Mon - February 19, 2007

more favourite words


cogitate on this

IRENIC -only a vowel away from ironic. It means aiming for, or aimed at, peace.
NASCENT -a beautiful disyllabic sound that gets softer as it grows. - emerging into existence and beginning to show signs of potential.
VIVIFY - to enliven or animate.
MAUNDER - to move or act in an idle manner; to ramble in speech; dreamy action.
CONFLATE - combining two into one.

Posted at 06:29 PM    

Fri - February 2, 2007

experience, process and retelling


a review of 'the things they carried' by Tim O'Brien

Is it possible to be honest when the truth is unknown, and which truth anyway would we choose to tell if we knew it?
The Things They Carried is a book about the Viet Nam war, a war aided by GI Tim O'Brien. It is not a collection of short stories, it is not a novel. It is imagined truth trying to tell a story bigger than itself, and succeeding through the medium of fiction.
O'Brien writes with a simplicity that is profound. He is a magician pulling - not rabbits out of hats - but meaning from experience. After college he was summoned to fight a war in a foreign country. He didn't believe in the war and he didn't want to die and he struggled to decide on how to react to his draft papers.
He went to war.
Viet Nam becomes a kind of mist, partly collective, partly personal. O'Brien mixes fact with story telling to carve some kind of route through the mist. Places - Song Tra Bong, Quang Ngai, My Khe - become recurring characters; characters seep into the landscape:

'He was under the mud and the water, folded in with the war, and their only thought was to find him and dig him out and then move on to some place dry and warm.' (In the Field, p 163)

The reader joins O'Brien in the mist and the mist begins to make sense. It makes sense of dimly remembered personal and collective truths. We go to war with the writer, recognising the humanity within through the horror without. We don't have to leave our armchairs to do this. It is, partly at least, the war of retaining a sense of honour in a world that mocks honour; a war with ourselves that can only be survived by the slow process of separating what is true from what is false. We are encouraged to observe the illusion of fact, to find the story. But to honour also our need to distance ourselves from human acts of inhumanity - our own and those of others.
On occasion O'Brien attributes acts of shame to others only to confess later it was his weakness that cost the life of a friend. He is honest enough to lie, sensitive enough to reflect and ultimately brave enough to share his darkness in public. Here, the process involved in being weak to be strong, in finding power through honesty, unfolds with grace - like the petals of some carnivorous plant.

'"Takes guts, I know that."
"It wasn't guts. I was scared."
Kiowa shrugged "Same difference." (The Lives of the Dead, p 223)

It is tempting to seek to classify The Things They Carried into some containable genre - to make the journey feel safe. It is a war story; it is autobiography; it is fable or horror. It is all those things and therefore it is more. Quietly, The Things They Carried melds the concept of genre into insignificance. The book is a tour de force. Relax into it, read it as an epic poem - above all listen to it. This is a profound book telling the truth in the only way humans can understand truth - through fiction.

Available from amazon.

Posted at 04:04 PM    

Fri - December 22, 2006

favourite words


an occasional list


Crapulent - the effects or after effects of consuming alcohol. From the Latin word 'Crapula'(inebriation) and the Greek 'kraipale' (drunken headache)
Lugubrious- sounding or looking glum. From the Latin 'lugere' (mourn)
Unfold - as in to allow things to happen in the fullness of time rather than seek to force premature completion.
Apple - as in Apple Macintosh computers. The world would be a happier place if we all used them.
Spontaneous- occurring as a result of natural impulse ; events without obvious external cause.

Posted at 03:12 AM    

Thu - September 28, 2006

the numbers game


alternative arithmetic

One plus one equals two
two twos are four
... unless we're counting raindrops.

Posted at 12:47 PM    

Sun - September 24, 2006

click


a short story

We played 'click' near the shores of Mont Saint Michel.
She was a photographer, you understand - always peering through a lens at some object. On this particular day she had left her camera at the hotel. Sometimes she did so. It was an act of love, her way of letting me know I too was important in her life. We explored the monastery on top of the mount and had coffee in one of the little cafes on the spiralling path of the island village.
I sensed she was missing her camera. So I invented a game.
Click.
She closed her eyes and I took her hand. We walked, me guiding her, until I spotted something of beauty. It could be a tiny detail - a flower growing through tarmac for example - or something huge - a panoramic view. It could be anything that I thought beautiful.
When I saw it I would position her head to face the thing of beauty and I would say 'click' to mimic the sound of the shutter on a camera. Only then could she open her eyes to see.
We alternated. She and I took turns to be camera and photographer. It was a beautiful time we shared that day.
Since then more than 50 years have passed.
This morning when I woke her as usual she did not respond. Her eyelids stayed shut. I had a cup of tea in my hand for her and I put it down on her bedside table.
Claudette?
Claudette!
Not a flicker of an eyelash. I shook her gently.
Claudette!
CLAUDETTE!
CLAUDETTTE!
Oh, click, Claudette.
Claudette!! Click. Click click.

Posted at 10:30 AM    

Wed - September 13, 2006

city haiku


further thoughts from the m.i. bar, Truro

Solid town grey.
Unlike misty grey,
Fresh and mystery country day.

Posted at 10:41 PM    

Tue - September 5, 2006

lighting up


fragment

They keep a watch on me - the nurses. The doctors don't seem to do much at all. I'm told they diagnose and prescribe.
Apparently.
I saw one once smoking a cigarette. She was standing outside on the fire escape, blonde hair lifting like a skirt on the wind. Her hand slipped into the pocket of her white coat.
The flare of a match, flame sucked towards her thin tube of tobacco.
Then she disappeared in a cloud of smoke. Like a magician.

Posted at 11:49 PM    

a haiku


observations on a pen

Spread claw, flesh soft -
The hand that holds down
A page to write on.

Posted at 01:41 AM    

Thu - August 31, 2006

passing clouds


thoughts from m.i. bar, Truro 30.8.06

I sat with a milkless coffee, pausing between jobs. It was crowded and the music had been turned up so I toyed with pen and paper until some words emerged:

Thoughts that clutter the mind
Can be freed,
As passing clouds in a blue sky.

Posted at 12:21 PM    

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