The Journal, Part 7
January 7th 2007 12:18
5:55pm Friday 24 August
Through my study of Module B: Critical Study of Texts in the 2u Advanced Syllabus I have realised that post-structuralism is a movement which I’ve always kept in mind when thinking of my work, but only recently consciously identified the impact of. I find this really interesting: the amount of ideas you can be influenced by before you even know what they’re called, or within which historical context they arose. I had the same experience with similes, metaphors and other lingual features that we elucidated and gave a name to in Yr 7 English. These were features I’d been using for years without consciously recognising the technique of a ‘metaphor’ or a ‘simile’. I had the same experience with post-modernism in Yr 11 as I found out what impact this ambiguous term had on philosophy, art, architecture, music, theatre, and ofcourse literature. I had been familiar with the ideas of fragmentation, deliberate cultural/historical eclecticism as a form of embracing many but neither as absolute, the embracing of cultural dislocation and displacement and that of tradition, and was searching for a way to represent these ideas, when along came this term and summed it all up for me…
Another element I haven’t touched upon is cultural influence itself. While my work is probably influenced quite a lot by my personal experiences with immigration, biculturality and a certain amount of displacement, I haven’t chosen to focus on this. I guess my transition from Bulgaria to Australia and the continuing depth of experience I’ve received from growing up with two cultures has a lot to do with my challenge of the notion of ‘absolute truth’, and in interest in postmodernism in the way it invites one to consider identity. Just as I see myself both Australian and Bulgarian yet neither in full, I appreciate the insight postmodernism offers about ways of defining your individuality.
My work will probably only indirectly concern culture, in my own mind, yet each author is immensely influenced by their cultural identity. I guess the part of the Australian culture I’m most influenced by is the encouragement to express yourself. Expression is the most important factor in my writing, and I feel compelled to describe events or themes in a complex and vivid way, ultimately to intrigue.
So what is my work for me? An opportunity to express sentiments I will not be able to consciously understand until years from now, to represent some of the depth of my experience, and to instill the same kind of restless curiosity I have for experience in my reader.
Here is where I’ve gotten so far:
The curtains are half-drawn, and through them peeks out a room of an intriguing incongruity: It is evident we are in an art gallery through the various artworks that adorn the walls- a modern art collection, it would seem. However, in some act of neglect, or poor choice of an inexperienced curator, these abstracted and bizarre apparitions find themselves in ridiculously ornate thick golden frames, reminiscent of the Renaissance period. There is only one artwork for which this odd contrast of styles seems to work: directly in the centre of the back wall, facing the audience, is mounted a large blank canvas. There is a single tiny sign painted in its middle in black ink, reading: UNDER CONSTRUCTION, with a box around it. Around its heavy, grandiose frame, a collection of art materials have been stuck to the gallery wall. Here we find tubes of paint scattered all around the space surrounding the canvas, some unopened and some with their lids unscrewed, with paint leaking out. Several paintbrushes hang listlessly about, either dipped into the paint and leaving a red, blue or yellow trail on the grainy texture of the wall, or stretched out into the apparent nothingness around them. –(These instruments have been alienated from their respective functions, unable to work together and transform themselves onto the waiting canvas. …This is how the writer often feels about heir own inability to introduce pen and pare to each other… The once innocent thin blue lines suddenly take to jeering at our unfortunate writer, mocking their whole identity with their serenely undisturbed parallel uniformity, protrude from their previous insignificance and now divide the page into one crisp, empty line after another. Oh the anguish of wanting to make those lines dance with a jumble of letters that wind their merry way through from right to left- anyway, back to the play…)-
The room further continues to draw curiosity, with the introduction of an antique Victorian style couch in the centre of the room, facing the right wall. A dark polished antique, its intricate, quaint wooden designs and soft lawn-green cushioning make an eerie contrast with the garish peach walls. In front of this lies a large, square, black leather cushion seat. This somewhat eccentric room is lit by artificial lighting that accentuates the orange of the walls. There is no one about.
