I have just completed a light edit of the book in manuscript. It is at least 25 years old. It may never see the light of day, all 325 pages or so. it doesn’t work. It doesn’t fly. At the time I tried to bring together my learnings about psychoanalysis and my readings of Krishnamurti, stressing awareness, the awakening of intelligence and the primal motions of our interior lives. All this was presented on a bereft planet in anomie, a planet that was experiencing a downward spiral of evolution. Call it a Bildungsroman which the dictionary defines as a novel “that details the psychological development of the principal character.” In this instance the “hero” was a gruff, an apocalyptic creature, fiercesome and grossly feral.
The tale ends with an apotheosis as I had gruff experience a variety of events that moved him from instinct to awareness; ultimately he becomes a stranger in a strange land, ends his life as an artist in his world, all surrounded by a bestiary of animals in a planet that is decaying and rotting. It is an allegorical or philosophical effort with a science fiction fantasy backdrop. And I believe it doesn’t work — not enough pacing or speed. To save it I might have to have it edited by a pro, for I find it very hard to rearrange chapters or structure my efforts differently. In short, I resist. The editing I do is important but it does not advance the story. I believe, of course, it has value and is quite different, but like Brave New World it may be more essay than novel.
I’ll be patient with this one as I feel a good part of my soul is in it, as I sought as a young man to stitch together some of the major intellectual and psychological seams in my life, having been in training as a psychotherapist at the time and continually reading Krishnamurti which flies in the face of most methodologies. I struggled with this for some time. I still read Krishnamurti from time to time to keep my internal gyroscope functioning; he is my compass rose without my being a disciple. (Name one healthy disciple of Jesus.)
I believe it was a summer in the 70s that I began to write at least two short stories each week which later turned into this novel; it was a very creative summer. The issues were philosophical and I endeavored to cast them into a book. One story, the opening chapter of the book, in fact, Covenant, was published in a major science fiction magazine and the editor encouraged me to go on so taken she was with the concept. The issue is this: Do I “betray” who I was in my thirties or early forties when I was trying to learn my craft, experimenting in order to find my “literary voice” by shunting aside an earlier effort? Perplexing. I am more empowered and skilled as a writer now and the gravitational heart pull of this novel still exists. I will let it lie fallow for a while and then decide if it can endure the light of criticism.
Sojourner which I wrote about in an earlier blog has a similar status — a book written decades ago. However, it is not in the league of Gruffworld but holds its own as a historical fiction rooted in meaning and purpose. Both books reveal the issues I was experiencing and feeling as a man decades ago. Sojourner awaits a reading by Jane, my “editor” and support. I respect her judgment. We have agreed that I will accept her “truth” without fuss. I can do that. And I may have to put aside both books and get on with it. What is curious to me is all the years and effort in these books and that life has put some “English” on me so that late in life I can now turn to them — but I have changed, the world has changed — there is WordPress to learn (argh!). You know what, reader, it may very well be that I halt to repair an old jacket rather than invest in a new one. I wonder if I am dealing with fear — fear of writing the new, fear of beginning a new work, fear. . . Perhaps. On the side is a growing group of short stories dealing solely with the Holocaust, tentatively titled Tales of the Holocaust, about 4 or 5 are in varying levels of completion. Again I will send them out into the cold world and see if acceptance occurs or the cold winds of rejection; it is one measure of their worth. I did that with Down to a Sunless Seal, but that took 30 years. Time is running out.
This digression is not a digression. One day ago i went to an optometrist to examine my left eye in particular. I had an anxious event in which my left eye seemed filled with a gray matter which appeared and then broke up and for a minute it seemed as if I was losing my vision. If it hadn’t cleared up in about six or seven minutes, I would have gone to the ER. In any case it turned out to be a “floater.” As was explained, we age; the eye loses its elasticity. Parts of the eye’s structure collapses upon itself and pieces break apart; not very serious, but frankly annoying and for the first time rather shocking. All is well, but I share this ( don’t many bloggers feel it is a requisite to divulge their bodily experiences as the cyber-ego-trip for being a blogger?) because it make clear that another marker has occurred — I am aging and time is shortened and the body responds to all this: how much time is left? and what will I do with it? Interestingly about 30 years ago the gruff in my fantasy deals with this very subject — how to live in time? how to experience it? Well, the same issues in that book are the same issues I face now. Ah, Ah…Ah…I must keep the faith. Well, I’ll “see” about that. I hope gruff makes it into covers.
Leave a Reply