Saints and Sinners

   Edna O'Brien's writing is bold and straightforward. Her sentences are charged with layers of meaning, but she does not keep us guessing. She does not mind telling us information and, at the same time, she crafts each story like an artist, selecting the precise words for each sentence as if they were the brushstrokes of a painting that depicts vivid landscapes and characters in realistic situations, with endings that satisfy my expectations. By the time I finish reading them, I feel content. Through the eleven stories of this collection, Edna carries us to both rural and urban Ireland, London, and New York.
    "Two Mothers", an autobiographical story, reveals the ambiguity of the relationship between the narrator and her mother, showing two opposing aspects of it. Edna O' Brien starts out with the image of a dream in which her mother's hand is on a razor, and she sees her face "swimming" towards the narrator "to mete out its punishment". When they lived together, mother and daughter were close but not intimately connected. Her mother did not understand her daughter's compulsion to write; she was even horrified at the thought of her daughter becoming a writer:
    "She insisted that literature was a precursor to sin and damnation, whereas I believed it was the only alchemy that there was." Edna dives into her childhood and makes her mother jump out of the page: "She had beautiful hair, brown with bronzed glimmers in it, and blue-blue eyes that held within them an infinite capacity for stricture. To chastise one she did not have to speak -- her eyes did it with a piercing gaze. But when she approved of something, everything seemed to soften and the gaze, intensely blue, was like seeing a stained-glass window melt."
    There comes a time when the narrator vanishes from her mother, or perhaps from her lack of acceptance. Then her mother starts a copious correspondence. "She who professed disgust at the written word wrote daily, bulletins that ranged from the pleading to the poetic, the philosophic and the common place." The narrator postponed the opening of these letters for many years. This is a story that made me cry, for I was able to empathize deeply with both characters. When she finally opens her mother's letters, there is a hint of intimate connection, and secrets are revealed.
   "Sinners" is about the lonely life of a woman, Delia, who uses her house as a bed and breakfast place during the summer months. Edna transports us to her solitary existence, providing details about the workings of Delia's mind. Confined to her routine, Delia has forgotten the little pleasures of life and becomes a person who sees a sin behind any act that does not look conventional.
   "Shovel Kings" is the story of an exile who migrated from Ireland to England. A transitory return to Ireland makes him come to the realization that he no longer belongs to Ireland...nor to England.
   "Manhattan Medley" is an imaginary letter a woman writes to her lover. Her musings bring to my mind the poem by Neruda that says that "Love is so short, forgetting is so long". This woman, however, did not forget her lover and there are witty reflections that I savored and enjoyed reading more than once. The nostalgia she infuses into this story is powerful. "Even if I lingered here, there, or anywhere it would still run its course, in letters, in longings, and the whet of absence."
  "Send My Roots Rain" is also about love and longing. A woman is waiting for a poet at a coffee shop and, while waiting for him, she reminisces about  past  relationships.
  "Old Wounds" is about family relationships and conflicts between relatives.
  "Plunder" is the story of a conventional family living in a rural setting who is attacked by soldiers.
  "Black Flower" is about the relationship between a prisoner and a woman who volunteers to give art classes at the prison.
   Edna O'Brien is not afraid of revealing the pain, the misery, the longing and the love of the characters, and, at the heart of her stories, she unveils the frailty of human nature, its naked vulnerability and isolation.

A chemistry of thoughts...

