And what a generous leader you are! The tone is set at the top. I can't thank you enough for the time and insight you give to all of us. What a gift it is to have crossed paths with you.
I think reading Infinite Jest completely changed the trajectory of my life. Before that I wasn’t interested in literature at all. I thought it was boring and lame, based on my experience with it in middle school. But DFW showed me that literature can be literally anything you want. It seems so obvious to say now but it was so eye opening. It defied all my expectations, all the conventions I knew. It was thrilling. Suddenly I wanted to be a part of it. I started devouring novels, from Crime and Punishment to As I Lay Dying to Gravity’s Rainbow to House of Leaves to Lincoln in the Bardo, and every time (if it was good) realizing all over again: *it can be anything you want*. Amazing.
I recently finished the first draft of my very own novel. Who knows what will happen with it, but I can say for sure at least that it is an expression of me. It is me doing that, doing whatever I want. How exciting!
I had the same experience when I read Henry Miller’s Tropic of Capricorn. I was just getting into reading, a late bloomer. I was almost forty. And I had no idea there were books out there like that. Then I started writing and reading every classic I could find. The power of books is real.
I read them too, but with great resistance. I had just gotten married and was trying to condition myself to this new condition of life. That's when the book provoked me a lot.
Right! Completely changed my outlook on life, an outlook many people would disagree with, but it already aligned with my perceptions, only then did I have it in words—Miller’s words. If it wasn't for that book I might never have become obsessed with literature and writing and learned how to put my chaotic thoughts into words.
I think he is often overlooked or disregarded because of his sexually-explicit nature. I usually read that book each year, and now I think it’s time. Fall is the perfect time, too. Glad we connected. I'm always delighted to meet another Miller advocate. Somehow, I feel there aren't nearly as many as there should be.
Hey I'm with ya. I'm halfway through the second draft of my first book and it's a doozy. But I can see the light on the other side and I suspect the third draft will be much more fun. Hang in there! <3
Infinite Jest is the one that I thought of too... it allowed me to show a little compassion and forgiveness to my self, and thereby to give up drink. Not total forgiveness, not even close, but just enough.
Plus it also showed me that the big scary novels weren't necessarily big and scary or out of my reach, and so opened the door to Moby Dick, Middlemarch, War and Peace, Gravity's Rainbow, Brothers Karamazov, ... (yet to finish Ulysses, though!).
Thank you for reminding me about this book!!! It has literally been sitting on my shelf for 7+ years unread. I’m going to pull it off and start reading NOW!!
Fair warning, it’s not for everybody. But that’s part of what I appreciate about it. It wasn’t written for mass appeal, it was written for the kind of person who would appreciate it.
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gave me permission to want. To take. To choose myself first. Sounds small, but it changed my life. The character Ifemelu taught me to be selfish in a culture where the woman is fraught with societal expectations and milestones all her life.
Thank you Ayotola, for such lovely words, which as you see have moved me to write with poetic intent. If you'd prefer I had not picked up some and run with them and add to them as I have just say so in Reply and I will Delete.
Here's a question I'd appreciate your perspective on Ayotola.
Are the words, as I have drafted them above, suitable for rendition by me - a male voice - or do they, essentially, invite speaking aloud by a female voice?
I ask this because I have, of late - these past nine months or so - taken to attending and contributing to what where I live are billed as 'Spoken Word' events... one or more pieces read aloud in a 3 to 4 minute slot.
Rob
PS I really love, on every re-reading looping back to this sparked piece of impromptu writing with poetic intent, the way the words stand etched and inscribed rather than just written. I think, with due introductory and wholly appropriate acknowledgement to you (for this specific Comment) and George ((for his creating the most generously giving of contexts, this Story Club of ours) it could go down, here and there, and why not everywhere as a 'Words Wow!'
Hello hello as a brown woman I don’t wanna either speak on behalf of Ayotola nor do I want to miss this opp to take some labour off - so if I can add my instinct, I think if it were me I’d find it hurtful, and kinda feel hurt, that I should...have my words repurposed by someone else not having lived out my experience if that makes sense. Even with the attributions. It doesn’t sit right with me and I needed to say that out loud - thank you for understanding. I think the poetic intent with which you edited Ayotola’s words were beautiful and particularly appreciated you making sure to check in re: deleting if it didn’t feel right for them, and this request for input feels very different because it’s a desire to take Ayotola’s work outside the very evident context here & as an audience member at the spoken word I personally know I wouldn’t register attributions properly & the focus would be on whoever was delivering. So I think it’s quite different & Obvs obvs Ayotola’s feelings are all that matter here - I just also know that if I were asked, I’d feel sick at having to justify my “no” - hence chiming in. Thanks again for checking in and hope this makes sense as I won’t have capacity to add anything further xxxx
Thanks for adding your thoughtful comment Oish. I read it yesterday, appreciated it, thought on it and offer the following words by way of reply:
"This is just to say I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast. Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold." William
How do William's words arrive with you Oish? Put, slightly, differently: what do you make of William's words Oish? Should you care to share back any part(s) of you first thoughts in response I'd be glad to read what you add to this thread.
I’m reading this now because of your recommendation, thank you. I love it already. I hope it will change my life in the way it changed yours. I’m not at the end (so don’t know if it all works out) but I already feel a bit braver because of Ifemelu’s choice to do something that everyone tells her she is crazy to do. I like that she questions it and has fears and anxieties but decides just to do it because she’ll never be sure. It feels very real and so, comforting.
Yes! I love this, and I loved that book! And btw, want can also mean lack, so you might consider changing that word to desire or like or something more positive - just in case anyone's listening...
I originally started Short Story Night because I had two small children at home and therefore didn't have time for a traditional book club. I figured there were probably others like me, people who want to talk about literature but are too busy. Turns out I was right. The program has been more successful than I could ever imagine. Typical attendance is around 35 people, and on certain nights I can get as many as 50.
I try to feature stories that will spark conversation, usually contemporary ones. I've found that this allows us to not only consider the construction of the story, the settings, the themes, the plots, etc, but it also allows us to tackle topics that are still relevant. A good case in point was the evening we discussed Tim O’Brien's, "On the Rainy River." I will never forget that event. The brewery was packed. Men and women, from retired folks to college students, all discussing Vietnam and the draft and what they would have done if they were in the character's shoes - and in some cases, what they did do when they were in the character's shoes; when they were drafted and sent over. It still gives me chills thinking about that evening. How everyone respected everyone else and how the discussion flowed. Referencing the story, but also taking off from there. It was, in a way, magical. An example of what great literature can do.
I also want to mention that I often feature author interviews as part of the event. So if George ever finds the time.... I'd love to call him in front of the audience.
Hello from a fellow librarian (Missouri, here)! These other people are impressed but I FEEL IN MY BONES the struggle and trial and error and time spent sitting in empty community rooms and then the joy of landing on something that really resonates with the patrons...I’m Impressed. 😌
Yes, it has been amazing. We’ve read so many stories, had so many great conversations. My only regret is not coming up with a better name for the event. Lol
It’s a great title. It tells your audience what it is. It is unpretentious and welcoming. That’s one of the reasons they come. They know they will be able to participate: there’s no highfalutin bar. Not so very different from ‘Story Club’ - which sounds like a Saturday morning club for nerds like us that love thinking about story.
Richie, this is such a brilliant idea. Your community must love you! O'Brien's stories lay bare so many emotions. Great call. It's heartwarming to hear that so many people felt called to participate and share their ideas. This gives one tremendous hope that our divisions can be, if not healed then smoothed, but discussions like this one.
Neil Gaiman and all of his stories, but especially American Gods. I have always wanted to be a writer, and I have always thought about going to the U.K. someday to have my own books published. Years went on and I was still there, in my apartment. I read Gaiman's work before, Coraline and Stardust and The Graveyard Book... But American Gods just triggered something in me. I often see writers use the word "resonate," yet not until I can actively feel my soul banging so strong it rattled my bones, that I know what they meant. So, I left Vietnam, and my family, and my girlfriend at the time, and a comfortable job, to pursue an English Degree in the UK. Nothing of mine has been published or even noticed. I'm happy.
Coraline! He tried to type Caroline, and mis-typed. He looked at it and said, That's it, that's the story right there. The freshness and acceptance of the name gave energy to him. I love those serendipities.
Seconded. The first time I read American Gods I’d never been to the U.S., yet after reading it I knew what it felt like to road trip across the U.S. Resonant is definitely the right word.
Moving countries to write is so bold. Well done Vu, and keep it up!
When I read this question (has any poem, story, novel, etc., ever changed my life’s trajectory or my way of thinking?), I feel like a failure. Because the answer, I really, really hate to admit, is no.
How I wish it weren’t so! How I wish I could say, “when I was 14 I read such and such and it changed me forever.” Or “when I was 20 I read such and such and because of that I changed my college major.” Nope. Didn’t happen. No story, poem, novel, etc, has fundamentally changed my way of thinking, or my life’s trajectory. (I could be wrong. But this is how I remember things now.)
There is an upside, though, to all the reading I’ve done in my life. I can say with confidence that all of the words I’ve read over the course of my lifetime (stories, novels, and most of all, poems) have provided me a ground upon which I stand and which are a constant reminder that I’m not as alone in this world as I often feel. Stories have entertained me, have made me cry and laugh, have shocked me, scared me, angered me, excited me, ruined me, and been my constant companions for as far back as I can remember. Snippets and quotes from these creations stick with me and I turn to them when needed. I often search through my collection of saved poems to find the one that will comfort me in some moment of crisis.
But I cannot say a story has changed me—except for this, which I don’t think is what George had in mind when he asked us this question: I had always had it in the back of my mind that I would write a novel. But that thought just sat there, like so many ideas I had over the years (“maybe I’ll go to nursing school” “maybe I’ll have kids” “maybe I’ll move to Portugal”). And then, one day (Note: every story begins this way, with “one day”), I was at a friend’s house and we were talking about writing and she said, yeah, I wrote a novel. She went over to her desk and pulled out a sheaf of papers—an entire novel, single spaced, going nowhere. Oh, my god, I thought. I can do that, too. Suddenly, it seemed possible—it wasn’t something you found only in a bookstore. A novel was words on a page that became a stack of pages, sometimes just sitting in a drawer in a desk in a house in a suburb. Well, I went home and started writing, and two years later I had my own novel. So that novel—my friend’s unpublished hobby of a novel—changed my life forever.
