Inspiration

Typical American

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As promised last Monday, here again is a bit of writing from a book I enjoyed immensely. This is a selection from the first chapter of Typical American, by Gish Jen, a wonderful novel about American immigration that is unlike any other. Her imagery is stunning, and the story itself is full of comic tragedy. Enjoy!

   On the way to America, Yifeng studied. He reviewed his math, his physics, his English, struggling for long hours with his broken-backed books, and as the boat rocked and pitched he set out two main goals for himself. He was going to be first in his class, and he was not going home until he had his doctorate rolled up to hand his father. He also wrote down a list of subsidiary aims.

1. I will cultivate virtue. (A true scholar being a good scholar; as the saying went, there was no carving rotten wood.)
2. I will bring honor to the family.

What else?

3. I will do five minutes of calisthenics daily.
4. I will eat only what I like, instead of eating everything.
5. I will on no account keep eating after everyone else has stopped.
6. I will on no account have anything to do with girls.

    On 7 through 10, he was stuck until he realized that number 6 about the girls was so important it counted for at least four more than itself. For girls, he knew, were what happened to even the cleverest, most diligent, most upright of scholars; the scholars kissed, got syphilis, and died without getting their degrees.
He studied in the sun, in the rain, by every shape moon. The ocean sang and spit; it threw itself on the deck. Still he studied. He studied as the Horizon developed, finally, a bit of skin – land! He studied as that skin thickened, and deformed, and resolved, shaping itself as inevitably as a fetus growing eyes, growing ears. Even when islands began to heave their brown, bristled backs up through the sea (a morning sea so shiny it seemed to have turned into light and light and light), he watched only between pages. For this was what he’d vowed as a corollary of his main aim – to study until he could see the pylons of the Golden Gate Bridge.
That splendor! That radiance! True, it wasn’t the Statue of Liberty, but still in his mind its span glowed bright, an image of freedom, of hope, and relief for the seasick. The day his boat happened into the harbor, though, he couldn’t make out the bridge until he was almost under it, what with the fog; and all there was to hear was foghorns. These honked high, low, high, low, over and over, like a demented musician playing his favorite two notes.

Then We Came to the End

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I’ve been kicking around the idea of using a day a week in my posts to share something I’ve loved from the many random books I’ve read.  Mondays seem like a good day for this, since Mondays tend to suck the life out of most of us and it’s easier than writing something new and fresh, which might be better suited to Tuesdays… or Thursdays.

I read Then We Came to the End, by Joshua Ferris a few years ago.  It is a story about many things, but it is primarily about of a bunch of sad Chicago ad agency mucks who are within an inch of being laid off every day because of a bad economy.  At the time I read this book, I worked for a San Francisco marketing agency, which made it just a little funnier to me.  We, too, were constantly waiting for the axe.  Working in marketing is like pimping yourself out to whoever will bid the most – or actually, whoever will bid at all, whether you actually offer what they want, or not.  You want Asian?  OK, we can absolutely give you an Asian and she will be the best Asian you’ve ever seen!  Meanwhile, the boss wraps Maria Sanchez in a kimono.

From Then We Came to the End:

  Jim was so desperate one day to come up with inspiration for an ad, he exhausted his traditional list of people, broke down, and called his uncle Max.  “You know how when you buy a new car,” he began – and immediately Max interrupted him.

  “I haven’t bought a new car in thirty-five years,” said Max.

  Jim suspected then that this was probably not a man with his finger on the pulse of the buying public.  Patiently he tried explaining his assignment.  When people buy a new car, he said, they usually have an image of themselves that corresponds to the car they buy.  Jim wanted to know from Max how Max would want to perceive himself when purchasing a new ink cartridge.

  “Ink cartridge?”

  “Yeah,” said Jim. “You know, for your printer.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Max.

  We had a client at the time whose marketing objective was to make their customers feel like heroes when purchasing one of their ink cartridges.  Our charge in every communication was to inspire the potential buyer with the heroic possibilities of man-using-ink-cartridge.

  “I want to see myself as Shakespeare,” Max said.  “What’s this for, anyway?”

