How far might a writer transcend?
This is largely a question that I do not yet have an answer to. I’m sure I could come up with one if put on the spot, but I’m intending to mull it over for awhile. This relates to Modernist thought in relation to the poignancy of reality. Some Modernists like Joyce will often strive for harshly realistic circumstances such as in Ulysses and yet still have moments, such as in the “Circe” chapter, where reality comes apart. Or it all gets too real. Baudelaire, originally in French but this is a translation, stated, “You will say to me perhaps, ‘Are you sure that your tale is a true one?’ What do I care about reality of the world around me, if only it helps me to live, to feel I exist and to know what I am.”
This concept seems to detour into surrealism in terms of the extremeness of metaphor implied where two things vastly distinct from one another can become less-so, not simply because reality dictates them to be but also because there is an intuition that they are. Does reality sufficiently define the person? Or do we consider ourselves beyond that? In literature, as writers, is it sufficient for us to abandon reality when it suits us that we might better define what we are through the alteration. Is that corruption? What inaccuracies arise when reality is dropped in favor of these pluralizations or surrealistic and new realities? It is very daunting yet inviting question that seems to reside at the heart of a good deal of Modernist literature. And I think it is still an important question that needs to be answered in light of current literary works. This is something that as an author I really want to delve into and find, at least temporarily, an answer for. Not that I think any answer won’t change with time. Perhaps after I finish my new manuscript, I will have a more solid launching point and point of comparison in regards to these ideas.
Manuscript in exhibition
Here be the first two paragraphs from the novel manuscript I’m working on. Of course, I don’t have nearly enough done; although, I promise there is much more than this. School is starting again, which actually means more inspiration and more time to write (one hopes).
Carr and Brody had been hopping across the Midwest on transistor radio waves. After the first eight hours of driving, they had begun to coast on momentum, all the while allowing the radio to play. The crushing sound of static snow from the loss of signal became the white noise of dreams for Carr, riding passenger, as often as he woke up and calibrated it back to something more recognizably human: music, listener call-ins, commercials, show hosts and their small talk. Brody, for the most part, left the radio untouched. Usually neither of them even noticed the signal slipping away, and often they would trickle from one station to the next—from the rustling of dashboard bushes back to civilization—completely unaware. The drive was much too far to be made all at once, but that was okay because they had come looking for a long haul. Madly destination driven, they didn’t think about who had come the same way before, how they could have better spent the time, or even if there was a better road to take. They needed a distance that could sate wanderlust and still feel like sacrifice. The Northwoods beckoned.
Brody exited off the highway and pulled into a Quik-E-Stop gas station. He was so tired he couldn’t even bring himself to chuckle at the innuendo hiding just behind the name: pop in for a quickie? No, it just wasn’t that funny. It was too early in the morning for it to be early in the morning, and it was going to take a lot more for him to show signs of life. The gas station with its pumps and strip-mall style corner grocery store and attached Arby’s reminded him of his last job, where he had stockpiled money into his bank account as quickly as minimum wage and hunger would allow. “Cash into my cache,” Brody thought, which was also not really that funny. He began to calculate, in his head, how many more hours he had had to work to pay for this little excursion. He could count the days behind the register, mopping the floors, wiping down the bathrooms, taking out the trash, and filling out drive-off reports, as he not-so-magically turned them into gasoline in the Dodge Shadow’s tank.