I loved this story Mary. And it is a story, rather than reference pointing outward to a book, poem etc. It's the story of how somebody else's story opened a door for you. And it's a story of your feelings when you read George's question, like you didn't have a worthy answer, which of course makes it veer toward Therapy Club, which is my personal favorite. Isn't that what's going on here at SC? We are exploring the deep emotional power of stories - and moments. For me that's what makes it so much better than any book club. I could care less really about the details of this protagonist or that plot twist. I'm in it for the moment when the heart leaps or a life changing door opens, and that's what I think you described. OMG. Great club. And so glad to have you and your comments!
Thank you for this, Kurt. Totally therapy club around here for some of us! As I read what others have written in these threads, i continue to feel like a failure. Or a small person. Or someone who has not been open to words that have the power to change someone. I feel like something may have been offered me in youth and I didn't see it, was blind to it, for whatever reason. I went to my bookshelves yesterday, feeling a bit desperate, hoping that one of my books would spark a memory. But, no. Sigh. It's like hearing I missed a great concert that everyone else went to while i stayed home. I remember others pressing books in my hands in college--you've got to read this! It will blow your mind!--and me just putting those books aside and getting on with my life. Bars, cigarettes, boyfriends, wondering what to do with myself. If only I'd cracked open those books with an open mind--if only I'd known that i HAD a mind! More therapy needed, obviously. Ha!
Hah, more therapy always needed...! And as for you feeling small - I totally get it. I am not nearly as well read as some of the people here, including you. I am inspired and intimidated at the same time. I stay in the game, because, as I wrote in my own response to George here, I came to appreciate, through a Rilke poem, the importance of feeling everything - the Beauty and the Terror. You loom large and soar quite high here in SC. I'm not alone in always stopping on your comments as I scroll the vastness of the SC comments. Your thoughts are wise and your comments are generous. I think maybe you know about beauty and terror.
I just realized (thanks to you) that I'm looking at this backwards. Perhaps books didn't blow me open, but life did. And because life blew me open, I've been able to appreciate books and the stories they tell. I can empathize and feel wonder, awe, beauty, and yes, terror. I've always been a huge reader, but i learned about life by living it, not from finding answers on the page. In that way, books have been my comfort, my companions, and my entry into other worlds. But it's only because I made it through all of the chaos that was my life on my own--by living the book that is my life! I feel much better. What do I owe you for this session?
You made my day. Thanks so much for the acknowledgement. Now I can feel like a genius for a few hours, you know, until something makes me feel like an idiot. I will put the session on your tab, on all our tabs, on the tab of life where we are lucky to receive insight but even luckier if we get to share it with others. It is such a cool thing how generosity and love ultimately pay us back so much more than their cost. It is achingly beautiful and sometimes painful to be awake. I think that's what we're all sort of talking about here. Writing and reading as a way to feel awake and connected.
It's amazing to me how afraid I am of sounding stupid, or how embarrassed and inadequate I feel in the company of all these great writers and readers, only to realize so many of us feel the exact same inadequacies.
Haha, I love this way of looking at it, mary. Can books really change us or do they just mirror change that is already happening? The time we encounter a story is so significant. We aren't ready for some stories, and no longer need others.
Wait a second... "I remember others pressing books in my hands in college...and me just putting those books aside and getting on with my life. Bars, cigarettes, boyfriends, wondering what to do with myself. If only I'd cracked open those books with an open mind--if only I'd known that i HAD a mind! "
Holy crap. Did I write this?? Wait, no Mary g. wrote it. GirlFRIEND. Do I relate!
I had the same reaction. Although I’ve been thrilled, awed, disturbed, and confounded by various novels and poetry, I couldn’t think of one that changed my life’s trajectory. I also went straight to my bookshelves and searched the fiction section for some reminder of a momentous event and came up empty. The books that did change me were theories of psychology that incorporated mythology and archetypes, stories, essentially, applied to life.
I understand how you feel Mary at not having a life-changing title to hand but I'm guessing that the years of bars, cigarettes and boyfriends fed into the novel you eventually did write. Sometimes these things creep up on us slowly - it doesn't have to be a Eureka moment.
oh yes, absolutely--my entire life fed into my books and stories. And yes, too, on your statement that things creep up on us slowly. I think we have to be ready to see them--and that's where I wish I could be more open. Sigh. We are all works in progress, right?
I appreciate your response so much, Mary. I felt the same way when I read George's question. That although I have read stories, poems, novels that made me angry, or profoundly moved me, made me laugh or cry, I can't think of any that have changed the trajectory of my life. So I felt as though I didn't have a worthy answer. But—I have closed many a beloved book and sat with it in my hands, feeling its weight, the weight of the words, the heft of the story—just sat and let the words move through me and affect me in whatever way they would. It was like they filled me up. And then there is the sadness of being done—a kind of grieving that I would no longer be a part of that world.
I'm going to think on this further, though. I know there have been stories/books that have changed the way I view the world, and deepened my understanding of the experiences of others from different walks of life than I.
Thank you, Patti! And yes, like you, i know that I've read stories that have absolutely deepened my understanding of the world, or stories that have challenged me, comforted me, and on and on. It may be that the cumulative effect of everything i've read helped me make decisions in my life, or sent me in certain directions. I think of this quote from GlennGould: “The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline but rather the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity.” And i think that's what stories have done for me, as well as all sorts of art forms--both as I experience them and as I create.
I love this idea.... the unpublished novel by someone else as inspiration for at last getting down to it and writing! Imagine this in an expanded format: every unpublished novel (and, um, the unwritten books too?) as motivation for ever more of us to turn to writing, becoming writers writing. It reminds me of all those years of National Geographic Magazines that people have saved over the decades and stored in their basements, storage units, etc. The weight of them, some believe, is nearly sufficient to trigger the gravitational collapse of the earth itself! ;-)
She was so blasé about it! And that was attractive, too. She wasn't trying to get her work published--she just felt like writing it all down. (I'm recalling now that it was a memoir, of sorts--not a novel. But still an entire book.) The fact that a person could write a book without feeling any pressure about it--that a person could write simply for the joy of writing or completing a personal goal....that hadn't occurred to me before. I'd thought of writing a novel as the Grand Quest and Very Important Business that only Special People could do. She really changed my life, that friend of mine--and I'm lucky in that I've gotten to thank her for it many times.
I hear you... writing for the joy of writing. Yes. In earlier years I, like you, thought of "real story making" as too lofty and intimidating a task. I had to abandon the idea. To purloin a good phrase, I was so much older then; I'm younger than that now.
Mary, I have been thinking about your comment since I too have to admit “not really” in response to George’s questions. Has a work of literature ever caused me to move, quit a job, start a degree, change course? No! Has a short story or other work ever fundamentally changed my way of thinking? My approach to living? No!
My questions are (1) why not and (2) is that good or bad? And (3), in what way has literature had a significant impact on my life?
Like many people, I avoid making significant decisions or changing my opinions based on one source of information. I search for multiple sources of wisdom to support such decisions. I think I spent more time researching whether to ditch my landline and just have a cell phone than I did deciding whether to sell my house after becoming an empty nester.
I grew up in an educational system that taught me about biased sources, the limitations of small sample sizes and value of examining an issue from multiple perspectives (thank you NYU debate team). So reading one or two stories and then making a life changing decision on that basis alone isn’t part of my DNA. A poem, a story in combination with many other life interactions may have contributed to my doing (or feeling) X or Y, but it would be impossible to disentangle its specific impact.
So, Mary, I don’t think you should feel like a “failure” (and I suspect you’re saying that for dramatic effect). I’d argue that you (and I) are being rational.
My guess is that the mechanism for how literature impacts my thinking and approach to living is indirect. I find that literature, music and architecture can generate powerful feelings/emotions. George sometimes comments on how a story demonstrates compassion/kindness , or lack thereof. When these feelings get triggered by multiple sources they become part of my understanding of the world. At some point my actions may change, based on these feelings. But all of this is tends to be at a subconscious level and I would be hard pressed to identify the inputs that generated the outputs in this system.
Thank you for this, Gerard. The truth is, I actually do feel a bit of a failure but I also know that I can't beat myself up for being who I am and who I was. When i express disappointment in myself, it's that my life could have used some direction, especially when i was in college and throughout my twenties. I'm sure great advice, inspiration, and life-changing ideas were offered up to me through books, poems, plays, stories, etc--but i was too lost to see any of it, to let it affect me. Instead, i closed down--refused, flatly, to see. In that way, I feel i may have failed myself. In truth, I think that my tendency to remain closed was a defense mechanism of sorts. Keeping things tamped down, not deviating from my path, ignoring signs, signals, ideas--all of this kept me in check and allowed me to not face my fears. Unfortunately, it would be years and years before the real me emerged, but you know, better late than never. (Can't believe i write all of this online! But I guess that's why I just call myself mary g. instead of my real name.)
Dear mary g with small caps: Just to say that, in my twenties especially, I bent the other way, desperately looking for and following the signals and signs, which led to no less pain (and no less therapy), than the choices you made. I too feel that I failed my self in that idiotic era, when I was most consumed by the chase for impossible love and some sort of artistic success (as a visual artist, and then an actor). Only decades later did I turn to writing, most often with the desire to capture and express the feelings—and fears—of that time of my life.
Oh, wow, thank you so much for this, Sue. You're right--things could have gone another way and I may have found myself on the wrong road altogether. That "idiotic era" sums it up--but we were so young and raw, right? The culmination of everything that had happened to us up until that moment. And you're right, also, that I've written about it.
Loved your answer, you said it so much better! When I read George's post I thought "Holy Moly, so many books changed my....wait, nope, they did not changed the paths of my life, but are always here with me, the dearest friends".
