The Train Station That Suggested Infinity

I love it when books wave to each other across the years.

You know how it goes. You're reading along, and suddenly a sentence or a passage jumps up and rings a bell in your brain. (I'm thinking about those games at fairs where you have to pound with a hammer to propel something up toward the bell. Sometimes it comes close but doesn't quite make it, plummeting back to earth, but sometimes it zooms right up and rings.)

That's what it can feel like when you're reading along and encounter words whose ideas or music somehow triggers the memory of other words you've read before. It's particularly fascinating when you're not on the lookout for it, because you have no idea if these two writers have ever "met." Their respective place and space in time may have made an actual meeting impossible, though sometimes these connections feel so strong you wonder if the second writer knew the first, and if so, how deep the influence goes. Has she read everything writer one ever wrote, so the influence just seeps in naturally? Did she stumble upon this passage one day and have an illuminating flash of how she might one day use it in a story of her own? Is the connection purely coincidental and serendipitous, based on their shared love of certain other writers? Or (and this last mysterious question can make you shiver) is the connection you see there unique to the three of you: these two writers and you, the reader who is building the bridge?

I found myself thinking about all this the other day when I was reading E.M. Forster. I recently finished A Room With a View, my first foray into his work, and moved not long after into Howards End. I'm still learning my way around Forster and never quite know what to expect next. He has an authoritative narrative voice, and sometimes that authorial voice trips into interesting rabbit trails and side fancies.

One of those happens toward the end of chapter 2 in Howards End, when a woman named Margaret is dropping someone off at a train station in London. Forster muses: "Like many others who have lived long in a great capital, she had strong feelings about the various railway termini. They are our gates to the glorious and unknown. Through them we pass out into adventure and sunshine, and to them, alas! we return..."  He then goes on to muse about the different ethos in each train station, how each one can suggest something different to imaginative sensibilities.

"To Margaret -- I hope that it will not set the reader against her -- the station at King's Cross had always suggested Infinity. Its very situation -- withdrawn a little behind the facile splendors of St. Pancras -- implied a comment on the materialism of life. Those two great arches, colourless, indifferent, shouldering between them an unlovely clock, were fit portals for some eternal adventure, whose issue might be prosperous, but would certainly not be expressed in the ordinary language of prosperity..."

And suddenly, of course, I'm sitting with Harry Potter and Dumbledore in the misty, empty version of King's Cross to which Harry is transported in Deathly Hallows. I know that train stations as way stations to other worldly experiences are not unique to J.K. Rowling (to make one more jump, one could certainly say that the train in C.S. Lewis' Prince Caspian was a gateway to adventure, and that alas! the children had to return from Narnia to the station) but reading this gave me such a pleasurable shiver of recognition. I also have no idea if Rowling ever read the passage. But isn't it delightful? Switch out Margaret's name for Harry's and read it again. "To Harry -- the station at King's Cross had always suggested Infinity."

Kind of makes you wonder if Margaret didn't walk right past platform 9 3/4 on her way home...

Happy Birthday to the Hobbit!

It's the 75th anniversary of the original publishing date for The Hobbit. I intended to celebrate today by having a second breakfast, but alas, it was one of those days that got off to such a crazy start, I hardly got a first one!

A few things have been making the rounds in honor of this special day. One I especially enjoyed was this article by Devin Brown on the C.S. Lewis blog. It's a lovely post. While most Tolkien and Lewis enthusiasts won't learn much from it that's new, it's still delightful to be reminded of the story of The Hobbit's genesis and of the life-giving friendship between Lewis and Tolkien in the early years.

Two things I especially took away from my reflections on this post today. The first is in reference to The Hobbit's beginning. About that momentous and mysterious start, when Tolkien scribbled the line "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit" inside an exam booklet he was correcting, Brown writes:

"Had Professor Tolkien not needed the money which grading secondary school exams provided, had there not been so many of them, had there not been a blank page left in one exam booklet, there might never have been the beloved story we know today."

Don't you love that thought? We can trace the lines in hindsight, but at the time they were such ordinary things. Tolkien was a hard working teacher who needed money and took what I'm sure was a mind-numbing job. (There's that insight again: limitations can sometimes push us to new creative territory.) And in the midst of the mind-numbing pile of papers, a blank page beckoned and a story he didn't even know was percolating put forth its first tentative shoot as he scrawled that one gift line.

