Muse

“I had begun to feel–and it was a bitter feeling–that the world could be divided into two kinds of people; those with an awareness of life’s inherent fragility and randomness, and those who believed they were exempt…I didn’t know that there was a third way of being…The third way…had to do with holding this paradox lightly in one’s own hands.” (Ch. 57)

Devotion: A Memoir, by Dani Shapiro, was released in January of 2010.  This intimate exploration of Shapiro’s spirituality was inspired by her son’s innocent questions about God and the afterlife that she couldn’t answer.  In small chapters and reflections, Shapiro reveals how a yogi, a rabbi, and a Buddhist helped guide her on her journey toward understanding.  While she doesn’t necessarily find the answers, she at least learns to ask the questions and find peace with her doubt, her process, her heritage, and her loved ones.

I thought I’d dip a toe into this memoir and read it in small bites with all the other books I’m reading, but it edged out everything else.  Ms. Shapiro’s voice is at once confident and unsure, serious and humorous, quiet and assertive.  Her honesty is captivating, and she has the courage to name many of the struggles of family, career, and spirituality that others have difficulty articulating.

I enthusiastically and widely recommend Devotion.  There are a thousand gems worth mentioning in the book, but without their context they lose their impact. I’ll leave you with this small passage from Ms. Shapiro that sums up one of the simplest (yet most challenging) ways of finding meaning amidst the chaos of daily life.

“One afternoon…Sharon Salzberg spoke about a Buddhist teacher in India, a widowed woman with many, many children who had no time to sit on a cushion, meditating.  How had she done it, then?…How had she achieved her remarkable ability to live in the present?  The answer was simply this: she stirred the rice mindfully.” (89)

I have a big book next to my computer with a picture of Ernest Hemingway at his typewriter. He’s looking at me–at once pleading with me and chastising me for not having more discipline to finish the book I’m writing about his time in Key West. I’m tempted to put it face down, but I know he’ll still haunt me.

Last week I finished up a large set of revisions on another book, and thought I couldn’t wait to get back to my Hemingway novel. Monday afternoon I sat at my keyboard, coffee and Pandora ritual readying me to start writing, and there I sat.  I could hear the fish tank bubbling.  My son laughed at something from another room.  The phone rang.  I decided my brain hadn’t switched gears yet, so I’d work on my blog, and catch up on reading some others.

Tuesday a bit of the same thing happened.

Wednesday I had a house full of my kids and nephews during writing time, so that was scrapped.

Thursday I was dealing with some personal frustrations and couldn’t concentrate.

Then Friday, the snow came.  Three feet of it.  And then the realization that school would be closed all next week (since we’ve got another big storm due to hit on Tuesday), and that a general din will remain around my house until then.  I started feeling a little frantic.  In my extreme state of tension I went to my writing partner’s blog, and found these words…

“And I will say also that the Mama told us this, if we were listening, about the snow. Back September when Fall first got here, under the moon. Farmer’s Almanac too says it will come and come through March. Mama says it just cuz we need a good deep rest, lots of time to listen. Which means come Equinox and tide-changing in March, there will follow lots and lots of time to grow….We’ll either be prepared, or not!”

I was finally able to exhale. It gave me permission to be still. I don’t need to continue to put this external pressure on myself. When the words are ready, they will come.  In the meantime, I should enjoy my family, and the snow, and reading. I can fill myself up with experiences and words because I am empty.

Though I sit in a chair, writing is an active pursuit. I’m in a state of euphoria when the words flow–like the adrenaline rush I get from a good work out. When I finish, I’m spent, but it feels healthy and right.  I found over and over again, last week, that I couldn’t write well without first replenishing what I’d spent. In hindsight, it seems so simple, but lessons learned always are once they’re learned.

Hemingway’s still looking out from that book cover over there, next to my laptop, but now I notice that he’s actually looking past me.  I follow his eyes to my bookshelf and find A Movable Feast.  I smile because that’s where I’ll find his voice, speaking to me so I can recreate his world.  I’ll take it in where it will sit inside me until I need it later.

And I’ll be ready.

World Without End, by Ken Follett, is the epic sequel to Pillars of the Earth. This sweeping, multigenerational saga of love, loss, corruption, and triumph begins with four children who witness a murder, and follows those children through their lives in 14th century England, where they encounter devastating wars, corrupt church elections, trials of witchcraft, and the plague, among other disasters.

The story centers around Caris, a strong willed, independent, intelligent merchant’s daughter, and Merthin, a gifted builder and architect.  As in Pillars of the Earth, the town’s cathedral and priory are the epicenter of most of the book’s conflicts, and every section is an entirely new adventure.