I read ‘Sula’ by Toni Morrison in an African American Literature class. Aside from having brilliant prose and sharp characters, it really opened my eyes about the experience of black femininity. Reading about Sula and Nel really changed how I viewed my identity as a black woman and how I conceptualized myself in society. There’s something about the way Morrison wrote that got right to the heart and grit and experience of being in such a marginalized space without trodding over the same talking points that you’ve heard in every black struggle movie. It’s shaped the way I see myself as a person living in society and how I interact and perceive the issues I come across in my day-to-day.
Song of Solomon. I skipped classes that semester (at Syracuse!) to Hoover those chapters. I'm white and it spoke to me about the power to shape one's self, beyond one's family.
The Bluest Eye was my introduction to Toni Morrison. I read everything she wrote after that. Home was a also a moving antiwar novel. The Korean War vet Frank Money has PTSD and leaves the ward he's on barefoot in the snow and travels all the way through the Jim Crow South. to help his sister.
I swear I hear certain phrases from Sula in my head almost weekly! And the way that the imagery is so female-centric felt revolutionary to me at the time - the sight of a worn out bra as a symbol of comfortable intimacy; baking a yellow cake, or failing to, to show respect for the dead (or not), stirring the yellow powder into white margarine to prove you’re a good mother. I think those images have stayed with me because I know the power of small domestic gestures. Ohh my God could that woman write!
I actually didn’t read it the day it was assigned, so I was trying to read it in class and ended up getting sucked in and didn’t even listen to the lecture
When I read Wendell Berry's short story, "Fidelity," in 1992, when it first came out, I was struck by the profound sense of mutual responsibility, caring, and love that he'd evoked in his fictional Port William community. I never forgot how the locals in that story banded together to look after each other, breaking and evading the law to help and protect one of their own, Burley. This story instantly became one of my favorites. Sixteen years later when I was confronted by a crisis in my own community (an elderly neighbor confided in me that she'd secretly been living with the corpses of her three siblings), I didn't know what to do, not until I recalled and reread "Fidelity." That's when I resolved to help my neighbor in any way I could, including keeping her secrets for her. This very old woman and I ended up transforming each other's lives, prompted by Wendell Berry's short story and the example of his own life. Man and meaning one the page brought out the best in me and also, ultimately, in my elderly neighbor, who went on to redeem her life and become the most beloved patient at the nursing home where she eventually died. Based on our love for each other and her extraordinary example of late-life transformation, I found the strength to escape from a long-term, abusive marriage. If that's not testament enough to the power of short stories, I don't know what is.
Thank you, and Wendell really did change my life. I spent an afternoon with him many years ago, interviewing him when I was young. He instantly became my north star. I also returned to his home 25 years later to share my neighbor's rescue and redemption story with him, the story he essentially set in motion with his advice to me and with "Fidelity"!
I agree with others -- it sounds like you have a fascinating story to write. I'd read it!
I've never read Berry (or maybe long ago in some college anthology), but I happen to be sitting in a library and looked him up in the catalog and there happened to be a copy of How It Went setting a few feet away from me. Now it's on my stack next to the standard picture book/Captain Underpants/cookbook fare. :)
Whoa. This should definitely be a story or a book! Of course, it immediately evoked "A Rose for Emily." But her THREE siblings' corpses? And I love the idea of the late-life transformation for both potential characters.
Thanks, Natalie. I'm writing this experience not as a short story but as nonfiction. My elderly neighbor actually asked me to tell her story for her, the only stipulation being that I wait until after she died. She also left me all her family's papers and artifacts, a stash filling 30 boxes. While uncovering the mysteries of her life, I stumbled upon the secrets of my own, leading me to upend my life and prompting me to write her story as an intertwined memoir, with Wendell Berry the inciting influence.
That's a fascinating story, Kelly. The intertwined memoir should be really interesting. Strange coincidence that you learnt more about your life through researching your neighbour's life. Good luck with the writing.
Your story is so fascinating I had to look it up, and I found her, I found her “news” story online. What’s most most most interesting about her very compelling story is that at first it was three siblings living with one deceased sibling, for like 30 years? And then two living and two dead for like 5 -- and then finally she was alone with the three bodies. What her life must have been like!
When I read "Blindness" by José Saramago (in English, translated by Giovanni Pontiero), it physically impacted me for a few days. I felt scared, sometime nauseous. I did not know writing could do this. After that I didn't read anything by Saramago for a long time.
Loved The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis. Had the pleasure of visiting the Saramago Foundation in Lisbon this past June. Saramago a prolific and deeply political writer who won the Nobel was a car mechanic before he started writing at 53.
Yes, me too. A life/view changer. I thought about that story for years after. The suddenness of what happened to the people going blind, the isolation they experience, and the woman who could see but went with her blind husband to care for him, how she had to keep the pretense, the toilet area . . . Whew. What a book.
Same. I felt ill after reading 'Blindness.' Scared, sick, etc..Saramago is one of my masters, because he started writing later in life, which I think is a key to Blindness's success--it holds the weight and sorrow of a life lived.
The Stone Raft by him is a marvel, as is the film made of it (if you can find it). Not creepily unsettling, though it does raise some questions. I loved both.
Keep reading Saramago, it just gets better. If able talk with a Portuguese friend about his work as he has defined so much and they all have such a deep appreciation.
Reading Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine is what finally got me into EMDR therapy. I’d been walking with a mental and emotional limp from childhood trauma that no amount of self-help could touch. I’m not saying it’s the best book out there, but I read it at the right time in my life and it changed me.
You say not the best book… but I re read it recently, and loved the self depricating humour, the characters, and the portrayal of the traumatised individual - I found it to be well crafted and thoroughly enjoyable. Not an intellectual book, but I thought it was good and I loved it!
I agree! I think I added that disclaimer because sometimes when I mention to others my love and appreciation for the book, I have found some individuals are quick to bring up what it lacks. Whereas I will never stop being grateful for it!
I loved that book. I taught it for years in fiction classes, because the way it's structured is quite remarkable--each turning point, the way the character is revealed to herself.
Loved the writing style, was disappointed in the ending personally. But the fact that it changed your life renders my opinion moot. EMDR is no joke. I've done it. I hope you're taking good care of yourself. <3 Sending you a hug!
In my early 20s, I was working at a Kinko's Copies and suffering with undiagnosed social anxiety and depression. I found a water-damaged paperback of Dostoyevsky's The Idiot. I fell in love with the character of Myshkin. He was an "idiot" in the sense that his epilepsy sometimes rendered him incapable of speech and human interaction, but when he has a reprieve from his sickness, he displays a naivety and open-heartedness that deeply affects everyone around him. Somehow this display of kindness and simplicity allowed me to see myself in a more compassionate light. My social anxiety made me something of an idiot at times, but Dostoyevsky encouraged me to forgive myself. Over the following months I plowed through most of his other works. There's a phrase he used in Crime and Punishment (at least in the translation I read) that seemed to encapsulate his philosophy for me: "insatiable compassion."
That's wonderful, Matthew! Thanks for sharing that. I think I have a copy of Post Office I read during the same period in my life. I wish the audio on that page was still available. I'd love to hear Garrison Keillor reading that :-)
Glad you enjoyed it David. It's one my favorite poems. I do miss the Writer's Almanac. It was a great radio feature. So you read Post Office while working at Kinkos--that's pretty Bukowski. :)
I love this. I faced similar in my twenties and came upon Tolstoy and later Dostoyevsky, both providing relief from and insight into my own pain and that of others - I can relate to disdained naïveté and open-heartedness and finding compassion for myself. I haven't read C&P yet but am intrigued by insatiable compassion.
How powerful and transformative that was for you. To open up to your own compassion! There is such power to Myshkin. Remember the train ride as he approached, was it a lightening storm, I haven't read it since college but it always seemed like a radiant approach.
Anna Karenina. I devoured it a low point after graduating college. I didn't know what to do. But when I started the book I found a world I recognized so intimately... the more I read the more familiar it felt to my own experiences, feelings and questions... I couldn't believe this connection could take place across such a distance in space and time. I couldn't believe there were no images or sounds–– that it wasn't in the flow of real time like a movie or play... and yet the reality was more vivid than that of my own life. I applied to grad school and decided to dedicate the rest of my life to longform storytelling.
So this is going to sound over the top, but I think reading Tolstoy (mostly War & Peace) in my 20's saved my life. Hopefully I can explain why. I was conditioned at a tender age (unbeknownst to me) to put up an impenetrable wall against "unbiblical" observations about human interiority. everything had to filter through a rigid grid made up of things like "man's depravity" and "the Gospel." I had turned to faith/the church for comfort as a grieving kid coming from a somewhat toxic household and just trying to make sense of the world after my sister died at age 18.
Eventually that turned into a thorough indoctrination and later, four years of Christian college-- one with an intensely "rigorous hermeneutic" and (pseudo-) academic approach (oh, and a "biblical counseling program" which did wonders for my undiagnosed depression/anxiety!) I was full of cognitive dissonance, doubt, self-hatred, fear, immense shame.
BUT, I was a reader. I loved literature and managed to squeeze in a couple lit classes at a community college, which is where I read The Death of Ivan Ilyich and then picked up Anna K and eventually War and Peace. So here comes Tolstoy simply being Tolstoy. For a moment, I see the world through his eyes -- or like Isaac Babel said it, 'the world if the world could write itself' (paraphrased) -- allowing me, for those 30 minutes every night when I cracked open War and Peace, access to a very compelling alternative narrative. To see that people, their 'sins', tragedies and triumphs, the world at large (and maybe even myself???) could not be reduced to this childish, incredibly outdated old-world vision of a heaven and hell with its "easy" binary answers and now-obvious overt manipulation of human fear/shame.
Similar to what Caleb describes so well above -- and George and others have reflected in recent threads -- it was Tolstoy's way of holding up a mirror to Life, the constant surprise of 'I recognize this! This is how people are! No one has put this into words for me before" Also, P.S. how the hell does he see these hidden desires and complex layers of human psychology so clearly and in such a large cast of different characters?