Isn't it good of God to give us gift lines and gift images? Remember Lewis saying that Narnia started with the picture of a faun carrying parcels in a wood? From such small beginnings -- one line, one picture -- whole stories can bloom. What a wonderful, mysterious thing creativity is.

And I loved this wonderful reminder from Brown's reflection:

"In a real life story as fascinating as the imaginary ones they would later write, J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis became friends, Tolkien became instrumental in Lewis’s conversion to Christianity, and then Lewis became instrumental in Tolkien’s completing his great works.  Together they formed the Inklings, the close-knit Oxford reading and writing group which met in Lewis’s college rooms and at a pub named The Eagle and Child.  It was at these meetings that the early versions of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were first read aloud, critiqued, and made into what they are today."

Again we can trace the lines. Lewis and Tolkien's friendship, complex as it was, was nourishing and fruitful for them both. As Brown goes on to say, after Jack's death Tolkien would talk about what a debt he owed him and how he wouldn't have finished LOTR if it hadn't been for Lewis' encouragement. It was because Lewis wanted to hear more of the story that Tolkien kept writing; he was the kind of writer who needed that encouragement (I think most writers are, but some more than others). Sometimes in our rush to write and create as artists, we can forget how important that gift of encouragement can be to other artists who are also giving their all to write stories that are good and beautiful and true. What it would be to have a friend like Lewis to draw out the best in us. What it would be to be a Lewis for other writers.

It's the beauty and complexity of that collaboration amongst Lewis and Tolkien and the other Inklings that Diana Pavlac Glyer captures so beautifully in her masterful book The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community. The book is a great read for many reasons, but I think it especially helped me to understand Tolkien better. As I wrote in my review of the book three years ago:

"If one individual Inkling stands out in this volume, it's Tolkien. Though Glyer does a great job of covering the group as a group, it's inevitable that the members who wrote more and are better known will receive fuller treatment. But I think there's more than that in the thoughtful depths of her look at Tolkien: Glyer clearly wants to paint a more accurate portrait of his working style than has been attempted before. He's often been looked at as a kind of solitary genius, but as Glyer points out (and brilliantly backs up) of all the Inklings, Tolkien may have been the most dependent on community for inspiration and encouragement, as he was what I believe she terms a "notorious non-finisher." 

That was due in part to his incredibly lengthy revisions: he could write for years on one project, and create draft after draft. Just consider that the 600,000 plus words of Lord of the Rings took him about two decades to bring to completion, and that he worked many more years than that on his Silmarillion (only published after his death, its many drafts finally edited by Christopher).  Tolkien, Glyer asserts, would never have finished LOTR without the Inklings: "they supported Tolkien's natural impulse to keep polishing and perfecting his work." Beyond this general encouragement, the Inklings and Lewis in particular made specific comments and suggestions that we know (from evidence Glyer provides here) "led to modifications" in the work. Key changes were made in the shape of the narrative, and even in Tolkien's choice of how to end the book" 

On the 75th anniversary of The Hobbit, we can celebrate not only a wonderful story that has lasted in our hearts for so long, but the creative inspiration and collaboration that stood behind it.

November: Celebrating Alcott and Little Women

November is one of my favorite months. Despite the growing cold and the headlong rush toward winter, there is so much about November I love: All Saints Day, Thanksgiving, the beginning of Advent, and the literary day of days.

If you've been acquainted with my blog for long, you'll know I call November 29th the literary day of days. That's because it's the birthday of Louisa May Alcott, C.S. Lewis, and Madeleine L'Engle, three of the most formative writers of my life. Three of the writers of my heart.

I thought it might be enjoyable to set aside a November to celebrate each of those authors, and this year I thought I'd start with Alcott. Not just because she comes first in the alphabet, first chronologically (born in 1832) and first in my childhood reading...though all of that is true.

I've had Alcott especially on my mind of late, in part because I just finished reading the first book in the Mother-Daughter Book Club series, which is (in large part) a loving tribute to Alcott's literary masterpiece. It's fascinating to me to see that, so many years after its initial publication, Little Women continues to inspire creativity and loyal readership.

I've also recently read Harriet Reisen's biography of Louisa May Alcott, which I highly recommended in this review last May.

And in March, I participated in Fuse #8's Top 100 Children's Novels poll. Not many 19th century novels made the cut, but Little Women came in at #25. It was, in fact, the oldest book to make the list. And I was delighted to see my quote about it posted front and center.

