Mossy Mantles and the Place Driven Story, Part Three

Place can be described and brought to life, brilliantly, in ways you might not readily imagine. Too much physical description can be as misplaced as too little.  If the depiction of the setting does not bring with it the culture and the spirit of the people, we will not know who the characters are. The history of the original inhabitants is crucial.

From The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton:

“The Beauforts house was one of the few in New York that possessed a ballroom (it antedated even Mrs Manson Mingotts and the Headly Chiverses); and at a time when it was beginning to be thought provincial to put a 'crash' over the dining room floor and move the furniture upstairs, the possession of a ballroom that was used for no other purpose and left for three hundred and sixty four days of the year to shuttered darkness, with its gilt chairs stacked in a corner and is chandelier in a bag; this undoubled superiority was felt to compensate for whatever was regrettable in the Beaufort past.”

“New York has always been a commercial community and there are not more than three families in it who can claim and aristocratic origin in the real sense of the word...

The van der Luydens, direct descendants of the first Dutch Governor of Manhatten who stood above all of them had faded into a kind of super terrestrial twilight.. They divided their time between Trevenna their place in Maryland, and Sutercliff, the great estate on the Hudson which had been one of the colonial grands of the Dutch government of which Mr. Van der Luyden was still a patroon."

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So what do these passages say about place? The topic is not, by any means, limited to the physical description. If a writer were to leave it at that and not describe the character's social standing, then we would not know who they are.

If you take a look at the south, you may think that the fertile soil and temperate climate would produce happy stories of people who are totally at ease. This is not always the case. Can anyone tell me why? The culture and the past are somewhat at odds with the lush setting; it is that contrast and the brutality of the change forced upon it which have yielded the greatest stories. The expression, 'may you always live in changing times,' has particular appeal to writers.

William Faulkner created the fictional Yokaipatawa county where:

“Life was created in the valleys. It blew up into the hills on the old terrors, the old lusts, the old despairs. That is why you must walk up the hills so you can ride down.”

In Absalom Absalom, Thomas Sutpen is a character who sought to wrest his mansion out of the muddy bottoms of the north Mississippi wilderness. He was a man, Faulkner said who wanted sons and the sons destroyed him.

Some stories have shifts in the settings and the description of that shift, or explanation, can imbue great tension in the action. I have chosen a passage from Alexander Dumas, The Count of Monte Christo:

“Meanwhile through a gully between two walls of rock, following a path worn by a torrent, which, in all probability human foot had never before trod, Dantes approached the spot where he supposed the grottos much have existed. Keeping along the coast and examining the smallest object with rapt attention, he thought he could trace on certain rocks, marks made by the hand of man. Time, which encrusts all physical substances with its mossy mantle, as it invests all things moral with its mantle of forgetfullness, seemed to have respected these signs, traced with a certain regularity and probably with a design of leaving tracks. Occasionally these marks disappeared beneath clumps of myrtle which spread into large bushed laden with blossoms or beneath parasitical lichen. Edward had to move branches on one side or remove mosses in order to retrace the marks which were to be his guide in this labyrinth...”

“At last after fresh hesitation, Dantes entered the second grotto. The second grotto was lower and more gloomy than the first; the air that could only enter by the newly formed opening had that mephitic smell Dantes was surprised to find in the firs. He waited to allow the pure air to displace the foul atmosphere and entered.

The treasure, if existed was buried in this corner. The time had at length arrived; two feet of earth removed and Dantes fate would be decided. He advanced toward the angle and summoning all his resolution, attacked the ground with a pickaxe. At fifth or sixth blow the pickaxe struck against an iron substance. Never did funeral knell, never did alarm bell, produce a greater effect on the hearer. Had Dantes found nothing, he could not have become more ghastly pale. He again struck his pickaxe into the earth and again encountered the same resistance, but not the same sound.

'It is a casket of wood bound with iron,' thought he."

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How many movies, comic books, and cartoons have recreated that scene? It has become a expected now, but that was the original.

The most profoundly beautiful description of a setting, would induce nothing but a big yawn if a desperate situation did not immediately follow. Alfred Hitchcock used to say, get your character's in a pickle so we can watch them work their way out. He was a great one for using a setting dramatic in and of itself to help this concept along.

Consider this example of the technique from another master, Charles Dickens. This is from Great Expectations:

 

“Ours was the marsh country down by the river, within, as the river wound, twenty miles of the sea. The first most vivid and broad impression of the identity of things, seems to me to have been gained on a memorable raw afternoon towards evening. At such a time, I found that this bleak place, overgrown with nettles was the church yard; and that Philip Pirrup, late of this parish and Georgiana wife of the above, were also dead and buried; and that the dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard intersected with dykes and mound and gates with scattered cattle feeding on it was the marshes; and that low leaden line beyond was the river; and that distant savage lair form which the wind was rushing, was the sea; and that small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry was Pip.

'Hold your noise,' cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from among the graves at the side of the church porch. “ Keep still you little devil, or I'll cut your throat.”

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Descriptions of settings can indicate what kind of story you are about to read. The ability to weave that through the opening pages can be what distinguishes the classics and the prize winners.
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The Best Food Ever Book Club Reads The End of Your Your Life Book Club

Written by Will Schwalbe, this novel pictured above, covers the author's journey through his mother's bout with pancreatic cancer. While I believe most editors would say that one cannot write a book about someone who gets sick and then dies, Schwalbe manages to do this quite successfully.  While it certainly feels like a story to anyone undergoing such an event, it is typically not enough to sustain fiction; something else needs to be added to the mix. How this author manages to hold our interest involves the device of discussing the books he read with his mother while she was undergoing the full course of chemotherapy. At the same time, they also discuss years of reading and other books they loved and shared.

