In City of Glass, by Paul Auster, the main character, Quinn, comes to the end of himself.
This is how it's explained in the text. Whether you've read the book or not, those words will imply something to you. Without giving the game away (too much), let me sketch out what it meant for Quinn.
1. Quinn is something of a hermit: wrapped up in work, he has no friends and virtually no real need to connect with others.
2. By chance, he gets pulled into a strange, unpredictable series of events. When I say by chance, I mean that they appear to have been intended for someone else. Yet he becomes hopelessly enmeshed. When I say events, I mean mundane physical events that have enormous psychological repercussions.
3. A crisis occurs.
4. His response to the crisis is his ultimate undoing.
5. By the end of the book, there is no more Quinn. Quinn is lost even to the author of the story; the reader begins to wonder if he was ever real.
I'm no literary scholar. I haven't even read much Auster. But I want to suggest that this plotline could perhaps represent the greatest fear of many people.
In some part of our being, we continually walk a tightrope between being here, and not. Between some semblance of control, and a wild, enormous infinity in which we are completely lost -- not just to ourselves, or lost in the world, but actually nonexistent.
To exist, and to not exist at the same time is a strange paradox. If you don't exist, then neither does anything you thought you had: your feelings, experiences, and beliefs are entirely mutable. That store of memories that charts your education in life, entertains you on a cold night, and lets you believe during difficult times that things can be better is revealed as mere fabrication.
Yet the voice inside says you do exist. It insists this is so. It wants to believe in the memories, no matter how fantastical they seem, because they happened.
Didn't they?
Perhaps it's this drive which keeps us going: the tension between the will to exist (not just to live, but to be), and the reality of nonexistence.
In City of Glass, that tension is overwhelmed in favour of nonexistence not by any one individual, or a given course of action, but by a range of evidence that's complex, ubiquitous, and unavoidable.
Ultimately, Quinn's nonexistence is evinced by his life. His being finally dismisses his own actuality, and that's the end of him.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Something about things
"Things" is one of the most generic, pointless, blithering nouns in the English language. The Pocket O begins its definition with the words "any possible object of thought". I didn't read on from there: I was too bored with it to bother.
What the fuck are "things"? If you don't know, stop writing until you've worked it out.
In trying to communicate with clarity, "thing" is not a word you should rely upon. I would go so far as to suggest—nay, demand (but then I'm a hard-arse, so you can selectively read "suggest" if you like)—that it is not a word that should be used in professional prose at all. It is a word to be avoided in all but the slimmest possible selection of cases.
A few golden rules, then:
Yes, there's sure to be a lot of screaming in the coming weeks.
What the fuck are "things"? If you don't know, stop writing until you've worked it out.
In trying to communicate with clarity, "thing" is not a word you should rely upon. I would go so far as to suggest—nay, demand (but then I'm a hard-arse, so you can selectively read "suggest" if you like)—that it is not a word that should be used in professional prose at all. It is a word to be avoided in all but the slimmest possible selection of cases.
A few golden rules, then:
- No headline should include this word.
- In prose, choose a more specific noun. Every single time.
- Yes, you can use "things" tongue in cheek, as part of an idiom ("First things first"), or colloquially, as in the title of this post. Alright then. But that's all.
Yes, there's sure to be a lot of screaming in the coming weeks.
Live the literature
I wanted to tell you about several fabulous holidays I've enjoyed as a result of books. It's topical: I'm planning another.
There was a visit to Vienna, to see the Big Wheel, the Mozart Cafe, and other places whence we saw the demise of Graham Greene's Harry Lime in The Third Man.
There was a trip to San Francisco, setting for A Crack in the Edge of the World. On the same adventure, I went to New York, to stare vacantly into the duck pond in Central Park where Holden met Phoebe in Catcher in the Rye, and pass the Plaza, where Fitzgerald's Nick Carraway drank champagne with Gastby and Daisy and lost Jordan, and stroll in Soho looking out for Patrick Bateman, the all-American Psycho.
And there was a trip to dark, mysterious Java, to visit Krakatau, Bogor, Anyer, Jakarta: crucial locations in The Day the World Exploded.
Where to next? Next is a long time off, I'm afraid, but it'll be Egypt -- inspired by Noel Coward's Middle East Diary of 1943 (as well as, oh, Death on the Nile, Tutankhamun, the Rosetta Stone, etc. etc.) -- and Spain, to follow in the dusty footsteps laid out in Rose Macaulay's Fabled Shore.
