Tag Archives: Iowa Summer Writing Festival

Anna Karenina (first four parts)

30 Sunday Sep 2012

Posted by in Good Reads

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I can’t remember what we were talking about last July in class, when the thread of discussion turned to Tolstoy’s, Anna Karenina.

But two things I do recall.  One, that I was the only student, out of a class of twelve, to confess I’d never read it.  And two, how ready I became to read it, upon hearing my writing instructor’s passionate response:

  “Don’t deny yourself this pleasure.”

What else shall I say, dear reader, about my delicious splurge in reading this novel? The one I’ve had to set aside, with great gnashing of teeth, for a few days in order to satisfy other commitments.

One thing for sure, I’ve no interest in summarizing the narrative dream created by Count Tolstoy’s delightful tale.  I know my limits.  I cannot do it justice.

But I can’t say enough about how much I admire Tolstoy’s ability to transport me to late nineteenth century Russia, to make me feel as if I’m eavesdropping on everyday conversations on matters of the heart.  And not just love and marriage and divorce — but rather, it seems, anything and everything that could be of passionate concern and interest to 1870‘s nobility: The many references to then contemporary artists; the philosophical discussions and scholarly arguments about theology and communism; heated exchanges about women’s rights and education of the masses; the colorful mishmash of opinions on best agricultural practices in the face of a Russian labor force entrenched in old ways of doing things; even spiritual practices and devotion are touched upon.

Gosh, it just feels so relevant.  Is there truly nothing new under the Sun?

And the way he writes, in such intimate tones, as if he were telling the story to me alone.

And the writing skill he draws upon in using contrasts of threes, in order to paint readers a huge canvas of Russian life.  We have three couples, in various stages of marital bliss.  Or not.  Three vocations:  Gentlemen farmer, government bureaucrat and career military.  Three locales. Two cities, Moscow and Saint Petersburg.  And some slice of heaven somewhere far out in the rural farmlands where some of my favorite passages have laid.  LIke this one, told from Levin’s point-of-view:

“Spring is the time of plans and projects.  And, going out to the yard, Levin, like a tree in spring, not yet knowing where and how its young shoots and branches, still confined in swollen buds, will grow, did not himself know very well which parts of his beloved estate he would occupy himself with now, but felt that he was filled with the very best plan and projects.”   [page 153, Penguin Books, 2000, translation by Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky]

Oh, I understand Levin, well, because I too, am Levin.

So, now, as I put aside my novel, I console myself that I am no worse off than Anna Karenina’s original readers, who also were forced to do without, while waiting in between, for the next installment to be published. Why I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that they, like us, took time to share thoughts between reading installments.

And though it will be lovely someday to reread Anna, for now I feel darn lucky to be a new reader.  Because I can’t say what will happen next!

Why the whole being on the edge of my seat thing reminds me a lot of following Downton Abbey.

 — POP OVER TO RIPPLE EFFECTS TO READ ARTI’S REVIEW AND FOR LINKS THAT WILL CONNECT YOU TO REVIEWS OF OTHERS.

Spelling Bees and Such

08 Wednesday Aug 2012

Posted by in Life at Home

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This side of the Iowa Summer Writing Festival, writing is grand except when it’s not.

For the record, yesterday was definitely a ‘NOT” sort of day.  Which means I know I should have given it up and enjoyed my latest Richard Russo novel.  But, no.  I kept banging away at the keyboard  — like a fool in pursuit of fool’s gold —  drawing line after line of gibberish, circling back and forth, top to bottom, until,  — TA-DA — Five Golden Rings.  I mean, five digital pages.

What can I say?  I was on a mad dive to reach that illusory end of my introductory chapter —  (Version 7.0) — which meant I was acting like a hawk ready to pounce on a cat.

Setting aside for a moment whether hawks can actually pounce on cats (or whether, the pouncing, in fact, works in reverse order, as it does with smaller birds — sparrows, titmice, cardinal and mourning doves…), the word ‘cat’ is the very place I wish to pounce upon myself, because by the end of yesterday, spelling first-grade words like C-A-T felt WAY out of my reach.

Yesterday, I slapped away at that keyboard for eight horrible hours.  Okay, maybe it was ten.  The point is that I knew I was typing crap, I knew that very few lines were keepers, but I kept working anyway.  Why, if my husband hadn’t sounded the gong to let me know that women’s gymnastics was on the family room telly, I might have written another two hours.  Or more.