I was reluctant to read a 1014 page novel, but I ended up reading it faster than I have some 200 page books.  The momentum Follett creates and sustains against a rich, historical background make the book impossible to put down.  He kept me up until the wee hours of the morning on several nights this week.  When I finished reading, I thought the books should be made into a mini-series, and it looks like I’ll get my wish.

One word of caution, however: Follet’s books are not for the faint of heart.  He spares absolutely nothing in scenes of sex, violence, and war. I don’t shock easily, but several passages in World Without End were gruesome enough to make me put the book down to recover.  If you can handle graphic scenes, I highly recommend this book.

“They were still essentially one creature, whole but containing contradictions.” (34)

Audrey Niffenegger’s Her Fearful Symmetry is the story of twins, Julia and Valentina, willed a London flat by their mother’s estranged, dead twin, Elspeth, and their year there interacting with the odd collection of residents in her building, bordering the famous Highgate Cemetery. It mirrors the gothic, romantic style of Wuthering Heights, Rebecca, and Jane Eyre, and the bazaar supernatural landscape of Edgar Allan Poe’s Ligeia.

The characters are unforgettable.  Elspeth dies in the first chapter and haunts the flat and the rest of the book as a puppeteer of the living.  Her strangely immature twin nieces resemble fairer versions of The Shining’s ghost twins.  Their neighbor, Martin, suffers from severe OCD that prevents him from even leaving his flat. Elspeth’s lover, Robert–a tour guide at the cemetery, who seems more at home with the dead than with the living–emerges as the protagonist.

I enjoyed reading this book, but there are some inconsistencies of voice and character motive that have me perplexed–sudden violence from docile characters, fumbling attempts at intimacy that seem out of place, rash decisions without proper explanation. I suppose the characters’ personalities are quirky enough to allow for these, but I still find myself puzzling. When I finished the book, all I could think was, “Weird,” but I haven’t stopped thinking about it since I finished it.

It is my policy to not publish reviews of books I don’t like or wouldn’t recommend, but I feel compelled to post on Her Fearful Symmetry because I’m glad I read it, and I would love to discuss it with others who have, too.  Have you read this book?  I’d love your thoughts on it.

“Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.” - St. Francis de Sales

We move so fast.

Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Google, Ipod, Ipad, texting, IMing, DMing, and on and on and on. It’s a treadmill, a carousel, a super highway. But I’m not posting on the evils of technology and social media. I love social media, the internet, and all things digital and wireless. I see its great good and great uses.

I am taking a time out, though. Something happened to me twice today, that I found interesting. It was stillness. Stillness that led to reflection. Little oases of calm in my day. Little gifts of peace.

The first came in a passage I read in Audrey Niffenegger’s new book, Her Fearful Symmetry. It was the kind of passage that made me stop reading so I could savor it, imagine it, and wish I’d written it. In the story, a man had a tooth pulled, and was told not to smoke for three days so he wouldn’t loosen the scab that formed. He was a serious smoker–the kind who savor the experience the way some savor fine wines. Smoking was a thought-full act to him, not just a passing compulsion. Needless to say, he was upset. But his friend, a young woman who spent time with him, offered to smoke for him. Read this:

“Julia put her hand on Martin’s shoulder. They leaned into each other. She turned her head and put her lips to the cigarette; the tip glowed. Martin’s eyes were half-closed, his mouth half-open. Julia tilted her face, and when she was inches away she blew the smoke very slowly…” (p. 257)

Wow. Still.

Then tonight, while I was checking online, looking for nearby shows of my favorite musicians , I came across a Youtube video of singer/songwriter Ray LaMontange. I was clicking around all over the place, answering the phone, reading a bookstore signing contract, and checking my calendar when this came on.

It stopped me dead in my tracks.

I think that state of arrest is what artists crave when they publish their work. If a writer really and truly only wrote for herself, the words would sit on shelves around her house where only she could read them. If a painter only painted for himself, he wouldn’t hang his picture in a gallery. Even a recluse like JD Salinger (who passed away today) chose to publish his work. Why? Because he wanted a response. He wanted to share some truth he knew–even it was only to get a rise out of his audience.

So I come back to you. What makes you still? What arrests you? Is it a prayer? A poem? A painting? A habit? I want to know what makes you step off the merry go round, and sit, and be still?

