Ray Bradbury

“You grow ravenous. You run fevers. You know exhilarations. You can't sleep at
night, because your beast-creature ideas want out and turn you in your bed. It is a grand way to live.”--Ray Bradbury

Learning to Read

 I love reading.

There's nothing amazing about that. Most writers first started writing because they loved reading. What I do find strange is this: I have no memory of learning to read. You would think that such a monumental experience in my life would be a vivid memory. At least the aha! moment when arbitrary symbols suddenly acquired meaning would be etched in my mind.

I do remember first grade reading class with Dick and Jane--or rather, since I went to Catholic school, John and Jean. The Catholic version of these primary readers substituted saint's names for our main characters. I don't actually remember John and Jean, but I'm sure we had the New Cathedral Basic Readers, as they were called, because I do remember vividly that one story began with the ringing of the Angelus bells, which is the noonday bell in Catholic tradition. I had never heard of the Angelus before (and have only rarely heard of them since) and I loved the name. But while I remember reading it, I don't remember learning to read it. I don't recall ever stumbling over words or going down a sentence and finding it a dark alley. I'm sure there must have been unfamiliar words at times, but I was able to guess their meaning in the context of the sentence. (Or simply discount it, as I did with the word "weir" when reading The Wind in the Willows

for the first time.)

Could I have learned to read before the first grade? Kindergarten and pre-kindergarten were not universal in those days, and I never attended either. I do remember going to my school for the first time, months before first grade began, to take an IQ test administered by the principal, Sr. John Roberta, an amazingly sweet-natured lady. You would think I''d have to be able to read to take such a test, but not so. The test is given orally, and with pictures, and is given to kids as young as four. I'm not sure why I was required to take the test, but it may have been because I was starting school at five, not six. They wanted to be sure I could hack it.

What I remember next, which could not have actually happened, was that my mother, pleased with me, bought me some books on the way home. It couldn't have happened that way because we walked home, and nowhere on that mile-long route was there a bookstore. So they must have come shortly thereafter, by mail. I think I recall the books: Ten Apples on Top; Go, Dog, Go; One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish; and Are You My Mother? You've probably come across them. I can't swear these are the first four, because other books followed shortly thereafter.

But--did I read them or did my mother read them to me? I don't really recall. Oh, I do remember her reading aloud Are You My Mother several times, and roaring with laughter every time. But that proves nothing. Mama read to us often, her favorites, for years after we could all read perfectly well. Some of her favorites were the poem The Highwayman, the dark cautionary tale Babes in the Woods and the hilarious A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig. Oh, and The Three Billy Goats Gruff.

So--I've raked my brain and found nothing. Could I always read? Of course not. But I have no memory of learning to read, just as I have no memory of stepping into a warm bath for the first time. Maybe I'm looking for something which doesn't exist. Maybe there is no aha moment, and we (or most of us) take to reading as naturally as a fish to water, or at least to the aquarium. 

How about you? Do you remember learning to read? Was there a moment, or a process, that stands out for you? Or am I just a freak, or a forgetful old man? Clue me in.

Review: The Sorrowful Girl

 There’s a tug of war I’m familiar with in writing historical fiction. The writer
wants to establish historical setting without overwhelming the reader with historical facts—the furniture without the bric-a-brac. And here’s where Keenan Powell excels with The Sorrowful Girl. From the very first page she makes us feel comfortable in small-town Massachusetts at the turn of the last century.

     It's a town mainly populated by poor, hard-working Irish immigrants, at a time when immigrants were hated or looked down on by many Americans. A time of labor unrest and repressive capitalism. Alright, a time perhaps little different from our own. Perhaps the secret to good historical fiction is finding the common denominators between the past and the present.

     Or perhaps it’s in fully realized, breathing characters. A girl has been murdered in the woods outside of town. A girl close to Liam Barret, the local policeman who’s put in charge of bringing her killer to justice. We get to know Liam’s history, his hopes and aspirations, and that of his town as the case places him squarely between the Molly Maguires and the political machinery and machinations controlled by the moneyed mill owner who also seems to own half the state. 

     He’ll have to rely on his wits and his integrity to see him through to the resolution. And even then he may find a compromise is the best he can hope for. 

     This is the first Keenan Powell I’ve read. It won’t be the last.

Arcs and archetypes

     "Characters must have an arc. They must change; they must grow.” 

Writers hear this all the time, and it’s good advice (unless you're writing Seinfeld). But there is one type of character, often wildly popular, which breaks the rules all the time: the archetype.

Characters go on a journey commonly referred to as a character arc. The arc takes our character, usually on a dual journey, often on a journey of discovery, always on a journey of self-discovery. From Oedipus Rex to Emma to Dune, the mystery that every novel has to solve is this: Who is the protagonist?

But archetypes are fixed points. The archetype is a kind of shorthand. They're delivered to your door as a bundle of traits, often outsized, which do not vary within the story, and are often carried over from story to story. As such they lend themselves to the serial, since these traits immediately evoke the character's past stories to the serial reader. Hercule Poirot wanders about straightening things like the obsessive/compulsive he is. Ah, yes, I remember. The archetype is dependable in a way the character can never be. 

Because character is a fixed point, the emphasis can be laid on plot. (Of course the opposite is also true. If one uses an archetypal plot, emphasis can be laid on character. I don't plan to deal with plots or motifs--such as Perseus's winged sandals or Holmes's Persian slipper. I'll confine myself to characters.)

From Odysseus to the Seinfeld gang, from Sherlock Holmes to James Bond, from Madame Defarge to Mata Hari, these bundles of traits make the archetype useful for the writer, imminently recognizable to the reader, and immortal to posterity. The archetype is both flatter and fuller than the three-dimensional character writers are told to strive for.

Of course the archetypes begin with the Greeks (everything does), as heroes, demi-gods working their way toward full humanity. Hercules, Pandora, Oedipus, Achilles, Cassandra, each evokes specific qualities.

As society develops, new archetypes are needed: King Arthur, Robin Hood, Don Quixote, Harlequin.

Part of Shakespeare's genius is in his ability to create so many archetypal figures. One thinks of archetypes like Hamlet, Faust, Lear, Romeo and Juliet, and protests that these surely must have an arc. And yet at the core of hamartia is the characters' inability to change to respond to changing circumstances, to the world pressing on them.

Dickens had the gift, too, with his instantly recognizable caricatures that have become bywords: Madame Defarge, Sairy Gamp, Mr. Micawber, Scrooge and Fagin.

And yet these characters can also be quite flexible, so that we writers can repurpose them for our purposes, add to them, make them richer. Think of the major arcana of the tarot: the Fool, the Hermit, the Hanged Man. Tarot readers adapt them to their individual readings, but they can also be adapted by writers. Check out Italo Calvino's tour de force The Castle of Crossed Destinies to see how many changes can be rung upon these ancient figures.

As we come into a new age, new archetypes arise to capture the zeitgeist. There can be no Sherlock Holmes with the development of the police force in the 19th century, no Jeeves without Edwardian society, nor a James Bond without the Cold War and the rise of espionage. 

But does anyone set out to create an archetype? Can anyone create an archetype? You can certainly give it a try, if you have your finger on the pulse of society, if you can surf the trends, both universal and specific, that define us. But it's not really the writer that creates the archetype.

It's the readers.