So after much gnashing of teeth (and fervent wishes to die, including some attempts), I found the strength to get out. I know many people can relate to feeling guilt/shame simply for being human (or yourself) under the many different ideological banners and bullies and atavistic fears that comes to us by, and the impact that can have on a life (let alone society) is incalculable. I've been out for a little over 10 years now and still dealing with the long-term impacts, but I'm incredibly glad something broke through to my religious-trauma addled brain. (I resonate with the comments in this thread mentioning 'therapy club' :)))
(it's also ironic because of Tolstoy's quasi-Christian religious beliefs but then again, he turned it all around and upside down, it seems - rewrote it into something he could live with, which is Very unlike the darkly anti-intellectual, anti-human version that surrounds us in the U.S. today )
This is brave Kate, and surprising but also reflects in some ways what Tolstoy was about. His novels don't impose orthodox spiritual ideas, as you say, the beliefs in so far as they are present are unorthodox (think of Pierre in W & P). The religious trauma you speak of is an all too common experience that has afflicted whole societies as well as individuals. Good for you getting out, not easy but necessary. Thank you Count Tolstoy!
Middlemarch--I first read it in college, then again in grad school, and many times since. It's a novel that makes you feel, really feel, the necessity and the grace of seeing others as clearly and deeply as you see yourself. About community and caring and human faults and the necessary attempt to overcome them, even if we fail much of the time.
Yes, George Eliot always makes me feel like I should at least try to be a better person. Then again, lots of writers make me feel that way, including George Saunders ("Tenth of December" the story in particular).
I realize this will be an unpopular comment (perhaps even evoke pity), but, no, definitely not. I've read lots of novels that I've loved, but none that have ever changed the trajectory of my life or fundamentally changed my way of thinking.
My answer is no, too. But I think that it might be that the influence of the fiction and poetry I’ve read has been diffuse in a way that makes the connecting of dots difficult. Maybe it’s similar to how spending time at a batting cage can improve your batting average. Can you tie the swings in the batting cage to a particular hit in an actual game? No. And yet, In some other subterranean way, I feel like I can say probably, if not confidently, yes.
To me, this comment provides a real sense of relief - the kind of “I am not alone” relief that I also find in some stories, plays etc.
I’ve been feeling quite frustrated that after so many years of reading so much I can’t write:
“After reading [ x ] I decided to change my life by [ y ].”
The only (“only”!) thing I can say for certain - about not just one but many, many books - is that they made me leap up and say to myself, “gosh, writers can do *that*!”, and then set about changing my own ambitions and procedures as a writer.
That’s H U G E but not what I felt George was looking for.
And, yet, what surprises me (actually, sort of stuns me) is how many people claim to have had such an experience. And some folks have cited multiple books. Multiple! I'm not certain what to make it, but I think it's interesting to ponder.
I'm among those who cannot identify a causal nexus between a work of art and a transformation in my life. My encounters with and experiences of literature and art have no doubt accreted and coalesced and informed who I am and how I see the world. Some moreso than others. What I can say is that there are bits and pieces and even whole works that are so memorable they I must have found them valuable, or important, or striking, or illustrative or, to use a squishy word, meaningful. They've added up, along with the dross, to who I've become.
I spent years running funding programs for the arts with public money, and find it difficult to reconcile the often repeated mantra of how the art (as proposed by the applicant), will be the meaningfully transformative gem we've been seeking all this time. Perhaps so... hard to say. But if it seems to deserve support, let's support it. There's a winnowing.
Some bits that might fit because they stick with me: reading Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet in Naples, Italy, in 1963, along with his lesser known The Dark Labyrinth To me, fascinating, exotic, mysterious - but along with other great stuff, made me fear trying to write for decades. Durrell also worked on the screenplay for "Cleopatra" (Eliz. Taylor) whose barge was still, at that time, docked where the movie's barge scene was filmed, in Ischia, a ferry ride from where I lived in a Navy barracks in Naples. I recently wrote a story that featured that barge, demonstrating that what goes around, comes around.
I'm in your camp. And I feel guilty for not giving credit to all the brilliant work that has moved me in so many ways(the list is longer than my arm) but it did not transform me. I want to believe I'm a thoughtful reader, vulnerable even. So I'm wide open to the idea, especially after reading others' comments, that literature can be life-changing.
I want to honor people's experiences, but I can't help feeling these questions prompted somewhat performative responses. Perhaps it's cynical, but "witnessing" is the word that comes to mind.
Probably around 14, mainly books like Sherlock Holmes, Les Miserables, The Count of Monte Cristo, and the books by Henryk Sienkiewicz at that time. In my late teens, I devoured everything I could get my hands on by Dostoyevsky, Tolstoi, Chekhov, and Gogol and classic British authors. It wasn't until after college that I started reading more contemporary work. I would say I've consistently averaged about 50-60 novels per year over the last three decades that would be categorized as "literary fiction" and maybe 20-30 others that are more genre-y, like Edgar winners, Elmore Leonard, Chandler, YA, etc.
I've read countless books that have entertained me. I'm often surprised by authors' abilities to surprise and amuse and shock and evoke an incredible range of emotions, but... change how I fundamentally think or the course of my life?
Nope.
I can't even envision a scenario in which that could happen, that is, a light-switch experience where I thought or believed my life was headed toward X at one moment and the next it was different.
I suspect (and willingly admit that I may be wrong) that when most people claim a fundamental shift of that nature they're focusing on and placing far too much emphasis on the last moment, the one prior to the change, but, really, that's simply the culmination of a series of experiences that are not being fully appreciated (or credited).
I think your last point here is a great caveat to my own comment. I recognize that I was already on a trajectory towards getting the help I needed and am grateful for each step (and person) that got me to that point.
But that book was undoubtedly the straw that broke the camel’s back, and I give credit for being exactly that. There’s no telling how much longer I would’ve gone on white-knuckling my healing, had I not found myself in some form on those pages.
Bart, this resonates with me. I too struggled to think of one book and a fundamental change. But when I thought more about it, there were a few books that I actively sought and found to feed an already growing interest and direction. They were little helpers, psychopomps to help guide me along a much longer path.
Bart - I’m certainly not implying that your experience vis a vis lit or reading is inaccurate or that somehow it’s a matter of time of life. Your experience is your experience and for all that valid. But others are transformed, and not always for the better btw, by artistic engagements. And literature is an art form. Perhaps a work hits at that precise right moment when a person is changing or growing anyway; and the work is given credit. Whatever, I find there’s a whole continuum on this issue and the only “mistake “ is to take one point on that scale and assume that that is the only one.
No worries. I didn't take it as that (though I appreciate how my response took that form). Also, I would agree that it's often a mistake to take a point along a continuum and assume it's the only one. I didn't think I was doing that (also not certain you're implying I did).
Obviously, people make decisions or have experiences that radically reshape their thinking or alter the course of their lives. In retrospect, I can see how certain decisions appear as forks in the road for me. But I've never had that experience with a novel and, as I said, can't imagine the circumstances in which that would happen.
I'm almost tempted to posit that the better read someone is, the less likely that's to happen. The cumulative effect of being well-read, I believe, is profound and life-changing. But it's also sort of like hiking the Appalachian Trail. The totality of the experience may be profound. However, it's difficult for me to imagine many, perhaps even any, thru-hikers pinpointing a single step that radically altered their thinking or changed the course of their lives (unless something tragic happens like falling to their death).
‘Fences’ by August Wilson changed my brain. How Wilson represented systems and institutions and identities and emotions in the play’s vernacular is mind-bending. I first read it in high school, and it was my first conscious lesson about how things thematic and conceptual and systemic can be said without saying them. I return to it regularly and I still don’t understand how that play exists.
Agree. The play is perfect. Gabriel’s trumpet sound at the end so powerful. Have you see. The latest film rendition by Denzel Washington? It’s excellent, Viola Davis so so good. Also Look for clips of James Earl Jones as Troy on Broadway. Incredible.
Love it when you say you learned that things "can be said without saying them." That reminds me of a line in a poem by Archibald MacLeish (titled "Ars Poetica") - "For all the history of grief / An empty doorway and a maple leaf." Indirection - a secret strategy of magicians and writers!
Jeanette Winterson's Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit was my first hint that I had suffered religious abuse as a child. I couldn't unread that book. My whole identity started shifting because of it.
On what I imagine will be a less popular note, reading Ayn Rand's novels as a teenager gave me the courage to change the trajectory of my life. I moved out at 17 (sans job, sans phone, sans internet connection), got into university without a highschool diploma, and started building a life for myself, completely apart from my dysfunctional, impoverished, abusive and extremely Christian family. I don't "agree" with Rand's ideas now, but at the time, they absolutely catalyzed a very positive change in my life. I needed extreme arrogance to believe I could do what I needed to do, and they provided it.
I am loving reading these responses so much. What a generous group you are. THANK YOU. And: MORE, PLEASE.
And what a generous leader you are! The tone is set at the top. I can't thank you enough for the time and insight you give to all of us. What a gift it is to have crossed paths with you.
I think reading Infinite Jest completely changed the trajectory of my life. Before that I wasn’t interested in literature at all. I thought it was boring and lame, based on my experience with it in middle school. But DFW showed me that literature can be literally anything you want. It seems so obvious to say now but it was so eye opening. It defied all my expectations, all the conventions I knew. It was thrilling. Suddenly I wanted to be a part of it. I started devouring novels, from Crime and Punishment to As I Lay Dying to Gravity’s Rainbow to House of Leaves to Lincoln in the Bardo, and every time (if it was good) realizing all over again: *it can be anything you want*. Amazing.
I recently finished the first draft of my very own novel. Who knows what will happen with it, but I can say for sure at least that it is an expression of me. It is me doing that, doing whatever I want. How exciting!
I had the same experience when I read Henry Miller’s Tropic of Capricorn. I was just getting into reading, a late bloomer. I was almost forty. And I had no idea there were books out there like that. Then I started writing and reading every classic I could find. The power of books is real.
