We're buried in snow up here -- but it's amazingly still, evocative. In this kind of weather, any number of poems come to mind: "Silence in the Snowy Fields" by Robert Bly is a favorite. Just the title digs into the mind. And of course I think of Frost, with "Desert Places" and "Dust of Snow." I also recall some line in Emerson, where talks about the blankness of the snow, which allows the imagination room to add so much, to put in colors of its own.
The weather is, in fact, a mood itself, and it adds something. I wonder if I'd enjoy living in a climate where it's summer all the time; in these days of heavy snow, beautiful snow, I think not...
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Thursday, January 27, 2011
In that last post, my very first attempt at a blog, I posted the piece I wrote about Melville and Hawthorne for the British newspaper, the Telegraph. I've been thinking a lot about this relationship lately: it mattered that Hawthorne was living a few miles away from Melville, and was the reader of his shoulder. It was not for nothing that Melville dedicated the novel to Hawthorne.
I just finished writing an introduction to a new British edition of Moby-Dick, and this got me to reread the book for the umpteenth time. I'm always amazed by its strangeness, its bizarre grab-bag of ideas and narrative, meditation, and quotation. Melville was one of the first writers to see that a novel can digest a range of things. It's what James called a "loose baggy monster" for good reasons.
My own novel about Melville, which just came out in Britain, is pretty loose and baggy. I was trying to experiment in the even chapters with writing biographical narrative as fiction in the guise of nonfiction. I was "telling" more than "showing." This may or may not work, but it was interesting to play around with. I liked writing as Lizzie, Mrs. Melville, in the odd chapter. Very odd chapter, as Lizzie is a mixed up and wildly erratic person. What I was trying to do was show her gradual acceptance of her husband and his artistic dream.
A few critics have disliked my use of famous Melville quotations, such as "I prefer not to." That's such a famous line from "Bartleby," it was perhaps crazy to do what I did: make it domestic. But what I hoped to do was twofold: make a little joke, and show that even great moments in fiction have a mundane origin. I actually think it works.
Reviews are bizarre forms of writing: so arbitrary. There is very little need to argue a case or back up an opinion. These are what they are: brief takes, impressionistic, ephemeral.
I've had enough unsolicited responses from readers to know that some will like this book. I suppose that is what matters. Or I suppose what matters is that I believe in what I wrote, and will stand behind it. Time, as always, will tell whether there is anything worth keeping in this book, or not.
I just finished writing an introduction to a new British edition of Moby-Dick, and this got me to reread the book for the umpteenth time. I'm always amazed by its strangeness, its bizarre grab-bag of ideas and narrative, meditation, and quotation. Melville was one of the first writers to see that a novel can digest a range of things. It's what James called a "loose baggy monster" for good reasons.
My own novel about Melville, which just came out in Britain, is pretty loose and baggy. I was trying to experiment in the even chapters with writing biographical narrative as fiction in the guise of nonfiction. I was "telling" more than "showing." This may or may not work, but it was interesting to play around with. I liked writing as Lizzie, Mrs. Melville, in the odd chapter. Very odd chapter, as Lizzie is a mixed up and wildly erratic person. What I was trying to do was show her gradual acceptance of her husband and his artistic dream.
A few critics have disliked my use of famous Melville quotations, such as "I prefer not to." That's such a famous line from "Bartleby," it was perhaps crazy to do what I did: make it domestic. But what I hoped to do was twofold: make a little joke, and show that even great moments in fiction have a mundane origin. I actually think it works.
Reviews are bizarre forms of writing: so arbitrary. There is very little need to argue a case or back up an opinion. These are what they are: brief takes, impressionistic, ephemeral.
I've had enough unsolicited responses from readers to know that some will like this book. I suppose that is what matters. Or I suppose what matters is that I believe in what I wrote, and will stand behind it. Time, as always, will tell whether there is anything worth keeping in this book, or not.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Starting up
I've not tried this medium before, the Blog. Not in this more private way -- I've done blogging for The Guardian, the London newspaper. But here is something more personal. I'm going to come on this site now and then to share things I've recently written -- and to talk to any readers of mine: Oh, you're the one! (as a friend of mine often says when somebody tells him he or she has read a book of his).
I write this from London, where I've been spending a week, largely in connection with the British publication of my novel about Melville. The Brits, as opposed to Americans, seem literary to their fingertips. There is so much talk of books. I just don't feel the same energy of this kind in the U.S., perhaps because the country is so scattered. Here there is massive concentration in London of media, publishers, reviewers, etc.
So here's a piece about Melville and Hawthorne I wrote for one of the British papers, The Daily Telegraph. Hope it may interest you:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/8257013/Jay-Parini-on-Herman-Melville.html
I write this from London, where I've been spending a week, largely in connection with the British publication of my novel about Melville. The Brits, as opposed to Americans, seem literary to their fingertips. There is so much talk of books. I just don't feel the same energy of this kind in the U.S., perhaps because the country is so scattered. Here there is massive concentration in London of media, publishers, reviewers, etc.
So here's a piece about Melville and Hawthorne I wrote for one of the British papers, The Daily Telegraph. Hope it may interest you:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/8257013/Jay-Parini-on-Herman-Melville.html
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