I can recommend this approach to travel: read a book, love it, and visit the place in which it was set. Look for the heros in their haunts, tread the pavements where the bad guys stalked, lie in fields in which hearts were lost, sit in the cafe where the heroine first appeared. Live the literature.
There was a visit to Vienna, to see the Big Wheel, the Mozart Cafe, and other places whence we saw the demise of Graham Greene's Harry Lime in The Third Man.
There was a trip to San Francisco, setting for A Crack in the Edge of the World. On the same adventure, I went to New York, to stare vacantly into the duck pond in Central Park where Holden met Phoebe in Catcher in the Rye, and pass the Plaza, where Fitzgerald's Nick Carraway drank champagne with Gastby and Daisy and lost Jordan, and stroll in Soho looking out for Patrick Bateman, the all-American Psycho.
And there was a trip to dark, mysterious Java, to visit Krakatau, Bogor, Anyer, Jakarta: crucial locations in The Day the World Exploded.
Where to next? Next is a long time off, I'm afraid, but it'll be Egypt -- inspired by Noel Coward's Middle East Diary of 1943 (as well as, oh, Death on the Nile, Tutankhamun, the Rosetta Stone, etc. etc.) -- and Spain, to follow in the dusty footsteps laid out in Rose Macaulay's Fabled Shore.
I can recommend this approach to travel: read a book, love it, and visit the place in which it was set. Look for the heros in their haunts, tread the pavements where the bad guys stalked, lie in fields in which hearts were lost, sit in the cafe where the heroine first appeared. Live the literature.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Hyphenated list items 101
Okay English speakers, buck up. Hyphenated items in a list? Piece of cake.
Consider the sentence, "I have short-term, medium-term, and long-term projects."
(Yes, a serial comma. But focus. Hyphens, okay?)
If you wanted to avoid repetition in this sentence, you'd write it as follows:
"I have short-, medium-, and long-term projects."
No kidding. The hyphens, you see, tie the modifiers (short, medium, long) to the common noun (term). This is how the sentence makes sense. Consider the same sentence sans hyphens:
"I have short, medium, and long-term projects."
That sentence literally says, I have short projects, I have medium projects, and I have long-term projects. Which is not the same as our sample sentence, where we're talking about when the projects take place, rather than how long they take. And: what in hell is a medium project?
Without the hyphens, short and medium could be substituted with any damn noun:
"I have love, peas, and long-term projects."
The hyphens are needed. They are not weird. If you have any questions, I will happily address them with due immovability on this matter in the comments.
Consider the sentence, "I have short-term, medium-term, and long-term projects."
(Yes, a serial comma. But focus. Hyphens, okay?)
If you wanted to avoid repetition in this sentence, you'd write it as follows:
"I have short-, medium-, and long-term projects."
No kidding. The hyphens, you see, tie the modifiers (short, medium, long) to the common noun (term). This is how the sentence makes sense. Consider the same sentence sans hyphens:
"I have short, medium, and long-term projects."
That sentence literally says, I have short projects, I have medium projects, and I have long-term projects. Which is not the same as our sample sentence, where we're talking about when the projects take place, rather than how long they take. And: what in hell is a medium project?
Without the hyphens, short and medium could be substituted with any damn noun:
"I have love, peas, and long-term projects."
The hyphens are needed. They are not weird. If you have any questions, I will happily address them with due immovability on this matter in the comments.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Reports from the Real World
When the nation faces a federal election, the papers turn poorly. All the text is tit-for-tat one-up-manship, feuds and fallouts. All the photographs seem mere caricatures. Nothing's real: it's all hot air. And it's worse than the soaps.
On the other hand, when the political state is at least consistent, the press indulges us with all kinds of interesting developments -- Reports, if you will, from the Real World:
To summarise, key points of interest in today's news include:
Thoughts precipitated by such stories include, but are not limited to the following. Curacao is made with orange skins. She was 114. The oldest sharp edge in the world. The deeply happy Jawoyn people. Hyena attack. And: it's not often you see the phrase "a pride of lions" in print.
Good times, people. Good times.
On the other hand, when the political state is at least consistent, the press indulges us with all kinds of interesting developments -- Reports, if you will, from the Real World:
To summarise, key points of interest in today's news include:
- A plane engine exploded while the plane was in the sky. And: people lived!
- The oldest stone axe in the world has been found in Arnhem Land at a rock art site which, incidentally, was only discovered three years ago.