Well, I read Anais Nin first, and she changed my life. She wrote about love, relationships, writing, all that I cared about. I devoured her Diaries.
I read Fire and loved every word. Nin is fantastic.
I just borrowed Henry and June by Nin, is that one a favourite of yours? Or any you’d recommend? I haven’t read any of her diaries yet!
I still remember reading Anais Nin's diaries!
Me too! Seemed like everyone was reading them my freshman year in college.
I read them too, but with great resistance. I had just gotten married and was trying to condition myself to this new condition of life. That's when the book provoked me a lot.
Nice. I have yet to read Henry Miller, this is a good motivator to do so.
I love that book! He IS Freedom!
Right! Completely changed my outlook on life, an outlook many people would disagree with, but it already aligned with my perceptions, only then did I have it in words—Miller’s words. If it wasn't for that book I might never have become obsessed with literature and writing and learned how to put my chaotic thoughts into words.
I think Miller is a genius. He needs to be read today. Lush Life. He is ALIVE! T of C is a rare gem. Thanks, dear comrade, for appreciating him too.
I think he is often overlooked or disregarded because of his sexually-explicit nature. I usually read that book each year, and now I think it’s time. Fall is the perfect time, too. Glad we connected. I'm always delighted to meet another Miller advocate. Somehow, I feel there aren't nearly as many as there should be.
Yes, I completely agree. Thank you for being you.
What do you think of Tropic of Capricorn in comparison to Tropic of Cancer?
I just finished my first novel. The second draft is proving to be daunting. Good luck.
Hey I'm with ya. I'm halfway through the second draft of my first book and it's a doozy. But I can see the light on the other side and I suspect the third draft will be much more fun. Hang in there! <3
I've lost track of the number of drafts of my novel.
Congratulations! That’s a big deal. Good luck!
The Moviegoer and The Last Gentleman by Walker Percy. It was the first time I saw my own experience of the world reflected back at me in a novel.
Infinite Jest is the one that I thought of too... it allowed me to show a little compassion and forgiveness to my self, and thereby to give up drink. Not total forgiveness, not even close, but just enough.
Plus it also showed me that the big scary novels weren't necessarily big and scary or out of my reach, and so opened the door to Moby Dick, Middlemarch, War and Peace, Gravity's Rainbow, Brothers Karamazov, ... (yet to finish Ulysses, though!).
Yea. Huge congrats! May it find its way into our hands.
That is such a nice thing to say 😭 thank you
Don't you wonder what David Foster Wallace would be thinking about and writing about now?
Love this, Dawson. Congratulations on the first draft, and keep at it!!
I had a similar experience of being thrilled with Infinite Jest. I remember thinking, "I didn't know you could do this with words."
"doing whatever I want." There's the rub.
I came her to say the something similar about Infinite Jest!
Thank you for reminding me about this book!!! It has literally been sitting on my shelf for 7+ years unread. I’m going to pull it off and start reading NOW!!
Fair warning, it’s not for everybody. But that’s part of what I appreciate about it. It wasn’t written for mass appeal, it was written for the kind of person who would appreciate it.
Gilt das nicht für alle Bücher?
Good to know 👍🏻
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gave me permission to want. To take. To choose myself first. Sounds small, but it changed my life. The character Ifemelu taught me to be selfish in a culture where the woman is fraught with societal expectations and milestones all her life.
To want. To take.
To choose myself
First, sounds small
But, permitted, it
Changed my life...
From fraught female
To taught woman
Self-empowered to
Counter that culture
That imposes goals
Sets rules and markers
That needs reform in
Favour of the person
The individual, and the
People: individuals all!
Thank you Ayotola, for such lovely words, which as you see have moved me to write with poetic intent. If you'd prefer I had not picked up some and run with them and add to them as I have just say so in Reply and I will Delete.
Rob
I love it!!!
Here's a question I'd appreciate your perspective on Ayotola.
Are the words, as I have drafted them above, suitable for rendition by me - a male voice - or do they, essentially, invite speaking aloud by a female voice?
I ask this because I have, of late - these past nine months or so - taken to attending and contributing to what where I live are billed as 'Spoken Word' events... one or more pieces read aloud in a 3 to 4 minute slot.
Rob
PS I really love, on every re-reading looping back to this sparked piece of impromptu writing with poetic intent, the way the words stand etched and inscribed rather than just written. I think, with due introductory and wholly appropriate acknowledgement to you (for this specific Comment) and George ((for his creating the most generously giving of contexts, this Story Club of ours) it could go down, here and there, and why not everywhere as a 'Words Wow!'
Hello hello as a brown woman I don’t wanna either speak on behalf of Ayotola nor do I want to miss this opp to take some labour off - so if I can add my instinct, I think if it were me I’d find it hurtful, and kinda feel hurt, that I should...have my words repurposed by someone else not having lived out my experience if that makes sense. Even with the attributions. It doesn’t sit right with me and I needed to say that out loud - thank you for understanding. I think the poetic intent with which you edited Ayotola’s words were beautiful and particularly appreciated you making sure to check in re: deleting if it didn’t feel right for them, and this request for input feels very different because it’s a desire to take Ayotola’s work outside the very evident context here & as an audience member at the spoken word I personally know I wouldn’t register attributions properly & the focus would be on whoever was delivering. So I think it’s quite different & Obvs obvs Ayotola’s feelings are all that matter here - I just also know that if I were asked, I’d feel sick at having to justify my “no” - hence chiming in. Thanks again for checking in and hope this makes sense as I won’t have capacity to add anything further xxxx
Thanks for adding your thoughtful comment Oish. I read it yesterday, appreciated it, thought on it and offer the following words by way of reply:
"This is just to say I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast. Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold." William
How do William's words arrive with you Oish? Put, slightly, differently: what do you make of William's words Oish? Should you care to share back any part(s) of you first thoughts in response I'd be glad to read what you add to this thread.
So pleased you do Ayotola, and also that others do too.
Thank you! An educator pressed that on me when I was in Hong Kong. I'm taking it off the shelf tonight!
I’m reading this now because of your recommendation, thank you. I love it already. I hope it will change my life in the way it changed yours. I’m not at the end (so don’t know if it all works out) but I already feel a bit braver because of Ifemelu’s choice to do something that everyone tells her she is crazy to do. I like that she questions it and has fears and anxieties but decides just to do it because she’ll never be sure. It feels very real and so, comforting.
starting another reading list now.
sounds enormous and wonderful. i love that book--love all of her novels.
Yes! I love this, and I loved that book! And btw, want can also mean lack, so you might consider changing that word to desire or like or something more positive - just in case anyone's listening...
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Hello! I am a librarian from Wisconsin. For the past 5+ years I have been running a program called Short Story Night at the local brewery. The program was recently featured on Wisconsin Public Radio. You can read/listen about it here: https://wisconsinlife.org/story/short-story-nights-a-book-club-for-the-busiest-readers/
I originally started Short Story Night because I had two small children at home and therefore didn't have time for a traditional book club. I figured there were probably others like me, people who want to talk about literature but are too busy. Turns out I was right. The program has been more successful than I could ever imagine. Typical attendance is around 35 people, and on certain nights I can get as many as 50.
I try to feature stories that will spark conversation, usually contemporary ones. I've found that this allows us to not only consider the construction of the story, the settings, the themes, the plots, etc, but it also allows us to tackle topics that are still relevant. A good case in point was the evening we discussed Tim O’Brien's, "On the Rainy River." I will never forget that event. The brewery was packed. Men and women, from retired folks to college students, all discussing Vietnam and the draft and what they would have done if they were in the character's shoes - and in some cases, what they did do when they were in the character's shoes; when they were drafted and sent over. It still gives me chills thinking about that evening. How everyone respected everyone else and how the discussion flowed. Referencing the story, but also taking off from there. It was, in a way, magical. An example of what great literature can do.
I also want to mention that I often feature author interviews as part of the event. So if George ever finds the time.... I'd love to call him in front of the audience.
Thanks!
Hello from a fellow librarian (Missouri, here)! These other people are impressed but I FEEL IN MY BONES the struggle and trial and error and time spent sitting in empty community rooms and then the joy of landing on something that really resonates with the patrons...I’m Impressed. 😌
Short Story Night sounds amazing. How cool is that?
Yes, it has been amazing. We’ve read so many stories, had so many great conversations. My only regret is not coming up with a better name for the event. Lol
Richie's Super Popular Story Night With Beer and Snacks is too long.
It’s a great name, and I am in awe of your post, so, thank you so much!
It’s a great title. It tells your audience what it is. It is unpretentious and welcoming. That’s one of the reasons they come. They know they will be able to participate: there’s no highfalutin bar. Not so very different from ‘Story Club’ - which sounds like a Saturday morning club for nerds like us that love thinking about story.
Just when I thought I'd never see short story and packed brewery in the same sentence.....
Bravo!
Haha!
Richie, this is such a brilliant idea. Your community must love you! O'Brien's stories lay bare so many emotions. Great call. It's heartwarming to hear that so many people felt called to participate and share their ideas. This gives one tremendous hope that our divisions can be, if not healed then smoothed, but discussions like this one.
This is such a beautiful act of community. I'm very moved by this. Thank you for sharing!
What a great idea!
Fantastic! What a great program—congrats!
What a beautiful and inspiring gesture for your community♥️
On Wisconsin! What a great idea. I lived in Appleton for a few short years in the mid 90's. So wish we would have hd something like this back then.
O'Brien's Going After Cacciato, one of the best antiwar novels.
I love The Things They Carried and In the Lake of the Woods. He is a master!
That's a brilliant initiative Richie. Well done and continued success with the event!
Neil Gaiman and all of his stories, but especially American Gods. I have always wanted to be a writer, and I have always thought about going to the U.K. someday to have my own books published. Years went on and I was still there, in my apartment. I read Gaiman's work before, Coraline and Stardust and The Graveyard Book... But American Gods just triggered something in me. I often see writers use the word "resonate," yet not until I can actively feel my soul banging so strong it rattled my bones, that I know what they meant. So, I left Vietnam, and my family, and my girlfriend at the time, and a comfortable job, to pursue an English Degree in the UK. Nothing of mine has been published or even noticed. I'm happy.