For a long time, silence; no perceptible activity. (Where exactly are we?)
Then, one by one is injected a stream of visitors to the room, each making a unique entrance from one of the four exits available. * (*Back right/left: entering the room in front of the back wall, through an imaginary corridor on either side, or Front right/left: entering in front of the curtains, which represent walls.)
They’re a distinctly dressed yet fishy bunch, their self-consciousness and refusal to openly display their true feelings indicating a moral elusiveness to their character, maybe even speaking of the society they live in.
(It is through the table provided that we wonder if our playwright is not somewhat inclined towards stereotypes in his depiction of character.)
[Epiphanie's notes: The below was originally in a table format.]
Middle-aged Lady with Pram and Small Boy of about 5 years
- Lady wears pale blue shirt, placid in demeanour yet also visibly troubled. Walks behind the boy, with the white pram, trying to guide him through the room. She needn’t worry about him however, as he is blissfully happy in his own world.
- Boy wears red cap, white T-shirt and blue pants, quietly surveying the artworks with a happy, absolutely radiant smile.
- When they arrive at the front of the stage, and look out at the audience, the mother’s regards the audience dubiously, with a growing tension and anxiety. Her boy, however, laughs delightedly, undisturbed and open-minded.
- The boy takes off after looking at the imaginary wall, and scoots down the left corridor in front of his curtains. His mother slowly follows, slowly and tortuously, with a final over-the-shoulder glance at the scene that roused such unpleasant feelings in her. She finally wheels the pram off the stage.
Middle-aged Construction Worker- male
- Wearing paint-stained blue overalls and an aloof, hardened expression expression. He looks out of place, and like he’s taking too much of gallery experience in. Mechanically walks around the room.
- Coming to face the audience, he looks taken aback, and his lack of cohesion is marked by the tension of his features. He scratches his head self-consciously with one finger, then, as if not quite sure what happened, walks off again, as he did with every other artwork before.
- He turns to the left wall, and continues his mechanical walk through the room till he reaches the Back Left exit, which he takes.
Discreet 20-something female figure
- Dressed in close-fitting bodysuit, with sunglasses and colourful scarf wrapped around her head. Dark red lipstick with lips in a posh pout. Moves about revealing as little as possible about her character, glancing stylishly at the artworks.
- Has no visible change of reaction: inspects the artwork as she has all the others, in silence and with little movements to suggest how she might be feeling.
- She continues to inspect the left and also the back wall, before she exits by the entrance she came in through, Right Back. The subdued click of her black high heels is the only sound she makes as she walks around the room.
Elderly white-haired, thin male
- Imposing glare, constant look of disapproval. Wearing a blue-green jumper.
- Disapproval heightened by the glimpse at the audience. The artwork appears to make him angry- he scowls bad temperedly then turns away.
- He turns left and storms out the Front Left exit, fists clenched and an expression of rage embedded into his features.
Young female Japanese tourist
- Wearing T-shirt and jeans, and large photo-camera around her neck. She enthusiastically surveys every artwork with close attention. She’s good-tempered.
- Her usually curious approach is gratified here, as she sobers somewhat. She spends a long time looking the audience up and down. Amazed and open-mouthed, she then takes a photo.
- After she has satisfied her curiosity, she strides into the next room through the Front Right exit.
Plump 30-something couple
- Woman wears red suit and ostentatious jewelry, conversing with husband who’s dressed in a black suit but ill mannered. These two converse as if in a world of their own: no doubt that’s the impression they want to give others.
- Their conversation pauses, then resumes more slowly as they gesticulate slightingly over the audience, hands on chin, with one finger up their cheek. They offer expressions of distaste.
- They move off after leaving final looks of disgust with the audience, to look at the left wall, then the back wall. They pause over this one, unable to make head or tail of it. Silence, then they exit Back Right. They are the last people to leave the room.
