Death of the novel and why writers write

Clive Hicks-Jenkins, image
from the rear cover of The Foliate Head
(UK: Stanza Press, 2012)

    For some reason or other (people do argue about why these things happen, don't they?), I wrote a little short story--one about a fantastic event that caused a woman to begin living a set of experiences that would become her next novel--after reading Will Self's essay, "The novel is dead (this time it's for real.)" I didn't believe a word of it! Well, perhaps I believed he had a teen son who strummed a guitar... I immediately dredged up one of his prior remarks as commentary:

I’ve always enjoyed bullshitting people. I still enjoy it. --Will Self, interviewed by Jacques Testard at The White Review

     I've been equally unbelieving (albeit good-tempered) about some of the responses. After all, when a death is predicted for too long, methinks there may be too much protestation.
    David Ulin, book critic of the L. A. Times, says that Self is wrong (so far we agree, and I perhaps Self does too), and points out that even to have any ideas of lodging a book in historical memory is absurd, given the brevity of life and the deluge of books. In face of such difficulties, the job is "how to evoke experience in a manner that does it justice, that gives dignity to the evanescence, to the ephemerality." He believes that the ultimate vanishing of the evocation and the one who experienced is "part of the point; we’re just creating sand paintings against the void." Ulin concludes,

No, the only reason to write is self-expression, which is by its nature a fleeting conceit. --David L. Ulin, in "Notes on the (non-)death of the book," latimes.com

I enjoy his tribute to the shad-fly evanescence of life, but this idea of why we write is wrong. Wrong! Oh, yes, sure, along the way we can say that some evidence of the self (another rabbit hole--what is the self, Mr. Self? Mr. Ulin?) may possibly be expressed or extruded or fingerprinted or some such, but it's not why writers write.
     You have to be very cautious about listening to the claims writers make because they are in the business of making things up. In fact, right now, I might just be making things up. Don't trust me! I might be, like Self, "bullshitting people." I might happen to "enjoy it." However, such a thought never flew into my innocent head until I read Self's claim of the same, so you're probably reasonably safe, if (if only!) I can understand what my own reactions are and not trundle off on some possibly-circular digression.
    Ahem! End of small digression.
    So why do writers (real, sure 'nough writers) write? Because if there is a legitimate reason, perhaps word-twisting and this baggy, odd, changing creature we call a novel really can't die. I will tell you why writers write, and you may laugh at me and go on clicking on links, or you may pause and believe me, as you will. Here is the answer to a hard question (or at least to a much-debated one) in a mere four lines . . .
   Writers write because they find joy in playing with words, hearing them chink together and sing, and feeling them marry and meld with what is told. Writers write because they love to make things and so to bring something with the illusion of life and energy out of nothing. Writers write because to make a story or a poem is an act that is true, beautiful, good, and a singular mirror held up to creation and God, maker of the universe (or the multiverses) out of nothing, and to creation itself. Oddly, all this is true whether a writer believes in these elements--play, word-music, sub-creation and creation, truth and beauty and God and goodness--or not.
     The end. There. Settled.

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P. S. I've been a bit unfeeling to write another post not many hours after posting an interview meant to help get the word out about a brand new anthology, so please pop down to the previous post and take a look, have a read, buy a book, etcetera!

The words, the world, the birthday--

Today my mother is 82. I know that I said she would be 83, but it turns out that she is a mere sprat of 82. Math was never my strong suit, I fear. She is hosting my eldest son for his spring break and weaving on her big new loom and doing I-don't-know-what. Probably she has been spending a good deal of time cooking for Ben.

In her honor I have written a Precious Wentletrap poem, "The Fool Thinks of Precious Wentletrap as Morpho." Shocking: this is my 132nd The Book of the Red King poem. Who would have thought when I wrote the first one exactly five months ago?

But now I must hie me from the e-felicity of the web and drudge in the flesh because tomorrow we are fetching and then hosting Lauren, Jin, and Rebecca from Bard College. For ten days. And the house upstairs is something akin to the wreck of the Hesperus. Welcome to my little disaster, dear young women!

Nevertheless, I am feeling irrationally joyful. Which is madness.