  I've never met this woman, but I know I could spend hours talking about life with her.
  Let me explain myself. Have you ever felt connected to a writer who happens to enjoy the same writers that you enjoy? Soon after I finished reading Joyce's book, I wanted to read a writer I had encountered in a couple of short stories from two different anthologies. When I read her short stories I experienced some kind of kinship of spirits, a chemistry of thoughts. For this reason, I felt compelled to explore more of her work. I went to the local library and, after browsing her books, I borrowed her short story collection Saints and Sinners.
  Before I started her stories I flipped through the pages and found an interview to her; the first sentence I read from it was, " I would love to have met Joyce, preferably in the evening hours when bottles were opened ". The first book she bought was about James Joyce. I am talking about Edna O'Brien. Yes, she raved about Joyce, and then explained he had a rival in her affections: Anton Chekhov. About Chekhov, she said, "Like Shakespeare, Chekhov knew everything there is to know about the heart's vagaries and he rendered the passion and conflict of men and women flawlessly."
  I cannot agree more with her when she said, "I would be much lonelier on this earth without literature, and I might even have gone mad." She ended up the interview by saying that literature is the big bonanza, and writing is getting down on one's knees each day and searching for the exact words.
  I am engrossed in her story collection "Saints and Sinners" now, and I will be writing an essay about it once I am done. Here is another fabulous interview to Edna O'Brien, done by The Paris Review, about the art of fiction.
 By the way, this is my view from the kitchen window, a wonderful sight I cherish every morning while having breakfast...

You, Me & a Bit of We

  My short story "A Hospital in Latin America" was accepted by Chuffed Buff Books for the "You, Me & a Bit of We" anthology, a celebration of writing in first and second person.
 This anthology includes a unique, broadly themed combination of short stories and will hopefully be published in December or January. (There is no specific date yet).
 I look forward to this release and to reading all the other stories that make up this intriguing anthology.

James Joyce's Portrait

 James Joyce had his autobiographical novel "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" rejected over twenty times. I recently finished reading it and I felt an intimate connection to the story and to the main character. The first unpublished version of the story, "Stephen Hero", was thrust into the fireplace by Joyce in a fit of rage. His sister rescued it before it got swallowed by the flames. He later spent many years working on it.
  In “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” Stephen Dedalus is  the main character.  (In Greek mythology Dedalus was a character who created wings to fly away from his prison, so the name chosen by Joyce may have been an allegory of his own situation, as Joyce felt imprisoned in his own culture).
 As we enter Stephen Dedalus’s childhood we follow the flow of his thoughts - his internal monologue - without riding on preconceptions or judgments. Yet nothing feels forced into us; one is not just a witness, one feels like Stephen Dedalus, for it is easy to identify with his stream of consciousness.
  Stephen simply reports and shows situations that shaped Joyce’s past. With a sense of wonder and curiosity, he examines the events and people around him from a child’s perspective, leading us to see every situation anew. This novel, rich in literary and religious references, is composed of different periods of his childhood and youth, revealing political arguments and family disputes that may have influenced Joyce later in life by stimulating his mind and encouraging him to develop his own ideas. It also helps to portray the Irish society and its nationalistic fanaticism in the early 1900s.
  James Joyce felt like an alien in his own land, daring to think and to feel different from his peers. Assuming this role was an endeavor that had a risk attached: the risk of being shunned by the people of his own country. It involved accepting and embracing the loneliness that was part of the freedom to express himself.
  “To merge his life in the common tide of other lives was harder for him than any fasting or prayer, and it was his constant failure to do this to his own satisfaction which caused in his soul at last a sensation of spiritual dryness together with a growth of doubts and scruples”.
  There is a tone of nostalgia and melancholy in his writing. The musicality of his voice and the beauty of his style captivated me from the beginning.
  Anybody who is willing to learn more about Catholic religion will find Joyce’s novel enlightening. Another interesting aspect of this story is that Joyce slips into his narrative the idea of "social liberty and equality among all classes and sexes". It may have been for this reason that the feminist and activist editor of The Egoist, Harriet Shaw Weaver, agreed to publish his novel at a time when every publisher rejected it. Not only did she publish his novel, but she also provided him with the financial support he needed to give up teaching and devote himself to his literary career full-time. As from 1916, Harriet Shaw Weaver and James Joyce corresponded almost daily. She proofread his work, gave him literary feedback and encouraged him to pursue his aspirations. “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man”, published by The Egoist Press in 1916, was praised by some critics but was also attacked by the mainstream press.
  This novel is about the path that convinced James Joyce to search for freedom in his self-imposed exile. The powerful conversation with his friend Cranly makes this clear when Stephen says, “I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call itself my home, my fatherland or my church and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defense the only arms I allow myself to use, silence, exile and cunning.”
 In 1904 James Joyce left Ireland with his lifelong partner, Nora Barnacle, to develop his literary career and to escape from the fetters of religious and nationalistic fanaticism.
 

