Tag Archives: Nabokov

Four Types of Playful Writers

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Writers are, in general, playful people. As explained in a study by Dr. Rene Proyer “Playful people are able to reinterpret situations in their lives so that they experience them as entertaining or are able to reduce stress levels.” In my writing, I often rework real life situations with a better (or worse) ending and a more empowered character – a SuperMe – capable of witty remarks and amazing feats of skill, knowledge or cunning. Although it seems hard to find anything entertaining about pain or loss, the expression of an unpleasant experience in a creative way can be cathartic. For an example, recall Life of Pi by Yann Martel; young Pi survives on a boat with what seems to be a tiger, baboon and hyena.

The study categorizes playful people in four ways. I imagine writers can check one or all these categories. I will test each categories with myself and with the four Russian writers on my reading list for the year – Tolstoy, Chekov, Bulgakov and Nabokov.

1) “Other-directed playful” includes socializing with friends and other writers.   For me – a member of several writing groups, an “E” for extrovert on Myers-Briggs tests and working in a profession that involves people – this category is a hit. For the Russians writers, socializing with each other is well documented. Tolstoy reportedly took partying (1800’s style) at college to the extreme and never graduated. Lucky for him, it did not deter his writing career and success.

2) The “light-heartedly playful” consider life a game. And in games, it’s how the game is played. During the years I cared for my parents, we continued to play games. I had a performance baseline for each of them and measured each day against the previous. During play, the filters and pretensions dropped. Strategy choices revealed character, health and mental faculty. Humor was also part of the game. Chekhov began his writing career by publishing humorous anecdotes and stories to pay for his medical school studies. After that, his writing took a turn for the dark and serious.

3) The “intellectually playful” like to play with thoughts and ideas. Occasionally, the less tired and more clever me does re-orchestrate events to tell a playful story. I once threw away a microwave because my son said smoke came out of it. When I learned this might not have been true, I wrote a short story, “Trial of the Microwave.” On a more serious topic, Bulgakov wrote a satire about Stalinist Russia, Master and Margarita, which casts a wall-eyed loon and a talking cat as the devil’s attendants. I needed the talking cat in the microwave situation.

4) The “whimsically playful” enjoy “strange and unusual things and are amused by small day-to-day observations.” Details – accents, tone of voice, body language – convey information to the observant. The crystallized conflict photographed above caught my attention the other day. I took several photographs to determine if the ice was melting or the water was freezing. Before I could decide, my fingers numbed, and I almost dropped my phone in the water. Nabokov’s narrator in Lolita can dial up the description to create a complete image and feeling. Read through this jewel by Nabokov. He writes “. . . on the trim turf of the lawn-slope, an old gentleman with a white mustache, well-dressed – double-breasted gray suit, polka dotted bow-tie – lay supine, his long legs together, like a death-size wax figure.”

One last point about playfulness, Dr. Proyer notes that play enhances the ability to solve complex problems. A playful person can shift perspectives. In writer-speak, this shift is changing point of view. A writer imagines the thoughts and motivations of each character and determines the best narrator for a story. Solving (complex) plotting problems may mean jumping into another character’s thoughts and point of view. Or the story might need the intimacy of first person. Sometimes, I get it wrong. I’m quite proficient at switching from third person to first or vice versa. And being playful, I find it fun to edit and try it again in a different way.

A Russian Roulette of Writers

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When the hygienist said it would be a few minutes, I reached into my bag for a book or story packed for such an occasion—a few stolen moments of reading. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout mingled there in my oversized and heavy purse with my Nook, spare change and crumpled receipts. My short story group selected the book to examine short stories compiled into a novel.

 

A World Literature Illiterate

The dentist’s usual routine—rush in, smile, check teeth, smile, rush out—stopped at the sight of my book. He asked, “What are you reading?”

I told him about the short story group.

“If you want to read the best short stories, you should read Russian authors,” my Russian dentist said.

“Our study group reads mostly American authors,” I said, embarrassed at my limited knowledge. I hadn’t read many of the American writers until I joined the group several years ago. My discovery of authors like John Cheever, Tobias Wolf, Antonya Nelson, George Saunders and Jhumpta Lahiri was still new and fresh.

I remembered a few foreign authors. “We read James Joyce—Irish.” Dubliners, of course, duh. “And Gabriel Garcia Marquez—South American.”

The dentist sighed and examined me through his ultra-magnified glasses zooming into the tiniest imperfections in my teeth, pores in my skin and crevices of my soul. “If you want to read a real story, read Chekov, the greatest short story writer.”

 

Required Reading

A few months later, I visited the dentist again. Study guide in hand and prepared to redeem my reputation, I announced, “We’re studying Chekov this month. And this one.” I point to the page. “He’s Russian too?”

“Nabokov. Yes, he’s Russian.” The dentist, his eyes downcast, said nothing more.

“Have you read ‘The Woman with the Dog’ by Chekov?”

“Yes, yes, of course. At my home in Russia, we had a library of more than three hundred books. First edition books. Valuable, but all stolen.”

I imagined his family living in Russia during the cold war years and wondered what forced them to leave. “Do you want to read our lesson? We’re studying stories retold or written in homage to another work. The Chekov story is recast by the author Joyce Carol Oates. And Lorrie Moore writes ‘Referential’ based on Nabokov’s story. Have you read ‘Signs and Symbols’ by Nabokov?”

He looked at me again through those magnifying lenses attached to his glasses, piercing through my ignorant American inquiry. “I read it in eighth grade.”

