Standing on a Hill Looking Out to Future

A sketch of a theoretical basis of the new world

Over the past few days, we have looked at the nature of man, of society, of property, and took hold of a new way of considering time.

Now let’s put it all together in a first sketch of what we might think of as a new ordering of the world.

The nature of man, we saw, was interdependent, social – but with an eye to small groups. It is only very recently in our history as a species that we have massed together in groups as large as cities, kingdoms, or nations. Perhaps as a result, we seem to do a much better job of governing ourselves, and even of being able to grasp mentally, a small local group than of a mass of strangers, let alone the world as a whole. (And yet: we will need to consider all men in all the world if we carry on wielding the immense impact we have been on the world’s environment.)

Society, we saw, needs to cooperate and coordinate its activities on a global scale, and yet at the same time it needs to focus on the local more than the wider scale. It seems we need to put our own house in order, and then agree with other ‘households’ to put our ‘town’ in order, and so on – all the way up to the full reach of all mankind’s billions.

Property, we saw, is not either/or: we don’t have to choose between utter familial communal sharing and rugged individual, absolute property rights. Instead, if we see property rights and ownership as covering a spectrum of responsibility and control, from the personal, temporary items that are an individual’s absolute ‘own,’ to the natural resources of air and water and minerals deep in the Earth, over which we all might exercise some degree of control, and from which we might all share some of the bounty.

And last, we saw that we must regard time on a sliding scale as well, and keep in mind the longest of terms even as we watch for the largest of scopes.

There has never been a human society that did not destroy its habitat. In the past, we have been able to walk away from the mess we have made, and find new unspoiled territory; or else we have perished locally – but another community, another culture, somewhere else, has survived to carry on man’s legacy and species.

These possibilities are slipping away from us very quickly. We have run out of room, and this wall has come upon us before we made migration to the stars practical.

Perhaps we have already run out of time. It is certain that we have reached this realization too late to save many millions, perhaps billions.

But we can only do what we can.

(Composed on keyboard Saturday 18 October 2008)

When Are You?

The answers we get also depend upon the time frame in which we look at the questions.

Sometimes it is best, when facing a difficult decision, to step back from it and regard it from a distance. You could look at it in light of your long term goals, or in light of your whole family, community, nation, or even the whole world. You might look at it from the aspect of Eternity, as though you stood at the foot of God's own throne.

It has often been pointed out by critics that American industry sabotaged its own success when companies stopped looking at their long-term prospects and instead concerned themselves only with their stock price for the current and subsequent quarters.

It's the difference between an individual who looks forward to his whole life, and one who expects to die next week.

Chances are, their behavior will be a little bit different.
Now consider it the other way: compare the way you'd behave if you looked forward to your whole life, and if you were considering taking care of yourself, your children, and your grandchildrn to the end of their lives.

(Composed on keyboard Friday 17 October 2008)

Who Are We?

Different levels of identification determine our future success

This is the third in my series of blog posts sketching out a framework or underlying theory behind a mode of living and organizing that I think is better than what we have experienced in the past. (Our past experience does not seem sustainable, and it does not seem that it can last very much longer – therefore some kind of change will be necessary, and these posts are a starting block for us to consider a way forward out of this mess.) In the first post, we looked at social organization and what is most fitting for man. And the second post, we looked at the institution of property, and tried to see how we might consider property in different terms and of different kinds.

Now, let’s look at social organization from a more personal point of view.

Who do you think you are? Most of us have many answers to that question: we might consider ourselves to be an individual first, a member of a gender, a member of a family, a laborer of a certain profession, a member of a certain institution or enterprise, a member of a certain ethnic heritage, a member of a certain religion, a member of a community, state, region, nation. All of these different identities overlap and to some degree conflict with one another. We can sometimes find ourselves being pulled or torn between two or more of these identities, especially if the different groups with which we identify ourselves are themselves in conflict.

Some of us like to think of ourselves as members of a more abstract and more general group than those groups which we find immediately around us. We might consider ourselves to be ’citizens of the world’ and we might actually disdain or look down upon our neighbors or fellow townsfolk.

This will prove to be a grave and costly mistake in the world to come.

Once upon a time, men have no idea of any association broader than that small group among whom they themselves lived and worked and bred. A long time later, after the intervention of agriculture about 10,000 years ago, men began to identify themselves with the land upon which they lived. They were born there, raised there, and would in time be buried there. Only a great crisis such as famine or war might break the bond holding them to the land where they lived.

I don’t want to claim that this was any kind of ’Golden Age’ by any means – in fact I’m quite sure I myself would find such a life both alien and depressing. But this way of life has one great benefit over the life most of the developed world has led during the 20th century: it is sustainable.

It is not entirely sustainable – or at least, it does not have to be sustainable, as we can see quite easily from all the cultures that perished in the past. So I guess I really mean that the feedback mechanism of sustainability works a lot faster under a more local economy that is bound and tied and dependent upon the natural resources of the immediate area.

Consider as a hypothetical model, a valley penned in between two mountain ranges. There is only so much fertile land on the bottom of the valley which can be farmed. There is only so much meltwater coming down off the mountain peaks each year. There are only so many minerals to be extracted from the mountain sides. Along one side of the valley there is a forest – and it will quickly be seen that the forest is growing bigger or smaller depending on how much wood is taken out of it, how many trees are cut down each year, and how many might be destroyed by fire. It can also be seen very easily that this forest is not infinite. (Nothing of course on this earth is infinite; sometimes the oceans and the air, the central forests of Europe and the grasslands of Eastern Europe a thousand years ago seemed to be infinite, or even were infinite to all intents and purposes, as far as one man’s mind could conceive of them. The chief advantage of a small valley such as the one we are considering here, is how its finiteness is so readily apparent and measurable.)

Now consider another hypothetical model, a small town surrounded by a few square kilometers of orchards and farmland. In this small town there are perhaps six to ten representatives of any given profession – a half dozen butchers, a half dozen bakers, five greengrocers, seven coopers, and so on. Any potential customer in this town will know all these butchers, bakers, greengrocers etc. by name and family connection (and all sorts of tidbits of local gossip). The average citizen of this town will have a pretty good idea of the relative quality of goods produced by any of these professionals as well as their personal honesty and integrity.

Against the model of the valley now, consider the model of the globe – the model the world’s economy has been laboring under for the past 20 years or so. The world is a mighty big place – too large, in fact, for any one of us to conceive of in our minds. It takes dedicated scientists with sophisticated instruments to be able to measure and judge the health of the world’s forests and oceans and atmosphere. And then they can tell us their conclusions, but these conclusions will be couched in numbers that are hard for us to grasp, so far do they run beyond our limited comprehension in their very vastness. (And that vastness by itself makes it easy for each one of us to justify doing something that will harm the environment. We know it’s not the right thing to do, but against the vastness of the resources involved in the whole globe, how much harm can one man’s small action do, anyway?)