  Shakespeare, thought Jim.  Shakespeare.  That’s not bad.

  “It’s for a client of ours,” he said. “They make printers and ink cartridges and that sort of thing.  I’m trying to come up with an ad that makes you want to buy our specific ink cartridge after you see our ad because it inspires you and makes you feel like a hero.  Will you tell me more about wanting to feel like Shakespeare?”

  “So you’re trying to sell ink cartridges?”

  “That’s right.”

  Another long pause.  “Do you have a pen?” his uncle asked.  He began to quote: ” ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity…’ “

  Finally Jim reached out for a pen.  He tried to keep up with him.  At a certain point, Max stopped quoting and told Jim the lines should start to fade out, gradually at first, eventually disappearing altogether.  Then he suggested the headlind. “A Great Writer Needs a Great Ink Cartridge.”  The small print could explain how, if ink cartridges had been used throughout time, the history of literature might have been at stake using a cheap ink cartridge.

  Not only was Jim startled that his uncle could quote what he thought was Shakespeare seemingly off the top of his head; he was floored by the speed and ingenuity of his advertising abilities.  Who was a greater hero than Shakespeare?  And the person encountering the ad that his uncle had just pulled out of his ass could immediately put himself in Shakespeare’s shoes.  Max had just made a million Americans feel exactly like Shakespeare.  He told Max he’d missed his calling.  “You should have been a creative,” he said.

  “A creative?” said Max.

  Jim explained that in the advertising industry, art directors and copywriters alike were called creatives.

  “That’s the stupidest use of an English word I ever encountered,” said Max.

  Jim also told him that the advertising product, whether it was a TV commercial, a print ad, a billboard, or a radio spot, was called the creative.  Before he hung up Jim asked Max for two more examples of great pieces of literature, suspecting that an entire campaign could be generated from Max’s concept.

…

  Sometime later that afternoon, Max Jackers surprised Jim by calling him back.  “You folks overthere,” said Max, “you say you call yourselves creatives, is that what you’re telling me? And the work you do, you call that the creative, is that what you said?”  Jim said that was correct.  “And I suppose you think of yourselves as pretty creative over there, I bet.”

  “I suppose so,” said Jim, wondering what Max was driving at.

  “And the work you do, you probably think that’s pretty creative work.”

  “What are you asking me, Uncle Max?”

  “Well, if that’s all true,” said the old man, “that would make you creative creatives creating creative creative.”  There was silence as Max allowed Jim to take this in.  “And that right there,” he concluded, “is why I didn’t miss my calling.  That’s a use of the English language just too absurd to even contemplate.”

  With that, Max hung up.

From ‘My Father’s House’ – Sylvia Fraser

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I just finished reading My Father’s House – A Memoir of Incest and of Healing, by Sylvia Fraser.  It’s an amazing book.  The story is compelling, but her writing is rich, powerful, and visceral, and elevates the memoir to a level beyond the details of her life alone.  Below is just one example, and the book is crammed full of writing like this:

“I know it’s winter because when I look at my feet I don’t see them for snow.  I know it is winter because my nose drips like an icicle, my hands are white snowballs that must be stuffed in pockets.  I know it’s winter because sounds are muffled, words taste cold, steam hisses out of radiators and light slips off the page of Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason” almost as soon as it arrives. I know it’s winter because my mother writes letters that announce: “Yesterday my wash was like boards on the line.  I keep asking the new milkman to put the milk between the doors but he doesn’t seem to hear and this morning it was half out of the bottle again.  Is your laundry getting done?” I know it’s winter because all the evidence a posteriori and a prior points that way, and I am nothing these days if not empirical and rational.  It’s winter, but it doesn’t matter.  My life takes place in enclosed spaces: halls, cells, corridors, cubicles.  I scratch words on the pulpy lobes of my brain like a medieval monk creating palimpsets.  I sweat dust.”

