tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post5311197647840031213..comments2023-10-03T11:41:21.191+01:00Comments on The Truth About Lies: The Sky is ChangingJim Murdochhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12786388638146471193noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-86335897011162439392010-08-10T08:39:20.014+01:002010-08-10T08:39:20.014+01:00Good post and this mail helped me alot in my colle...Good post and this mail helped me alot in my college assignement. Thank you for your information.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-21309527786687843692010-07-27T18:38:32.598+01:002010-07-27T18:38:32.598+01:00Everyone wants to believe that they’re behaving no...Everyone wants to believe that they’re behaving normally though don’t they, <b>Art</b>. In my book, which I really didn’t want to get into but I’ll mention this, the protagonist notes how people are very quick to tell her how she should be feeling: “Oh, you must be devastated, dear!” only she’s not. She feels guilty because she doesn’t feel guilty but the simple fact is that her father was not a big part of her world at this point and so the damage is limited to a small corner of her life. <br /><br />I’ve always been a practical person. There are things that have upset me for the short term, the loss of a girlfriend, the death of a cat, but life goes on. I was brought up with that mentality. Someone told my ex-wife that what she was going through when we separated was grief. The writer in me found that fascinating. I can’t really say how I felt because I was in the midst of a major depression and that kind of swallowed up everything else.<br /><br />I’ve actually just spent a good hour on Google Maps ‘driving’ round my hometown. When I moved I cut ties with so many people and I imagined I’d feel a wash of loss or something but I found myself more interested to see that the new people have knocked down the garden wall and built a new porch. I couldn’t see if the garage was still there. But is all seems so far away now.<br /><br />I think that’s why I find books that deal with loss interesting because I get to try on someone else’s grief for a while. It’s never feels like a good fit though. It was a book that gave me the idea for my current novel, <i>The Body Artist</i> by Don DeLillo although I’m miles away from that first idea now. That was a book about coping with grief. I’ve yet to read <i>The Invention of Solitude</i> by Paul Auster because it was too close to the direction I had intended to take at one point but I’ve always planned to.<br /><br>Jim Murdochhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12786388638146471193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-7157756353371175972010-07-27T17:39:55.232+01:002010-07-27T17:39:55.232+01:00After Mom and Dad died, within a year of each othe...After Mom and Dad died, within a year of each other, I went and partook of the Hospice grief counseling. One thing I know for a fact: people grieve for a loss differently. Some go numb for a long time. Others get right in there and work it through. Most do a bit of both. I found that my creative response, which is a fundamental response for me to most things, helped me work it through. I did write extensively about my parents' deaths, including poems, and lots of family history memoir. Most of that's on my blog. <br /><br />And I have seen a lot of people who it seems are still sleepwalking, sort of numb and detached, after 9/11, or 7/7, or whatever. Part of the story of "Pattern Recognition" is how the protagonist starts coming back to life.<br /><br />It can take a few years.<br /><br />One thing I learned from the Hospice people: There is no one pattern. There is no set group of "stages" that everybody goes through, and the order may not be the same either. There are no rules.<br /><br />Those people who give us rules or stages are basing that stuff on general trends from seeing a lot of people, but it's really very individual and unpredictable.Art Durkeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07463180236975988432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-82314750641847070392010-07-27T14:00:12.386+01:002010-07-27T14:00:12.386+01:00No, I agree totally, Art. What’s the point of poet...No, I agree totally, <b>Art</b>. What’s the point of poetry if not to help us deal with tragic events like the Holocaust or 9/11? I’m sure there were people who tried to cash in on 9/11 but I suspect most artists were genuine in what they tried to express. It has become a metaphor that works the world over. That’s why I was puzzled why people couldn’t get over Mantel using the Holocaust as a metaphor. Great events like this naturally become benchmarks against which we measure other tragedies. I think this book fits in with how you describe <i>Pattern Recognition</i>: it is not about 9/11 or 7/7 but about living in a changed world. Perhaps that’s part of the reason why the protagonist is a little more distant than I might have expected.<br /><br />And, <b>Dave</b>, yes, loss is a hard one. What I’m finding hard is not to fall back on old clichés. Death has been with us for thousands of years – what is there left to say about it? But there are different kinds of losses and quite often we lose an individual years before they actually pass away. In this book the protagonist has lost something. She hasn’t lost her life but she’s lost quality of life. More people survived 9/11 and all the others than died in them but somehow I think the survivors' cumulative loss is the greater. <br /><br>Jim Murdochhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12786388638146471193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-88197322204819790092010-07-27T11:22:29.242+01:002010-07-27T11:22:29.242+01:00I've always tended to think the literature of ...I've always tended to think the literature of loss almost a genre of its own. And, for me, a very difficult one to attempt. Like you, I have lost both my parents and have never written about either loss. I have thought several times about doing so, but have never got as far as writing a word. I don't know why that is. In the case of my father I can tell myself that I am still too close to it, but that doesn't apply in my mother's case.Dave Kinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08430484174826768488noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-50455532201629996792010-07-27T00:48:35.448+01:002010-07-27T00:48:35.448+01:00I've been thinking about post-9/11 literature....I've been thinking about post-9/11 literature. Although Theodore Adorno once famously opined, "After Auschwitz, there can be no poetry," I've always thought rather, that after Auschwitz there MUST be poetry. And music, and painting, and laughter. If you let the bastards destroy your ability to enjoy life, to give back to life, be alive, to be creative, to co-create reality and art and life, then you've let the bastards win. I refuse to the let bastards win.