There is silence once again. Then a young, teenage Asian girl steps out onto the stage, Back Right, wearing a black polo shirt and black trousers, self-conscious and uncomfortable with every step. She makes her way to the couch, and sits down curled up against the arm facing the audience. She twists her head to take a look at the audience. She’s somewhat puzzled, but intrigued, and cannot turn away from what she sees. The young boy with the red cap skips onto the stage from Front Right and sits down on the large cushion seat, swinging his legs. He doesn’t notice the girl, stares earnestly into the audience.
As I stepped out tentatively onto the stage, and for a moment stumbled, ever so slightly, on my thick, padded sneakers, I wondered if it was so much the character’s clumsiness and insecurity I was projecting, or rather my own. For a moment she and I seemed inextricable, and I could no longer discern whether I was just presenting her soul the best way I could through pure gut instinct, or if she was actually me, and I was no more a medium for her than I was for my own self.
There I was, scrutinising the crowd just as they were scrutinising me, the one person defying the pattern of the others by striding over to the couch and sitting down, unable to remove her gaze from them.
My job was to reflect what I saw in the audience’s faces back to them. Most of them were slightly unnerved by all the silent scrutiny they had been subjected to, and even more unnerved by my own persistent gaze, being that I was supposed to be ‘different’ somehow. It was fun, arousing the insecurity in this crowd, who had come to watch others, but now found themselves watched instead.
My eyes swam over the sea of faces, mirroring their expressions… it was a game- to see how long it would take for them to catch on. It usually took them some time to realise that they themselves completed the collection of the gallery- they were the final artwork on the imaginary wall between us and them, and stare at them we will, until they eat up their assumptions about who is the subject here.
The photo Hanako took will be hung up on the notice board by the time they leave. In it they will see their bewildered expressions, and remember this moment. And I preside over that moment. A precious moment.
(Director’s note: by now there has been a distinct atmosphere established, and the air of expectation which surrounds its play has reached its climax. It is now up to you to create the rest of it- for the author feels unable to continue the play without taking away from it.
It’s sad, really…
Up till now its all been ‘just right’.
And just at this crucial moment, when what happens next is of the highest importance in making sense of this unusual play…
By taking away what it currently lacks, namely continuation, I would render it lacking in an entirely more distressing way. To complete it would take away the lingering feeling of suspension I’ve fought so hard to build, up till now. But here in its unfinished glory, its infinite potential and possibility, it is all that it could never be: perfect in its imperfection, suspended eternally over the threshold of literary consummation.
*
I’ll probably remove the table and integrate the descriptions into the text, for a greater fluidity. The table helped organise my concept of the characters: because they were meant to be distinct, vivid representations which left as suddenly as they appeared, they were meant to leave a vague, hazy recollection, and I had embraced an amalgamating view of them, which was the essence I wanted to represent, but in order to let them dissipate, all their auras jumbled up into a mass of unreceptive or unknowing stranger, and let the memory of their individuation fade away, out of importance and recollection, I had to conjure them up first, and stick them in the reader’s mind, and consequently my own. How’s that for process?
Alrighty, my influences:
Besides being influenced by everything I’ve ever read, seen, heard and felt?
Oh, that’s right- postmodernism! (see above)
Well, distinct influences I can comment on are:
The Real Inspector Hound by Tom Stoppard: the first scenario of the play was inspired by this play. His choice of conducting the production both in and out of the stage, with the interaction of ‘audience members’ inspired me to engage the audience, and to subvert the theatric conventions to make THEM the subject, as a photo or an artwork on the wall that everyone on the stage is puzzled over. In my play, the audience is meant to be confronted by how they are so visibly analysed and judged by the on-stage characters, and make them question their assumption about what an audience is.
I’m heavily influenced by conceptual art, in fact I see the whole made up play as a conceptual artwork. When I first invented it I saw it as an interactive conceptual piece- and then I introduced, after the stream of ‘superficial characters’, a lone confused and searching figure.