So for 2010, Alcott it is. Given the pace of my life right now, I don't know how much time I'll be able to devote to the celebration, but I do hope to get up some posts, particularly in celebration of Little Women. I've already got a questionnaire out to some friends who expressed interest in talking about the book with me...if you're a Little Women fan and would be interested in responding to the questions too, please let me know in the comments. And please, spread the word to any other Little Women fans you know!

Literary Influences

I've been thinking a lot about literary influences lately. Partly this stems from all the reading I've been doing, especially in the fantasy genre, where more and more I see things bubbling in the giant "cauldron of story" that J.R.R. Tolkien talked about. Sometimes it's difficult to know just who put what in the pot first, or when and how an author added his or her own special ingredients or gave it a unique stir.

I find it fascinating to wonder how certain stories grew, especially when elements jump out as being so similar in tone or atmosphere to another (often earlier) work. Did the author borrow directly? Did the author perhaps read that other work once at a crucial place in their own formation and development as a person or writer? Did they read it over and over and perhaps soak the story in so deeply that they no longer know where that story finishes and their own starts?

Or are the similarities "coincidental" or unconscious? Could it be that author A has never read author B, but they both share a love of author C (or even art or music or poetry D) and that influence has permeated their work in similar ways, giving their very different stories a similar flavor or scent?

Or is it that there really are only so many stories that can be told in this world, despite the huge variety of people who live them and tell them? Could it be that our shared humanity runs so deep that our memories/experiences are more kin than we usually acknowledge?

And how much does shared genre shape an author's choice? If a writer knows that he or she is plowing familiar territory in a certain kind work, do they perhaps choose to draw (or find themselves drawing naturally) on certain images, character types, symbols, and even narrative rhythms?

I find this whole topic fascinating, but I also find myself welcoming the opportunity to widen the discussion of literary influence beyond mere echoes and similarities of content and style. I recently finished a book that does just that: Diana Pavlac Glyer's The Company They Keep: C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as Writers in Community.

Although it's not just about Lewis, Glyer's book has joined what I'm coming to think of as my canon of personal favorite books about C.S. Lewis. It's a painstaking and highly readable work of scholarship. More than the meticulous research that went into it, however, and the many new facts I learned about some of my favorite authors, I enjoyed it for its fresh approach to the topic of the Inklings. Glyer asks readers to consider the question of literary influence in much broader perspective than we usually consider it (the context I laid out in the earlier part of this post). She looks at the way community fosters influence, assessing mutual influence by looking not just at similar writing style or writing interest, but by looking at the ways writers in community affect one another as "resonators, opponents/critics, editors, collaborators, and referents." She then proceeds to look at the interaction of the Inklings in light of those categories.

The book gave me much to think about as a reader and a writer, and as someone who appreciates the writing friends and community I have (and longs for more). What role do our writing friends, our resonators, play in our creativity? A far larger role than we might guess, I think.

All of which leads me back to the thoughts that fascinate me about the "echoes" I hear in certain stories. We may never know what lies behind a certain turn of phrase, a choice of image, a decision about a character. But we can be sure that such writerly choices are not made in isolation, even if a writer thinks they're working completely "on their own." There's really no such thing as "on you're own" when you join in the long conversation of creativity that flows down through the ages. When you step up to the pot to create your "own" recipe, you never really start from scratch.

Quarry Speech and Kything

In the past couple of years, Shannon Hale has become one of my favorite fantasy authors for young adults. I first really fell for her work a couple of years ago when I read Princess Academy. Recently I re-read it again twice: to myself, and out-loud to my husband (who really liked it, and who was pleasantly surprised by the un-Disney nature of the story, given its title!).

I liked it even better the second and third times around, partly because I was fully prepared to enter into the world of Mt. Eskel. Since I knew the characters and the contour of the plot already, I was able to pay more attention to Hale's world-building. I'm impressed by the details she provides about life for the villagers on Mt. Eskel and how that builds a credible, substantial world for the story.

Hale tells us about the strength of the mountain itself, the beauty of the mountain views, the smell of the goats they herd, the beautifully streaked linder stone, the wild miri flowers that grow in cracks of stone, the chips and shards of rock that cut into thinning boot soles, the essential poverty of the people who must work hard to cut enough stone to trade for goods each season. She helps us understand that, while they're illiterate, they have an amazing communal memory which is showcased in festival time through the creativity of their "story-shouts." She describes their folk dances, their physical strength, their skill in mining linder, their lack of political status as members of a non-provincial territory of the kingdom of Danland, the way they care for one another. She hints at the lacks some of them feel by not having time or space in their lives for gardens or art (and their yearning to see the far-off ocean). And of course, she describes the way they communicate with one another in the quarry, using a language without words, often communicated through the sounds and rhythms of the work, tools and stone.