“The astrologer present at Petite’s birth had written…that her ‘affective sensibility tended to overheat,’ concluding with the warning that her mild manner veiled a voraginous passion.  Petite had yet to discover what voraginous meant, but because of a line in the Aeneid (“Neptune came upon them, with all his vorages and his waves full of scum”), she thought it might have something to do with a whirlpool.” (Chapter Eight)

Mistress of the Sun, by Sandra Gulland, was published in the spring of 2008.  I first read and loved Gulland’s Josephine Bonaparte series last year upon the recommendation of a friend, and couldn’t wait to read Mistress.  Lately, I’ve been meandering through other genres, straying from my true love, historical fiction.  Mistress marked my return to the past, and it was a wholly absorbing, fascinating, and gratifying journey.

Mistress of the Sun tells the story of Louise de la Valliere, or “Petite”, as she is nicknamed because of her diminutive, pixie-like physique.  From the beginning, it’s clear that in spite of her angelic countenance, Petite has a wild streak in her–a characteristic that she tries to tame like the horses she cares for.  This passion leads her to great joys and terrible sorrows as mistress of Louis the XIV, “The Sun King.”

I can’t praise this book enough. Gulland has a particular talent for endearing her protagonists to the reader.  She perfectly balances history and fiction, and creates complicated, multi-layered characters. Themes of inner struggle over good and evil are prevalent throughout, and come to a satisfying conclusion.  I hated when the book ended, and was pleased to read that Gulland will continue to write about the court of The Sun King, and that Petite will show up, often, in her future works.

I often measure how much I enjoy a book by how quickly I read it, how much sleep I lose over it, and if it sends me searching the internet for more information about its characters or the author.  I read Mistress of the Sun in three days, and spent an hour online after completing it, very late at night.  Gulland has made a devoted fan of me.  I will always buy her books.

On Wednesday night, I had the pleasure of attending a reading and talk by Tracy Chevalier about her new book, Remarkable Creatures. Ms. Chevalier is one of my favorite contemporary authors, and a major source of inspiration for me. Naturally, I sounded like a blubbering idiot when I got to meet her, but she gracefully received my stuttered admiration, and consented to let me post her picture on my blog.

Aside from her quiet, beautiful prose, my good feelings for Chevalier are stirred because I was introduced to her work by my late grandmother, Mary Shephard, or, “Nanny.”  Nanny was a great reader, and encouraged my love of reading.  I could always count on her to give me books way too mature or downright inappropriate for my age, and for that, I loved her.  Some of my favorite Nanny books were Flowers in the Attic, It, Like Water for Chocolate, Angela’s Ashes, and Girl With a Pearl Earring. But I digress…

Girl With a Pearl Earring was a revelation to me.   It marked the start of my love for historical fiction.  It also started my interest in art inspiring art.  That Chevalier could look at a painting, wonder about the girl in it, and wonder about the painter’s relationship to the girl, and from that, write an entire novel, was a marvel to me.

Remarkable Creatures is the story of a friendship between two, fossil-hunting women of separate classes, in Lyme Regis.  Chevalier came up with the idea for the book while she was at a museum with her son.  Tucked in the corner of the museum, was a tiny exhibit about female fossil hunter, Mary Anning.  Anning survived being struck by lightning as a baby, and went on to discover some of the first complete, extinct reptiles in England.  In Chevalier’s research for the book, she spent a lot of time fossil hunting in Lyme Regis, and grew to love it.  When she found some of her own fossils, Chevalier said she felt Mary Anning there with her.

At her talk, Chevalier interspersed readings with discussion on her technique and inspiration, and finished up with questions. I was interested to learn that it takes her two to three years to research and write a novel, and often her ideas for the next novel come somewhere in the conclusion of a work in progress.  She does a lot of research so she can write from a place of confidence, but is careful not to put too much of that into her prose.  She only uses about ten percent of her research in her books, and works hard to balance history and story.

Chevalier writes her first drafts in longhand.  Since she writes historical novels, I wonder if that helps her capture the mood of the time period.  She keeps artifacts and visuals around her when she writes, and generally draws her inspiration from things she has seen, or places she has been.

During the Q&A period, someone mentioned her effective use of figurative language, and referenced a sentence from Remarkable Creatures that Chevalier had read aloud.   Her character was struck by lightning and said, “I felt like a stocking turned inside out.” Chevalier went on to say she actually didn’t like that metaphor because it made the reader stop and think.   She also referenced a metaphor in Girl With a Pearl Earring that bothers her.  Chevalier’s goal is to have smooth, readable text, so when figurative language makes the reader pause, she thinks she hasn’t met her goal.  As a writer, it was reassuring to hear about her difficulties, uncertainties, and criticisms from her editor, and she was generous in discussing all of it.

