedness work in her own community.

3.In literary fiction, characters wrestle with the big issues. Characters, and readers, come to a deeper understanding about the human condition. Literary fiction deals with "truth" with a capital T.

Animosities between in-laws, even complicated by a culture clash, are classic, and to develop empathy for a difficult,three dimensional character can sometimes be as hard for the writer as it is for the reader. I had to re-frame Amma from Shiva's Arms in light of her own fictional world to provide a more fully human portrayal of what it meant for her to live in the world. And after all, isn't that one of the reasons we read fiction? We want to learn how to live.

Holi Festival

Happy Holi!

Today, I'm happy to introduce you to our guest blogger,Jennifer Kumar. Also known as Jayanthi, she has been creating and maintaining a website about India, Hinduism, and spirituality since 1997. Jennifer has had the extraordinary experience of living two years in Chennai, India as a college student, and was the first American to earn a Master's degree in Social Work from Madras Christian College. Here, she tells us how Holi is celebrated in South India.

Holi in a Different Hue: Exploring Connections to Holi in Kerala

By Jennifer Kumar

If one wants to celebrate Holi in all its colored splendor, a trip to almost anywhere in North India during the Holi season in March is the first choice. Though Holi is celebrated all over India, South India, in particular Kerala, is not famous for Holi revelry. But, Holi exists in Kerala. Some communities celebrate Holi under the name of Holi and it is every bit reminiscent of Holi in the North, while other communities, especially in the Palakkad District of Northern Kerala, celebrate during this time under auspices of Pooram, Poorakkalam and Pooramkuli.

Talking to someone who has celebrated Pooramkuli, it is clear that the three festivals of Pooramkuli, Pooram, and Poorakkalam are loosely connected, and that it is not popularly equated with Holi. It is true that as I learned more about these three regional festivities, if I had not known Holi falls at the same time, I would never have formed such a theory, but to me, there are at least two common threads that encourage me to believe these festivals originate from a similar source.

Hues of the Same Colors?

In examining the legends or stories of Holi, there are four main themes - Holika, Invincible Dhundhi, Radha Krishna, and the story of Lord Kamadeva. I propose that both Lord Kamadev and the Invincible Dhundhi form common threads between Holi and the festivities of Palakkad.

Sudha Gopalakrishnan, who reported on Pooram, believed that the week long Pooram festival "celebrates the spirit of love." This festival occurs in the change of season from winter to spring. Springtime is when nature blooms and inspires everything to come out from winter hibernation and buzz with excitement and a desire for life. It is during this time that Cupid surfaces, or in this case, Lord Kamadev, India's Cupid, who reunited Lord Shiva and Paravathi.

It is in this spirit of uniting with others near and dear that people come out to participate in the many arts and festivities of the day – pooratu, poorakkali (aka porattunatakam), and poorakalam.

While poorakkalam and poorakkali specifically commemorate Lord Kama, during Pooram, the other arts are folk dramas not related to any rituals. Poorakalam commemorates the demise of Lord Kama while Poorakkali inspires desire through song, dance and debate. Poorakkali happens in three phases-- in phase one young girls undertake rituals in the name of Lord Kama in hopes of having a good husband in the future, in the second phase, men trained in martial arts dance around an oil lamp (villakku) to retell stories of the gods and in the third phase, known as Maruttukkali, people debate on academic issues or pass on oral traditions of Ramayana and other stories.

In celebrating Pooramkuli, it is where I see the similarity with the Holi legend of the Invincible Dhundhi. The story goes that "due to a curse of Lord Shiva, she was not so immune to the pranks and abuses of young boys as she was to weapons and arrows." Equating this with the western phrase, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me," people use this Pooramkuli day and the theater of Pooramkuli as an excuse to tease each other. Far from the concept of bullying in Porattu, male actors playing the parts of both sexes highlights the humor of everyday life though overacting of stereotypes, which elicits fits of laughter, bringing to light some current issues or concerns. Again in connection with Holi it is said that because of the exploits of Dhundhi that "boys are allowed to indulge themselves in rowdiness, using rude words and intoxication on Holi."

Conclusions

In India most gods have 1,008 names. When I first was learning about India, reading all the myths and stories, I had the hardest time getting names straight. In one two page story, 10-15 names would come up and more than three quarters of these names were names of the same god (person). Like that, I believe festivals in India are all connected under different titles. Though these festivals all fall at the same time and could be seen to have uniting legends, there are festivals or rituals of festivals happening in different parts of India at different times of the year that could be seen of representations of one in the same. It is these unique ties that can highlight a unity in a diverse country such as India, where each state has a different language, cuisine, culture, art forms and other cultural identifiers.

Thank you for reading.