Against the model of the small town now, consider the model of the global economy with all its immense multinational corporations. This is a model so characterized by alienation, that both the workers and the consumers of the goods produced by it must find themselves totally adrift, without any connection to one another. The worker is given no cause to think of the person who will actually be consuming the goods in question – much more likely, the worker will only be concerned with his immediate supervisor and coworkers. To the consumer, the product has at most a recognizable brand which the consumer associates with a company but not with any particular person who is actually touched the product by hand.

(Composed by dictation Thursday 16 October 2008)

Who Owns It?

A new look at property.

(This post represents a departure from the normal domain of this blog. Instead of talking about talesmanship, storytelling, and the arts, I examine a theory of ownership. Just as with my thoughts about talesmanship, however, the following represents some opinions and theories that I would like to share with the wider world.)

To begin with, let us say that there are two broad categories of property: first, private property, and second, public property.

Private property is anything personal that pertains to an individual, is more or less portable, and is impermanent. Examples of this might be clothing, a hair brush, a toothbrush, a book, a bed.

Public property is anything over which an individual has some measure of control, but which will in all likelihood helped lay of the individual, and whose usage and disposal will have an effect upon the community as a whole – and therefore the community has a certain vested interest in how this property is used and disposed of.

We can further divide public property into the following three categories:

1. Property that the individual develops
2. Property that the individual enhances
3. Property that the individual finds

The first of these, any public property that the individual develops, would not exist in its current form without the knowledge, efforts, skills and labor that the individual has put into it. An example here would be a house. Another example would be a field of corn, which the individual has plowed and sown and watered and tended to.

The second, any public property that the individual enhances, also would not exist in its current form without some labor from the individual. In this case however the individual’s labor is of much smaller import than the labor he has put into transforming the first category of public property. An example here might be a mine whose main value is the mineral deposits which the individual has found and made available for extraction.

The third, any public property that the individual finds, would exist pretty much in its current form whether the individual involved did anything or not – all he did was to find something. An example of this kind of property might be a lake or a river.

I make these three distinctions over public property in order to set forth three stages of private prerogative and control over property that, in its essence, was not created by the individual and therefore cannot be said to be entirely his – it is not, in other words, private property. The more the individual is required in both his labor and his skill to create the property as it exists in its current state, the more control the individual ought to have over that property’s use and disposal. To grow a crop is to make of seeds and earth and water something which may be eaten. In some sense, the farmer has ‘created’ the foodstuff. To extract an ore from the earth is not to create it, but rather to make it available to the individual and his fellow men. To find a river only makes available the knowledge of the existence of the river, without transforming or altering the character or attributes of the river.

There are in addition certain properties that no one discovers, enhances, or creates – these are the common properties of the earth itself, and do not properly belong to anyone. Rather, they must belong to everyone (and perhaps to all living inhabitants of the earth). Examples of this kind of property include the air, the seas, and the deep water in the earth.

We might go even farther and say that all crucial components of the global ecosystem belong to this final category of property, which belongs to all of us as a whole and to none of us as individuals. For if any crucial component of the ecosystem could be disposed of by any individual or group, then that individual or group holds the entire ecosystem hostage, and all our lives and future existence depend upon their goodwill.

I’ll have more to say in future posts on the implication of these theories.

(Composed by dictation Monday 13 October 2008)

Who Are We?

Where we stand with one another

Let’s consider mankind as composed of four groups:

1. the individual
2. the clan
3. the community
4. the community’s leaders

Much has been made over the past 200 years or so of the role of the individual; the individual has been contrasted with the society, the group, the masses, the collective. And it is true that each one of us experiences life as an individual, a conscious, feeling, thinking, dreaming, living organism separate from all the other organisms that we call men.

There has sprung up in this time the Romantic notion of the One, the Lone Wolf, the Loner, the free spirit. Much of this has sprung from the Romantic movement in the arts, which in turn sprang from the rising and revolutionary bourgeoisie that supplanted the older land-based ruling classes in Europe.

But the truth is that man has never lived alone; has never thrived alone; has never survived more than a single generation alone, in all the millennia since before man was man.

The other great apes, the chimpanzees, the gorillas, the bonobos, live in groups. They have complex social structures with hierarchies of leaders and followers and rules to determine who makes the decisions for the group, and who gets to affirm those decisions, and who gets to gainsay them.

Man is born unable to feed himself or take care of himself. He cannot protect himself. He cannot go far in search of food. He is utterly dependent upon his elders.

Even before he is born, man is dependent through his mother, as the mother grows less able to fend for herself as her pregnancy advances, and is left in a weakened state in the immediate aftermath of giving birth.

For some years the infant, then toddler, then small child, depends upon the guidance and protection older humans.

Therefore we can only conclude that society is mankind’s ‘natural state’ and that any theoretical ‘social contract’ can only be said to spring up among family- or clan-groups, and not among individual men.

The molecule of human society is the diatom of the mother and child. Around this nucleus orbit the father, sisters, grandparents, brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, and more distant relatives, in a loose grouping of the clan or extended family. Several of these clans will occupy a given territory (or follow recognized paths in seasonal migrations) as a tribe or community.

Tribes that share common heredity and culture, including language, make a race, or should we call it a ‘culture’ instead? And a culture that recognizes a common leadership will be known variously as a nation, a city-state, a monarchy.

From the individual to the mother-child diatom to the family to the clan to the tribe, the society grows stronger and more efficient, more able to endure hard times and prosper – up to a certain point. Beyond that point – when the number of individuals has grown so great that no one knows every other member of the group by face and name and relationship, when the organization becomes too complex to be governed by consensus according to the simple, commonly-held beliefs of the group as a whole, and when the territory the group claims is too great for a common economy – the strength and efficiency, the durability, the cohesiveness of the society start to decay and break down.

In the small group, it is possible for everyone to know everybody else, and for each of us to recognize which man is trustworthy and which is not, who is honest and who is not, who is competent and who is not. In the greater group, we must trust strangers, who may not be trustworthy or honest or competent, and who have in any case only the slightest of reasons to care for our welfare, and the greatest of reasons to care for their own in preference to ours – as we will have no reason to care for their welfare, beyond the slight sense that we share the nation, the culture, the language.

All political theory – including those political theories that will actually work for human life over the long term – rely upon these simple rules, and this simple conception of human social organization.

No man is an island. And the longer and wider the island chain grows, the less able it is to endure.

(Composed by keyboard Tuesday 14 October 2008)

Short Thoughts

Some short essays from youth and long ago

Art and Misery

If people’s lives are sad, why should they turn to art to find more grief? And if they are happy, why should they turn to art at all?

Art is the solace for misery. It has a long future, since it creates the misery it gives solace to.

‘Pornography tends to increase the very anxiety it solves.’ But so does all art.

‘Write What You Know’

One of the clichés that must be exploded: write about what you know. Never do that. Write about what you’d like to know. Without the mystery there is no excitement. Boredom is the antithesis of art.

Writing Burns the Filament

The imagination is the filament. Writing burns the filament. It was no accident that the light bulb was chosen as the symbol of invention.