A huge part of Miri's coming of age, and her growing understanding of herself as a true daughter of the mountain, is her newfound ability to sing the mountain's songs even when she is cut off from many of the places and people she once thought were needed to make such speech possible. Before she left for the academy, she had never used quarry speech because she'd never been allowed inside the quarry (her father has his reasons, but he doesn't explain them to her, hence her feeling of uselessness). Her sojourn at the princess academy, along with eleven other girls from their territory, is not precisely an exile, but it functions as one, or at least a time away in a very different place where new thoughts and ideas and dreams arise (which strikes me as a notion one might come across in a Shakespearean comedy). While Miri is there, out of necessity she learns the music of the quarry, and unexpectedly discovers that she can speak/sing it outside of the quarry itself, as long as she is physically touching any stone that can be traced to a vein of linder. That unseen network of linder veins becomes a beautiful, unconscious scaffolding as Miri learns the secret of the speech is built on shared memories/community.

I guess the first time I read the book, I was so involved in the excitement of a first read-through that parallels didn't come to me, but this time through I found myself reading the descriptions of quarry speech and thinking about kything.

Kything is the form of unspoken communication that Madeleine L'Engle developed in her fantasy novels for young adults many years ago, particularly in A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door and A Swiftly Tilting Planet. Meg Murry, her brother Charles Wallace, and their friend Calvin O'Keefe learn to communicate with one another and with other people/creatures across vast distances and without words. The concept is developed throughout the books -- it's not actually named as kything until Wind, when Meg is tutored in the practice by Proginoskes, the singular cheribum who partners with her against the evil, unnaming Echthroi. What intrigues me is that, in that first instance where it's named, Progo works with Meg to help her remember a memory that she didn't realize she had stored in her brain. She heard a conversation (not realizing its full import) and thought she'd forgotten it, but Progo, in communicating/communing with her, is able to pull the memory forth so that she can see it and hear it clearly again. Meg becomes a particularly adept kyther, especially with Charles Wallace in A Swiftly Tilting Planet. While he's off riding a unicorn on the wind to save the planet from nuclear peril, she's in her attic bedroom, keeping her hand on a dog (whom we're led to believe just might be part guardian angel) since the act of touching the warm fur of the living creature seems to connect her more closely to her little brother's mind and heart. Shades of linder lines.

Meg also kythes deeply with Calvin, the young man who will grow up to be her husband. Their intimacy of communication is similar to what she shares with others, but also different, tinged with eros as well as philos, I guess you might say (and all of it bathed somehow in agape). The nuances are hard to describe, but definitely there, reminding me of Miri's ability to quarry-speak most clearly, especially when in peril, with the young man closest to her own heart, Peder. Although their feelings for one another have not been fully acknowledged or recognized even by themselves, the feelings are there (which Hale makes beautifully clear from their awkwardness around one another).

More than Meg and Calvin, however, Peder and Miri's ability to communicate reminded me forcefully of Vicky Austin and Adam Eddington in A Ring of Endless Light. If absolutely forced to choose a favorite L'Engle novel, I would probably choose Ring, which I read over and over again between the ages of 15-25. I don't know why it never dawned on me with any forcefulness (until now!) that the unspoken communication developed in Ring looks an awful lot like kything. Vicky experiences an ability to communicate without words (and to receive communications, often in the form of wordless images) first with dolphins (animals are always very important in Madeleine's work) and then with Adam, the young man who introduces her to the dolphins.

Maybe one reason I never made an explicit connection is because distinctions used to be often made between Madeleine's "chronos" books and her "kairos" books. In her so-called kairos books, characters were not bound by the normal nature of time, while characters in the chronos books never time-traveled. That's a useful enough distinction in some regards, but it's not so easy to break her books down into categories of "fantasy" and "realism" with the kairos books neatly falling into one and the chronos books into the other. Even in her more realistic books, where the characters don't fly with unicorns, there are mystical elements. Vicky, after all, flies with dolphins.

I've wandered far afield. My main observation is that Miri's unspoken message to Peder felt familiar, not in a derivative way, but in a lovely, shared tradition way. Peder's response in her time of peril mirrors Adam's. Vicky and Adam's wondering exchange (once the peril is past) is so sweet and simple: "I called you --" "And I came," he said. Words that could have been quarry-sung in another book, time and place.