Chevalier’s work in progress is about Quakers in Ohio, and the Underground Railroad.  I look forward to reading and reviewing Remarkable Creatures. For more information, go to Tracy’s website or follow her on Twitter.

I’m a book addict.  I can’t get enough.  I buy them, I win them, I borrow them and never give them back.  I write in them, dog-ear pages, and reread passages.  I like the sound of  a breaking spine, the smell of used book stores, and I have a favorite font.  (Garamond, if you’re curious.)  The way I learn about or acquire a book is almost as important to me as the story in it.  I peek at people’s bookshelves the way others peek in their medicine cabinets.

So, I was very surprised when I opened my Kindle on Christmas morning.  I didn’t ask for it, and I didn’t think I wanted it.  At first, I thought someone was trying to send me a message. Let me show you why:

My books fill two whole cases, two rows deep, and are now getting stacked on top.

I’m running out of room on my desk…

…and on my nightstand…

…and IN my nightstand.

My kids are running out of space, too.

I thought my family was trying to send me a message about my books taking over their lives.  My skepticism, however, soon turned to pleasure when I downloaded and read my first Kindle book.  I love the accessibility of the stories (a downright dangerous feature for an addict, like myself),  how user friendly it is, and its size.  I can easily slip it in my purse, hold it up while I’m sleepy in bed, or lay it flat on the table while I eat.  I’m also apt to try new authors and genres that I wouldn’t otherwise have invested in since the investment is smaller on a Kindle.

In spite of all these wonderful features, though, I’m a hard copy book lover at heart. I was annoyed that I couldn’t flip back through the Kindle easily to find bits of text to reread.  I don’t like having a “percentage read bar”  instead of page numbers. Finally, the Kindle lacked the intimacy of holding a book.  Virtual reality is not the same as the real thing.

The bottom line is that I’ll take books any way I can get them.  The Kindle and the hard copy books will live harmoniously in my house, each serving their own purpose and function.  I will always be partial to my “real” books, but there’s room at the table for the Kindle.

What do you think about Kindles or other e-reading devices? Do you have a preference? Do you think books, as we know them, will become obsolete?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.

“He was given the gift of a great bird who rose from fire to show him the way to the stones so he could pray upon them with song and lo! All of his past would be shown unto him.” (Ch 3, The Reincarnationist)

The Reincarnationist by M. J. Rose is the first in a series, and was published in 2007.  I read and reviewed the second book in the series, The Memorist, first, before I knew about this one, but the stories are strong and stand on their own, so it wasn’t a problem.

Following a traumatic, near death experience, Josh Ryder’s experiences with flashbacks and past lives begin surfacing with frequency.  His former self, a pagan priest involved in a love affair with a vestal virgin, seems to urgently need Josh to learn from and correct past mistakes.  Josh gets involved with a past life organization and a secret dig gone horribly wrong in the search for stolen gems that might be the key to breaking down the barriers between lives.  His journey takes him all over the globe, through time and space, until its dramatic conclusion.

The Reincarnationist was captivating.  Rose naturally creates suspense by seamlessly weaving plots and time periods.  I was most impressed by the ease with which she handled transitions in time, when characters past lives invaded their consciousness in the present.  The yearning of the characters transfers to the reader, and I found myself flying through the book, chasing answers to all the questions raised in every chapter.  Rose’s sense of scene firmly grounds the reader– whether in an underground archeological dig, a church, or an Italian grove in 391 A. D.  While her style is direct and readable, there are moments of sheer beauty in her descriptions.

A new TV series based on The Reincarnationist, called Past Life, begins on Fox on February 11th at 8 PM.  Also, the third book in the series, The Hypnotist, will be released in May of 2010.  I can’t wait to read it!

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(FYI:  This was the first book I read on my new Kindle.  I’ll post on the Kindle experience tomorrow.)

Carbon Leaf, a band that originated on the Virginia college scene, now has 8 CDs and a loyal and growing fan base, won by their evocative lyrics, harmonies, and diverse sound.  While bluegrass, folk, and Celtic influences permeate their music, they are always distinctly Carbon Leaf.

I was able to sit with their latest CD, Nothing Rhymes With Woman, in hand and listen straight through while reading the lyrics.  In this IPOD/Pandora generation of singles, it was a pleasure to step back and consume an entire CD at once.  It made me think about the unity of the songs and the story they were trying to convey, so naturally, I had lots of questions.

Terry Clark and Carter Gravatt, the two guitarists in the band, were kind enough to answer my questions.  Check out their answers, below.

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Tell me about your songwriting process.  Do you write solo or in collaboration?  Do the music or the words come first?

