9.04.2008

Fireflies of the Dusk

The stories I posted at my wordpress site for short fiction [site defunct - 3.12.17] so far will eventually - hopefully - be part of a collection which when complete will be called "Fireflies of the Dusk". I intend for the stories to all hang together in some fashion - some more closely than others, as in the ones about or referring to Noah Crowley, the central character - and for each story to be able to function independently of the others. The last one posted, entitled "The Prisoner", should be thought of as a work in progress. I thought I had it finished, but as it happens it doesn't sit well with me, for a number of reasons. Instead of deleting the story as it is and re-posting it when I have something different, I'm going to leave it up. For one thing, it could very well be that I won't be able to get the story into better shape; secondly, if the work becomes much longer, which I think might happen, it will be easier to add to the post as it is at present than post another much larger, or somewhat larger, file at some future date. Posting big files is a tedious affair, and the bigger they are the more difficult it is to go through and edit them. No work is ever really finished as long as their author is still living, and there are no existing prose texts anywhere that cannot be at least in some measure improved, I don't care where you look.

I chose the over-all title for the work from a poem by Charles Reznikoff, an untitled piece, as most of that poet's works are, which, in its entirety, goes thus:

I will write songs against you,
enemies of my people; I will pelt you
with the winged seeds of the dandelion;
I will marshal against you
the fireflies of the dusk.


To me, this is one of the finest poems ever written. As a contrast to what I just said, this poem is perfect as is and I doubt that it could be made any better. It's good in so many ways and says so much I can't possibly do justice to it here. In those five lines weakness and strength, impotence and true power, go hand in hand. It's important to note that Reznikoff was Jewish. Noah Crowley, my anti-hero, is half-Jewish, not because of this poem, but because the historical Jewish struggle against every sort of persecution and prejudice affords a symbolic background for Noah's struggle for a sense of purpose and happiness in the world, which, unfortunately, he doesn't find. I thought of the title for my collection of stories, from the final line of this poem, well after the Noah character was well established in my mind and in the writing of his story. So, the title was sort of an afterthought, or a mid-thought, and it fit nicely, at least so I think. The main thing now is to make my stories live up to the title I've given them, which is a daunting task which I may be unable to do.

I could go on for a good long time considering how and why Reznikoff's poem provides such a good touchstone and reference point for my stories. First, the poem is a sublimely passive response to the aggression it speaks of. The characters in my stories are passive to a fault, they suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune as a matter of course, and do nothing to fight back, or fight impotently. So far I have only one character, Ed from "The Grange" - more or less my version of Iago from Othello - who doesn't fight impotently but in a cowardly and underhanded fashion. He is the oddball thus far, but his main purpose is to tell us a little about Noah in his final year of high school. In that story Noah is a minor character and is hardly involved at all. A long time ago I saw a great film, adapted from a play by Tom Stoppard, called Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which takes two minor characters from Hamlet and makes them central, and in which Hamlet is reduced to a minor role. I had that in mind when I wrote "The Grange". I also had in mind certain poems, by Auden and Williams mainly, written about a Breughel painting depicting the fall of Icarus as a trivial incident in the background which goes all but unseen by the main figures in the painting. Here is a way to make art even more multi-dimensional, so to speak, to present major literary characters or incidents from a completely different point of view, to set them in the background or off in the distance. What I envision with my stories is along these lines: to make who ought to have been minor characters into main characters. But it could be that Noah, in a certain sense, turns himself from minor to major, which is to say tragic, by taking - or suffering - the final action of his life. Suicide is often a cry for attention, a last ditch effort to lift one's self out of the ordinary and into the extraordinary. It's pathetic but true, at least in some cases. But just as a suicide doesn't justify or romanticize a life half-lived, or lived badly, neither does suicide turn an uninteresting character into an interesting one, at least not by virtue of that act alone. I had no intention of killing Noah while I was writing "The Viaduct". I don't necessarily believe that Noah intended to do it. He was in great despair, and he was very drunk. When he went over I was somewhat surprised. As silly and grandiose as it may sound for me to say it, it's pretty much true. In a very real sense I still think it might have been an accident. He was drunk and ruminating and clinging to the side of the trestle. He even considers how bizarre it would be if he fell accidentally, because everyone would conclude that he had killed himself. He thinks those very thoughts while he looks for the creek which he thinks has to be down there. [edited out something 3.12.17] Is the author of the work an omniscient party in regard to the actions of his characters? Common sense says yes, of course; but I have to say it's not absolutely so in Noah's case. The silly little bastard might have been thinking about jumping but not really intending to do it. He could have simply had an accident. It's up in the air, if you'll excuse the pun, whether I like it or not.

After Noah died I thought it best to give him a life. "The Viaduct" was written first, and in a blog, which is why each section is one large paragraph dealing with a single idea, theme, or incident. Each section was initially composed at one sitting. It was a lark. I was heavily influenced by Henry Miller, and I was drinking Wild Turkey while I wrote most of it. Despite its tangents and superfluous material, it was heavily edited. Many sections which were originally there were dropped. Several sections currently included should probably be dropped, but I have yet to do it. Maybe the whole damn thing should be dropped. I've written some poems that people thought were successful, and I've published a handful, but I'm a greenhorn when it comes to prose. My work, though it makes me happy in a lot of ways, is no doubt riddled with incompetence and on the whole just very bad writing. At this point I can accept that easily. It doesn't matter anyway.

More to come on this, I think. Maybe not.