Especially for Dot

I’ve determined I must have one of the least rewarding blogs to pay attention to: not only are the posts few and far between, they are all abstract and somewhat impersonal. I suppose I need to work on a theme, like my other blogging friends.

My friend asked of my “Stories” post whether there wasn’t room for the exuberant depiction of the mundane and extra-narrative:

‘I read "White Teeth" last week, and rather liked it. It was colorful and fast paced, informative while still building a tale of sorts. Shiny bits of words that keep me interested.

What can you say in regard to just portraying something? Lacking the plot to put a judgement or reaction on the actions, but instead putting words to something someone else has seen so they say "Ah! That is it."?
Like a painting of something that the viewer didn't realize that anybody else noticed. A greater awareness of existence?

There's a single sentence in a Jonathan Lethem book that describes exquisitely the motions of a squirrel running along a telephone line and down a pole, and I love it because it renders in words an action I had previously only experienced in reality. Nothing happens to the squirrel, it just exists as a bit of prop in a larger story line, but I still point it out to anyone I lend the book to.

What room is there for this sort of thing, in your opinion?’

A good question, a fine question, and a fair. This kind of thing, I think, belongs to the “pleasure of the part,” the little evocative bits that make the journey of reading pleasurable, in addition to and in conjunction with the “pleasure of the whole.” Dickens has some great descriptions of the dog, Diogenes, in Dombey and Son which sound just like your squirrel. One goes, “Yes, that’s it! I’ve seen just that thing!” and it is enjoyable – but it is not a story, just a part. I read a short that was just a dream narrative, with a brief introduction, “I had a dream the other night” and a brief conclusion, “That was my dream. It probably doesn’t mean anything.” Even if the dream had been interesting, it wasn’t a story – it wouldn’t even have made good poetry. Try writing down a dream for an unknown audience as opposed to telling it to a friend over coffee – you’ll see a big difference in its interest and power.

I just read Babel Tower by A.S. Byatt, a book that doesn’t spend much time with description of setting or characters’ appearances, but relies primarily on the interest of the action and its characters’ behaviors. For a British novel the prose is surprisingly terse, and only a few characters have compelling personalities, which works against the “pleasure of the part,” on my reckoning. The motive force of my reading actually lay in the ideas thematized by the action: license and liberty, sex and sensuality, morality and fiction, etc. Compare that to White Teeth, which sets up a vibrant, if somewhat disagreeable, world with skillful characterization and a powerful narratorial voice – but which tanks in the final pages and turns into a weak essay on conclusions. It would be interesting to cross Byatt’s mind with Smith’s pen.

Then I wrote a review of the book, and started to realize how little I generally care for reviewing, especially if I don't care for a piece. I find merit in it as a kind of exercise, and it gets my name and work out on the web (for what that's worth), but there are so many other things, writing and reading, and friendships, that feel more important, particularly when considering that I haven't committed to writing as a career, in which case reviews would figure as a kind of due-paying - not unlike this blog, I suppose.