There are two things about my watching women’s gymnastics last night that I found helpful to my writing life.  One was just sitting like the proverbial couch potato with my mouth wide open. Yes, like the rest of the Summer Olympic television audience, I was under the spell of those young women from Romania and Russia and China and Great Britain and the U.S.A.

I mean, did you happen to catch those circles that they wrote with their bodies?  In the air while landing on a four-inch wooden apparatus  — making it all seem like child’s play?  Except, of course, for those who were having a bad writing day.  Like me. These I saw missing the plank and landing on the floor. Kerplunk.

Medal-winning performances are grand, of course, but I found myself admiring the fallen gymnasts more.  Especially as I watched them pick up their disappointed selves and stiffen their resolve and climb up and finish their circles on top of that straight thin line, even though they knew there would be no medals for them, at the end of their fabulous circling dismounts.  Except for the one who landed on her buns.

The second thing about my television break that i found helpful came from grabbing one of my favorite inspirational writing books by Ann Lamott, which I began to read again, between gymnastic routines.  It’s called bird by bird, and if you’ve never had the pleasure, I heartily recommend it for your writing life.  The book is hilarious.  HILARIOUS.  Especially the part where Lamott waxes poetic over the need for shitty first drafts.  I went to bed last night feeling a little more hopeful than I otherwise would have, thanks to that creative break, which felt sort of like a coaching session.

And this morning?  Well, today I woke into a great writing life.  Not only could I spell C-A-T but sometimes, I was also able to spell C-A-T-I-P-I-L-L-A-R.  And once, though it was a long way off, I could almost catch a glimpse of what those digital scribbles on the page might one day become.  After its chrysalis break-through.

I also decided, this morning, that I would no longer write to o’dark hundred any day of the week.  And today, I slipped, and worked to 3:14.  But from here on out, it’s a 9 a.m  to 3 p.m writing schedule for me — and I’ll write within this carved block of time, whether it means six hours of writing or something much less.

No matter what.

No matter what birds or bees or cats or caterpillars or hawks might be circling around my mind or page that I feel the need to chase.  And at the other end of the balance beam, no matter what wicked witches from Kansas (or neighboring corn-growing states like Iowa?), might be writing nasty messages —  in circles, with their broomsticks in the sky — beginning with the word,  S-U-R-R-E-N-D-E-R.

Surrender?  Never.  No matter what.  Unless it’s another day like yesterday.

Pencils & Prose & Who Knows

23 Monday Jul 2012

Posted by in Life at Home

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This past week in Iowa, at points, has felt as hot as Hades.  Which may explain why, this second time around, the Iowa Summer Writing Festival has reminded me a little of those charismatic tent revivals of my youth.

Not because it was the Festival’s business or even their intent to save souls or inspire folks to immerse themselves in the baptismal waters of the word.  Nor was it  — where these two acts, in previous meetings had not accomplished the ‘write’ trick — to pray folks out of their hard, unforgiving pews to walk down to the altar for a very public re-dedication to the word.

What this means, in part, is that I never once encountered anything akin to the eternal drone of words, heard from upon high, more effective than Sominex,  — that when mixed with occasional outbursts of fervent hallelujahs — worked upon me like a buzzing alarm clock.  Nor did I have need to entertain myself in meetings by passing down folded-up notes to friends —  or occupying myself with rolled-up paper to swat flies and mosquitoes lighting on my sweaty skin — though it’s true our classroom’s air-conditioning was broken during the two hottest days of the week.

All this, of course, is a way of saying that the week in Iowa has been beyond the wonder of dreams.  That I found better uses for paper and lived like a monk on retreat from the world, shying away from all forms of amusement except what rose out of the working of words. And that while no one set out to save me from my lazy and distracted self, maybe it happened anyway.   Because  — and God help me to articulate it — this morning I feel much like I did when I was seven and freshly “saved” — thanks to those lovely church ladies of summer vacation bible school — after I walked down the altar and walked away a little confused.  I was at a loss for words when folks, then, asked me about it afterward.   Then, I didn’t know what to say because I didn’t quite know what had happened, if anything — where now, I don’t know what to say because I don’t know what has happened, if anything.

So unlike Moses, while I leave a sacred place, I do so without trekking down any mountaintops with stone table of commandments in my hand.  Instead, I tip-toe away quiet and with a fair share of humility.  For just as I did the first time around, when I attended two years ago, I leave knowing what I don’t know.

Except that weather forecasters are predicting another round of scorching heat for today.