- A man was killed by a pride of lions in Zimbabwe (sidebar: another man died after a hyena attack in the same country).
- The oldest woman in the world died; she was born in 1896 and lived, by the way, in Curacao. Yes, like the drink.
Thoughts precipitated by such stories include, but are not limited to the following. Curacao is made with orange skins. She was 114. The oldest sharp edge in the world. The deeply happy Jawoyn people. Hyena attack. And: it's not often you see the phrase "a pride of lions" in print.
Good times, people. Good times.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
The big enn oh
Every time I receive a rejection for something I've written, I think of John Kennedy Toole, who wrote the hilarious A Confederacy of Dunces, had it rejected once to often, and topped himself.
John's mother kept hawking the book, which was eventually sold and won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize.
Oh, John, I think, remembering fondly Burma Jones, my favourite character from the novel, and promising myself for the zillionth time I'll name my first-born after him. If only you'd hung in there.
My ongoing skirmishes with copy approvals, publishers, and readers have proven to me that there is no right in writing, pun intended (other than correct grammar and spelling, of course).
Creativity is like beauty in a lot of ways, but primarily, for this discussion, the similarity is that they're both subjective. What one loves, another will loathe. We can argue the merits of creative talent all rainy afternoon long, but in the end, we'll still have our innate preferences for certain creative outputs over others.
Some writers employ their rejection slips as office wallpaper, set fire to them, and/or use them as metaphorical fuel for more output. Seeing as all my rejections come via email -- or silence, as is the go now with book publishers -- my walls remain unfettered by physical evidence of loathing.
Each time a rejection comes, there is a brief moment of disappointment. And that's it.
There are rejections in life that we can rightly take to heart, question, pore over, and use to drive ourselves crazy if we wish. But rejection by a corporation manufacturing products is not one of them.
John's mother kept hawking the book, which was eventually sold and won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize.
Oh, John, I think, remembering fondly Burma Jones, my favourite character from the novel, and promising myself for the zillionth time I'll name my first-born after him. If only you'd hung in there.
My ongoing skirmishes with copy approvals, publishers, and readers have proven to me that there is no right in writing, pun intended (other than correct grammar and spelling, of course).
Creativity is like beauty in a lot of ways, but primarily, for this discussion, the similarity is that they're both subjective. What one loves, another will loathe. We can argue the merits of creative talent all rainy afternoon long, but in the end, we'll still have our innate preferences for certain creative outputs over others.
Some writers employ their rejection slips as office wallpaper, set fire to them, and/or use them as metaphorical fuel for more output. Seeing as all my rejections come via email -- or silence, as is the go now with book publishers -- my walls remain unfettered by physical evidence of loathing.
Each time a rejection comes, there is a brief moment of disappointment. And that's it.
There are rejections in life that we can rightly take to heart, question, pore over, and use to drive ourselves crazy if we wish. But rejection by a corporation manufacturing products is not one of them.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Mind-blowing lines #20
The proliferation of mind-blowing lines in Wolf Hall makes it virtually impossible to single one out. I have restricted my selection to two. For now.
In the first, Thomas Cromwell is remembering a brief youth spent at the hands of his violent father:
"One fear creates a dereliction, the offence brings on a greater fear, and there comes a point where the fear is too great and the human spirit just gives up and a child wanders off numb and directionless and ends up following a crowd and watching a killing."
The second is a comment from King Henry about Anne Boleyn:
"I chase but one hind, he says, one strange deer timid and wild, and she leads me off the paths that other men have trod, and by myself into the depths of the wood."
A king and a smith's son, both wholly bewildered. Cromwell has the benefit of hindsight, though: you can't blame Henry for being blindsided later in life. For being silly, perhaps, but not for being human.
In the first, Thomas Cromwell is remembering a brief youth spent at the hands of his violent father:
"One fear creates a dereliction, the offence brings on a greater fear, and there comes a point where the fear is too great and the human spirit just gives up and a child wanders off numb and directionless and ends up following a crowd and watching a killing."
The second is a comment from King Henry about Anne Boleyn:
"I chase but one hind, he says, one strange deer timid and wild, and she leads me off the paths that other men have trod, and by myself into the depths of the wood."
A king and a smith's son, both wholly bewildered. Cromwell has the benefit of hindsight, though: you can't blame Henry for being blindsided later in life. For being silly, perhaps, but not for being human.
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