I got a drunk dial from a fan today; she stumbled upon this blog and liked what she saw. If you're sober and you found your way back here, and somehow STILL liked what you saw, you get a shoutout; Greetings fine lady! You absolutely made my day.
Moving on.
It's a quiet night, haven't had one of those in a long time. I finally got to finish American Gods, and I take back most of what I said about it. It took its sweetass time coming together and I gotta say it came together quite beautifully. I knew my faith in Neil Gaiman shouldn't have wavered, but we're all human after all. Falter we do, and falter I did. Forgive me, oh Gaiman. In all your Gaimaness, you've outgaimaned yourself. *Curtsies and scuttles out of royal court*
Bit of an afterthought, I think the main reason why it took so long to hit home with me was because I already believed in most of what he was trying to say throughout the book. It wasn't that it was betrayed by its premise, it was the fact that it took him 90% of the book trying to build an argument for everybody else, then in the last 80 pages came the long drawn-out breath of AHA! Only it wasn't an "AHA!" for me, more of a "Heh, I see what you did there." I kind of envy all the shitheads that Neil Gaiman converted through this book, or even the ones who weren't all that confused that he gave something to think about; building seeds of doubt on the expanse between what is and what isn't, sprouting several could be's out of the cracks. You lucky fuckers, you got an epic on your hands. Here's to hoping his arguments aren't wasted on you. I wish I'd read this book 4 or 5 years back, when I was a shithead myself. That would have been nice.
Having missed out on the full-effect of this book, what really got to me were the acknowledgements at the end. It was a little something he mentioned while thanking all the people involved. I'll get to that in a bit, let me copy part of it here before I fangirl.
Perhaps it wouldn't resonate with you the same way it did with me, but that's what being a writer is all about. Hemingway said it; "You just sit at a typewriter and bleed." Now, it's gonna get a little cliche starting here so bear with me.
How did writing start out? What was the first person thinking about when he sat down and wrote the first manuscript known to man? What made neanderthals get the urge to scribble on the cave walls? It wasn't all ego, it wasn't all a matter of record. (The first cave man wouldn't have known he'd die or multiply until he got there, probably by accident.) The way I see it, it was awe. Perhaps the only way writers are different from the rest of the people is the way they're always outsiders; they're always very conscious of their nature as vessels, and they're always struggling to document every aspect of the human condition. They struggle against word limitations, against abstract sensations that don't quite have semantic vehicles to transfer that exact experience to another human being. In a lot of ways, a writer is a child trapped in an adult's body, pointing at things and tugging at his companions' sleeves so they could see it too.
He's not the first or last person to get there, a lot of writers mastered delivering ideas, others mastered delivering ideas and feelings, other make money by expertly sending the reader on an emotional rollercoaster (Looking at you, Stephen King. You big cheat.) Few, though, got past those, and into that place where great, honest writing comes out. Borrowing a term from American Gods, I guess the only way you could describe it is this: They slipped into the backstage. And we all know what happens to mortals when they slip backstage.
And a lot of authors went mad in that process; they went mad trying to contain the human condition using various combinations of 26 petty letters on lacking, 2 dimensional paper sheets. The process is exhausting, frustrating and in a lot of ways excruciating, but the worst part about it to writers - and I mean real writers, not commercial writers or professional word smiths - is that the process is also needy. It pulls at you, it takes a lot out of you, and it consumes you. It makes you vulnerable, it stretches your confines threadbare and it makes you very conscious of what you're failing to pin down. It demands to be carried out, even if it takes you out with it. Pages and years are spent, and you still feel mute, because some things just can't be put down. Not with the tools we have at our expense anyway.
And god, the pang of it.
What he said is a direct symptom of that. Which brings me to my next point; I now know exactly what I like about Gaiman, in all his lacking present ways, it's that he tries. And he sometimes touches upon great truths - visceral, intellectual, subliminal, emotional or what have you - that weren't communicated before. And for all intents and purposes, he doesn't completely miss. He doesn't deliver the whole picture, and in his groping for words he may not have chosen the right ones, but I get some sense of the image, a fading impression, a threshold outline, albeit out of focus or distorted, and it hits home.
There were a couple of other parts in the acknowledgement section that got to me. I found myself thinking about his next book. Not about it per se, but rather about how Terry won't be there to pick up the phone if he hits a stubborn knot in the plot. At the expense of sounding like an obsessed creep, their friendship was fragile, co-dependent, and the combination of both their minds tuned them in to frequencies that the rest of us mortals can't hope to listen in on, not even with dog ears sown on. This by no way implies that any of them is less of a writer than the other one, but when they came together they produced lightening bolts. It will never be the same, will it?
It hurt to register that Terry is gone. In a lot of ways, pathetic as it may seem to you, it still hurts. I hadn't registered it till then, and it took that line to make it real.
The acknowledgement also got me daydreaming around the part he mentioned his friend let him lease out the house to write in. We don't have that kind of culture in here; the culture of taking care of an author along on his way down inspiration lane. It was heartwarming, reading about how a community came together to help him write this book.
Excuse my fangirling, I assure you I'm sane. Although you may have caught a glimpse of the hopeless romantic inside of me that I keep chained away in a dungeon, down in the shadows and depths of myself, away from prying eyes.
The acknowledgement section was another long, drawn-out sigh of relief in its own way. I guess I didn't leave empty-handed after all, even if a little unconventionally.
Moving on.
It's a quiet night, haven't had one of those in a long time. I finally got to finish American Gods, and I take back most of what I said about it. It took its sweetass time coming together and I gotta say it came together quite beautifully. I knew my faith in Neil Gaiman shouldn't have wavered, but we're all human after all. Falter we do, and falter I did. Forgive me, oh Gaiman. In all your Gaimaness, you've outgaimaned yourself. *Curtsies and scuttles out of royal court*
Bit of an afterthought, I think the main reason why it took so long to hit home with me was because I already believed in most of what he was trying to say throughout the book. It wasn't that it was betrayed by its premise, it was the fact that it took him 90% of the book trying to build an argument for everybody else, then in the last 80 pages came the long drawn-out breath of AHA! Only it wasn't an "AHA!" for me, more of a "Heh, I see what you did there." I kind of envy all the shitheads that Neil Gaiman converted through this book, or even the ones who weren't all that confused that he gave something to think about; building seeds of doubt on the expanse between what is and what isn't, sprouting several could be's out of the cracks. You lucky fuckers, you got an epic on your hands. Here's to hoping his arguments aren't wasted on you. I wish I'd read this book 4 or 5 years back, when I was a shithead myself. That would have been nice.
Having missed out on the full-effect of this book, what really got to me were the acknowledgements at the end. It was a little something he mentioned while thanking all the people involved. I'll get to that in a bit, let me copy part of it here before I fangirl.
"It’s been a long book, and a long journey, and I owe many people a great deal.
Mrs. Hawley lent me her Florida house to write in, and all I had to do in return was scare away the vultures. She lent me her Irish house to finish it in and cautioned me not to scare away the ghosts. My thanks to her and Mr. Hawley for all their kindness and generosity. Jonathan and Jane lent me their house and hammock to write in, and all I had to do was fish the occasional peculiar Floridian beastie out of the lizard pool.
I’m very grateful to them all. Dan Johnson, M.D., gave me medical information whenever I needed it, pointed out stray and unintentional anglicisms (everybody else did this as well), answered the oddest questions, and, on one July day, even flew me around northern Wisconsin in a tiny plane. In addition to keeping my life going by proxy while I wrote this book, my assistant, the fabulous Lorraine Garland, became very blasé about finding out the population of small American towns for me; I’m still not sure quite how she did it. (She’s part of a band called The Flash Girls; buy their new record, Play Each Morning, Wild Queen, and make her happy.) Terry Pratchett helped unlock a knotty plot point for me on the train to Gothenburg."And here it is, "In addition to keeping my life going by proxy while I wrote this book...", that's what got to me.
Perhaps it wouldn't resonate with you the same way it did with me, but that's what being a writer is all about. Hemingway said it; "You just sit at a typewriter and bleed." Now, it's gonna get a little cliche starting here so bear with me.
How did writing start out? What was the first person thinking about when he sat down and wrote the first manuscript known to man? What made neanderthals get the urge to scribble on the cave walls? It wasn't all ego, it wasn't all a matter of record. (The first cave man wouldn't have known he'd die or multiply until he got there, probably by accident.) The way I see it, it was awe. Perhaps the only way writers are different from the rest of the people is the way they're always outsiders; they're always very conscious of their nature as vessels, and they're always struggling to document every aspect of the human condition. They struggle against word limitations, against abstract sensations that don't quite have semantic vehicles to transfer that exact experience to another human being. In a lot of ways, a writer is a child trapped in an adult's body, pointing at things and tugging at his companions' sleeves so they could see it too.
He's not the first or last person to get there, a lot of writers mastered delivering ideas, others mastered delivering ideas and feelings, other make money by expertly sending the reader on an emotional rollercoaster (Looking at you, Stephen King. You big cheat.) Few, though, got past those, and into that place where great, honest writing comes out. Borrowing a term from American Gods, I guess the only way you could describe it is this: They slipped into the backstage. And we all know what happens to mortals when they slip backstage.
And a lot of authors went mad in that process; they went mad trying to contain the human condition using various combinations of 26 petty letters on lacking, 2 dimensional paper sheets. The process is exhausting, frustrating and in a lot of ways excruciating, but the worst part about it to writers - and I mean real writers, not commercial writers or professional word smiths - is that the process is also needy. It pulls at you, it takes a lot out of you, and it consumes you. It makes you vulnerable, it stretches your confines threadbare and it makes you very conscious of what you're failing to pin down. It demands to be carried out, even if it takes you out with it. Pages and years are spent, and you still feel mute, because some things just can't be put down. Not with the tools we have at our expense anyway.
And god, the pang of it.
What he said is a direct symptom of that. Which brings me to my next point; I now know exactly what I like about Gaiman, in all his lacking present ways, it's that he tries. And he sometimes touches upon great truths - visceral, intellectual, subliminal, emotional or what have you - that weren't communicated before. And for all intents and purposes, he doesn't completely miss. He doesn't deliver the whole picture, and in his groping for words he may not have chosen the right ones, but I get some sense of the image, a fading impression, a threshold outline, albeit out of focus or distorted, and it hits home.
There were a couple of other parts in the acknowledgement section that got to me. I found myself thinking about his next book. Not about it per se, but rather about how Terry won't be there to pick up the phone if he hits a stubborn knot in the plot. At the expense of sounding like an obsessed creep, their friendship was fragile, co-dependent, and the combination of both their minds tuned them in to frequencies that the rest of us mortals can't hope to listen in on, not even with dog ears sown on. This by no way implies that any of them is less of a writer than the other one, but when they came together they produced lightening bolts. It will never be the same, will it?
It hurt to register that Terry is gone. In a lot of ways, pathetic as it may seem to you, it still hurts. I hadn't registered it till then, and it took that line to make it real.
The acknowledgement also got me daydreaming around the part he mentioned his friend let him lease out the house to write in. We don't have that kind of culture in here; the culture of taking care of an author along on his way down inspiration lane. It was heartwarming, reading about how a community came together to help him write this book.
Excuse my fangirling, I assure you I'm sane. Although you may have caught a glimpse of the hopeless romantic inside of me that I keep chained away in a dungeon, down in the shadows and depths of myself, away from prying eyes.
The acknowledgement section was another long, drawn-out sigh of relief in its own way. I guess I didn't leave empty-handed after all, even if a little unconventionally.
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