Edison’s achievement was not the invention of the light bulb. Light bulbs had existed before. What Edison did was devise a filament that didn’t burn out in less than ten seconds.

A long-lasting filament is also the goal of all writers.

Writing and Concentration

Writing occupies all your concentration. It holds you; it burns you. It is not a pleasurable experience. No one undertakes it out of desire. Not for long. They burn out fastest of all.

You do it because you have to. It is a need more compelling than the pain of the fire. When you are fat and smug, snug and smiling, is not the time to write.

The need to go elsewhere, what is it but the need to escape?

No one runs to; he just runs from.

Hence the best conditioning of the artist prior to working, is to do something disgusting. Then you can escape yourself. You can endure the crucible, because to rise up out of it, back into yourself, would be worse.

Do something dirty, then escape it in art.

This is also known as psychological self-destruction.

But the man with no soul makes the greatest of artists. ### No Art Says Anything

(July 15, 1977)

No Art says anything.

But don’t we admire and esteem artists whose work does say something more than those whose work does not?

Reconciliation: yes we do, but that doesn’t alter the point – art is not a medium of anything but the Dream.

We eat food for nourishment. Food’s purpose is to provide the chemicals and energy we need to maintain existence. If the food tastes delicious and is well prepared, we enjoy it more; but if it fulfills the basic nourishment no better, then our added appreciation is directed to other things than that thing we eat for.

This is still a retreat from my earlier thoughts. Then I would have stated it: Art is entertainment and all else is superfluous. Now I would say: There are many things that we enjoy in art, but the basic raison d’être of art is entertainment. This is not so radical and for all I might talk, the basic reaction would be: so what?

I have redefined the reaction to art but not redirected it.

The great artist, then, would be one who did his art well. Therefore we have three categories:

1. The great artist. One who communicates the Dream well.
2. The great craftsman. One who controls words and their relationships (or the corresponding details in another art) so that they serve his will.
3. The great thinker. One who’s inside his superb in such matters as psychology, ethics, philosophy, etc.

It is clear that of these three, the first has hardly been acknowledged; the second is in disrepute (without being the third); the third is lauded above all else today.

But a thinker is not an artist.

All Art Is Fantasy

(July 15, 1977)

All art is fantasy. Art is the detailing of things that didn’t happen, people who didn’t exist, for a purpose. The aim in mind is important. Anyone can lie. If all art is a lie, then the criterion of quality is the effect. Artists with us are judged on how well they achieve an effect.

There is well-done writing; that is when the artist achieves a powerful effect. There is good writing; that is when we happen to enjoy the effect this artist is creating. Great writing is both good and well-done.

Never forget therefore, that when a critic says something is great, half of that judgment is simply: I like it.

No one enjoys what he doesn’t understand. If you don’t understand it, it isn’t great – for you.

‘Great’ is different from ‘important.’ Important is an objective judgment on the place of a work in the historical evolution of art or society.

Fantasy cannot be all art. Fantasy has a more limited meeting: Art about that which could not be. The phrase is in the impossible but it really means just the very improbable. Therefore for fantasy in the statement at the beginning, substitute: ‘the dream.’

Art revolves around the dream. The dream is central to all art.

Fantasy also has another meaning: to fantasize is to dream.

It would seem, then, that fantasy is the purest form of art.

Fantasy has an age-old formula: from the mundane to the exotic (and generally back). ‘There and Back Again’ is timid fantasy. Desperate fantasy is held within the words, ‘Him, Her, There.’

The other self. The other sex. The other world.

The captain. The Princess. The lost Empire.

But we can reverse this process. Take all genres that employ the formula. They are fantasy genres. Pornography for example is fantasy art. What else?

The Higher Form of Fantasy

What is the purer/higher form of fantasy – that in which the hero from here/now goes there; or that which takes place totally there?

There is also the fantasy in which we think the fantasist is suffering from a delusion, but then the world turns out to vindicate his dream.

Suspense

(July 11, 1977)

There are two kinds of suspense: that of form and that of substance. Formalistic suspense occurs when the author withholds a piece of important information; you read on to find out what that piece of data is; or it is an interruption – a chapter break or plot interpolation – at a high point of action; or it springs from skillful foreshadowing, although this last is a part of the first.

Substantive suspense occurs when there is an unresolved conflict. The tension of the conflict builds; the point of crisis seems falsely to be reached several times. This tension must be purged violently. There must be some physical action in the climax to dissipate it.

All Art Is Fantasy

(July 15, 1977)

All art is fantasy. Art is the detailing of things that didn’t happen, people who didn’t exist, for a purpose. The aim in mind is important. Anyone can lie. If all art is a lie, then the criterion of quality is the effect. Artists with us are judged on how well they achieve an effect.

There is well-done writing; that is when the artist achieves a powerful effect. There is good writing; that is when we happen to enjoy the effect this artist is creating. Great writing is both good and well-done.

Never forget therefore, that when a critic says something is great, half of that judgment is simply: I like it.

No one enjoys what he doesn’t understand. If you don’t understand it, it isn’t great – for you.

‘Great’ is different from ‘important.’ Important is an objective judgment on the place of a work in the historical evolution of art or society.

Fantasy cannot be all art. Fantasy has a more limited meeting: Art about that which could not be. The phrase is in the impossible but it really means just the very improbable. Therefore for fantasy in the statement at the beginning, substitute: ‘the dream.’

Art revolves around the dream. The dream is central to all art.

Fantasy also has another meaning: to fantasize is to dream.

It would seem, then, that fantasy is the purest form of art.

Fantasy has an age-old formula: from the mundane to the exotic (and generally back). ‘There and Back Again’ is timid fantasy. Desperate fantasy is held within the words, ‘Him, Her, There.’

The other self. The other sex. The other world.

The captain. The Princess. The lost Empire.

But we can reverse this process. Take all genres that employ the formula. They are fantasy genres. Pornography for example is fantasy art. What else?

Medieval Ballads

(From 30 years ago: November 28, 1978, with added comment from now)

An unrelated note. I just finished Keats’ ‘Eve of St. Agnes’ and was struck that its plot has all the form of a medieval ballad, except for that happy ending. More than 99% of those ballads were tragedies; and it got me wondering just why this might be so. It seems to me that the primary impulse to write in this case springs from that appreciation of the tragedy (since many of these old folktales had true ones as their basis). Other features point the way: these tales are not of mean old misers dying of some illness after a long life of making existence miserable for all about them; but of the young, the beautiful, the rich, the talented, noble, the powerful.

Furthermore it seems that the fears thus evoked are much the same as those which inspire philosophical systems: fear of change, of death, of the absurdity of being born mortal into a world of innumerable externals ruled by chance, only to age, second, wither and die, leaving nothing but a decomposing effluent behind. And it seems that the primary impulse behind the very creation of these works of art is vocalization of the shared fears, made the greater, yet at the same time exorcised in such infamous examples.