Jennifer Kumar, an indophile loves to learn about Indian culture and follows many of the South Indian holidays in her home on a regular basis. Jennifer enjoys projects on the internet, arts and crafts, cooking Indian food, and other of life's treasures. Meet and know more about her on her website.

Character Fact Lists

Character fact lists are a handy tool for entering your characters' worlds more fully. Zetta Brown "cobbled together" a template she's found useful here Help yourself.

Sometimes it's valuable to take the idea of that list and run with it: ever wonder what's on your characters' iPods?

I think music ranks right up there with fragrance in evoking memories. It becomes an important part of scene-setting, and I incorporate many instances in Shiva's Arms. For instance, on page 20 of the hardback edition of Shiva's Arms, I imagined that this song could have been playing when Ram first met Alice. Hippies after my own heart!

But Ram has his own favorites, vestiges of the culture he had turned from. "He hummed the same song every day and Alice had never asked him about it in all this time. She realized she would hate it if he ever quit. "(pg 90) Alice means this old Hindi movie song.

A melancholy insomniac like Alice uses music as both a distraction from, and a way to explore the boundaries of her own thoughts. What would she dig more than a little bit of Miles? Music was all the more precious to her because she had to yield middle-of-the-night music, among the other "...things she would have to give up once Amma arrived--no wandering from one DVD player to another all night..."(pg 71)

Amma has her preferences, too. Raised in the South Indian carnatic tradition,perhaps this carnatic lullaby was playing in the scene on page 96: "Amma sang along, humming an obligato of quarter-tones over the tune, beating time with the back of her hand on her knee."

Q and A

Where are you from?
Alberta, Canada, eh.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?
When I published a poem in an excellent journal whose rep dwarfed my previous publications

What inspired you to write your first book?
Inspiration didn't enter in. I had published about 65 poems and a few stories in lit journals and the logical next step was to put together a collection of poetry.

Do you have a specific writing style?
I write in a lyric narrative style. A critic/professor recently said I was an American surrealist. I like that.

How did you come up with the title, Shiva's Arms?
It came to me when I was at McDonald's with my Mom one day. It had all the elements I needed, incorporating the Hindu god of creation AND destruction, comparing that entity to Amma (who did plenty of C&D herself). All the god's arms reminded me of Amma's push-pull with Alice.

Is there a message in Shiva's Arms that you want readers to grasp?
Much of literature focuses on the idea of Home, and I thought it would be interesting, in this book, to take a culture clash, complicate it, and see how the characters worked out a way to see one another as individuals as well as family.

How much of Shiva's Arms is realistic?
The basis for the story is drawn from my life (American girl marries Hindu boy) but the characters are fictional. Details are drawn from South Indian culture, researched and fact-checked. Like Emily Dickinson, I want to put "real toads in my imaginary garden".

Are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?
The action in the story certainly could have happened to me, if I had married a more traditional guy. In our social circle, there are plenty of attitudes similar to those I write about, and I've witnessed the results in real life, from my place as observer.

Did you learn anything from writing Shiva's Arms and what was it?
Aside from learning how to shape a long narrative and control my characters, I learned that societal memes do perpetuate. Traditions in old cultures will continue to be passed down, and change will only come slowly. But the Christian ideal of reconciliation has great power.

If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in Shiva's Arms?
No. After many drafts and remodels, I'm quite satisfied.

What books have most influenced your life most?
Looking at my library of a thousand or so volumes, my eye goes straight to Shakespeare's plays and Flaubert's Sentimental Education.

If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?
Alice Munro, for her wisdom.

What book are you reading now?
I like to read several at once: Bellow's Humboldt's Gift, and Roth's Dying Animal are right on top of the pile on my bedside table.

What are your current projects?
Another volume of short stories, another book of poetry with art by my sister, and a new novel. Working on several types of writing at the same time prevents writer's block!

Do you recall how your interest in writing originated?
My father liked to write and I followed suit, writing little poems and stories for family birthdays and celebrations.

Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?
Knowing when a piece is finally finished. For awhile afterward, the characters still seem to want attention, one last try for another effect or plot point. Overworking a piece can leave it blurred, all the spontaneity drained. You have to know when to quit.

What was the hardest part of writing your book?
To"kill your darlings" in order to make it new is always tough.

Do you have any advice for other writers?
Standard advice: write every day, and read more than you write. Workshops are good, or at least a fresh pair of eyes to look at your work. "Write what you know" may be good advice, but I'd rather learn something new well enough to be able to write about it.

Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?
I'd like to thank them for reading my work. It's the highest compliment for any writer.

Thank you!!!
It was my pleasure.

(previously published on www.luv-books.blogspot.com)

Shiva's Arms Now on Kindle

I'm happy to announce that Shiva's Arms is now on KINDLE. Check it out!