Coraline! He tried to type Caroline, and mis-typed. He looked at it and said, That's it, that's the story right there. The freshness and acceptance of the name gave energy to him. I love those serendipities.
..."my soul banging so strong it rattled my bones..." Wow. I love it. You must be a writer. :)
Coincidentally, I am! Jokes aside, thank you. Why not check out my work and maybe (hopefully) you'll find more things to love. https://open.substack.com/pub/vuphan/p/vietnams-creation-myth-the-prologue?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
I will!
Seconded. The first time I read American Gods I’d never been to the U.S., yet after reading it I knew what it felt like to road trip across the U.S. Resonant is definitely the right word.
Moving countries to write is so bold. Well done Vu, and keep it up!
When I read this question (has any poem, story, novel, etc., ever changed my life’s trajectory or my way of thinking?), I feel like a failure. Because the answer, I really, really hate to admit, is no.
How I wish it weren’t so! How I wish I could say, “when I was 14 I read such and such and it changed me forever.” Or “when I was 20 I read such and such and because of that I changed my college major.” Nope. Didn’t happen. No story, poem, novel, etc, has fundamentally changed my way of thinking, or my life’s trajectory. (I could be wrong. But this is how I remember things now.)
There is an upside, though, to all the reading I’ve done in my life. I can say with confidence that all of the words I’ve read over the course of my lifetime (stories, novels, and most of all, poems) have provided me a ground upon which I stand and which are a constant reminder that I’m not as alone in this world as I often feel. Stories have entertained me, have made me cry and laugh, have shocked me, scared me, angered me, excited me, ruined me, and been my constant companions for as far back as I can remember. Snippets and quotes from these creations stick with me and I turn to them when needed. I often search through my collection of saved poems to find the one that will comfort me in some moment of crisis.
But I cannot say a story has changed me—except for this, which I don’t think is what George had in mind when he asked us this question: I had always had it in the back of my mind that I would write a novel. But that thought just sat there, like so many ideas I had over the years (“maybe I’ll go to nursing school” “maybe I’ll have kids” “maybe I’ll move to Portugal”). And then, one day (Note: every story begins this way, with “one day”), I was at a friend’s house and we were talking about writing and she said, yeah, I wrote a novel. She went over to her desk and pulled out a sheaf of papers—an entire novel, single spaced, going nowhere. Oh, my god, I thought. I can do that, too. Suddenly, it seemed possible—it wasn’t something you found only in a bookstore. A novel was words on a page that became a stack of pages, sometimes just sitting in a drawer in a desk in a house in a suburb. Well, I went home and started writing, and two years later I had my own novel. So that novel—my friend’s unpublished hobby of a novel—changed my life forever.
I loved this story Mary. And it is a story, rather than reference pointing outward to a book, poem etc. It's the story of how somebody else's story opened a door for you. And it's a story of your feelings when you read George's question, like you didn't have a worthy answer, which of course makes it veer toward Therapy Club, which is my personal favorite. Isn't that what's going on here at SC? We are exploring the deep emotional power of stories - and moments. For me that's what makes it so much better than any book club. I could care less really about the details of this protagonist or that plot twist. I'm in it for the moment when the heart leaps or a life changing door opens, and that's what I think you described. OMG. Great club. And so glad to have you and your comments!
Thank you for this, Kurt. Totally therapy club around here for some of us! As I read what others have written in these threads, i continue to feel like a failure. Or a small person. Or someone who has not been open to words that have the power to change someone. I feel like something may have been offered me in youth and I didn't see it, was blind to it, for whatever reason. I went to my bookshelves yesterday, feeling a bit desperate, hoping that one of my books would spark a memory. But, no. Sigh. It's like hearing I missed a great concert that everyone else went to while i stayed home. I remember others pressing books in my hands in college--you've got to read this! It will blow your mind!--and me just putting those books aside and getting on with my life. Bars, cigarettes, boyfriends, wondering what to do with myself. If only I'd cracked open those books with an open mind--if only I'd known that i HAD a mind! More therapy needed, obviously. Ha!
Hah, more therapy always needed...! And as for you feeling small - I totally get it. I am not nearly as well read as some of the people here, including you. I am inspired and intimidated at the same time. I stay in the game, because, as I wrote in my own response to George here, I came to appreciate, through a Rilke poem, the importance of feeling everything - the Beauty and the Terror. You loom large and soar quite high here in SC. I'm not alone in always stopping on your comments as I scroll the vastness of the SC comments. Your thoughts are wise and your comments are generous. I think maybe you know about beauty and terror.
I just realized (thanks to you) that I'm looking at this backwards. Perhaps books didn't blow me open, but life did. And because life blew me open, I've been able to appreciate books and the stories they tell. I can empathize and feel wonder, awe, beauty, and yes, terror. I've always been a huge reader, but i learned about life by living it, not from finding answers on the page. In that way, books have been my comfort, my companions, and my entry into other worlds. But it's only because I made it through all of the chaos that was my life on my own--by living the book that is my life! I feel much better. What do I owe you for this session?
You made my day. Thanks so much for the acknowledgement. Now I can feel like a genius for a few hours, you know, until something makes me feel like an idiot. I will put the session on your tab, on all our tabs, on the tab of life where we are lucky to receive insight but even luckier if we get to share it with others. It is such a cool thing how generosity and love ultimately pay us back so much more than their cost. It is achingly beautiful and sometimes painful to be awake. I think that's what we're all sort of talking about here. Writing and reading as a way to feel awake and connected.
It's amazing to me how afraid I am of sounding stupid, or how embarrassed and inadequate I feel in the company of all these great writers and readers, only to realize so many of us feel the exact same inadequacies.
Mary and Kurt! I'm so happy for this discussion! My inner idiot doesn't feel so lonely anymore. Ha.
xoxoxoxo
I think this is group therapy.
Haha, I love this way of looking at it, mary. Can books really change us or do they just mirror change that is already happening? The time we encounter a story is so significant. We aren't ready for some stories, and no longer need others.
Wow. Yes.
Wait a second... "I remember others pressing books in my hands in college...and me just putting those books aside and getting on with my life. Bars, cigarettes, boyfriends, wondering what to do with myself. If only I'd cracked open those books with an open mind--if only I'd known that i HAD a mind! "
Holy crap. Did I write this?? Wait, no Mary g. wrote it. GirlFRIEND. Do I relate!
Hahaha! Lots of love to you, Patti!
Right back atcha.
Now that you think and therefore am....No stopping you now^^
I had the same reaction. Although I’ve been thrilled, awed, disturbed, and confounded by various novels and poetry, I couldn’t think of one that changed my life’s trajectory. I also went straight to my bookshelves and searched the fiction section for some reminder of a momentous event and came up empty. The books that did change me were theories of psychology that incorporated mythology and archetypes, stories, essentially, applied to life.
I understand how you feel Mary at not having a life-changing title to hand but I'm guessing that the years of bars, cigarettes and boyfriends fed into the novel you eventually did write. Sometimes these things creep up on us slowly - it doesn't have to be a Eureka moment.
oh yes, absolutely--my entire life fed into my books and stories. And yes, too, on your statement that things creep up on us slowly. I think we have to be ready to see them--and that's where I wish I could be more open. Sigh. We are all works in progress, right?
The unpublished novel sitting on your friend's desk inspired you, I love that.
I appreciate your response so much, Mary. I felt the same way when I read George's question. That although I have read stories, poems, novels that made me angry, or profoundly moved me, made me laugh or cry, I can't think of any that have changed the trajectory of my life. So I felt as though I didn't have a worthy answer. But—I have closed many a beloved book and sat with it in my hands, feeling its weight, the weight of the words, the heft of the story—just sat and let the words move through me and affect me in whatever way they would. It was like they filled me up. And then there is the sadness of being done—a kind of grieving that I would no longer be a part of that world.
I'm going to think on this further, though. I know there have been stories/books that have changed the way I view the world, and deepened my understanding of the experiences of others from different walks of life than I.
Thank you, Patti! And yes, like you, i know that I've read stories that have absolutely deepened my understanding of the world, or stories that have challenged me, comforted me, and on and on. It may be that the cumulative effect of everything i've read helped me make decisions in my life, or sent me in certain directions. I think of this quote from GlennGould: “The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline but rather the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity.” And i think that's what stories have done for me, as well as all sorts of art forms--both as I experience them and as I create.
"...a state of wonder and serenity," both from experiencing art and from creating our own. Yes!
I think Jim Harrison changed me. He wrote poetry, novels, essays, and he ate scrupulously.
which is an insight into the power of all those thousands of unpublished novels hiding in this world.
Yes! And all of those unwritten books as well.
I love this idea.... the unpublished novel by someone else as inspiration for at last getting down to it and writing! Imagine this in an expanded format: every unpublished novel (and, um, the unwritten books too?) as motivation for ever more of us to turn to writing, becoming writers writing. It reminds me of all those years of National Geographic Magazines that people have saved over the decades and stored in their basements, storage units, etc. The weight of them, some believe, is nearly sufficient to trigger the gravitational collapse of the earth itself! ;-)
She was so blasé about it! And that was attractive, too. She wasn't trying to get her work published--she just felt like writing it all down. (I'm recalling now that it was a memoir, of sorts--not a novel. But still an entire book.) The fact that a person could write a book without feeling any pressure about it--that a person could write simply for the joy of writing or completing a personal goal....that hadn't occurred to me before. I'd thought of writing a novel as the Grand Quest and Very Important Business that only Special People could do. She really changed my life, that friend of mine--and I'm lucky in that I've gotten to thank her for it many times.
I hear you... writing for the joy of writing. Yes. In earlier years I, like you, thought of "real story making" as too lofty and intimidating a task. I had to abandon the idea. To purloin a good phrase, I was so much older then; I'm younger than that now.