My favorite bits from that paragraph are “I know it’s winter because …, words taste cold, …” and “…light slips off the page … almost as soon as it arrives.”  I filed this post under Inspiration, because this kind of writing makes me slow down and savor the words.  I don’t know if it qualifies technically as inspiration because it doesn’t cause me to start writing myself, necessarily – but it reminds me why I love literature and why I continue in my personal battle with words.

Genealogy

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When I first began writing about my life, genealogy didn’t figure into the picture.  I’d been doing some serious research on my family’s history for some time, but it wasn’t until later that I saw how the two subjects fit together and provided an additional framework from which to view my own experiences.  It was the show, ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ that sparked my genealogy obsession.  The show was really an ancestry.com marketing project – each episode a short documentary that showed a celebrity’s experience tracing some branch of their family tree.  Of course, on the show, each celebrity finds some amazing information with seemingly no more effort than typing a name and birth date into a website.  They travel from city to city, or even from country to country, and have genealogy experts waiting for them at each point to tell them amazing secrets about their ancestors.  That’s not what it’s like in real life.  You can easily spend a lifetime trying to build stories around the names you can find in your family tree, especially if you come from a broken family or a family that doesn’t believe in airing its dirty laundry.  But the show inspired me to start my own research, nonetheless.

I had also been writing a little bit about my life around the same time.  At some point, it occurred to me that writing about my life could potentially save some random relative a few generations down the road from pounding their head on their desk trying to figure out what my life and my family was all about.  I also began to think about the stories of my ancestors – their triumphs and tribulations – the tragedy and stoicism – the good luck and the bad luck – and how they may have influenced me.  Many traits pass themselves down through the generations – some good, some horrible, and I started to see patterns emerging.  The idea of weaving in stories of my ancestors into my memoir struck me as having some additional value, so that’s what I’ve done.  I’ve made some amazing finds, and I’ve run into rock solid dead ends, but the research is fascinating.  I’ll share a few of my genealogy stories shortly.

Written on the Body

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Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body is one of my favorite books.  Winterson has an ability to mold language in a way that excites me and leaves me in awe.  It inspires in me an appreciation for language and writing that is deep beyond my ability to describe.  The word to describe how her words make me feel is ineffable – too great or extreme to be expressed or described in words.  I love the irony of that word – ineffable.  Written on the Body opens with an exploration of love.

Why is the measure of love loss? … Why is it that the most unoriginal thing we can say to one another is still the thing we long to hear?  ‘I love you’ is always a quotation. You did not say it first and neither did I, yet when you say it and when I say it we speak like savages who have found three words and worship them. I did worship them but now I am alone on a rock hewn out of my own body. … Love demands expression. It will not stay still, stay silent, be good, be modest, be seen and not heard, no. It will break out in tongues of praise, the high note that smashes the glass and spills the liquid.  It is no conservationist love. It is a big game hunter and you are the game. A curse on this game. How can you stick at a game when the rules keep changing? I shall call myself Alice and play croquet with the flamingoes. In Wonderland everyone cheats and love is wonderland isn’t it? Love makes the world go round. Love is blind. All you need is love. Nobody ever died of a broken heart. You’ll get over it. It’ll be different when we’re married. Think of the children. Time’s a great healer. Still waiting for Mr Right? Miss Right? and maybe all the little Rights?

It’s the cliches that cause trouble. A precise emotion seeks a precise expression. If what I feel is not precise than should I call it love? It is so terrifying, love, that all I can do is shove it under a dump bin of pink cuddly toys and send myself a greetings card saying ‘Congratulations on your Engagement’. But I am not engaged I am deeply distracted. I am desperately looking the other way so that love won’t see me. I want the diluted version, the sloppy language, the insignificant gestures. The saggy armchair of cliches. It’s all right, millions of bottoms have sat here before me. The springs are well worn, the fabric smelly and familiar. I don’t have to be frightened, look, my grandma and grandad did it, he in a stiff collar and club tie, she in white muslin straining a little at the life beneath. They did it, my parents did it, now I will do it won’t I, arms outstretched, not to hold you, just to keep my balance, sleepwalking to that armchair. How happy we will be. how happy everyone will be. And they all lived happily ever after.