Helen Keller's life. A movie and her book

Helen Adams Keller was a healthy child until a fever robbed her of her sight and hearing when she was nineteen months old. Her parents were desperate and puzzled, and did not know what to do with her. Yet this woman eventually learned to read, write and speak. She even graduated with honors from Radcliffe College in Massachusetts in 1904.  The fact that she was raised in a far off town in Alabama in the late 1800s made her journey even more challenging.
 I watched the black-and-white movie "A Miracle Worker" which focuses on Helen Keller's childhood. It touched me deeply. The greatest accomplishment of the movie was to kindle my curiosity. I wanted to learn more about the cave of darkness and silence she lived in, and how she was able to finally make sense of the world. Right after seeing this movie I came across her autobiography, "The Story of My Life".
 Her path to understand that signs with hands were associated with real objects and words was not an easy one, but her ultimate discovery is a unique experience that can bring hope to the saddest soul.
  If you are longing to see a movie that will uplift you and make you feel hopeful, this is a good one to pick. Helen Keller's parents did their best for her, but Helen was like a violent animal who did not respect civilized rules until Anne Sullivan, her teacher, came to her life three days before she turned seven years old. Anne Sullivan had been blind herself and so she was able to help her from a unique position. It was not an easy endeavor and the movie portrays it with details that will test your patience.
  Helen described how her life changed after she met Anne Sullivan:
 "Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a tangible white darkness shut you in, and the great ship, tense and anxious, groped her way toward the shore with plummet and sounding line, and you waited with a beating heart for something to happen? I was like that ship before any education began, only I was without compass or sounding line, and had no way of knowing how near the harbor was. I felt approaching footsteps. I stretched out my hand as I supposed to my mother. Someone took it, and I was caught up and held close in the arms of her who had come to reveal all things to me, and, more than all things else, to love me."
  In my opinion,the only weakness of the movie is the distorted way of portraying Helen's parents' love for her, as  if this had been a contributing factor to her misery during the first childhood years, before they met their teacher. On the contrary, their love played an important role even though they did not know how to set boundaries. Her father also had some misconceptions that were not in her best interest, but Anne Sullivan made the big difference here. Anyway, my point is that it was not their love that caused the initial failure but their lack of guidance and insight on how to raise her.
  Helen's Autobiography has many interesting insights and reflections about different subjects. One of them is her college experience. Reading her book also helped me to understand that disabilities are compensated for by other "abilities" and sensitivities.
 "The touch of some hands is an impertinence. I have met people so empty of joy, that when I clasped their frosty finger tips it seemed as if I were shaking hands with a northeast storm. Others there are whose hands have sunbeams in them, so that their grasp warms my heart. It may be only the clinging touch of a child's hand, but there is much potential sunshine in it for me as there is a loving glance for others. A hearty handshake or a friendly letter gives me a genuine pleasure."
 Much of Helen's adult life was spent bettering the conditions of blind and deaf people. Her lectures and writings brought hope and encouragement to blind people throughout the world. I can say without hesitation that she is an inspiration to all of us.