I left it there, with no intention of continuing after the point of introducing the character to the room. I waited for another fragment to allow this piece to be transformed into another intriguing moment.
I suddenly had this thought: so far I’d been establishing the action from a detached third voice. I felt that was the end of its use, but then I had an impulse to leap into the mind of the girl who was appearing on stage. And here I saw the possibility to explore the relationship between an actor and their persona.
This could be seen as a diversion, but it’s a deliberate one, and this ‘diversionary’ spirit is going to permeate my whole work.
I welcome a post-structuralist perspective on my work, because my whole work is characterised by post-structuralist considerations, such as that no text is ever complete. I welcome the reader to feel comfortable assigning whatever values to my work they see in there, and enjoying it.
Anyway, back to my influences…
Many authors, particularly Oscar Wilde, Jane Austen and the Romantic poets and movement, as well as contemporary musicians’ lyrics have influenced my narrative style. With Jane Austen I love her subtle wit, flair for language and her use of balanced sentences, and her ability to convey nuance and tone so well. The eloquence and intricacy of her descriptions is very lucrative, and I’ve tried to incorporate some of this entertaining approach into my work. Oscar Wilde I absolutely adore, and his narrative, as in The Portrait of Dorian Gray is mesmerising with its eloquent structure, its witty style and its stylistic flair. I have been influenced from an early age by lyric and theatric literature of previous centuries, including Keats’ and Shakespeare’s imagery and dramatic style.
Musical influences are very important to me work, because music is also a text, and my favourite artists have exquisite lyrics. Some of these involved Alanis Morissette, Gwen Stefani of No Doubt, and also Lauryn Hill. The first two have a dramatic ironic style which is very reflective and introspective, and very lyrical. Lauryn Hill is a singer/rap artist, and her rap has influenced me in my structure of my personal poetry, which I will probably incorporate into the work.
I love exploring reflection, or describing the processes of. I also have a deep interest in relationships of all sorts, both interpersonal and conceptual/literary ones. This will all come through in my work.
A recent influence in narrative exploration has been Italo Calvino, Rob Breszny, a novelist/musician/astrologer and also, in a way, Guerson, in Snow Falling On Cedars. Calvino’s narrative compels you to read on, engages the reader firmly by inviting them to challenge their perceptions, through the use of complex and intriguing imagery and transfer from one plot scenario after another, through its use of metanarrative, the use of the present tense to place the reader in confronting and unusual psychological positions, and shock tactics through the dynamic nature of the prose. If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler is a very witty, polished book, which I still haven’t read in full but do not hesitate to categorise as one of my favourite books nevertheless.
While in practice Snow Falling On Cedars’s clever use of narrative and structure to build up suspense and constantly cross between past and present, inextricably interlinking them for dramatic effect, is weighed down by the sheer amount of material Guerson introduces to the reader, his smooth transitions from one frame of time into another are quite successful.
Peter Williams, in It’s The Body That Matters: Reticence and Desire in Snow Falling On Cedars, had this to say:
Whereas the sentences quicken the story’s development and hurry us towards the truth, the hermeneutic code performs the opposite action: it sets up delays, obstacles, stoppages and deviations in the flow of the discourse. The narrative structure of the novel could therefore be considered reactive since it opposes the ineluctable advance of language with an organised set of stoppages. Between the question of Kabuo Miyamoto’s guilt and the answer of his innocence is a whole dilatory area whose emblem might be called “reticence”, the rhetorical figure that interrupts the narrative, suspends it and constantly turns it aside.
I see my narrative as the driving force of my story. It is through the narrative that action, pace and tone is created, and the nature of its dynamic is integral to the whole tale. I want the reader to pick up on the sense of the narration propelling them forward, further into this text, even though where they’re heading is a mystery. A mystery that instead of being elucidated, intensifies as the narrative moves forward: ostensibly with the effect of bringing the reader to further understanding of the text, but in actuality simply plunging them deeper in the labyrinth of unanswered questions I’ve set up.
