Stories

llustration by Maja Misevic-Kokar, from “One Thousand And One Nights” (2 volumes), translated from French into Serbian by Stanislav Vinaver, published by Matica Srpska, Novi Sad, 1989.

But you’ve always had faith in stories?

It is what I do. I mean, if you are a carpenter you have faith in carpentry.

~Salman Rushdie interview by Tim Adams, Observer, 26/06/11

One has to have faith in stories to write stories. How simple an idea, how deep an idea. If one believes in the power of the narrative, that the act of telling a story can have significance, then how easier is the writer’s task. Instead of imagining you’re groping in the dark, foolishly scribbling away instead of getting a real job, you can imagine purpose. Oscar Wilde aside, we don’t value pleasure for itself. And he was no work shirker.

Placing storytelling the context of a craft, viable as building a house, farming the land, healing the sick, is dangerously marvelous. It implies that we have a need for a possibility spun by imagination that fulfills a void in our lives. Can a story save a life? It can shape a life.

Post Script: The Private Patient was very good.

http://www.studiomama.com/bookshelf.html

What I’m Reading Now

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Getting a copy of a novel you’ve read by one of your favorite authors must be one of those treats like ice cream on a hot afternoon. I stumbled across a discounted hardback of P.D. James’ The Private Patient, published in 2008. What was I doing in 2008? Why did I not pick up this plum immediately? In the bookstore, I asked myself, had I read this before? I must have read this before. But Callooh! Callay! I had not. So in I plunged immediately to the check out.

P.D.James is ninety-one, which means she might have been eighty-seven when she wrote this. Already having written seventeen novels, after a full career of British government work, here is another Adam Dalgleish mystery, featuring the Scotland Yard poet detective. The comfort and range of creating a character, building his life, and those of his colleagues must be enormously pleasurable; it brings to mind the razor-sharp Dorothy Sayers and her world of Lord Peter Wimsey.

The appeal of British village mysteries, with their murders contained in an affable world, more affable because we know the mystery will be solved, the motives laid bare, maybe is akin to being inside a cozy home while the rainstorm rages outside. That was my experience last night. It may not be her best novel, but it is certainly a good one so far.

Image from The Art Journal The Industry of All Nations Illustrated Catalogue(London: Bradbury and Evans, 1851); http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/71600/71689/71689_ribbon_cup.htm

It’s Raining Men–I mean, Pollen

Outside, the wind rained pollen as if a laughing god was giving presents to allergy sufferers. It can take three years for a body to become allergic to local pollen, so the place called home suddenly becomes a place to keep the windows shut. Can July’s heat stop the shower?

The rose bush started to bloom–vivid red.

Kate Bush has a new album.

Here is an old song of hers:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xd08fs_kate-bush-wuthering-heights-lyrics_music

Here are the Weather Girls:

Nostalgia just kicks in.

I dreamed that a group of writers were being made take-away lunches in wraps shaped like cornucopias. While the chef busily tells a story, the writers quickly look at one another and one by one take their meals away in a bag. A famous writer carries away three wraps, ready for serious work.