<br /><br />And it makes you think about art after disasters. What sort of literary category is that? Art after disasters. <br /><br />The thing is, I know for a fact from my own experience, after a life-changing experience, your art changes, and sometimes even how you make art changes. I'm experiencing that again right now. I'm going through another life-changing experience, right now, and my art is changing, again.<br /><br />So it makes me think about literature after 9/11.<br /><br />To be honest, mostly I see a lot of flailing, not much real juicy stuff I can sink my teeth into.<br /><br />The one exception that I've noticed lately is William Gibson's new trilogy-in-progress, which is explicitly post-9/11 literature. I've read and re-read "Pattern Recognition," which I have to say is Gibson's very best novel since "Neuromancer," and I've read "Spook Country." The third book I haven't read, if it's out yet. I highly recommend "Pattern Recognition." And it is genuinely post-9/11 lit, as the story is not ABOUT 9/11 but shows how the world has changed because of 9/11, and how the characters must live with that.<br /><br />What becomes normal, after all that? What can normal mean? or be?Art Durkeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07463180236975988432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-40874174890047374692010-07-26T17:22:48.069+01:002010-07-26T17:22:48.069+01:00Hard sell maybe, but you've piqued my interest...Hard sell maybe, but you've piqued my interest.<br /><br />It's interesting how easily doctors and psychologists will label someone with the reactions you've described as having a level of autism. I have a niece who has two children with Asberger's Disease. They find it hard to engage in social situations (I still ask, "what's disordered here - the child or society?). My French next-door-neighbor told me after a year of living next to me, that he had Asberger's and had just learned to observe others' behavior and act normal. And I always thought he was just French.Kasshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05233330248952156754noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-3925262985022881682010-07-26T16:29:21.855+01:002010-07-26T16:29:21.855+01:00The reason I have been struggling so much with thi...The reason I have been struggling so much with this current book is that what I am dealing with, <b>Kass</b>, is the issue of loss, of being left. My parents are both dead but apart from a couple of poems I never wrote much about how I feel about that. I know what the so-called “rules” for grieving are and the fact is that I never went through them. I didn’t behave in a way that many people would have considered “normal” but, of course, the way I acted was “normal” for me. That’s where the lead character in my book, Meursault and I have a lot in common. <br /><br />My wife and I watch the show <i>Dexter</i>, which, if you’ve never heard of it, is about a serial killer trying to live a normal life. He thinks of himself as a monster but has learned to fake humanity. I get that. I’ve been an aberrant social personality type for years. By that I mean I’ve been a poet living in a world where I didn’t fit it. And yet I learned to pass myself off as normal, to make small talk with all sorts. <br /><br />I didn’t object to the way Jenny handled her character. My concern was only that it might not sit too well with her potential readers but perhaps she would have considered taking the easy option selling out. I don’t think any of my lead characters are especially likeable people but I can’t seem to warm to this woman I’m thinking about just now at all. And that makes her a hard sell. <br /><br>Jim Murdochhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12786388638146471193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-37669342479751301782010-07-26T15:57:27.830+01:002010-07-26T15:57:27.830+01:00I have a list of book titles in my head and one of...I have a list of book titles in my head and one of them is <i>Realms of Normalcy</i>. I haven't found the appropriate story or self-help advice yet, I think because the parameters keep changing.<br /><br />It's true, we <i>do</i> judge normalcy by our life experiences. If what the author presented is realistic in her experience, it would have been nice of her to acknowledge your response. Perhaps she herself has no understanding of her affective disorder.<br /><br />Do I read correctly that currently you are writing a character much like Camus' Meursault? At least we have this information before the fact and can begin to see where he/she falls in the DSM-IV.<br /><br />A lot of us proceed with 'normal actions' and no one will ever know what is going on below the surface. The advantage you have as a writer is that you get to plumb those depths, or lack thereof.<br /><br />Is apathy always monstrous? Aren't I more disordered to dote and devote to a mother who found me "off the beam" all my life and who could in <b>today's</b> standards qualify as an abuser ?Kasshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05233330248952156754noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-11248440828294643682010-07-26T12:58:29.726+01:002010-07-26T12:58:29.726+01:00That’s a fair point, Kass. I had hoped that the au...That’s a fair point, <b>Kass</b>. I had hoped that the author might have had a little more to say but, as is her right, she chose to let the work stand on its own which is how it should be. We all judge books based on our own life experiences. I have no doubt that what it presented here is realistic but perhaps not typical. I have much the same problem with the character I’m writing in that what’s ‘normal’ for her is not ‘normal’ for most people. She’s very much like Camus’ Merssault who I’ve always had a problem with. At least my character admits to herself that her behaviour is atypical and feels she ought to feel guilty for not grieving by the numbers; the problem is that she doesn’t. Then again, who wants to read books where the characters do predictable things?<br /><br>Jim Murdochhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12786388638146471193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327348657265652781.post-35839054254622609522010-07-26T04:32:18.748+01:002010-07-26T04:32:18.748+01:00Maybe Claire's tears were lost in translation....Maybe Claire's tears were lost in translation.Kasshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05233330248952156754noreply@blogger.com