It’s an adventure foremost. The details of it will be vivid, but more important than the plot is the journey it presents for the reader. This is why I have always regarded the actual plot itself of secondary significance to my concept of the overall experience, although of course they cannot be without each other.
Back to my influences…
I’ve already included extracts of Calvino’s work here, and these have impacted on me very strongly, as will be shown by the piece in the work that features a young boy writing down his thoughts about the night sky in meta-narrative.
Through my study of Module B: Critical Study of Texts in the 2u Advanced Syllabus I have realised that post-structuralism is a movement which I’ve always kept in mind when thinking of my work, but only recently consciously identified the impact of. I find this really interesting: the amount of ideas you can be influenced by before you even know what they’re called, or within which historical context they arose. I had the same experience with similes, metaphors and other lingual features that we elucidated and gave a name to in Yr 7 English. These were features I’d been using for years without consciously recognising the technique of a ‘metaphor’ or a ‘simile’. I had the same experience with post-modernism in Yr 11 as I found out what impact this ambiguous term had on philosophy, art, architecture, music, theatre, and ofcourse literature. I had been familiar with the ideas of fragmentation, deliberate cultural/historical eclecticism as a form of embracing many but neither as absolute, the embracing of cultural dislocation and displacement and that of tradition, and was searching for a way to represent these ideas, when along came this term and summed it all up for me…
So what is my work for me? An opportunity to express sentiments I will not be able to consciously understand until years from now, to represent some of the depth of my experience, and to instill the same kind of restless curiosity I have for experience in my reader.
Here is where I’ve gotten so far:
The curtains are half-drawn, and through them peeks out a room of an intriguing incongruity: It is evident we are in an art gallery through the various artworks that adorn the walls- a modern art collection, it would seem. However, in some act of neglect, or poor choice of an inexperienced curator, these abstracted and bizarre apparitions find themselves in ridiculously ornate thick golden frames, reminiscent of the Renaissance period. There is only one artwork for which this odd contrast of styles seems to work: directly in the centre of the back wall, facing the audience, is mounted a large blank canvas. There is a single tiny sign painted in its middle in black ink, reading: UNDER CONSTRUCTION, with a box around it. Around its heavy, grandiose frame, a collection of art materials have been stuck to the gallery wall. Here we find tubes of paint scattered all around the space surrounding the canvas, some unopened and some with their lids unscrewed, with paint leaking out. Several paintbrushes hang listlessly about, either dipped into the paint and leaving a red, blue or yellow trail on the grainy texture of the wall, or stretched out into the apparent nothingness around them. –(These instruments have been alienated from their respective functions, unable to work together and transform themselves onto the waiting canvas. …This is how the writer often feels about heir own inability to introduce pen and pare to each other… The once innocent thin blue lines suddenly take to jeering at our unfortunate writer, mocking their whole identity with their serenely undisturbed parallel uniformity, protrude from their previous insignificance and now divide the page into one crisp, empty line after another. Oh the anguish of wanting to make those lines dance with a jumble of letters that wind their merry way through from right to left- anyway, back to the play…)-
The room further continues to draw curiosity, with the introduction of an antique Victorian style couch in the centre of the room, facing the right wall. A dark polished antique, its intricate, quaint wooden designs and soft lawn-green cushioning make an eerie contrast with the garish peach walls. In front of this lies a large, square, black leather cushion seat. This somewhat eccentric room is lit by artificial lighting that accentuates the orange of the walls. There is no one about.
For a long time, silence; no perceptible activity. (Where exactly are we?)
Then, one by one is injected a stream of visitors to the room, each making a unique entrance from one of the four exits available. * (*Back right/left: entering the room in front of the back wall, through an imaginary corridor on either side, or Front right/left: entering in front of the curtains, which represent walls.)
They’re a distinctly dressed yet fishy bunch, their self-consciousness and refusal to openly display their true feelings indicating a moral elusiveness to their character, maybe even speaking of the society they live in.