Poetry at Cruzio's Cafe

The daffodils I saw this morning reminded me of THIS

the Mother poems

from my new sequence, "River of Forgetting"

BayView

Why do you go? Last time, she twisted your rings
until you noticed hers were gone. Stolen
right out from under her.

You want me to see you are still needed.
You want me to promise that none of this
will happen to you.

They make her sit with all the others,
displayed like an open sore. She screams
at passers-by,"Do you know who I am?"

With your mind on fire you tell me this:
What do we do with the thing called Hope?

When you dangle by a thread, I'll cut it for you.
I'll do for you what you did for me
on the days you pulled my milk-teeth out,
dragging each one on its pulpy string right through
the first in our lifetime of slamming doors.



Mother Won't Move

There's a hook in the hall
where keys once dangled
but no escape
from change that clouds
the mind or sky.

It's for your own good,
her boy said,
pocketing the car keys.

The dusk split with lightning
unsettles her less
than his rustling legal papers.

Behind drapes fisted shut,
a barricade chair on buckling slats
leans hard against the doorknob.

This front will pass. All it takes
is a woman stubborn with survival,
flashlight in hand, alone in an eye
blind to change closing in.


Escape


Mother slips into sleep
beside the banked fire.
The red pulse at its core
warms her bones,
but it's flesh
that keeps her rooted here,
a steeple of fingers
under the chin.

When she opens scribbled lids
to dreams already pulling away,
her hands, twined at the thumb,
flutter. Along the route of her dark
migration, two birds follow one another
into the guttering shadows.



Closing Mother Down


I'm trimming my sister's hair
when Mother makes for the scissors.
"I'm the one," she begins. Her words
sputter to a halt as I close the blades.

She stands, dwarfed in the kitchen
she once ruled, and I see her as she was,
bending low over the children's curls,
her movements precise and quick.

I am the scissors cutting her
from her old life now. Even as
she opens me to loss, I begin
to close her.



Light


Late sun smooths her quilted skin,
her cheeks rise under her eyes.
She's silent in the car, squints
at streetlights flaring up along the road.

She says nothing when I feed her,
but I see how she tracks the glint
that bounces off the spoon.

When downtown smog smudges
her bedroom windowpane, I begin
to draw the drapes. She tugs at my wrist.
It's not enough, she says, but let it in.


Ninety

I'm taking everything off
she announces, clawing at her clothes.
A new scar gleams on her mended hip.
Where did this come from, where is it going?

A cross-hatched seam
in the center of a body's landslide.
A cradle for children, a long-ago man; a broken wing.

She begins brailling her whorled fingertip down
the red raised tracks. This is not what she expected.
A railroad crossing pocked with stop signs.
A fire escape going down.



Slipping Her Mind


My mother, rattling
our teacups, asks
Did you know my husband?

She points to the picture on the wall,
the same one I keep by my bed.

He was my father, I say,
and her hands fly to her face.

Her mind flickers off and on,
braiding past and present
in a loose skein full of absence.

I wonder what she does remember.
My father, she says, shaving his sick son.

So that she cannot see my tears, I turn
toward the window crazed with frost.

Beyond the glass, the world sinks deeper
into winter. Our tea is cold now.

Are we related? she wants to know.



Without


You slipped through the screen door last night.
I heard the slam, but kept dreaming of you
in your Florida, drinking tropical sky through a straw,
bones of sand shifting in your body's leather purse.

With a mind dwindling back to innocence,
you'll never turn around now. I call out anyway,
a series of Ohs that dissolve in the cold.

What's between us must find another way
to stick. A tic traced back through generations—
the similar sway of our backs, the shape
of our hands. Mine, made limp with waving,
yours sinking beneath land not designed to last.


Apologia

Blossoms from the cherry tree
swirl around the garden birdbath,
plush the lounge chairs, drape the table
in fragrant cover. The evergreen, too,
has thickened with flowers, leaning low
over azaleas not yet in bud.

Arriving on paths of wind-tossed petals,
a flutter of moths settles in the deserted cherry.
Its stark branches shiver with wings.

When the flurry rises up again
it's the empty places I must turn from,
before the night backs into what it was --
failing light and fading voices
reaching out toward what is lost, as if to say,
I didn't mean it, as if to say, please come back.


Personal Effects


A year to the day after the end,
the box, wearing thin as patience, splits.

Worn leather gloves spill out.
The woman gathers them in the usual way
and breathes in the scent that lingers there.

Her mother had a hand that could stall time.
She mapped the world with fingers,
curved and soft,
like the ones that touch her child now,
a thing still supple with life,
unwilling to let it go.

Alif Allah - JUGNI - Arif Lohar - Coke Studio - Meesha Shafi - [HQ] - O...

Intricate Things in their Fringed Peripheries