We make the fear organized, beautiful, by artifice making it artificial; and though we die in these stories yet we also live on after hearing/reading them. Why is not triumph also enshrined, then? Because triumph is sheltered from vocalization through the learned mechanisms to defend against envy; because we take little delight in speaking of someone else’s victories; and because we do not share in such triumphs when we hear them recited, but in fact feel jealous of and resent them. (This is not always the case: as for the case of a shared triumph, especially one whose issue was in great doubt. A great victory over a hated foe in war, e.g., in which the General’s and soldiers’ victories become ours because we share the same national or tribal cause. Yet note here that it is the very note of doubt or dread which is the key ingredient making the thing work: there is no eucatastrophe without a very real belief/fear that doom had been waiting at the end.)

This primary psychological impulse behind the very creation of art is what I seek – knowing it, we learn why certain forms are hallowed and more powerful; and perhaps learn other roads to the same end hitherto unseen. Why do animals have voices? Why do they use them? – to vocalize certain feelings and thus somehow lessen them. I notice taking out groceries, but many of the people will remark, ‘Oh, it is cold in that store!’ Or, ‘Raining again, wouldn’t you know on the weekend!’ Or, ‘Winter’s here,’ or ‘You don’t mind coming out on a lovely day like this, do you?’ And I wondered why they say these things. They cannot think that we will heat the store; rationally they should have come to expect a cold store after visiting it several times. Yet they will say it! It is a mere animal vocalization, not intended as real communication (yet the existence of a listener is important) but merely to invent somehow their feelings of being cold (etc.). It is the same in saying, ‘Ouch!’ to pain, or cursing when things go wrong. The growls, grunts, bleats and shrieks of dumb animals are at the root of all literature.

[Note 2008:
I can now see other functions of these utterances. Within a community or tribe, such as humanity and its ancestors lived in for so many millions of years, every member of the tribe sought to influence communal decision-making and bend it a little bit in the favor of the individual making the utterance. A vocal complaint such as, ‘It’s cold!’ is at least in part an effort to find agreement with others so that some action is taken to warm up the environment. Saying something like, ‘you don’t mind coming out on a nice day like this, do you?’ serves to find some common ground of humanity between the speaker and the one spoken to, and this could have one of several aims: it might be that agreement to the statement that it is a nice day will reinforce those feelings within the speaker’s own mind, allowing him to enjoy the day even more. Or it might be that such a statement is only an opening salvo to establish some sort of rapport between the two parties, in order to get something from the person addressed later on. But I suspect mostly that these sayings came out of some feeling of embarrassment, from someone in the middle class to someone else and the middle class who was fulfilling a subservient role; it seems somehow shameful to have a servant or slave, and so addressing the person in the subservient role as a fellow human being takes some of the sting out of it, and is an effort to deny that there is a master-servant relationship between them.]

Emotions; a Function of Writing

(Another thought-piece, this from those halcyon days of November 28, 1978)

Writing is thinking; yet the writing of fiction entails a great deal of feeling. More precisely, one of the reasons we enjoy the reading is to vicariously experience a wide range of thoughts, viewpoints, situations, emotions, physical feelings, etc. (Does this spring from a desire to be freed of the narrow cage of our own individual skulls?) Thus pornography fails: because it is the emotions with which writing deals much better. The emotional peak of the seduction does not come with orgasm or even with the act of sex – it comes with, on the part of the reluctant partner, the decision to surrender; and on the part of the aggressive partner, the knowledge that the other has surrendered and that now the seduction is a foregone conclusion. Thus we can say that from the writer’s point of view the only thing that is of interest is what occurs through the point of the decision to have sex, and in the emotional repercussions pursuant to the sexual activities (those moments, e.g., when the pair like together without defenses, without inhibitions, without self-consciousness, without passion without desire without jealousy without ambition – all of these blasted aside with the selves’ outer shells in the explosive violence of orgasm – leaving the two like crossing currents lapping at the same corner of the beach, intermingling essences, emotionally beating with one heart for the too-brief moment, until a word, gesture or sound, causes them suddenly to recoil once again into strangerhood). The specifics of sex are thus (generally) not emotional but only of physiological significance. And thus pornography (like any aspect of the Dream) will tend to gravitate towards those forms of presentation whose strengths are best suited to evoke the desired results – that is, here, from poetry to fiction to film to play to live-sex acts, and finally completing a sort of circle drawing the reader/viewer back into the role of participant (unless of course the direct stimulation of the mental synapses appropriate could be devised).

Time and Composition

(Another essay from his youth, composed on March 1, 1979)

Lin Carter, like HP Lovecraft and Rosemary Rogers, sleeps by day and rises at sunset to write. I wonder if there might not be a connection between the two?

It seems to me that I have difficulty writing during the months of March through May, so enraptured at by by the reawakening of the earth. It becomes a distraction: the sweet fragrances, the songs of mating birds, the warm benevolence of the sun, the branches greening and the eyes of flowers everywhere about. The best time to write during the day is for me in winter. December and January and February, when the earth is asleep. Then it seems to me that I can fall fully into myself; or is it that my self can blossom outwards? Howsoever it may be, it is at these times that my writing goes best.

I wonder if perhaps the type of writing has something to do with the best time to write. Then I would say that during the daylight hours we are reminded of the Reality of life, beside which the Artificiality of writing becomes most evident: so that I might say those who write of mundane things were best to do their writing in daylit hours. Yet those others of us who write from within of great passions or fantastical visions, should do our writing in the dark, when the land is hushed and lit only by Moon- and star- and fog-lights, and everything is perceived as Suggestions of what Might Have Been. Really, these things seem preposterous in the daytime – yet a passionate belief is needed, the more so to draw our readers into the web of our beliefs.

(Composed by pen, dictated on Wednesday, October 8, 2008)

Speaking in Tongues

Does a greater control over the vocal chords lead to greater mastery of talesmanship?

Over the past few weeks, I have been training (and been trained by) Dragon NaturallySpeaking, a voice recognition program. In the course of this process, I have probably talk out loud more than I have at any other comparable period in my life!

I wonder – where will this lead?

Possibly it will lead nowhere. And yet I can’t help but suspect that there is some greater connection between the act of speaking and a fluency with words themselves. I may of course be entirely wrong about this – it might be equally true that writing the words down, whether on a keyboard or longhand, is just as strong and instructive a pathway to the deeper art of finding words, summoning them up from memory, and using them in sequences that are both communicative and artistic.

And yet it cannot be denied that the language that we create when we speak will perforce differ from the language that we create when we silently sat down words on paper or screen. The language as it is spoken is the oldest form of language, saving only for the gesture – if we can really say a selection of gestures without any verbal language is a language at all.

I find, for example, that even as I dictate old essays from 30 years ago, I will sometimes change the phrasing because I’m sure that the voice recognition program will misinterpret what I say.