(It is through the table provided that we wonder if our playwright is not somewhat inclined towards stereotypes in his depiction of character.)
[Epiphanie's notes: The below was originally in a table format.]
Middle-aged Lady with Pram and Small Boy of about 5 years
- Lady wears pale blue shirt, placid in demeanour yet also visibly troubled. Walks behind the boy, with the white pram, trying to guide him through the room. She needn’t worry about him however, as he is blissfully happy in his own world.
- Boy wears red cap, white T-shirt and blue pants, quietly surveying the artworks with a happy, absolutely radiant smile.
- When they arrive at the front of the stage, and look out at the audience, the mother’s regards the audience dubiously, with a growing tension and anxiety. Her boy, however, laughs delightedly, undisturbed and open-minded.
- The boy takes off after looking at the imaginary wall, and scoots down the left corridor in front of his curtains. His mother slowly follows, slowly and tortuously, with a final over-the-shoulder glance at the scene that roused such unpleasant feelings in her. She finally wheels the pram off the stage.
Middle-aged Construction Worker- male
- Wearing paint-stained blue overalls and an aloof, hardened expression expression. He looks out of place, and like he’s taking too much of gallery experience in. Mechanically walks around the room.
- Coming to face the audience, he looks taken aback, and his lack of cohesion is marked by the tension of his features. He scratches his head self-consciously with one finger, then, as if not quite sure what happened, walks off again, as he did with every other artwork before.
- He turns to the left wall, and continues his mechanical walk through the room till he reaches the Back Left exit, which he takes.
Discreet 20-something female figure
- Dressed in close-fitting bodysuit, with sunglasses and colourful scarf wrapped around her head. Dark red lipstick with lips in a posh pout. Moves about revealing as little as possible about her character, glancing stylishly at the artworks.
- Has no visible change of reaction: inspects the artwork as she has all the others, in silence and with little movements to suggest how she might be feeling.
- She continues to inspect the left and also the back wall, before she exits by the entrance she came in through, Right Back. The subdued click of her black high heels is the only sound she makes as she walks around the room.
Elderly white-haired, thin male
- Imposing glare, constant look of disapproval. Wearing a blue-green jumper.
- Disapproval heightened by the glimpse at the audience. The artwork appears to make him angry- he scowls bad temperedly then turns away.
- He turns left and storms out the Front Left exit, fists clenched and an expression of rage embedded into his features.
Young female Japanese tourist
- Wearing T-shirt and jeans, and large photo-camera around her neck. She enthusiastically surveys every artwork with close attention. She’s good-tempered.
- Her usually curious approach is gratified here, as she sobers somewhat. She spends a long time looking the audience up and down. Amazed and open-mouthed, she then takes a photo.
- After she has satisfied her curiosity, she strides into the next room through the Front Right exit.
Plump 30-something couple
- Woman wears red suit and ostentatious jewelry, conversing with husband who’s dressed in a black suit but ill mannered. These two converse as if in a world of their own: no doubt that’s the impression they want to give others.
- Their conversation pauses, then resumes more slowly as they gesticulate slightingly over the audience, hands on chin, with one finger up their cheek. They offer expressions of distaste.
- They move off after leaving final looks of disgust with the audience, to look at the left wall, then the back wall. They pause over this one, unable to make head or tail of it. Silence, then they exit Back Right. They are the last people to leave the room.
There is silence once again. Then a young, teenage Asian girl steps out onto the stage, Back Right, wearing a black polo shirt and black trousers, self-conscious and uncomfortable with every step. She makes her way to the couch, and sits down curled up against the arm facing the audience. She twists her head to take a look at the audience. She’s somewhat puzzled, but intrigued, and cannot turn away from what she sees. The young boy with the red cap skips onto the stage from Front Right and sits down on the large cushion seat, swinging his legs. He doesn’t notice the girl, stares earnestly into the audience.
