Tag: Literature

NO NEED TO APOLOGIZE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 9 Comments

Whenever I come across a blog that begins as an apology for not posting lately or even being on hiatus for a few months, several thoughts spring to mind.

The first is simply that there’s no need to apologize. We’re not short of reading material here in the WordPress network, for sure. Nobody’s holding you to those deadlines, and we’d certainly rather have you back with something good to report than to have you mindlessly keyboarding.

The second thought, though, has me reflecting on my own approach to blogging. Rather than constantly being fed by current activity, the Red Barn and its sisters draw on my deep files of writing and, more recently, photography. That’s allowed me to plan ahead and schedule their release in a timely manner, sometimes even spiraling pieces from decades ago and now.

But now that has me wondering. Is that cheating?

Or is it just another example of the maxim, “Age and cunning will beat youth and ability every time”?

ENGAGING THE POWERS AND PRINCIPALITIES

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 8 Comments

Like it or not, practicing an art means wrestling with power, including, in St. Paul’s phrase, the “powers and principalities.” Powers of destruction, on one hand, and sustenance, on the other. Destruction that can, as we’ve seen too many times, include the artist. Hence, the fascination with Faust. With madness. Alcoholism. And on. Self-absorption and inflated self-importance rather than humble service.

We hazard much, often without the slightest awareness of the risks afoot. For the Christian, these involve Satan’s dominion over “the world,” which includes the realm of the arts; in Asian teachings, we can turn to the traps of Maya, that spider web of worldly attraction and deadly illusion. Either way, cause to be wary. Need for disciplined faith. Yes, let’s introduce something we’ll call Satan, just to thicken the drama.

Which raises an ancient point of conflict for a Christian artist: I’m not at all sure art is a proper activity for a Quaker. Through much of Friends’ history, most of the arts were considered superfluous and dishonest engagements taking our attention away from true worship. “We Quakers only read true things” is the way one expressed it while returning an unread novel to a neighbor.

Yes, “we Quakers read only true things,” or used to. The exclusion of not just fiction but theater and paintings and sports as distractions from worship. Traps of the flesh?

And yet: discipline is essential in spiritual growth. Self-discipline, route to true freedom. And where is the mind without imagination? I continue to read and write fiction and poetry. I love symphonies, string quartets, and opera. I’m a baritone or occasional tenor in four-part a cappella singing. When I practice my art, I am fed by this love/compulsion/infusion.

So we’re back to the ways and spirit in which we engage the powers and principalities, and the ways we order our lives.

PIPE ORGANS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments
Waiting in silence.
Waiting in silence.

For a classical music enthusiast like me, one of the great things about living in New England is the plethora of fine pipe organs. They’re found not just in many of the historic steeplehouses, but also in places like the city hall in Portland, Maine, or the music hall in Methuen, Massachusetts, built especially for the massive Wurlitzer, and, of course, Symphony Hall in Boston.

(They’re not, however, found in our Quaker meetinghouses, except for the occasional harmonium or a modest electronic organ in a corner. I could even point to my quibbles about the expense of building and maintaining great instruments in a house of worship, but let me add how much I appreciate listening when they’re played in good hands.)

Their very variety can be remarkable. Locally, we have an 1876 Hutchings instrument that two Eagle Scouts rescued in unplayable condition from the old Methodist chapel, carefully dismantling, numbering and cataloguing the pipes, storing them in a barn, and eventually seeing their restoration in the congregation’s new building. (Hutchings, by the way, created the original part of the organ at Boston’s Symphony Hall in 1900.) Hook and Hastings, meanwhile, is credited with an 1850 one-manual instrument at First Baptist, a 1908 two-manual at St. Charles Roman Catholic, and a 1911 two-manual at St. Thomas Episcopal. First Parish (U.C.C.) has an impressive 1995 Faucher hybrid that incorporates the building’s earlier Goodrich and Hutchings instruments. Expanding the circle a bit adds a wonderful 1975 two-manual baroque-style instrument at Durham Community Church and the oldest playable organ in America, the circa 1665 Brattle, now at St. John Episcopal in Portsmouth. (Manuals, for the uninitiated, are the number of keyboards, one atop another. And don’t overlook the incredible bass notes played by the pedals under the feet!)

Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised, then, when I stumbled upon a four-manual keyboard in Watertown, Massachusetts. “Is it still playable,” I asked. “Oh, yes. I sit down to it from time to time,” I was told. “It has a lovely, soft sound. It was built by Aeolian-Skinner but never made leaner,” meaning the E. Power Biggs’ influence in the ‘60s, especially through his performances and recordings on the Flentrop organ at Harvard’s Busch-Reisenger Museum and his advice – or misguided advice, depending – to organ owners in that era.

I love the soft, late afternoon light in the chancel.
I love the soft, late afternoon light in the chancel.

 

 

A NOTE ON PATRON SAINTS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

My girlfriend in college dreamed of creating a private language all our own. In those days, I thought creativity came down like lightning bolts with something absolutely original.