In the end, the approach does work and people have been reading it in droves. The author's mother had an interesting life that keeps the reader engaged, as we are invited to look back on her years of helping refugees. A working woman ahead of her time, she managed to keep the home fires burning and make lively and interesting friends from all parts of the world. Her desire to build a library in Afghanistan make her admirable and the fact that she accepts her fate with grace, only adds to her strengths.

While reading, I felt I wanted to see a bit more of her flaws. We have had this discussion for the last twenty-two years  in my reading group, made palatable because we are the 'best food ever book club.' It seems to me that defects and faults make characters more interesting. Fellow readers will say they do not care for a novel, no matter how well written it is, if they do not like the character. It is one of those avenues where we agree to disagree. I am waiting, with baited breath, to see how this age old difference of opinion will play out. If one person agrees with me, and says they would like to know about at least a few faults in this admirable woman, then I can say, “Aha.” However, I know full well that it will not change anything.

What are character flaws? Because of the age we live in, I turned to Google for the answers. From About.com: Ten Ugliest Character Flaws

1. Arrogant, argumentative
2.Dishonest
3.Short tempered-combative
4.Need to always be right (conceited)
5.Perfectionist, nit picking.
6.Being a victim, always blaming the other guy
7.Selfish, miserly
8.Stubborn, rigid
9.Vain, prideful (haughty)
10. Humorless, inability to laugh at oneself

When my husband was studying for his post graduate degree, his class was asked to write a list of the ten worst traits in humankind. They all scribbled furiously, slammed the pencil smugly down and looked up at the professor. He said, "Now, take up the piece of paper and look at your self portrait."

Carson Reeves put together another great list that is even more straightforward in Script Shadow. He adds well known movies where we can see this exhibited.

1. Puts work in front of family and friends. Zero Dark Thirty
2. Won't let others in. Good Will Hunting.
3.Doesn't believe in one's self. Rocky Balboa. King George VI in The King's Speech.
4.Doesn't stand up for one's self. George McFly in Back to the Future. Cameron in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
5.Too selfish. Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.
6.Won't Grow Up. 40 year old Virgin.
7. Too uptight, too anal. Pretty Woman.
8.Too reckless. James T. Kirk in Star Trek.
9. Lost Faith, Mel Gibson in Signs
10. Pessimism/ cynicism Sideways.

Reading this list, it is easy to see how some flaws lend themselves beautifully to tragedy and others to comedy. It is our weaknesses that make us real and indeed, at times, lovable.When describing a heroic type, he better have some defects, or we will not relate. The same can be said of antagonists. A guy who blows his stack and kills his wife, but loves his dog, is believable. No one is all good or all bad- we are a complex soup of both.

If you are looking for something to read this summer, you get two for the price of one with The End of Your Life Book Club. You will enjoy the story and get a reading list to boot. As I tend to read my way through life's trials and have for as long as I can recall, I particularly enjoyed the certain truth, that if you are put to bed with an illness, it is the perfect time to read and read and read, until the book falls on the floor and you are at the end. Hopefully, we all  still have many volumes ahead. 

Our Town & Other Plays

   

I often hear from friends about a new work of fiction, non-fiction, mystery they recommend me reading,  but very seldom about a drama or play.  Regarding plays,  I think it safe to say many folks   enjoy going to the theater to see a play performed, but  not many choose to read one. Why this is I don't know. Playwrights choose interesting themes to write about, provide dialogue and plot to captivate one's attention.

Although I've  never written a play, I would like to, and  have found drama  an interesting genre from the time I was a freshman at Bell High School and enrolled in Drama class.  I still   have  a few  books of Plays on my shelf today,   Sixteen Famous American Plays, Twenty-Five Best Plays of the Modern American Theater,  and the Complete Plays of Lillian Hellman,  that include plays I like very much - Life With Father, The Man Who Came to Dinner, and The Women.  My favorite among them is  Thornton Wilder's Our Town. 

Perhaps one reason Wilder's Our Town ranks high with me is because from the time I was a little girl I remember my darling  Grandmother Cooney talking about my dad having a major part  in his high school production of Our Town, playing  the role of stage manger. Maybe it's because it sounds so much like  the small town of Council Bluffs, Iowa where  my mother and dad grew up . Or maybe,  my own small town of Bell, California where neighbors knew each other well.  Each day very much the same, just as it was in Wilder's fictitious Grover's Corner, but every day precious ... only in later years do those living there realize how precious those simple moments were, and how they helped to shape who they were, and form the memories they share.

Thinking back on studies, I am reminded the playwright often gives only a skeletal description of a a character ; A  key to reading and understanding a  play is to use the stage directions and the dialogue  to help 'see' the play in your mind.  You might ask youself :

*How does this scene look ?
*What might this character look like?
*How might this character dress , walk, talk and gesture?

Be sure to listen, question, connect:; Whom does this character remind me of? When did something similar happen to me?  How would I respond?

And respond: How does this make me feel ? What's interesting about this?  I like this character because...

The play Our Town stresses the  ties that bind and  importance of relationships - the meaning of routine and every day living - small happenings, and ordinary events.  It's easy for me to relate to those sweet years of my youth, but also the routine my husband and  family now share.  And  to those no  longer   here..

Just like a novel, plays provide setting, plot and dialogue. While books are divided into chapters, plays are divided into acts and scenes, which indicate a change in location or the passage of time.





*Note - some reference from Glencoe Literature The Reader's Choice copyright 2002