This is how we change the world. Thank you for sharing this inspiring story.
thank you for reading my words.
you are welcome, mary. keep writing. your words matter.
Thank you for this wonderful post. I wish you much more joy in writing!
Thank you, Ursula!
Mary, I have been thinking about your comment since I too have to admit “not really” in response to George’s questions. Has a work of literature ever caused me to move, quit a job, start a degree, change course? No! Has a short story or other work ever fundamentally changed my way of thinking? My approach to living? No!
My questions are (1) why not and (2) is that good or bad? And (3), in what way has literature had a significant impact on my life?
Like many people, I avoid making significant decisions or changing my opinions based on one source of information. I search for multiple sources of wisdom to support such decisions. I think I spent more time researching whether to ditch my landline and just have a cell phone than I did deciding whether to sell my house after becoming an empty nester.
I grew up in an educational system that taught me about biased sources, the limitations of small sample sizes and value of examining an issue from multiple perspectives (thank you NYU debate team). So reading one or two stories and then making a life changing decision on that basis alone isn’t part of my DNA. A poem, a story in combination with many other life interactions may have contributed to my doing (or feeling) X or Y, but it would be impossible to disentangle its specific impact.
So, Mary, I don’t think you should feel like a “failure” (and I suspect you’re saying that for dramatic effect). I’d argue that you (and I) are being rational.
My guess is that the mechanism for how literature impacts my thinking and approach to living is indirect. I find that literature, music and architecture can generate powerful feelings/emotions. George sometimes comments on how a story demonstrates compassion/kindness , or lack thereof. When these feelings get triggered by multiple sources they become part of my understanding of the world. At some point my actions may change, based on these feelings. But all of this is tends to be at a subconscious level and I would be hard pressed to identify the inputs that generated the outputs in this system.
Thank you for this, Gerard. The truth is, I actually do feel a bit of a failure but I also know that I can't beat myself up for being who I am and who I was. When i express disappointment in myself, it's that my life could have used some direction, especially when i was in college and throughout my twenties. I'm sure great advice, inspiration, and life-changing ideas were offered up to me through books, poems, plays, stories, etc--but i was too lost to see any of it, to let it affect me. Instead, i closed down--refused, flatly, to see. In that way, I feel i may have failed myself. In truth, I think that my tendency to remain closed was a defense mechanism of sorts. Keeping things tamped down, not deviating from my path, ignoring signs, signals, ideas--all of this kept me in check and allowed me to not face my fears. Unfortunately, it would be years and years before the real me emerged, but you know, better late than never. (Can't believe i write all of this online! But I guess that's why I just call myself mary g. instead of my real name.)
Dear mary g with small caps: Just to say that, in my twenties especially, I bent the other way, desperately looking for and following the signals and signs, which led to no less pain (and no less therapy), than the choices you made. I too feel that I failed my self in that idiotic era, when I was most consumed by the chase for impossible love and some sort of artistic success (as a visual artist, and then an actor). Only decades later did I turn to writing, most often with the desire to capture and express the feelings—and fears—of that time of my life.
Oh, wow, thank you so much for this, Sue. You're right--things could have gone another way and I may have found myself on the wrong road altogether. That "idiotic era" sums it up--but we were so young and raw, right? The culmination of everything that had happened to us up until that moment. And you're right, also, that I've written about it.
Loved your answer, you said it so much better! When I read George's post I thought "Holy Moly, so many books changed my....wait, nope, they did not changed the paths of my life, but are always here with me, the dearest friends".
I read ‘Sula’ by Toni Morrison in an African American Literature class. Aside from having brilliant prose and sharp characters, it really opened my eyes about the experience of black femininity. Reading about Sula and Nel really changed how I viewed my identity as a black woman and how I conceptualized myself in society. There’s something about the way Morrison wrote that got right to the heart and grit and experience of being in such a marginalized space without trodding over the same talking points that you’ve heard in every black struggle movie. It’s shaped the way I see myself as a person living in society and how I interact and perceive the issues I come across in my day-to-day.
Song of Solomon. I skipped classes that semester (at Syracuse!) to Hoover those chapters. I'm white and it spoke to me about the power to shape one's self, beyond one's family.
Yes, Song of Solomon blew me away, and influenced how I wanted to write, and later Beloved as well.
Beloved: my favorite book
One of my favourites too. I was stunned by the writing.
What?! That’s my favorite book! I knew I liked you.
One of mine, for sure.
The Bluest Eye was my introduction to Toni Morrison. I read everything she wrote after that. Home was a also a moving antiwar novel. The Korean War vet Frank Money has PTSD and leaves the ward he's on barefoot in the snow and travels all the way through the Jim Crow South. to help his sister.
Loved Sula!
I swear I hear certain phrases from Sula in my head almost weekly! And the way that the imagery is so female-centric felt revolutionary to me at the time - the sight of a worn out bra as a symbol of comfortable intimacy; baking a yellow cake, or failing to, to show respect for the dead (or not), stirring the yellow powder into white margarine to prove you’re a good mother. I think those images have stayed with me because I know the power of small domestic gestures. Ohh my God could that woman write!
YES to Sula. I was assigned this in high school and it completely bowled me over.
I actually didn’t read it the day it was assigned, so I was trying to read it in class and ended up getting sucked in and didn’t even listen to the lecture
When I read Wendell Berry's short story, "Fidelity," in 1992, when it first came out, I was struck by the profound sense of mutual responsibility, caring, and love that he'd evoked in his fictional Port William community. I never forgot how the locals in that story banded together to look after each other, breaking and evading the law to help and protect one of their own, Burley. This story instantly became one of my favorites. Sixteen years later when I was confronted by a crisis in my own community (an elderly neighbor confided in me that she'd secretly been living with the corpses of her three siblings), I didn't know what to do, not until I recalled and reread "Fidelity." That's when I resolved to help my neighbor in any way I could, including keeping her secrets for her. This very old woman and I ended up transforming each other's lives, prompted by Wendell Berry's short story and the example of his own life. Man and meaning one the page brought out the best in me and also, ultimately, in my elderly neighbor, who went on to redeem her life and become the most beloved patient at the nursing home where she eventually died. Based on our love for each other and her extraordinary example of late-life transformation, I found the strength to escape from a long-term, abusive marriage. If that's not testament enough to the power of short stories, I don't know what is.
Wendell Berry is a national treasure. Kudos to you for the immense humanity you showed toward your neighbor.
Thank you, and Wendell really did change my life. I spent an afternoon with him many years ago, interviewing him when I was young. He instantly became my north star. I also returned to his home 25 years later to share my neighbor's rescue and redemption story with him, the story he essentially set in motion with his advice to me and with "Fidelity"!
I believe it-and that you were able to let him know the profound and tangible effect of his story makes me believe in miracles.
oh you must write this as a novel. What a story!
Mary, please see my comment to Natalie.
Wow. Fantastic!
I agree!
I'm so fond of his poetry and essays--I'll have to check this out.
I agree with others -- it sounds like you have a fascinating story to write. I'd read it!
I've never read Berry (or maybe long ago in some college anthology), but I happen to be sitting in a library and looked him up in the catalog and there happened to be a copy of How It Went setting a few feet away from me. Now it's on my stack next to the standard picture book/Captain Underpants/cookbook fare. :)
Whoa. This should definitely be a story or a book! Of course, it immediately evoked "A Rose for Emily." But her THREE siblings' corpses? And I love the idea of the late-life transformation for both potential characters.
That's amazing. I would love to read your account of this as a short story.
Thanks, Natalie. I'm writing this experience not as a short story but as nonfiction. My elderly neighbor actually asked me to tell her story for her, the only stipulation being that I wait until after she died. She also left me all her family's papers and artifacts, a stash filling 30 boxes. While uncovering the mysteries of her life, I stumbled upon the secrets of my own, leading me to upend my life and prompting me to write her story as an intertwined memoir, with Wendell Berry the inciting influence.
That's beautiful. I would be interested to read it when you publish
That's a fascinating story, Kelly. The intertwined memoir should be really interesting. Strange coincidence that you learnt more about your life through researching your neighbour's life. Good luck with the writing.
I can't wait to read this.
Nonfiction it is then! Excellent!!
Your story is so fascinating I had to look it up, and I found her, I found her “news” story online. What’s most most most interesting about her very compelling story is that at first it was three siblings living with one deceased sibling, for like 30 years? And then two living and two dead for like 5 -- and then finally she was alone with the three bodies. What her life must have been like!
It was unimaginable (literally), with extraordinary highs and excruciating lows. Yet she thrived at the end and brought out the best in others.
What a beautiful example!
Thank you, David.
Yes.
When I read "Blindness" by José Saramago (in English, translated by Giovanni Pontiero), it physically impacted me for a few days. I felt scared, sometime nauseous. I did not know writing could do this. After that I didn't read anything by Saramago for a long time.
Loved The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis. Had the pleasure of visiting the Saramago Foundation in Lisbon this past June. Saramago a prolific and deeply political writer who won the Nobel was a car mechanic before he started writing at 53.
Yes, me too. A life/view changer. I thought about that story for years after. The suddenness of what happened to the people going blind, the isolation they experience, and the woman who could see but went with her blind husband to care for him, how she had to keep the pretense, the toilet area . . . Whew. What a book.
Same. That book was fantastic and also completely freaked me out.
Same. I felt ill after reading 'Blindness.' Scared, sick, etc..Saramago is one of my masters, because he started writing later in life, which I think is a key to Blindness's success--it holds the weight and sorrow of a life lived.
Thanks - that has just gone on my reading list!
The Stone Raft by him is a marvel, as is the film made of it (if you can find it). Not creepily unsettling, though it does raise some questions. I loved both.
Keep reading Saramago, it just gets better. If able talk with a Portuguese friend about his work as he has defined so much and they all have such a deep appreciation.
So true! My life was changed after reading his earlier book, "Memorial del Convento", what a titan!
Reading Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine is what finally got me into EMDR therapy. I’d been walking with a mental and emotional limp from childhood trauma that no amount of self-help could touch. I’m not saying it’s the best book out there, but I read it at the right time in my life and it changed me.