CG: Usually, Terry and I come up with the music on our own, and then bring it to Barry [the lead singer] for lyrics.

TC: Barry files the music on his IPod according to the mood the song evokes for him.  Then he matches his words to the music that best suits it.  Sometimes years go by before Barry uses a melody, so it’s like new. The words bring the songs to life.  Then the collaboration begins.

CG: I can’t wait ‘til that happens.  It’s like a gift when you hear back Barry’s vocals with the melody you’ve created.

Many of your songs have a great sense of place or setting: from Riverwood Drive, to Virginia, to Mexico, to Texas.  Where do you get the inspiration for your songs?  Are they all based on your own experiences, or are some fictional?

CG: A little bit of both.

TC: About 75-80% of the lyrics Barry writes are autobiographical or have happened to someone we know.  Some are ambiguous, but are rooted in experience.  “What About Everything?” came from a time Barry was feeling pretty down on himself, but then thought about how much worse it could be and started feeling pretty good.  “Attica’s Flower Zbox Window” came from a dream about a woman (Attica) who defies her oppressive husband and cuts a hole in the wall to put in a flower box window.

Who influences you musically?

CG: Everything I see, hear, and experience influences me.  Music from REM, Bill Monroe, and Bela Fleck are big influences.  When I first heard Edgar Meyer on recommendation from Barry, who’d picked up the CD, used, when he was working on the banjo, a big door opened for me.  It turned everything I knew about music upside down. He’s somewhere between progressive, improv, bluegrass, and classical.

TC: I listen to everything.  I really like classic rock—Neil Young, Crosby, Stills and Nash, the classic metal station on Sirius.  Then I’ll think about why I like a song.  Is it a chord or a groove?  What makes it good and how can I emulate it?

CG: Mostly, we play whatever we feel like.  We don’t want to sound like anyone else.  We just challenge ourselves to write the best we can, but then go wherever the wind blows.

Now, I come from a writing background, and I would imagine that, like in publishing, defying genre in music is a problem when you’re trying to work with a major label.

CG: That’s true.  We don’t fit neatly into boxes, and that has been both greatly freeing and greatly limiting. We are constantly categorized and miscategorized.

Others’ success is perplexing sometimes.  We wish we could get bigger, but at the same time we love how we do it and don’t know how to do it any other way.

Carbon Leaf is great at giving audiences enough old songs to appease their need for old favorites, but also introducing new music with the stories of their inception, so audiences have something to connect to.  How is the CD launch tour going?  How are audiences responding to the new songs?

TC: We’ve had a great response.  We try to balance the old songs with the new music.  You know some audiences want those old songs that they associate with times in their lives like past summers, or college, or dating.  The cool thing about the new stuff is that we hope to be the soundtrack for their new experiences.

What’s the process for taking recorded music to live audiences?  What changes?

CG: In recordings, I play most of the guitar parts, while Terry mixes. Barry does most of the vocals on recordings.  Jason plays drums and Jon’s on bass.  On recordings, Barry and Terry spend a lot of time listening to song sequence.  There’s a definite art to putting a body of music together.

For live shows, we need to work to re-blend songs.  It depends on the venue and show.  We try to respond to the audience.  Originally, “What about Everything” started with mandolin, but in big rooms we lost the emotion of the song.  It’s distracting for an audience not to understand the placement of an instrument in a song.  We ultimately switched to electric guitar and it works much better.

TC: We also save our playlists for each city so we know what we played last time, what worked, and what needs to change. Then we go from there.

Tell me about the Toby Lightman collaboration on “Meltdown”?

CG: We met Toby on tour and had lots of fun singing with her.  We decided to call her to add some vocals to a track.  We sent it back and forth, and loved what she did with it.

We’re kind of introverts, but we really enjoyed working with Toby in collaboration, so hopefully, we’re expanding our boundaries.

What are your goals as a band?  Which direction are you heading?

TC: Our New Year’s resolution is to work continuously—whether that’s writing music, recording music, or touring.  We’re also upgrading our studio so we’re always able to record and keep those songs in the arsenal for the next CD.

Back in the day, we played a gig or rehearsed five days a week.  Now, because some of us have families, own homes, etc., we have less time together, and we have to make the most of that time.  But what we used to be able to accomplish in five hours, now only takes us about two.  It’s all about finding balance.

Where’s the best place to buy the CD?

CG: Amazon.

Do you have any thoughts you’d like to add?

CG: We are very grateful for this time.  Every day and every show is a gift, and we’ll keep doing it as long as we can.

TC: It’s a gift to make music for a living.

Your music is a gift to us.  Thanks so much, guys!