As I stepped out tentatively onto the stage, and for a moment stumbled, ever so slightly, on my thick, padded sneakers, I wondered if it was so much the character’s clumsiness and insecurity I was projecting, or rather my own. For a moment she and I seemed inextricable, and I could no longer discern whether I was just presenting her soul the best way I could through pure gut instinct, or if she was actually me, and I was no more a medium for her than I was for my own self.
There I was, scrutinising the crowd just as they were scrutinising me, the one person defying the pattern of the others by striding over to the couch and sitting down, unable to remove her gaze from them.
My job was to reflect what I saw in the audience’s faces back to them. Most of them were slightly unnerved by all the silent scrutiny they had been subjected to, and even more unnerved by my own persistent gaze, being that I was supposed to be ‘different’ somehow. It was fun, arousing the insecurity in this crowd, who had come to watch others, but now found themselves watched instead.
My eyes swam over the sea of faces, mirroring their expressions… it was a game- to see how long it would take for them to catch on. It usually took them some time to realise that they themselves completed the collection of the gallery- they were the final artwork on the imaginary wall between us and them, and stare at them we will, until they eat up their assumptions about who is the subject here.
The photo Hanako took will be hung up on the notice board by the time they leave. In it they will see their bewildered expressions, and remember this moment. And I preside over that moment. A precious moment.
(Director’s note: by now there has been a distinct atmosphere established, and the air of expectation which surrounds its play has reached its climax. It is now up to you to create the rest of it- for the author feels unable to continue the play without taking away from it.
It’s sad, really…
Up till now its all been ‘just right’.
And just at this crucial moment, when what happens next is of the highest importance in making sense of this unusual play…
By taking away what it currently lacks, namely continuation, I would render it lacking in an entirely more distressing way. To complete it would take away the lingering feeling of suspension I’ve fought so hard to build, up till now. But here in its unfinished glory, its infinite potential and possibility, it is all that it could never be: perfect in its imperfection, suspended eternally over the threshold of literary consummation.
*
I’ll probably remove the table and integrate the descriptions into the text, for a greater fluidity. The table helped organise my concept of the characters: because they were meant to be distinct, vivid representations which left as suddenly as they appeared, they were meant to leave a vague, hazy recollection, and I had embraced an amalgamating view of them, which was the essence I wanted to represent, but in order to let them dissipate, all their auras jumbled up into a mass of unreceptive or unknowing stranger, and let the memory of their individuation fade away, out of importance and recollection, I had to conjure them up first, and stick them in the reader’s mind, and consequently my own. How’s that for process?
Alrighty, my influences:
Besides being influenced by everything I’ve ever read, seen, heard and felt?
Oh, that’s right- postmodernism! (see above)
Well, distinct influences I can comment on are:
The Real Inspector Hound by Tom Stoppard: the first scenario of the play was inspired by this play. His choice of conducting the production both in and out of the stage, with the interaction of ‘audience members’ inspired me to engage the audience, and to subvert the theatric conventions to make THEM the subject, as a photo or an artwork on the wall that everyone on the stage is puzzled over. In my play, the audience is meant to be confronted by how they are so visibly analysed and judged by the on-stage characters, and make them question their assumption about what an audience is.
I’m heavily influenced by conceptual art, in fact I see the whole made up play as a conceptual artwork. When I first invented it I saw it as an interactive conceptual piece- and then I introduced, after the stream of ‘superficial characters’, a lone confused and searching figure.
I left it there, with no intention of continuing after the point of introducing the character to the room. I waited for another fragment to allow this piece to be transformed into another intriguing moment.
I suddenly had this thought: so far I’d been establishing the action from a detached third voice. I felt that was the end of its use, but then I had an impulse to leap into the mind of the girl who was appearing on stage. And here I saw the possibility to explore the relationship between an actor and their persona.
This could be seen as a diversion, but it’s a deliberate one, and this ‘diversionary’ spirit is going to permeate my whole work.
