Tag: Literature

A WORLD QUITE ALIEN TO MY OWN

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 6 Comments

As we watched the movie (let’s withhold the title as being irrelevant to my point), I was struck that these were not characters I would – or could – ever draft. Even if I’d managed to conjure up the range of members of the extremely dysfunctional family, they wouldn’t be believable, arising as they do from a world quite alien to mine. (Not that my family didn’t have its, uh, dysfunctions.)

It’s an awareness I’m having with increasing frequency – or at least maybe it’s just a heightened recognition. It involves not just family dynamics, either, but extends to a perception of romantic attractions or destructive people in the workplace or political office and beyond.

In the case of this particular movie, each character was appalling in a distinctive way and played to perfection by a top-line cast, which only added to my admiration of the scriptwriter’s achievement, one author to another.

Could it be I’m simply becoming more and more aware of how wide and varied our world really is?

 

READERS, READERS, WHEREVER YOU ARE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Are there many readers outside New York City? When it comes to literary fiction, at least, the majority of the work often seems to be set in the City, and maybe that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I do love the fact that so many subway riders are also transit readers, though, and maybe that plays a big influence in the book reading populace. Ditto for taking the bus.

But I’m always baffled by the question, “Who are your readers?” I like to think they come from everywhere, and from all walks of life.

And just who are you?

The marketing crowd, of course, likes to peg a genre to a demographic. Chick Lit is a prime example, which in turn created Hen Lit for an over-29 female readership. Romances we can guess. Maybe even the many strands of Sci Fi.

But I still like to hold out hope for a more diverse core of readers for my own work, including the new books appearing at Smashwords. Am I just being naive?

Heavens, is it really Boomer Lit? I’d hope not to be so limited.

ESCAPE? OR ENCOUNTER?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 4 Comments

A comment by Aaron James a few days back in response to my post “The Novel as a Time Machine” has prompted me to rethink my own expectations of literature, both as a reader and a writer. It was one of those elephant-in-the-room moments, actually, in which the most obvious thing can sometimes be the hardest to see.

Quite simply, when he said “a lot of people like to read as a form of escapism,” an alarm was triggered, based on a deeply engrained value from my formative years, the one that derided escapism as, well, unhealthy at its core and essentially fluffy. Looking back, I suspect the message was that escapism had the social relevance of sugar overload or a wild drunken night on the town. You know, it just wasn’t serious enough.

At a deeper level, I suspect the reaction also touches on the lingering historic distrust of the arts from my dad’s Quaker and Dunker roots, perhaps even some from my mother’s mix of Calvinist traditions (never mind Sir Walter Scott), and that’s even before we get to Tertullian and his critique of the “pagan” arts during the formation of the early church itself. You know, it all begins with assuming a role of another’s identity, something that’s simply counterfeit and a lie. (My apologies for way oversimplifying a marvelous line of reasoning. And, for the record, many modern Quakers are fine writers, actors, and artists.)

Still, as I was reflecting on Aaron’s comment, I had to admit how much I enjoy work that crosses from “reality” into a magical realm, one of fantasy or surrealism. I like to be taken places – or, as he hints, be given a sense of travel where exploring and learning are part of the sensation of the trip.

Is that escapism? Or is it encounter?

My inclination is to argue the latter. But does that make for a more rugged route? It even has me thinking about the “diet” we allow ourselves when it comes to literature – do we go vegan, for instance, or kosher, or out-and-out hedonistic? What’s “good” and what’s “bad”? And what’s simply another guilty pleasure?

AMPLIFYING THE LIST

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 4 Comments

When we were considering literature arising from the hippie experience a while back, one of the surprises came in the reader comments as we recognized the predominance of non-fiction rather than novels. (Who says literature must be exclusively fiction, anyway?)

Still, there are four novelists who recently resurfaced in my memory, and I think they deserve consideration for their efforts from the time:

  • Edward Abbey: The Monkey Wrench Gang, etc.
  • Ernest Callenbach: Ecotopia
  • John Nichols: The Milagro Beanfield War, etc.
  • Tom Robbins: Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Still Life with Woodpecker, etc.