This is something that I realized quite some time ago, when I was studying foreign languages. We never really hear all the words that someone else is saying. Instead, we hear certain key words and then we assume that these keywords are being used in their standard, phrases – the phrases in which the words almost always occur – and we also tie in these few words that we hear to the context of the subject which we are discussing. This is what I concluded was the most difficult thing for anyone to get past when listening to the conversational speech of native speakers in a foreign language. They just speak too fast! It seems impossible to hear every discrete word – that’s why I came to the conclusion that normally we don’t hear every single word, but maybe one out of four or one out of three words. But since we know that usual phrases those words are found, and since the conversation follows normal guidelines, we can function quite adequately – if we are fully-conversant or fluent in the language.

When I was writing longhand, I always took pride in tweaking my grammar and my phrases, so that they would be a little bit unusual, a little bit distinctive. This is all well and good, when the words are there to be read, and they can’t be misunderstood, and every single word can be read, and the reader, if thrown off track for a moment, can always back up and reread a phrase or two.

But in speaking these same thoughts, it works to a disadvantage of communication to alter the typical patterns of speech and phrases and clichés. The voice-recognition software never fails to understand my speech so often as when I am trying to speak an unusual phrase or grammatical construction. Whenever I come upon such a phrase in these old writings of mine, I have to choose between two paths to achieve a near-perfect recognition on the part of the program.

The first path is to slow down. I have to speak each word separately and distinctly, and not as part of any phrase. This works very well when the words are polysyllabic and therefore have far fewer other words that sound even remotely similar. The second path is to rewrite as I dictate, and rephrase these unusual and distinctive phrases into more common and typical phrases, such as any other native speaker of my language would recognize immediately as the first choice of expression of the same idea. Dragon NaturallySpeaking is not, of course, as intelligence or flexible as another human being, therefore I have to be even more careful – it’s rather as if I were speaking to someone slightly hard of hearing, or someone who knows the language very well, but is not completely fluent in it.

This means that if I go on to compose directly into the voice-recognition software, I will probably (by a process of reinforcement) tend to compose phrases that are simpler and more common and expected that I would if I composed on a keyboard or by hand.

It also means that my relationship to language is now being shaped primarily (at least actively – i.e., in the process of composition) through my tongue and mouth and vocal chords.

(For example – if I just said the word, ‘cord’ the program would not recognize the word as, ‘chord’ – but if I say the phrase, ‘vocal chords’ the second spelling is what comes up first. And interestingly enough, if I say instead the phrase, ‘vocal cord’ the first spelling comes up first! Knowing this, I am being guided and ‘trained’ by the program to speak in terms of phrases more than individual words. And the phrases had damn well better be common phrases such as most people use – because those of the phrases that have been built into Dragon NaturallySpeaking by its creators.)

(Composed by dictation Tuesday, October 7, 2008)

Echoes From a Distant Age

Some notes written thirty years ago

Bardelys continued to slog through his ancient juvenile essays on art and writing. Along the way he found some that intrigued him; they were based less on abstract theory and more on personal observations he had made both as a reader and in writing his own works.

They were also practical and specific. Therefore he took them more seriously.

Here are a few from some thirty and a half years ago.

Rule of Three

(January 19, 1978)

It’s really amazing how the number three dominates art, especially writing. I cannot explain it. However, it should be used for rhythm – two items will seem too short, and four items will seem just a little bit too long. Five items seem all right, and six items are two triples – that is my idea. So depending on what results you want, you should organize your lists etc. in these numbers.

What Is Most Emphatic – since three-speaking will predominate, it is good to know which element is most emphasized of the three. The rule is: the first-mentioned is more emphasized than the second, and the third more than the first. This works the other way as well: if you want to conceal a detail you must tell, make it the second of three. (In movies, each item on the list of three will tend to override and mask the previous one; thus in film the first is least, and the third is most.)

Pace

(January 19, 1978)

Formula: pace equals activities divided by characteristics, or in other words, narration divided by description, or again verbs divided by nouns, or nouns divided by adjectives.

Also, there will be in most stories incidents, descriptions, or episodes which are necessary but not plugged into any specific time sequence. These should be deployed in order to help pacing – to slow sections or speed up (by their absence) others.

How Words and Phrases Work

(January 19, 1978)

Be aware of words and phrases and how they work. Words are the tools of the trade, and writing is distinguished from most other forms of art in that it is a relationship between writer and the words and only that, in order to create the desired relationship between the reader and words. Each word is loaded; what you have to do is pick those words which will trigger the right reactions in the reader’s psyche. And all the various ways, you have to get him off well. The process of awareness will be automatic as you write and read more; but it can be accelerated by deliberate or awareness. Learn the precise impact of every word and phrase.

One Problem

(January 19, 1978)

One problem of many beginners dealing with a complex plot, is that the overall direction is lost in concentrating upon specific scenes. This confusion can be a good thing at times; but the point is that you should control whether there shall be confusion or not. This is done (somehow) by subordinating scenes. If the tendency is wrongly away from the overall, mention it specifically. [Note 2008: I really don’t have any idea what I meant!]

Variety

(January 19, 1978)

Properly speaking, variety is the ideal. But a tedious sameness can have great artistic effect. However, as with all breaking of rules, it should be employed only sparingly for deliberate effects. One tremendous use of tedium is the glorious release of escaping it afterwards. Set up a rigid pattern which you pursue to the breaking point – then break away to something completely different. This is in line with a general theory of pleasure: there are pleasures and then there is the pleasure of being released from chronic pain.

Poetry

(January 19, 1978)

Poetry is the purest form of writing. All dross has been distilled away in the process of saying worlds in a dozen lines. Poetry is also the most efficient form of writing. It should be studied and attempted by every writer. In addition, poetry teaches the power of that single, capturing phrase; and the rhythm of words and lines.

Art and Revelation

(July 21, 1978)

It took me three steps to reach this point: first was ‘Art as the realization of the Dream,’ second was that ‘Art proceeds by revealing or showing,’ ferret was that ‘Art is beyond the mere function of Dreams because it can reveal what is not known or imagined by the reader.’

The Dream consists of the Other – the other self, the other sex, and the other world. It is not the other person, because we can only approach literary characters in the light of analyzing our own internal processes. (This is considering art as a process worked upon the reader; it is his dream which is being realized by a curious chemistry. I, the writer, am capable of achieving literary power only by making real my own dreams; but the response of the reader depends upon how well that realization corresponds, harmonizes, or exalts his own dreams; thus the reader remakes the work of art by perusing it. By this standard, the greatest work of art is that which becomes all things powerful to all people.) So that, even in the realization of the other sex, we do not see another person: just an aspect of our own selves dressed in another sexual identity. [Note 2008: today I would say that the other sex is still just part of ourselves, but in a different way – I would say rather that the Other Sex in the Dream is a manifestation of our own desires, and therefore refers more to ourselves, into any other person outside ourselves.] (Yet does this not deny all rational analysis based upon observed behavior? That is, do I not make the mistake here of regarding the process as purely an empathetic one, whereas in reality, just as we can deductively analyze another person, so we can use such observations to appreciate literary figures. It is also to undermine the alien quality of the Other, if we bind it by our own dreams, morals, and goals. If I intuitively construct a 13th century peasant, I must do so either on the basis of what I am, or what I have seen in some other person. How else can I gore about it? [Note 2008: there is also the matter of historical research, and analysis done upon that research.] Yet neither of those will have that fundamental quality which makes the 13th century peasant what he is, or was. To grow by dreams is to bind myself to what I know; drug-induced fancies should be able to conceive mockups of greater alienness, but still fashioned out of pieces already to be found within myself. True ‘otherness’ is the elusive for the artist, but not so for the reader, who passively consumes what the writer has created for him.)