I welcome a post-structuralist perspective on my work, because my whole work is characterised by post-structuralist considerations, such as that no text is ever complete. I welcome the reader to feel comfortable assigning whatever values to my work they see in there, and enjoying it.
Anyway, back to my influences…
Many authors, particularly Oscar Wilde, Jane Austen and the Romantic poets and movement, as well as contemporary musicians’ lyrics have influenced my narrative style. With Jane Austen I love her subtle wit, flair for language and her use of balanced sentences, and her ability to convey nuance and tone so well. The eloquence and intricacy of her descriptions is very lucrative, and I’ve tried to incorporate some of this entertaining approach into my work. Oscar Wilde I absolutely adore, and his narrative, as in The Portrait of Dorian Gray is mesmerising with its eloquent structure, its witty style and its stylistic flair. I have been influenced from an early age by lyric and theatric literature of previous centuries, including Keats’ and Shakespeare’s imagery and dramatic style.
Musical influences are very important to me work, because music is also a text, and my favourite artists have exquisite lyrics. Some of these involved Alanis Morissette, Gwen Stefani of No Doubt, and also Lauryn Hill. The first two have a dramatic ironic style which is very reflective and introspective, and very lyrical. Lauryn Hill is a singer/rap artist, and her rap has influenced me in my structure of my personal poetry, which I will probably incorporate into the work.
I love exploring reflection, or describing the processes of. I also have a deep interest in relationships of all sorts, both interpersonal and conceptual/literary ones. This will all come through in my work.
A recent influence in narrative exploration has been Italo Calvino, Rob Breszny, a novelist/musician/astrologer and also, in a way, Guerson, in Snow Falling On Cedars. Calvino’s narrative compels you to read on, engages the reader firmly by inviting them to challenge their perceptions, through the use of complex and intriguing imagery and transfer from one plot scenario after another, through its use of metanarrative, the use of the present tense to place the reader in confronting and unusual psychological positions, and shock tactics through the dynamic nature of the prose. If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler is a very witty, polished book, which I still haven’t read in full but do not hesitate to categorise as one of my favourite books nevertheless.
While in practice Snow Falling On Cedars’s clever use of narrative and structure to build up suspense and constantly cross between past and present, inextricably interlinking them for dramatic effect, is weighed down by the sheer amount of material Guerson introduces to the reader, his smooth transitions from one frame of time into another are quite successful.
Peter Williams, in It’s The Body That Matters: Reticence and Desire in Snow Falling On Cedars, had this to say:
Whereas the sentences quicken the story’s development and hurry us towards the truth, the hermeneutic code performs the opposite action: it sets up delays, obstacles, stoppages and deviations in the flow of the discourse. The narrative structure of the novel could therefore be considered reactive since it opposes the ineluctable advance of language with an organised set of stoppages. Between the question of Kabuo Miyamoto’s guilt and the answer of his innocence is a whole dilatory area whose emblem might be called “reticence”, the rhetorical figure that interrupts the narrative, suspends it and constantly turns it aside.
I see my narrative as the driving force of my story. It is through the narrative that action, pace and tone is created, and the nature of its dynamic is integral to the whole tale. I want the reader to pick up on the sense of the narration propelling them forward, further into this text, even though where they’re heading is a mystery. A mystery that instead of being elucidated, intensifies as the narrative moves forward: ostensibly with the effect of bringing the reader to further understanding of the text, but in actuality simply plunging them deeper in the labyrinth of unanswered questions I’ve set up.
It’s an adventure foremost. The details of it will be vivid, but more important than the plot is the journey it presents for the reader. This is why I have always regarded the actual plot itself of secondary significance to my concept of the overall experience, although of course they cannot be without each other.
Back to my influences…
I’ve already included extracts of Calvino’s work here, and these have impacted on me very strongly, as will be shown by the piece in the work that features a young boy writing down his thoughts about the night sky in meta-narrative.
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