I tried to remember what I read in eighth grade, on those late nights sitting in my bean bag chair next to a pole lamp I rescued from the trash. My middle school friends swapped vampire novels and other contraband. My college-aged brother left behind his anti-war books like Trumbo’s Johnny Got His Gun.

But what did I read in school? Did I read in school? Overall, my eighth grade literature was entirely forgettable compared to what I read at home after my parents went to sleep. My dentist’s superior schooling trumped the American mandates for my entirely forgettable eighth grade year.

 

Biased To Domestic

My dentist politely declined my outline and expressed no interest in the other writers. Instead, he tore a scrap of paper from my file, unfortunately not the part with the amount I owed him, and wrote Bulgakov and his novel shown in the photo above. “This is the best. Read this.”

The conversation haunted me for several weeks until I studied an article about Americans bias to invest domestically when greater returns existed elsewhere. I wondered if greater reading returns came from abroad also. There was only one way to know.

The idea of reading the best of Russian writers piqued my curiosity and is one of my New Year’s resolutions. About Chekov and Nabokov, my dentist later confessed that he wanted the literature in Russian and not translated into English. I sympathized, hoping he can read some English, because I was trusting this guy with my teeth.

 

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It’s Greek to Me – Fates and Furies (Part 2/3)

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GreekLauren Groff’s writing style leaps from the pages. She molds sentences, paragraphs, and scenes to convey her story and move her plot across not one, but two, lifetimes. The author uniquely structures her story in two independent, separate and equal parts—one Fates and one Furies.  A flip through the pages reveals style from first glance to the basic blocks of words and sentences.

At First Glance

Fates and Furies builds on a knowledge of Greek mythology. Short stories use this premise to shortcut the character and story development. For example, if characters have a known history—Achilles, Samson, and Delilah or even Little Red Riding Hood—than there is less to create. A writer simply builds on the history inherent with the name or situation.

The title is an early tip to find the college mythology book – preferably of the Greek variety. Fates include Clotho (the spinner), Lacheis (the measurer) and Atropos (cutter of the thread of life). Except for the gal with the scissors, the Fates are a pleasant enough group. The husband in the story, Lotto, is guided by symbolic Fates—mother, sister and wife. The Furies are three sisters, monsters, that punish the guilty in the underworld and seek justice and vengeance. More specifically, the spirits go after people who have murdered family members. An internet images search on the Furies results in women with snakes, wings, fangs and crazy-eyes. This is not a huge spoiler to remind you that Mathilde known by Aurelie at the beginning of her story had a deadly mishap with her little brother, and her life was forever changed. The Furies – Mathilde’s family, employer, friends and even herself – punish for life.

Lotto adds more to the Greek theme with his play about Antigone. In dialogue, he explains his concept for the play, but Groff takes it further. Through Lotto, she writes the play. Did she create it for this book? I would like to ask her. A writer’s repertoire is fair game for any project.

Worthy to note is the influence of Shakespeare. Lines of verse, italicized and offset, forcibly inject the English playwright into the narrative. Characters happen to quote meaningful lines from Shakespeare in conversation. And on stage, the reader sees Lotto and “mystery character Land” assume leading Shakespearian roles. Quoting Shakespeare must be the trendy thing to do. Only a few chapters into The Revenant  by Michael Punke, Shakespeare earns a quote in this frontier survival and revenge drama.

The White Space Around the Words

An artist will do a value study to assess darks and lights. For a writer, a similar study might include the white space around the printed words. In paragraphs, shapes emerge from scenes, dialogue and sentences.

Groff liberally uses white breaks to jump to a different scene and to exit scenes all together in order to enter the mind of one of her characters. The reader samples Lotto’s plays such as “Antigone” and Mathilde’s quotes from Sylvia Plath and Florestan in Beethovan’s Fidelio.

Time advances in Lotto’s life through his writing, production of his plays and reviews of his plays. In one section, Groff centers the play title in all caps followed by the year. The reader zooms into the aftermath of each play and its effect on Lotto and Mathilde.

Both Lotto and Mathilde’s points of view use a phrase or sentences in brackets.  [Like this.] Every review of the book compares the bracketed asides to a Greek chorus. The chorus hints of the future—foreshadowing tragedy or irony. In an interview with The Atlantic, Groff mentions the brackets as an author’s whisper, such as Virginia Woolf used in To the Lighthouse. I’m embarrassed to admit that I have not read this novel but add another one to the “must read before I die” list.

The Words

A good writer spoils the reader with sentences that dance and imitate the real world albeit in art. Since reading Fates and Furies, I’m a harsh judge of writing style. I want Lauren Groff’s word choice, sentence structure, and imagery.

My first exposure to Groff was in a short story called “Ghosts and Empties.” In an interview, she explained that this piece’s long ambling sentences were like walking. That comment stayed with me—manipulating the flow of words, voice, for the setting of the story.

The long sentences are gone in Fates and Furies. The author seeks another style goal in this novel and is precise with her language. On the other hand, along with imagery is metaphor applied to take this story to an artistic level. Her prose draws comparison with Nabokov’s quick words and tone. Groff draws much of her storytelling from Virginia Woolf. Again in the Atlantic, Groff says “The greatest texts, I think, first dazzle, then with careful rereading, they instruct . . .subversive ways of portraying time, of looking away from the human to the far more terrifying, far more immense texture of time beneath the minute span of a human life.” And this is an example of Lauren Groff’s magnificent way with words.

Next month, “For Better or Worse” (Fates and Furies part 3/3) examines relationship and attraction according to human psychology studies.