So that the way Art ‘instructs his quote is by the revelation of the Other. The artist himself can become the author, by structuring his art around his philosophy, and succumbing to propaganda. Yet is that a legitimate process of art? Or should the artist be no more than the revealer? Let him speak through the fashioning of what he reveals; this is also to prohibit him from having characters mouth his own words.

Why am I saying this? Perhaps it is because I am such a rebel, that I do not like even to be bound by the artist’s Godhead over his own word. Yet that Godhead is inescapable: what I do not like, therefore, is its explicitness. I am not reacting against the act itself, merely insisting that the act be disguised.

What had begun as a very simple summation, has become so complicated that I am left with more questions than before I began.

Nonsense Words

(July 29, 1978)

Repeat a word to yourself fifty times.

The word will lose connection with the concept it has been chosen to represent. It looms large, mysterious, sinister – then it ends by becoming nonsensical. How could the word ever mean anything? What an odd word!

This is particularly true with the words so common that they are used every day. The word itself, the actual phonetic and physical quality of it, comes to have any meaning of its own, a personality if you will.

This process can be employed for the names of characters. If you refer to our character by a certain name for long enough (important: the name should be long enough or formal enough so that its repetition would be unusual: you want the reader to see and hear the words every time they are used. Not just ‘Jim,’ but ‘James L. Shaughnessy’) the name itself will come to have an effect on the reader. It will no longer simply name the character. It will come to have its own meaning – of the joy, of terror, of repulsion, etc. – love and by itself.

This is a particularly nice trick to have when you want to set up a punch for a character who is going to reappear suddenly in the story. Just before you leave him, repeat his name every chance you get. Refer to him with pronouns such as ‘him,’ ‘he,’ as seldom as possible always use the name and always use the full name.

I used to this technique twice so far in Ara Karn: in his own telling of his past life, I referred to his mentor not only with the full name but also with an epithet, and in the funeral of the Queen’s lover, I referred to the Imperial regent by his full name.

The Critic in Spite of Himself

In which he confronts his own, worst self

It is sometimes a terrible thing to look into the mirror.

It can be an even more terrible thing to look into the mirror, and see yourself as you once were.

These thoughts had begun to haunt Bardelys as he transcribed via dictation his old and juvenile essays on literature, art, and criticism. He cringed every time he found his ancient self proclaiming ex cathedra upon matters of art and storytelling that the child Bardelys could not have known, for sheer lack of experience. He groaned aloud every time he had to repeat some idiotic and most extreme statement. He suffered enormously every time he had to say out loud his younger self’s pronouncements on how despicable all critics were, and how worthless all criticism, and are ignorant and foolish all theories of criticism.

And he had to wonder: was he any different now?

(He would like to hear from his readers whether they think that is true or not – and yet he also fears those answers!)

At least, he reflected, the young Bardelys had admitted in so many words that he was himself the target of his many jibes. The problem – the great fear and horror – was that neither Bardelys the younger nor the elder had enough experience (enough practical experience) to know the things he claimed to know, or to give anyone any advice on any matter pertaining to talesmanship, criticism, or art in general.

He was so far only half way through the process of transcribing the old notes and essays. He noted with chagrin the first line of one of these:

I cannot write, therefore I think.

It was so true, and it stung him to the quick, and made him so sad that in reading it his eyes refused to leave the words upon the page, and even afterward the words on the page hung in the air before his vision, prompting almost tears.

The very blog that he had been working upon so assiduously for three quarters of the year now, was it any better or more advanced than the childish ramblings of the over intellectual enfant terrible that he had once been? He wondered at the validity of almost anything he said it was not merely repeated from his teachers – and even those sayings were perhaps only repetitions of things those teachers had once heard from their teachers in turn.

Bardelys was reminded that the three most instructive and most useful books on writing that he had found at all three been written not by writers, but by literary agents. Those men all wrote about something very simple and mechanical: the kind of story, the kind of literary prose, that these agents had noticed would be most likely to be accepted by editors, publishers, and book buyers.

As for Bardelys himself, he really only had one thing to say:

I cannot write, therefore I think.

(Composed by dictation Sunday 5 October 2008)

Be Ware

Looking to his own past, he wonders how he could ever have been so pompous an Ass.

Bardelys was transcribing old essays he had written in decades past. And reading them as he dictated them, he became acutely aware of two things:

1. He had been an insufferable prig and ‘expert’ on matters of which he knew practically nothing at all

2. He had no assurance to offer himself (or anyone else) that his present proclamations amounted to a whit more substance or truth.

Here is one of these glimpses into juvenile nonsense.

Fantasy Art

If as I have affirmed, writing deals with the manipulation of the mechanism of memory, then this has particular importance for anyone writing fantasy. Because these things (fantasy creatures, worlds, events – the ultimate Other) nobody has experienced. How then can we ‘remember’ them?

There are five possibilities I see now: atavistic memory – the memory of contradictions – other forms of fantasy art – childhood memories – ESP.

Possibility one. Atavistic memory is only a possibility, as yet unproven to exist. Yet if neo-hatched chicks will flee the shadow of a cardboard hawk (as has been shown in studies), yet not flee the cardboard cutout when its shadow does not represent a hawk, and some knowledge might be passed from generation to generation among humans just as easily as among chickens.

Possibility two. ESP assumes we can somehow ‘tune in’ to events happening elsewhere in time and space. Again, this is only a supposition and speculation and is as yet unproved.

Possibility three. Memory of contradictions. Since we can manipulate memory – not just in whole but in the smallest parts – we should be able to ‘cobble’ memories of things which never occurred. This is called ‘imagination.’ A greeting giraffe – a horse with wings – and all the legendary monsters are examples of this. Still, this remains rooted in reality: we cannot imagine a giraffe whose color we have never seen.

Possibility four. Other forms of art. As I have written, only writing has no external objective existence – just the notations to indicate its existence, as if we wrote notes and had no instruments. But other forms of art do have objective existence. So it is possible to draw creatures and worlds which never existed; and this forms the basis for our memory. Thus perhaps the importance of illustration for fantasy literature. (But, as Professor Tolkien has affirmed, the finest fantasy literature is hurt by this.)

Possibility five. Childhood memories. The existence of a child is filled with wonder. He sees things adults do not; he has not yet understood that all things are different in their own way, and that the expectation of existence is formed by the statistical database of past experiences. In addition to this, deeply-felt and repressed emotions manifest themselves in various seemingly-unconnected. So traumas can give rise to terrors and joys beyond the normal run of existence.

...