My heart is broken into little shiny pieces by what is unfolding in Japan and Libya and many other places. I just read a story about one group of human beings murdering another group (a large family, mostly children) in their beds and then setting off fireworks and giving out sweetmeats in celebration. I read another story about one group of human beings who murdered some families under cover of an inspiring and supposedly peaceful revolution. All these groups were divided by the way they worship God, and I am wondering where the love is in all these terrible acts of persecution that go endlessly on. When will the family of humanity learn to love?

And yet, and yet . . . I look out the window at the light on the snow and the gazebo covered with dried Dutchman's pipe vines and the blue sky: I see the world and that it is good. Only we human beings pry and shift it from the axis of what is right. All the same, whoever you are, I wish you a glad St. Patrick's Day, with an imaginary card showing the saint whirling about, chasing the snakes out of Ireland, blessing the world with his love. May all the metaphorical snakes be chased out of your country or be changed to something higher--little winged dragons that lift and fly against the sunset, singing words of great sweetness.

I am thankful that my mother was born on this day and that I was given the lovely gifts of consciousness, the desire to make, and words. And that, despite all, streaks of joy like burning arrows pass through me.

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Want Morpho? Start here with Wikipedia, where the image was found. (Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike License.)

KABOOM

Global warning: This post was committed by an extravagant person late at night. It was 2:00 a.m., to be exact. It had been 2:00 a.m. all day, but now it was 2:00 a.m. with a vengeance. Some people with a long day should go to bed.

Last night we had takeout from Foo Kin John (name dear to wised-up local schoolchildren), and I had a startling and memorable fortune: You are in over your head. It is time to get professional help. Since I received Happiness is a new home on the day we bought our first home, and Good news will come to you from far away the day before I was invited to a faraway interview that led to a life-changing faraway job, I am forced to consider the possibility that the Higher Power occasionally chooses to speak to me through dratted slips of paper stuffed inside curls of dough.

He seems rather direct in this message.

Moreover, it is a highly important date in my life, one fraught with fraughtnesses.

However, this is the busiest summer of my mother-of-three life, and I hardly have the time to consider the implications or the fraughtnesses. Moreover, I promised not to blog about anything until September, so nobody will be reading this, or counseling me as to whether I really ought to spring up, rush out, and clutch assorted professionals to my bosom. Does that message mean a nanny, a head-shrinker for the mama, a head-shrinker for the children, jolly pills for me, relaxy pills for the zooming-about children, a chauffeur (lovely) and general ferryman or ferrywoman, a lady in white squeaky shoes to take me on a nice long spa visit to the funny farm, or what?

Hmm.

Don't feel impelled to embrace any of those, but maybe I'm deluded, and the cookie is sneakily pointing out my delusion. Here's my opinion: what I could really use is a spectacularly efficient yet affordable cleaning lady. Doing one's own cleaning is definitely over-rated.

If you find your way to me, despite the fact that I have sworn off blogging due to the frenetic pace of a summer with certain adorable but overly-busy children, consider the implications of The Cookie, as I cannot, being too busy to consider, render, or even plop the problem into the waiting vessel of a blog post.

In stray moments, if and when they arrive, I'll hang around the shores of Glimmerglass, looking for a message in a bottle.

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Morning questions: Does God have a sense of humor, and what sort? How busy is too busy? Am I there yet? Why are we having such fantastic-for-a-Southerner hot weather? When am I going to finish those stories? When am I going to reread the novel I wrote at Yaddo one more time? Where's my dang datebook?

I'm missing R, who is at camp. Time to go commit a letter. Unless the datebook says otherwise. When I find it, that is.

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Bookish: Ben Steelman, the books editor at The Wilmington Star-News, has started a blog on his newspaper's website. Bookmark http://books.starnewsonline.com/ . His "veries": very amusing; very smart; very well-read. That's a good combination.

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Kiddish, trala:
N, age 10, to small cousin: So where's your birthmark?
C: Mine's at home.

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Dervish wheel: Credit is due to David Ritter and www.sxc.hu for this photograph that so accurately described the whirl of summer: from the Arizona State Fair, 2006.