I enjoy the way Winterson captures the frustration of love, the way we all want to give up when love doesn’t work out or comes with more difficulty than we imagine.  Then the single phrase within the narrator’s attempt to choose the mundane and safe existence that subtly gives away the fact that the mundane is not what the narrator wants at all – “she in white muslin straining a little at the life beneath.”  The two things I love most about Winterson’s writing are her use of language and the multiple layers that are woven together in her storytelling.  She invokes brilliant images with her words, though this passage is not the best example of that – I’ll post something else later that illustrates her imagery better.  She masters paradox and contradiction in much of her writing, which I love because it’s such a good representation of what it’s really like to be human, and even when she writes of completely fantastical things, I can still connect with the humanity in it all.

Me and my battle with words

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I’ve chosen to title this blog “me and my battle with words”.  I chose the word “battle” because I view words as elusive.  At least, I view the task of finding the right words as elusive.  It’s a battle I enjoy, though.  Many brilliant authors have found their own ways to master language, though I imagine they feel as I do when they write – that there’s a battle in there somewhere.  Finding a way to tame words to your own purpose takes effort, thoughtfulness, and practice.  I took an English Lit class 20 years ago, and was introduced to T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets.  In section V of Quartet No. 1: Burnt Norton, I found a beautiful description of words themselves that I’ve returned to many times over the years.

Words move, music moves
Only in time; but that which is only living
Can only die. Words, after speech, reach
Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern,
Can words or music reach
The stillness, as a Chinese jar still
Moves perpetually in its stillness.
Not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts,
Not that only, but the co-existence,
Or say that the end precedes the beginning,
And the end and the beginning were always there
Before the beginning and after the end.
And all is always now. Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still. Shrieking voices
Scolding, mocking, or merely chattering,
Always assail them.

The lines I love most, and the language that has come to represent what I view as my battle with words, is from the above:

Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still.

Do you have any favorite descriptions of words that represent how you think about the writing process?

Inspiration

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There are a number of things that inspired me to write my life story.  I’ve often been told by others I should write about it because it’s an unusual story.  A couple of years ago, I began to do some genealogy research, and was immediately sucked into it.  I’ve spent tons of time investigating members of my family tree, and working to build the stories of their lives from various records I’ve found.  Many of the most interesting stories involved incredible tragedy, and I started to think about how traits and behaviors make their way down family trees.  I thought about these people in relation to me, or in relation to other people in my family, and felt there was an element worth investigating within the framework of my own life.  I also started going to a therapist for the first time in my life, in an effort to work through some of the issues I face as a result of the way I was brought up.

These three things – my personal history, stories about ancestors I located in my genealogy research, and my experiences in therapy are the inspiration for my writing, and they have become the three main components I follow in my memoir.  It has been tricky to determine how to move between these elements and still create a primary thread that weaves its way through the story from beginning to end.  The structure of the story has been much more difficult for me to plan than the writing itself was, but I enjoy the challenge, and am looking forward to getting feedback – good and bad – about my writing.

Grand ideas

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When I was a kid – and by kid, I mean maybe 20-ish – I wanted desperately to write a book…. Someday…. I never actually attempted to write a book back then.  I wrote – but it was bits and pieces – sort of journal style, sometimes chunks of poetry, mostly just the repetitive rants of a disillusioned, broke, and miserable kid.  Society was my enemy.  My life was my enemy.  I had some grand idea that I had something to share with the world, but the world blocked my attempts, so I got angry at it.

In reality, I had no idea what I wanted to say, no dedication or willpower or follow-through to find a project and stick to it, no clue who I was or who I wanted to be.  Eventually I became an adult and forgot all about it.

Almost two decades later, I had an epiphany.  Actually, it may be more accurate to say I had something of a nervous breakdown.  In any case – I remembered I wanted to write a book.  And I finally had some fuel for it – some stories to tell and some pain.  So began my attempt at writing a memoir, another grand idea.  It’s not done yet.  It will probably never be published unless I publish it myself and I haven’t yet decided whether I want to do that – but, in this space, I will document my attempts to write in the midst of living my normal life, and see where it all ends up.