In addition to old days, we appreciate fantasy literature based on past fantasy literature we have read. Yet this cannot go back forever and must ultimately rely on one of the mechanisms cited above. Still, it shows why fantasy literature tends to run in cycles, and why tradition in fantasy literature is so important.

The Weighted POV

Another variation on point of view

Bardelys had deemed himself familiar with all the forms that point-of-view could take in stories: the original first-person, which represents what ‘I’ have lived through, but knows no more of what other characters feel or think than anyone knows who is not a mind-reader; the later omniscient, which sees events and characters as though through a seer’s or god’s eyes, able to peer into any character’s soul at any moment; third-person, which is like first-person except that ‘I’ is replaced with one particular ‘he’ or ‘she’ (and does not vary from that character throughout the tale); third-person serial, that switches from one particular ‘he’ or ‘she’ to another, but never varies it within any particular scene; and objective, that is unable to see within any character’s mind or heart, and relates only what a camera and microphone might pick up from any scene.

But in listening to the Baroness Orczy’s The Elusive Pimpernel (in the http://www.librivox.org edition read by the marvelous Karen Savage) he realized there was a form of point-of-view that no one, so far as he knew, had mentioned.

And yet this was the form most often used. (He guessed.)

In this form, which he called ‘weighted third-person,’ the talesman prefers to peer into one character’s soul, but will occasionally dip into another character’s soul as needed, briefly, or as the talesman finds convenient.

The result is that we in the audience are ‘positioned’ nearer to one character, as in the first-person or third-person points of view, but the talesman reserves to himself the privilege to let us know, efficiently in a ‘tell, don’t show’ sort of way, what somebody else feels or thinks.

So long as the dips into ‘alien’ characters are brief and restrained, they should not overly intrude upon our appreciation or identification with the preferred character. It remains a sort of ‘insurance policy’ the talesman holds onto, so as not to lose all chances of glimpsing into other hearts where, at some point in the tale’s progress, we might be interested, and find greater drama.

Here is the particular chapter of The Elusive Pimpernel that gave Bardelys his insight. (It is taken from the version available at http://www.gutenberg.net which has many of the Baroness’ Pimpernel yarns:

Chapter VIII : The Invitation

It was in truth a strange situation, this chance meeting between Percy Blakeney and ex-Ambassador Chauvelin.

Marguerite looked up at her husband. She saw him shrug his broad shoulders as he first caught sight of Chauvelin, and glance down in his usual lazy, good-humoured manner at the shrunken figure of the silent Frenchman. The words she meant to say never crossed her lips; she was waiting to hear what the two men would say to one another.

The instinct of the grande dame in her, the fashionable lady accustomed to the exigencies of society, just gave her sufficient presence of mind to make the requisite low curtsey before His Royal Highness. But the Prince, forgetting his accustomed gallantry, was also absorbed in the little scene before him. He, too, was looking from the sable-clad figure of Chauvelin to that of gorgeously arrayed Sir Percy. He, too, like Marguerite, was wondering what was passing behind the low, smooth forehead of that inimitable dandy, what behind the inscrutably good- humoured expression of those sleepy eyes.

Of the five persons thus present in the dark and stuffy booth, certainly Sir Percy Blakeney seemed the least perturbed. He had paused just long enough to allow Chauvelin to become fully conscious of a feeling of supreme irritation and annoyance, then he strolled up to the ex- ambassador, with hand outstretched and the most engaging of smiles.

“Ha!” he said, with his usual half-shy, half-pleasant-tempered smile, “my engaging friend from France! I hope, sir, that our demmed climate doth find you well and hearty to-day.”

The cheerful voice seemed to ease the tension. Marguerite sighed a sigh of relief. After all, what was more natural than that Percy with his amazing fund of pleasant irresponsibility should thus greet the man who had once vowed to bring him to the guillotine? Chauvelin, himself, accustomed by now to the audacious coolness of his enemy, was scarcely taken by surprise. He bowed low to His Highness, who, vastly amused at Blakeney’s sally, was inclined to be gracious to everyone, even though the personality of Chauvelin as a well-known leader of the regicide government was inherently distasteful to him. But the Prince saw in the wizened little figure before him an obvious butt for his friend Blakeney’s impertinent shafts, and although historians have been unable to assert positively whether or no George Prince of Wales knew aught of Sir Percy’s dual life, yet there is no doubt that he was always ready to enjoy a situation which brought about the discomfiture of any of the Scarlet Pimpernel’s avowed enemies.

“I, too, have not met M. Chauvelin for many a long month,” said His Royal Highness with an obvious show of irony. “And I mistake not, sir, you left my father’s court somewhat abruptly last year.”

“Nay, your Royal Highness,” said Percy gaily, “my friend Monsieur … er … Chaubertin and I had serious business to discuss, which could only be dealt with in France. … Am I not right, Monsieur?”

“Quite right, Sir Percy,” replied Chauvelin curtly.

“We had to discuss abominable soup in Calais, had we not?” continued Blakeney in the same tone of easy banter, “and wine that I vowed was vinegar. Monsieur … er … Chaubertin … no, no, I beg pardon … Chauvelin … Monsieur Chauvelin and I quite agreed upon that point. The only matter on which we were not quite at one was the question of snuff.”

“Snuff?” laughed His Royal Highness, who seemed vastly amused.

“Yes, your Royal Highness … snuff … Monsieur Chauvelin here had--if I may be allowed to say so--so vitiated a taste in snuff that he prefers it with an admixture of pepper … Is that not so, Monsieur … er … Chaubertin?”

“Chauvelin, Sir Percy,” remarked the ex-ambassador drily.

He was determined not to lose his temper and looked urbane and pleasant, whilst his impudent enemy was enjoying a joke at his expense. Marguerite the while had not taken her eyes off the keen, shrewd face. Whilst the three men talked, she seemed suddenly to have lost her sense of the reality of things. The present situation appeared to her strangely familiar, like a dream which she had dreamt oft times before.

Suddenly it became absolutely clear to her that the whole scene had been arranged and planned: the booth with its flaring placard, Demoiselle Candeille soliciting her patronage, her invitation to the young actress, Chauvelin’s sudden appearance, all, all had been concocted and arranged, not here, not in England at all, but out there in Paris, in some dark gathering of blood-thirsty ruffians, who had invented a final trap for the destruction of the bold adventurer, who went by the name of the Scarlet Pimpernel.

And she also was only a puppet, enacting a part which had been written for her: she had acted just as THEY had anticipated, had spoken the very words they had meant her to say: and when she looked at Percy, he seemed supremely ignorant of it all, unconscious of this trap of the existence of which everyone here present was aware, save indeed himself. She would have fought against this weird feeling of obsession, of being a mechanical toy would up to do certain things, but this she could not do; her will appeared paralysed, her tongue even refused her service.

As in a dream she heard His Royal Highness ask for the name of the young actress who was soliciting alms for the poor of Paris.

That also had been prearranged. His Royal Highness for the moment was also a puppet, made to dance, to speak and to act as Chauvelin and his colleagues over in France had decided that he should. Quite mechanically Marguerite introduced Demoiselle Candeille to the Prince’s gracious notice.