Noticing that these are all male, and that three focus heavily on the socio-political aspects of the movement, I have a nagging suspicion that we’re overlooking a range of female authors weighing in on their side of the experience. Any more nominations?

THE NOVEL AS A TIME MACHINE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 8 Comments

Anyone else wonder about the appeal of stories set in another century? Just what’s the attraction?

The future, of course, is one direction, a whole set of “what if” projections that for now cannot be tested against historical development. (Admittedly, Orwell’s 1984 certainly has become an exception in the years since I first read it, gee, was it ’64? As has the movie 2001.)

The past, however, seems to be the more romantic option, beginning with historic period romances and Westerns. I suppose it’s not that far removed from those who inquire of astrologers or palmists or mediums about their past lives, although what I’ve always found most fascinating there is how many people who do so claim to have been Cleopatra or Anne Boleyn or Helen of Troy or the like, rather than one of the common, suffering, exploited populace. No, the stories tilt toward royalty, court intrigue, the power struggles of the rich and mighty – the glittering elite far removed from everyday life. (Maybe that’s our fascination with celebrities, too, as if wealth and beauty leads to true love and happiness, not that it ever seems to hold over the long haul. In pure weight, tragedies trump over comedies.)

My wife sometimes jests that I would have been more at home in 18th or 19th century America, especially in a context of the Enlightenment, scientific advancement, and perhaps opera, along with a flourishing Quaker culture. (Never mind that the Quaker discipline of the time banned music and fiction as superfluous, vain, and untrue.) Again, though, the projection is toward a place of refinement, culture, and ease rather than the long, hard, physical labor of the masses.

So what, ultimately, is the attraction of historical fiction? Is there some time or place you’d willingly be relocated to, if it were possible, even if you could never come back? And, while we’re at it, what about the importance of location, even over time itself? Who and where would you like to be? Just what is it about other eras? Ah, the intrigue! To say nothing of the underlying connection.

FIRST, YOU READ

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

As long as I can remember, I’ve been a reader, thanks, especially, to a third-grade teacher who got it rolling and a fifth-grade teacher who extended the Landmark history volumes. Robinson Crusoe, Tom Sawyer, Gulliver’s Travels were all early triumphs. Curiously, Huckleberry Finn was easier at age nine than it was as required reading at seventeen; the second time around, the dialect was more difficult to handle. My general interests, however, soon veered from history to chemistry until the writing bug hit me through a very demanding high school sophomore year English teacher who drilled grammar so thoroughly we were diagramming 250-word sentences and arguing our alternative versions. She also solidified a tentative curiosity in my enrolling in journalism the next year, which wound up leading to my career path. In my senior year, when I was editor-in-chief of the high school newspaper, another English teacher confidently insisted, “You know why you write.” Followed by, “Yes, you do.”

In truth, I’ve never quite been sure what her answer would have been. I assumed she saw a desire to be noticed or appear important. But that’s not what I would have answered. I was, after all, a skinny intellectual in a school that valued football and basketball players. Moreover, my father’s side of the family – the ones I knew, since my mother’s parents had both died before my birth and the rest of her blood relations were in Missouri – had little use for either art or learning for its own sake. They were a practical, God-fearing people where a gift in language would be best employed as a preacher. (Lawyers were another matter.) Only after my father’s death did I learn he had once dreamed of being a sportswriter or the pride he took in my work as a professional journalist. When that flash connected with my grandfather’s saving copies of all of the Dayton Journal and Herald newspapers from the World War II era (“Someday they’ll be valuable”) and his mother’s lifetime of meticulous reading of the daily news could I finally perceive their approval in what I had come to see as a low-paying, and increasingly low-status,  occupation.

From them I also carry a deeply ingrained sense of social responsibility, one in which my personal relationships are often motivated more by duty than love. Here, then, my leap in concern from history to politics would seem natural. Little wonder the novels Animal Farm, Brave New World, and 1984 re-ignited a passion for fiction and what the written word can do. Politics is also the mother lode of journalism, especially for those of us who believe progress is possible through civic action. And so I might have answered Miss Hyle’s statement with, “I write to improve the world.”