What I’ve come to see instead is the fact that true creativity happens at the frontier of what’s come before. It builds within and upon a tradition and a culture. For that matter, I’ve recognized how difficult dealing with our own marvelous language can be – and how vast its resources.

The practice also reminds me how easy it is to go slack. When I’m working, I like to keep the work of another at hand, as a sharpening stone. Sometimes it’s another poet, sometimes a painter or photographer. As guiding lights. As reminders. Companions on the trail.

Of course, it’s fair to ask. Where do you turn for inspiration and models? Any places or names in particular? How do we keep going deeper or higher, or keep our instruments sharp and shiny?

A WRITER’S IDENTITY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

“You’re more of a poet,” one of my favorite authors mentioned over coffee.

Huh? I had, after all, found publishers for two of my novels but none of my collections of poetry. So what if both novels were out of print, right?

Back in high school, when the writing bug hit me, I envisioned successfully working in fiction, poetry, theater, and journalism – successfully and famously, at that. That was way back before I discovered the reality of just how specialized each field can be, even before we get into the micro-subcategories, or how much rarified knowledge is required to navigate them professionally. Or how much competition there is across the board.

A first I felt my friend’s comment as a gentle reproach. There is always so much more to master, after all, as I tell myself after encountering another moving example of fine craftsmanship and deep insight.

As I returned to his comment, though, I picked up on another angle, the one that reflects a particular author’s sensibilities. He has me realizing that my basic outlook is as a poet, and that I carry that over into my novels.

Recently, another friend and I were discussing what we’d been reading, and he brought up Jim Harrison’s novels. He’d just finished seven in sequence. “He’s also a fine poet,” I said. But now, as I return to my bookshelves, I see an argument that Harrison is a novelist first, an outlook he carries over into the poems.

This is not to say that a writer has to be pigeonholed or can’t move among forms. After all, I could present a long list of fine poets whose essays I treasure. Many of them, as I noted in the Talking Money series at my Chicken Farmer I Still Love You blog, address the decidedly down-to-earth issues of income, budgeting, labor, possessions, time, wealth, and community.

Detailing what would place a writer in the poet category or else in the novelist line could provide an interesting roundtable discussion all its own. We’ll leave that for another time.

I will, however, suggest it arises in a state of mind – of seeing the world and of relating to those around us. And, I will add, I find myself far from writing or revising poetry when I’m working on a novel, simply because the fiction generates or relies upon another state of mind, even if the prose that results has poetic qualities.

 

THE NOVELIST STRIKES ANOTHER POSE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

100_9850Dear Reader:  Are you aware that this is a social protest novel? Have you delineated the symbolism running through construction? Can you guess the antecedent novels that most influenced the Author in his quest of the Muse? What form will his next opus assume? Will he learn from his mistakes? Does he even perceive them? Will he renounce writing? Who will turn this into his next movie? What music will be selected to amplify it?

Please clip and mail to the Author. Your comments are always appreciated.

Thank you.

The Author.

~*~

To learn more about my novels, go to my page at Smashwords.com.

BEYOND DRESSING FOR SUCCESS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

Waiting in an airport lounge for their flight to arrive and begin boarding, a wife was describing to her husband the computer she had ordered (not just any computer, mind you) and then detailing the renovations required for the room they were upgrading, or perhaps it was a wing they were adding. He nodded in thoughtful agreement throughout. They appeared to be comfortably retired, and she was resolved that this was what she needed to sit down and begin writing her first novel.

Somehow, it all felt wrong.

Not the writing, but the matter of appearances, as though one begins the volume by posing for the back cover color photograph – tweed for the men, a tasteful blazer for the women. As though writing depends on the workspace itself. As though you just plump down in a picture-perfect setting and turn out a critically acclaimed bestseller. Or at least a hefty advance. It is echoed in the group photographs of famous authors one comes across in Vanity Fair, the half-dozen or more serious novelists arrayed in a two-story private library or a publisher’s corner suite overlooking Manhattan, the happily ever after with afternoon cocktails. Leather and brass.

I’ve long pondered the airport scene, attempting to nail down what has struck such a loud discordant note. Listen to published authors discuss their workspace and you often hear it comes down to a concrete block cell or a corner of an attic or even, thanks to laptops and wi-fi, a booth at McDonald’s – not an interior designer’s photo spread. We write wherever we can – sometimes, as I prefer, in solitude, or other times, as daily papers’ newsrooms, in a large office crowded with shared computers and telephones augmented by TV screens and police radio scanners. They write, I would hope, out of some urgency – some sense each one has something unique to explore and present to the world. It’s what Bukowksi called his daily “butt time.” It’s what you put in to be a writer, the dues you pay, the actual effort rather than any posturing.

This is not a matter of comfort. The best writing, I will argue, comes with discomfort. It’s hard, after all, doing good work. Finishing the first draft is just the beginning, leading into multiple revisions and a pile of correspondence (much of it unanswered, even when the obligatory SASEs are included) attempting to connect with an agent and publisher before embarking on the marketing of the finished work – one of the five hundred or so novels published that week.

Did the retired beginner actually complete a first draft? Or did she find excuses along the way? Did her health hold up? (Writing demands more physical strength than one imagines – especially in maintaining the mental concentration of developing the characters and plot turns.) Did she have a storehouse of memories and exotic experiences to draw upon or a long gestated outline to quickly fill in? Had she done her homework in devising a story fitting a tightly defined marketing niche – one that would easily sell? Had she filled suitcases with letters, notes, and snapshots to prompt specific details or sketched in a lifetime of personal journals? Did she possess crucial contacts who would come to bear on publication?

There’s more to writing than looking like an Author – whatever that is. Maybe in the ensuing years she succeeded. But at the airport gateway, she gave no awareness of the actual struggle ahead. I, for one, cannot wait for the perfect space to appear. Rather, I’ve settled in to work where I could and then plugged away, between sleeping and the commute to my paying job.

COMPOSING A REQUIEM

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

When I first drafted this novel three decades ago, little did I expect it to be a requiem for a profession I’ve loved and served all my life. Now, though, as the history has unfolded, I’m left hoping against hope it’s not a requiem for community after community across America as well. Read it and weep – yet laughing along the way. We are, after all, still a resourceful people

 ~*~

Hometown_NewsTo find out more about Hometown News or to obtain your own copy, go to my page at Smashwords.com.

 

 

THE RELIGIOUS TWIST

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

While my personal struggle bobbled between practicality and art for its own sake, the yoga and Quaker teachings introduced new tensions. Consider:

Creativity? No, God creates. Man discovers. Man cultivates and brings culture and learning, nurtures, softens, establishes coherence. This is the difference between the artist who submits to a greater power and the one who tries to use it for his own ends. The first desires to serve God, by whatever name or description; the second, his or her own ego.

Which leads to: Problems of the ego. Gertie Stein: Every writer wants to be told how good he is, how good he is, how good he is. Insecurities!

Yet in yoga, all for God: the sacrifice, the labor gifted to generate good karma. (As if your boss is another deity, rather than bottom-line motivated and conscious. Here’s a letter of commendation plus your pink slip.)

Early church father Tertullian warned, in De Spectaculis, Latin circa 200 C.E. Essentially: “The Author of truth loves no falsehood: all that is feigned is adultery in His sight. The man who counterfeits voice, sex or age, who makes a show of false love, anger, sighs and tears He will not approve, for He condemns all hypocrisy. . . . Why should it be lawful to see what it is a crime to do?” (Translation by Kenneth Morse).

These are hard charges, along with the seduction of “preaching for sin,” as George Fox warned.

So to examine the multiplicity of personality / goals / desires. Just who am I? Who are you? Empathy. Anger. Bliss. All the rest.

Honesty. Our dark sides. Do we really express our weakest aspect in our art? (In vocal ministry, how often the message comes from that area of our current conflict!)

Versus becoming so rarified we lose all sense of joy and delight. The danger of Plainness or strictness, that it suffocates personality, makes us so humbled we cannot move forward in the Holy Spirit to perform bold action. Crushes or stifles the imagination.

So how do we make a living without violating our beliefs? (Military-industrial extensive penetration of all facets of American society: not even the universities immune.)

Or how do you practice your art to the fullest, without undue restraint, while still being faithful?

 

NEWSPRINT, PAPERBACKS, AND HARDBOUND VOLUMES

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

My entire life I’ve harbored a bias regarding quality in the world of writing. Even though I’ve long been a front-line journalist, I’ve believed the text in a hardbound, academic or commercially published book must somehow be superior to what’s presented in a newspaper.

For that matter, magazines were, in that measure, a degree above newspapers, but a step or two below either paperback or hardbound volumes.

In the past few years, though, that misconception has been shattered, in part because of conversations I have with one of America’s top literary voices and in part because of encounters with a host of other living authors of more mundane accomplishments.

Yes, we have every right to expect a work that requires a year or two to draft to be superior to reports written on the fly, but in some ways, that long work often turns out to be little more than a series of daily reports strung together. What turns up can be as formulaic as any pyramid-style news dispatch, and filled with more cliche and unchallenged bombast. Read carefully and you might notice a higher standard of editing in your daily paper.

What I now realize is that I had expected the books to be eternal monuments that would sit forever on public and private library shelves. I never expected them to be commodities with their own precariously short shelf life, with rare exceptions. Even public collections have only so much space and so much patience. Rarely do I find there a recommended piece I desire.

What this all comes down to is that reality that good writing is good writing, no matter the place it appears. That, in itself, is cause for celebration.

Now, for more on the newspaper dimension, there’s my Hometown News novel. Adding a further twist to this plot, though, is the fact it’s available only as an ebook.

Hometown News