“If your Highness will permit,” she said, “Mademoiselle Candeille will give us some of her charming old French songs at my rout to-morrow.”

“By all means! By all means!” said the Prince. “I used to know some in my childhood days. Charming and poetic. … I know. … I know. … We shall be delighted to hear Mademoiselle sing, eh, Blakeney?” he added good-humouredly, “and for your rout to-morrow will you not also invite M. Chauvelin?”

“Nay! but that goes without saying, your Royal Highness,” responded Sir Percy, with hospitable alacrity and a most approved bow directed at his arch-enemy. “We shall expect M. Chauvelin. He and I have not met for so long, and he shall be made right welcome at Blakeney Manor.”

(Composed on keyboard Friday 3 October 2008)

Spoke Bespoke

More troubles with reciting dialogue.

Bardelys remained staunchly impressed, nay, in awe, of Karen Savage and her reading of the Baroness Orczy’s The Elusive Pimpernel. And yet he found a problem – not indeed with the performance, but with the writing from 100 years before.

In short, dialogue written for the page presents grave difficulties to the oral reciter.

In person, the oral talesman has several tools with which to substitute for the clever punctuation marks developed over the centuries to represent and mark off dialogue. The oral talesman when he stands before you, can turn to the right when he gives one character’s lines, and to the left when he gives another; he can vary his facial expression; he can alter his poster and bearing; he can play tricks with his voice.

When the oral talesman recites over the radio, or on record, he is left with only his voice. And so it is with voice alone that the redoubtable Ms Savage must represent the distinctions between speakers. In the following passage, reprinted from the fourth chapter of the book, several speakers are discussing the mysterious figure of the Scarlet Pimpernel at the Richmond Gala fair.

Bardelys did have a couple of moments listening to the passage where he wasn’t entirely sure who spoke what. To remove all the punctuation distinctions, he set it all down as it must be spoken:

Say what? commented Johnny Cullen, the apprentice. Who this mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel is. Perhaps he isn't, said old Clutterbuck, who was clerk of the vestry at the church of St. John's the Evangelist. Yes! he added sententiously, for he was fond of his own sayings and usually liked to repeat them before he had quite done with them, that's it, you may be sure. Perhaps he isn't. What do you mean, Master Clutterbuck? asked Ursula Quekett, for she knew the old man liked to explain his wise saws, and as she wanted to marry his son, she indulged him whenever she could. What do you mean? He isn't what? He isn't. That's all, explained Clutterbuck with vague solemnity. Then seeing that he had gained the attention of the little party round him, he condescended to come to more logical phraseology. I mean, that perhaps we must not ask, who IS this mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel? but who WAS that poor and unfortunate gentleman? Then you think, suggested Mistress Polly, who felt unaccountably low-spirited at this oratorical pronouncement. I have it for a fact, said Mr. Clutterbuck solemnly, that he whom they call the Scarlet Pimpernel no longer exists now: that he was collared by the Frenchies, as far back as last fall, and in the language of the poets, has never been heard of no more.

You can see the difficulty. Had the Baroness Orczy written with radio (or podcast or audiobook) in mind, she would have, and should have, interjected a lot more ‘attributions’ to the lines.

Each and every line of dialogue must be clearly marked off, in the text itself, in words, to let the audience know who said it.

The only exception comes when a scene is presented in which there are only two speakers, and the lines are quite short. When each speaker gives no more than one line, in rapid alternation, the result is a lyric, a sort of poetry or song of chant and response, whose rhythm (so long as it remains unbroken) leaves no doubt as to who says what.

It also can help in an interrogation scene: where only one party asks, and only one answers, then the audience can rely upon the form of the sentence to identify the speaker.

Also, as a sort of sub-set of the interrogation scene, Bardelys had to add the scene in which one character knows a good deal more than the other.

Finally, Bardelys was minded of dialogue that was written ‘in dialect’ – a practice much used in 1908 and before, but currently out of favor. But in oral talesmanship, where the lines are to be performed, such dialectical differences can mark off the different speakers. And it is not to be thought of, Bardelys imagined, that an oral talesman, a mountebank performer, should deliver lines of servant and master, townsman and country-man, foreigner and native-born, in one and the same manner for all.

(Composed on keyboard Thursday 2 October 2008)

She Sings Sweet

He tries another audiobook, and is as delighted as he was erstwhile disappointed.

Bardelys sometimes felt as though he were a visitor from the future; he wandered through the events of his own time with a slight sense of distance, of alienation. He saw events as through a distorting, somewhat smudged lens.

These football circuses, these happy people driving their huge tanks down the roads toward their distant, isolated houses swimming in lawns seething poisonous chemicals, were to Bardelys as the walking dead. ‘They move and speak, and live their lives,’ he thought, ‘and they don’t even know that their lives ended long ago this year. This year of 2008 is the last year of America. And yet they know it not. And yet, it is so clear.’

He had listened to the next chapter of the LibriVox recording of a reading of Rafael Sabatini’s The Sea Hawk on the previous night, but could not hear it out. For a new twist had been added to this reading: the original man continued only to read the description lines, but the dialogue was read by two young women. What made this disconcerting, in the case of the first scene of this chapter, is that the dialogue records the conversation of two men. So Bardelys in his mind as he listened, could only picture two women in drag, dressed up like dandies of the early sixteenth century, with swords and baldrics, and painted on mustaches.

Not to mention the fact that the whole thing had apparently been recorded in somebody’s bathroom. Echoes abounding, the voice of the tub vies with the voices of the performers.

He hated to make such judgments. After all, these people were not professionals, and had offered freely him and the world their services. And they had assuredly done a far better job of it than he would have been capable of doing.

All the same, he found he couldn’t listen to any more of it. He couldn’t.

So he picked out another recording from http://librivox.org/ (he had however found the recordings from the vast trove at http://www.archive.org/) – this was of a Pimpernel adventure by the Baroness Orczy – The Elusive Pimpernel as read by Karen Savage.

Ah, what a difference!

Savage is British, to begin with, and so her voice suits an Anglocentric tale of Sir Percy and his doings in naughty revolutionary France. In the second place, Savage is fluent in French, so her pronunciation of the French terms and names that pepper the tale are as good as her pronunciation of the King’s English. And finally, she seems professional – and indeed her blog confirms she acts.

Her enunciation was clear and compelling, enough to put Bardelys in awe. More, she spoke at a lightning pace, enough to make Bardelys envy her in the extreme. Ever since he had begun attempting to use voice recognition software, Bardelys has learned to appreciate how great an achievement it was to declaim and read naturally, clearly, and with gusto.

Ms Savage did all this, and more.

(The only pity was how badly the dear old Baroness opened her tale; three chapters in and it wasn’t much better, but here the note that the Singer can be more important than the Song itself is proven: Bardelys wanted more, even of this mediocre tale, so long as it was the divine Ms Savage who recited it.)

(Composed on keyboard Wednesday 1 October 2008)