~*~

(How audacious that sounds now, more than four decades later. How innocent, too.)

~*~

What she may have seen was unmistakable ambition – a desire to win for the sake of winning, apart from being noticed or appearing important, regardless of the game at hand. Winning as an act of self-affirmation. Winning as the reward for solving the puzzle faster than your rivals. With or without the laurels, trophy, or monument.

Secretly, though, there has been the hunger for a monument, the book in every home or library, the paperback cover in the supermarket and drugstore, the repeated praise in the New York Times Book Review section. Even, at one early point, the aspiration to have not just volumes of poetry and fiction but a play or musical on Broadway as well.

But then the plot thickened.

And how.

AN EXTENDED VIEW OF MY OWN VOLUMES

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

It’s now been 12 months since my first ebook appeared at Smashwords – a list that now presents six of my novels and a full-length poetry collection. That’s in addition to my poetry chapbooks appearing at other presses.

First, I want to thank all of you for your support and encouragement. What you’re seeing is the fruition of a lifetime of writing that’s now, finally, coming to light. I cannot imagine trying to write seriously without a desire to share it with others – especially when I hear you tell of ways it speaks of your own experiences or sparks related memories.

I also want to acknowledge the fact that these are not works I could write today, not for a decline in ability but rather because each of us evolves and changes over time. My energies, inspirations, perspectives, and focus are different now than they were 10, 20, 30, or 40 years ago. I look at these works and find much that is wonderfully baroque or surreal or passionately intense and realize I’m in a much different sensibility today – yes, I’m happy to have these souvenirs from the journey, these touchstones and treasures, but they come from my younger years and their visions and even the different companions who shared my life back then, in contrast to the household I cherish now. More than ever, I’m ever-so-grateful I set aside the time over the years to draft and revise then, rather than waiting for my retirement years as so many wannabe writers do.

Let me just say there’s much more coming in the next 12 months.

And thank you.

THE YEAR 1980

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The earth itself is set to erupt.

~*~

Thunder pealed again, and everybody packed up. Outside, Roddy and Erik danced in the eerie dusk. A soft drumming in trees sounded like drizzle, but instead of water, powder fell. Everyone appeared amazed, even elated. Weren’t we fortunate to have a volcano blow up in our face! Then Jaya recalled history: “Oh, Pompeii! Will guides conduct tours here, showing the world exactly how we victims perished? Is this the way our world will end?” Something gripped her, insisting they get home or die in the effort. She dragged Erik, protesting, to the car and raced through the grit. Autos in front of them were invisible, even their taillights, until Jaya was almost atop them. The ink blot overhead closed in on the far horizon, sealing off the last natural light. Plunging through this tar-paper snowfall on a route they knew so well, Jaya recalled the many times she had joked about being able to drive it blindfolded.

Promise~*~

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

AN ILLUMINATING DIALOGUE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

I’ve suggested meeting with some of the historic Friends sitting on our meeting library shelves, and mentioned the possibility of finding one or two who converse intimately with you, usually in the English of another era. (I’ve seen this happen rather frequently, even if it takes time to find the unique voice.) In this sense, one or two may become timeless companions in your inward growth. Or maybe an old Quake is simply a mentor along the way.

Knowing them can also help us as a PEOPLE of faith. Their range of experiences and concerns provides insights into other streams of Friends today, as Dover Friends have found in our relationship with Cuban Quakers. It also gives us a basis for renewed dialogue on everything from worship and teaching to outreach and social justice issues. We quietist Friends have as much to learn from Evangelical Friends as they do from us – even as we explore our branching out from the same powerful roots.

I’ll leave this for now, saying only that in digging for Quaker roots, it’s possible to find yourself jolted, like grabbing onto a live wire. And who knows where that will lead.

*   *   *

Now, for an update. For ease of convenience, let me point you to overviews of these earlier Friends, all at my As Light Is Sown blog: