BIBLIOGRIND
The Life of a Wordsmith — Read … Live … Write
Archive for March, 2009
March 31, 2009 at 7:14 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
Gray matte skies have cleared. Spring has come to Prague. All this week the sun is forecasted to shine, with highs in the sixties by Friday, and Saturday upper 60s. This past weekend there were no green buds on the trees and few of the bushes. By sundown Sunday I expect to see actual LEAVES spread like children’s hands.
I sat in Vysehrad’s park today after learning of a late cancellation (cha-ching!), and continued reading Iris Murdoch’s THE SEA, THE SEA. I think I snoozed for a few minutes, too.
Obama will be in Prague on Friday or Saturday. If I here that he’ll be at the castle for something, I think I’ll trundle on over and see if I can catch a glimpse.
March 28, 2009 at 7:14 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
South of central Prague, high on a hillside overlooking the city and the Vltava River, Vysehrad is a park made out of the castle grounds of Prague’s first palace. Built in the 10th century, legend has it that this is the spot on which Slavic tribes first settled in what was to become Praha. You can see large format pics at my flickr page.
Today you have stunning views from the high ramparts looking onto the Vltava as it bends from the south and curls northward. Now a park, with a couple cafés, restaurants, and the cathedral of St Peter and St Paul (including a cemetery with well-known Czech subterranean residents: Antonin Dvorak, Karel Capek, Alfons Mucha, and Jan Neruda).
The castle is close to a metro stop, and if you walk down through the lower gate, you can also catch the tram back onto Wenceslaus Square. Vysehrad will be a sunny place to go for a walk between my Wednesday a.m. classes as spring gains traction.
March 26, 2009 at 9:41 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
Near the city library on Mariánské náměstí, just around the corner, is the international marionette society’s museum and theater. This month they’re staging “Don Giovani”. This puppet org is well known in Europe, where puppeteering is quite big and popular. You’ll find puppet shows in Copenhagen and Berlin, Florence and Prague. The whole idea of modern marionette shows are based on old Italian children’s theatre of the 17th century.
Prague has dozens of marionette shops, where you can buy small (GI JOE-size) puppets of Harry Potter, Einstein, or Good King Wenceslaus; and you can buy traditional puppet types such as a hand-carved devil, or an old witch, or a Don Quixote in full knight’s costume (each the size of a ten-year-old child).
Above the marionette society’s doorway is a metal cast of popular characters found in many plays: the jester, the knight errant, the damsel, the bergermeister. What I see, some days, are jennifer and matt, julie and lester, mike and kayla and meg and ben and dylan and andrea … and mom & dad. And myself. Ha … ha … ha!
Who do you recognize? …..
March 23, 2009 at 12:11 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
THE VILLAGE WIT is done. I finished Saturday afternoon, and because there was no one to party with on short notice (people here need time to plan!) I went down to the store and got a bottle of champagne and some KFC. While true celebration was in order, this would have to do.
The next day I was hung over. And today I’m fighting a second cold in two weeks. Fucking Czech winter just won’t go away, and people with walking plague are far too numerous. But I’m happy after two hits of Aleeve and a half-gallon of juice.
So now the “hard” part begins with the book: finding an agent and/or publisher. Researching agents whose sensibilities match my writing is easy enough, and I’ve developed a short & to-the-point letter. But the market is slow now, and often it’s the case of people not knowing what they want until they see what they don’t want. This goes for agents, mostly, who, I’ve found, get 200+ letters each week. Imagine deliberating on which 50 pages you want to see of what book. There are just so many hours in the day.
I’m confident in the characters, the story, and the writing. But I’m still tinkering, such as writers are apt to do when another thought, a different metaphor, a striking word, crosses the mind.
March 17, 2009 at 9:49 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
I’ve put chapter one of my new novel, The Village Wit, up on this site (see pages link). It’s supposed to tease agents and publishers, or at least those I lure to the link. I’ve got to finish this book and not look at it for a long, long time. I find myself changed sentences around based on punctuation. That describes the finish line.
March 17, 2009 at 8:38 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
The Lion’s Head restaurant (Lví Dvur) is just beyond Hradcany castle’s moat gates. The building dates to before Columbus “discovered” America. The mayor of Prague and the Czech president both call it their favorite restaurant. And today, since Prof. Kriz does a lot of his law business inside the Lion’s Head (some of which includes the mayor and the president), he wanted to take me to lunch so we could talk all things gastronomic.
The Lion’s Head has several salon rooms, whose decor can be described as “19th Century parlor” style. Prof Kriz and I had a small salan to ourselves: corner-standing grandfather clock, two plank tables from the 10th C (my guess; i’d love to have one of those puppies for a desk!), padded Queen Anne-style chairs (actually, maybe Anne herself sat in one of them), photos of Prague on the walls, fruit still-life prints over the buffet table, and windows overlooking the royals gardens. We had a couple waiters a sommelier, too. Light Jazz played over the sound system.
I rolled through the terms we English speakers use when dining finely, including: “place setting”, “silverware” (same service we used in Apple Canyon for about 15 yrs), “champagne flute” (in which we began the occasion with kir royale), “ambience” (already mentioned), “warming trivet” (on which my roasted piglet lay, its skin ‘crakl’n’ just fine), “ice bucket” (in which an Austrian chardonnay chilled: “It’s not quiet cold enough, is it?” Prof. Kriz suggested. “I think it needs to cool another two or three degrees.” To which I answered: “I like my blondes chilled, but not frigid.” He got the joke.)
Prof Kriz is a genuinely warm man who enjoys keeping up with English nomenclature, idioms, and all things international. He regularly meets foreign dignitaries, and the common language is English (unless the common language is German or Russian, both pocket languages for him). I meet with Prof Kriz weekly for an hour “lesson,” which center around themes: one week, travel (Russia; the Alps; NYC; Rome); the next might be religion influence on American politics; we also discuss literature, museums, education, politics, government, and art. (In June I’m to meet the granddaughter of Alphonse Mucha, the famous Czech art deco illustrator, when she will exhibit some of her art deco-inspired jewelry design at Prof Kriz’s law office). But today was special, and I’ve learned that he enjoys opening Czech culture to me for the equitable trade of bantering about city/country/continental/world issues.
March 13, 2009 at 7:33 am · Filed under The Prague Blog
That was last night’s theme at the National Museum. My high-profile lawyer student invited me to an event celebrating Czechoslovakia’s first republic, 1918-1938. Rare film footage, artifacts from family life (high society, middle class, and working poor), military uniforms and medals, and the three surviving documents for the 1938 Munich Agreement, which ceded the Sudetenland to Hitler’s Nazi-controlled Germany.
Mr Kriz and his partner held this gala for 200 guests, drawn from government, business, the arts, and … me. I felt like Larry Kroger in Animal House, when he pledges at the high-end fraternity. Mr Kriz holds my arm, deftly pointing out some of the notables: there’s Mrs So-and-So, first lady of the Ministery of Culture, and over by the champagne table you’ll notice Mr X, CEO of Skoda automotive, and oh-oh look! Here comes Mr Z, the world-famous artist.
It was nice of Mr Kriz to invite his English Teacher to the event, but that’s his special ability that has helped build his law firm to the most renown in the country: bringing people of diverse backgrounds together to party, exchange ideas, and maybe make a deal.
March 10, 2009 at 7:14 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
I’m pretty good at fighting a cold (a present battle): I quickly make a batch of chicken soup; I rest and drink liquids; I stay warm when outside; I make my students talk more during class. But like much of daily life nowadays, Czech wisdom reaches up to affect my normal processes.
Case in point … my 8am student this morning offered me coffee, as usual (and usually I accept), but today I suggested water only, as I had a bit of a sore throat.”Then you need some whiskey!” he declared. I checked my watch: 8:01 a.m. “Isn’t it a bit early?” I asked. He shook his head, giving me a sternly avuncular look. “You need medicine. So?”
So. Sure, why not.
He went out to his admin and requested some “medicine” be brought in. And in it came: a nice double shot of Irish whiskey. Of course he joined me. Preventative medicine, I’m sure he was thinking.
In fact, I felt better by the end of the hour. Is there any wonder why?
March 8, 2009 at 9:50 am · Filed under The Prague Blog
I have been asked and have asked if, when writing a novel, I write it from beginning to end, as a linear project. Yesterday while reading through the novel, I began to think about how I had put this story together.
Richard & Peggy’s story came to me in a sort of flash, back a few years ago, images of two people, moments together moments alone; buildings, objects, nature (an English town; a bookstore; a cup used for tea); and voices, words used when they speak how they speak what they say. But the writing came in bits and pieces, based on imaginative thinking about how and when and where and why, which produces scenes as varied as “the ending” (pretty much as I saw it three years ago); quotes taken from books I saw characters talking about; sexual encounters and how to get those on the page with care, wit, titilation and interest; how people see each other and think about what people do how they do it and why (the interior lives we lead 99% of our wakeful lives).
So to answer the original question, No, I did not write the story linearly; at least not at first. Maybe this is obvious, but maybe not: how can you write so far ahead when you’re not sure what happened in the past? Good question. And … I can only say its a process like dreaming (or day-dreaming, really; even fantasizing), and fitting the sections together like a puzzle: you see a bunch of blue pieces that you separate and keep to one side; you find all the edges and fit them together, etc etc. Except that puzzles use all the pieces, and as writer I can throw away scenes that don’t work or are redundant or whatnot. Finally, through the course of rewriting (I’m on the 5th draft, technically speaking), you see how it all works out. More or less.
I also recalled how film makers, and actors especially, talk about their projects. All those involved know the arc of the story, the characters and events, the emotions needed to pull it off to create art, or at least entertainment. Actors often don’t see the complete beginning-to-end story until the final cut. They are sometimes surprised at the outcome, when all is pulled together.
For obvious reasons of time, location, etc, scenes are not shot in story sequence; I wrote many novel scenes, the major moments of action, drama, and discovery, in random order (random according to when they leaped into mind — for instance a fully fleshed scene came to me in the middle of lunch at a Gozo seaside restaurant, for which I needed to order a second bottle of wine and write for the next 2hrs as the world and tourists passed by). So then, reading through THE VILLAGE WIT a final time, I realize I have put together a layer cake, in which each layer is a puzzle that itself had to be pieced together from seemingly random (but utlimately patterned) moments in character lives.
If all of this seems like the hard way to write a novel, I was interested to learn that it’s in fact how many authors work. Fitzgerald wrote quickly to make a story, and then took months and months to rewrite extensively to create what we are left to read; Roth pains over the first 8 months of every novel, knowing that he is in uncharted waters and simply writing to find direction and the story. That knowledge itself helped me keep writing (and rewriting) on days when the story and the writing looked and sounded like shit. In fact, this is a new way for me to write, all-at-once-writing, and it has proved itself the best way for me to get at, get inside, get working, and get to the finish line of a story. In the past, trying to write linearly has made me stop writing more often, wondering where the story is to go next. Now I don’t care, because I see ahead, I see behind, I see laterally and internally.
If daily “jobs” and “making a living” were this hard, I’d have killed myself a long time ago. Oddly perhaps, then, I find the challenge of writing the only work worth engaging in that doesn’t completely bore me into adding mortal sin onto the fun-sin I already enjoy.