"A confrontation with the unconscious"

 Carl Jung never had the confidence to publish The Red Book during his life, so he kept it hidden. Liber Novus (The Red Book) did not see the light of publication until 2009.
 The Red Book is an exploration of the unconscious of a man who dared to expose the intimate fabric of his thoughts, emotions and fantasies. As a result of this journey through the unconscious, Carl Gustav Jung  created unconventional characters, beautiful scenes and dialogues that reflect on different subjects.Aside from profound reflections, an important feat of this book is the potential to open your mind and fuel your imagination. You may find that some parts are incomprehensible, but the wisdom and the inspiring musings compensate for that lack of clarity.
  The book also includes illustrations-mandalas- made by Carl Jung (1875-1961). These mandalas are circular drawings  that, according to Jung, expressed his inner situation and allowed him to observe his psychic transformations. The symmetry of the figures that he created may have been related to his search for inner peace amid his emotional turmoil. .
 This is a book that delves into universal subjects: the balance between solitude and being in good social terms; the desire and the quest to develop our own inner life; the social forces that are in conflict with our own motivations; dreams and their significance. Jung opens up a vast universe of thoughts and ideas. The beauty of the images, and the richness of the metaphors and symbols contribute to a delightful read of exquisite literary value. You need to read it with an open mind, albeit some of the reflections will be welcomed by a pragmatic one as well.
 Perhaps the greatest accomplishment of this book is that much of its content has relevance today, almost one hundred years after it was written, a sign that human nature continues to struggle with the same dilemmas.
 I believe that this book is a testimony of Carl Jung's open minded approach to psychology. This openness  allowed him to create new paths and ideas in the development of psychoanalysis. Jung was a pioneer in the analysis and interpretation of dreams as a way to reveal the unconscious mind. He also developed the idea of the collective unconscious, archetypes and synchronicity.
 To finish this post I will share this link that has some of his inspiring, thought-provoking quotes.

A writer in Italy

Kimberly Sullivan, a talented writer of women's fiction and a great critique partner, tagged me for this Blog Hop hosted by Page after Page. Thank you Kimberly!

According to the rules I should answer a few questions about a novel I am writing. At this time, however, I am writing short stories, essays and book reviews, so I will write, instead, about Kimberly's novel, "In the Shadow of the Appennines".
  Kimberly's story takes place in Italy, in the region of Abruzzo, where she loves to spend time skiing, hiking and exploring medieval towns. Her love for the region inspired her to write a story that takes place in these majestic landscapes.
 Her main character, Samantha, moves to a mountain home in Abruzzo, hoping to start a new life after the break-up of her marriage and a failed university career. Her attempts to become part of the new community are destroyed when the residents discover a blog she wrote about them. Shunned and increasingly isolated in her mountain cottage, Samantha seeks solace in some letters and diaries that had been written by a past tenant in her home - a survivor of the devastating Pescina earthquake.
 Despite the centuries that separate the two women, Samantha feels connected to Elena's life, and discovers startling parallels that allow her to understand herself better. This is a book for readers who enjoy discovering how women can be connected through their hopes and dreams across oceans, economic divides and centuries. I also think that anyody who feels attracted to the italian culture will find this story interesting and fascinating.
 Now I am tagging other writers who are supposed to write about one of their books (published or unpublished) and what inspired them to write them. I can't wait to read you!

Elizabeth Varadan, author of The Fourth Wish . She is a very versatile writer; she writes for adults and kids and is devoted to fantasy, mystery, historical and the literary genre. I'd like to learn what inspired her to write The Fourth Wish and I'd love to read it.

Liz Grace Davis, author of Tangi's Teardrops, a fantasy romance that will carry you away to another world. She recently published Chocolate Aftertaste.

Rick Watson a writer who is also devoted to music and photography. He has a very inspiring blog. He is the author of  a non-fiction book "Remembering Big". I would love to know what his book is about and what motivated him to write it.

J.L Campbell a prolific writer of women's fiction. The author of  "Distraction" and "Don't Get Mad, Get Even". She also has a very useful blog for those who are interested in publishing and promoting their books.

Laurie Elmquist, a writer of memoirs, short stories and poems. She is now working on a new novel. I'd love to learn more about her work.

Richard Hughes, author of "Only The Lonely" and "Battles and other stories". (I have to read Only The Lonely, I enjoyed his short stories from the latter).