You say not the best book… but I re read it recently, and loved the self depricating humour, the characters, and the portrayal of the traumatised individual - I found it to be well crafted and thoroughly enjoyable. Not an intellectual book, but I thought it was good and I loved it!
I agree! I think I added that disclaimer because sometimes when I mention to others my love and appreciation for the book, I have found some individuals are quick to bring up what it lacks. Whereas I will never stop being grateful for it!
I really enjoyed that book
me too
I loved that book. I taught it for years in fiction classes, because the way it's structured is quite remarkable--each turning point, the way the character is revealed to herself.
Loved the writing style, was disappointed in the ending personally. But the fact that it changed your life renders my opinion moot. EMDR is no joke. I've done it. I hope you're taking good care of yourself. <3 Sending you a hug!
Thank you ❤️
Job done ✅
The right book at the right time.
In my early 20s, I was working at a Kinko's Copies and suffering with undiagnosed social anxiety and depression. I found a water-damaged paperback of Dostoyevsky's The Idiot. I fell in love with the character of Myshkin. He was an "idiot" in the sense that his epilepsy sometimes rendered him incapable of speech and human interaction, but when he has a reprieve from his sickness, he displays a naivety and open-heartedness that deeply affects everyone around him. Somehow this display of kindness and simplicity allowed me to see myself in a more compassionate light. My social anxiety made me something of an idiot at times, but Dostoyevsky encouraged me to forgive myself. Over the following months I plowed through most of his other works. There's a phrase he used in Crime and Punishment (at least in the translation I read) that seemed to encapsulate his philosophy for me: "insatiable compassion."
The Idiot is one of my favorite novels. Myshkin is such a deeply wonderful, kind character. I love seeing that book shared in this thread.
Such a beautiful novel! That seems so right re “insatiable compassion”
David, check out this poem. I think you'll appreciate it, given what "The Idiot" did for you.
https://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php%3Fdate=2001%252F08%252F29.html
That's wonderful, Matthew! Thanks for sharing that. I think I have a copy of Post Office I read during the same period in my life. I wish the audio on that page was still available. I'd love to hear Garrison Keillor reading that :-)
Glad you enjoyed it David. It's one my favorite poems. I do miss the Writer's Almanac. It was a great radio feature. So you read Post Office while working at Kinkos--that's pretty Bukowski. :)
Haha, yeah, I identified with the drudgery.
I grew up listening to A Prairie Home Companion, so I've spent many hours with the sound of Garrison Keillor's voice.
what a wonderful reading experience. Your story illustrates what it is all about. Thank You.
I love this. I faced similar in my twenties and came upon Tolstoy and later Dostoyevsky, both providing relief from and insight into my own pain and that of others - I can relate to disdained naïveté and open-heartedness and finding compassion for myself. I haven't read C&P yet but am intrigued by insatiable compassion.
How powerful and transformative that was for you. To open up to your own compassion! There is such power to Myshkin. Remember the train ride as he approached, was it a lightening storm, I haven't read it since college but it always seemed like a radiant approach.
This is a good reminder that it's about time I reread it :-)
Anna Karenina. I devoured it a low point after graduating college. I didn't know what to do. But when I started the book I found a world I recognized so intimately... the more I read the more familiar it felt to my own experiences, feelings and questions... I couldn't believe this connection could take place across such a distance in space and time. I couldn't believe there were no images or sounds–– that it wasn't in the flow of real time like a movie or play... and yet the reality was more vivid than that of my own life. I applied to grad school and decided to dedicate the rest of my life to longform storytelling.
Tolstoy is an absolute giant. What a lad.
So this is going to sound over the top, but I think reading Tolstoy (mostly War & Peace) in my 20's saved my life. Hopefully I can explain why. I was conditioned at a tender age (unbeknownst to me) to put up an impenetrable wall against "unbiblical" observations about human interiority. everything had to filter through a rigid grid made up of things like "man's depravity" and "the Gospel." I had turned to faith/the church for comfort as a grieving kid coming from a somewhat toxic household and just trying to make sense of the world after my sister died at age 18.
Eventually that turned into a thorough indoctrination and later, four years of Christian college-- one with an intensely "rigorous hermeneutic" and (pseudo-) academic approach (oh, and a "biblical counseling program" which did wonders for my undiagnosed depression/anxiety!) I was full of cognitive dissonance, doubt, self-hatred, fear, immense shame.
BUT, I was a reader. I loved literature and managed to squeeze in a couple lit classes at a community college, which is where I read The Death of Ivan Ilyich and then picked up Anna K and eventually War and Peace. So here comes Tolstoy simply being Tolstoy. For a moment, I see the world through his eyes -- or like Isaac Babel said it, 'the world if the world could write itself' (paraphrased) -- allowing me, for those 30 minutes every night when I cracked open War and Peace, access to a very compelling alternative narrative. To see that people, their 'sins', tragedies and triumphs, the world at large (and maybe even myself???) could not be reduced to this childish, incredibly outdated old-world vision of a heaven and hell with its "easy" binary answers and now-obvious overt manipulation of human fear/shame.
Similar to what Caleb describes so well above -- and George and others have reflected in recent threads -- it was Tolstoy's way of holding up a mirror to Life, the constant surprise of 'I recognize this! This is how people are! No one has put this into words for me before" Also, P.S. how the hell does he see these hidden desires and complex layers of human psychology so clearly and in such a large cast of different characters?
So after much gnashing of teeth (and fervent wishes to die, including some attempts), I found the strength to get out. I know many people can relate to feeling guilt/shame simply for being human (or yourself) under the many different ideological banners and bullies and atavistic fears that comes to us by, and the impact that can have on a life (let alone society) is incalculable. I've been out for a little over 10 years now and still dealing with the long-term impacts, but I'm incredibly glad something broke through to my religious-trauma addled brain. (I resonate with the comments in this thread mentioning 'therapy club' :)))
(it's also ironic because of Tolstoy's quasi-Christian religious beliefs but then again, he turned it all around and upside down, it seems - rewrote it into something he could live with, which is Very unlike the darkly anti-intellectual, anti-human version that surrounds us in the U.S. today )
This is brave Kate, and surprising but also reflects in some ways what Tolstoy was about. His novels don't impose orthodox spiritual ideas, as you say, the beliefs in so far as they are present are unorthodox (think of Pierre in W & P). The religious trauma you speak of is an all too common experience that has afflicted whole societies as well as individuals. Good for you getting out, not easy but necessary. Thank you Count Tolstoy!
many thanks and cheers to you, Aisling - well said.
Middlemarch--I first read it in college, then again in grad school, and many times since. It's a novel that makes you feel, really feel, the necessity and the grace of seeing others as clearly and deeply as you see yourself. About community and caring and human faults and the necessary attempt to overcome them, even if we fail much of the time.
Yes, George Eliot always makes me feel like I should at least try to be a better person. Then again, lots of writers make me feel that way, including George Saunders ("Tenth of December" the story in particular).
Maybe the secret is being named George (even if your real name is Mary Ann).
I almost added that "Tenth of December" does that too! I love that story so, so much! Another along the same lines is Carver's "A Small, Good Thing."
I realize this will be an unpopular comment (perhaps even evoke pity), but, no, definitely not. I've read lots of novels that I've loved, but none that have ever changed the trajectory of my life or fundamentally changed my way of thinking.
Yes, that's a totally valid and interesting response (that I almost built into the question, but).
My answer is no, too. But I think that it might be that the influence of the fiction and poetry I’ve read has been diffuse in a way that makes the connecting of dots difficult. Maybe it’s similar to how spending time at a batting cage can improve your batting average. Can you tie the swings in the batting cage to a particular hit in an actual game? No. And yet, In some other subterranean way, I feel like I can say probably, if not confidently, yes.
A book that's a bunt could be as meaningful as one that's a home run
To me, this comment provides a real sense of relief - the kind of “I am not alone” relief that I also find in some stories, plays etc.
I’ve been feeling quite frustrated that after so many years of reading so much I can’t write:
“After reading [ x ] I decided to change my life by [ y ].”
The only (“only”!) thing I can say for certain - about not just one but many, many books - is that they made me leap up and say to myself, “gosh, writers can do *that*!”, and then set about changing my own ambitions and procedures as a writer.
That’s H U G E but not what I felt George was looking for.
Maybe I’m mistaken (often am).
If you comb back over the latest responses you'll see you are in a pretty large club. You were just one of the first ones brave enough to admit it!
And, yet, what surprises me (actually, sort of stuns me) is how many people claim to have had such an experience. And some folks have cited multiple books. Multiple! I'm not certain what to make it, but I think it's interesting to ponder.
I agree. Multiple-orgasmic books!
Couldn't fine the "love" button on this comment so had to merely "like."
I'm among those who cannot identify a causal nexus between a work of art and a transformation in my life. My encounters with and experiences of literature and art have no doubt accreted and coalesced and informed who I am and how I see the world. Some moreso than others. What I can say is that there are bits and pieces and even whole works that are so memorable they I must have found them valuable, or important, or striking, or illustrative or, to use a squishy word, meaningful. They've added up, along with the dross, to who I've become.
I spent years running funding programs for the arts with public money, and find it difficult to reconcile the often repeated mantra of how the art (as proposed by the applicant), will be the meaningfully transformative gem we've been seeking all this time. Perhaps so... hard to say. But if it seems to deserve support, let's support it. There's a winnowing.
Some bits that might fit because they stick with me: reading Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet in Naples, Italy, in 1963, along with his lesser known The Dark Labyrinth To me, fascinating, exotic, mysterious - but along with other great stuff, made me fear trying to write for decades. Durrell also worked on the screenplay for "Cleopatra" (Eliz. Taylor) whose barge was still, at that time, docked where the movie's barge scene was filmed, in Ischia, a ferry ride from where I lived in a Navy barracks in Naples. I recently wrote a story that featured that barge, demonstrating that what goes around, comes around.
I'm in your camp. And I feel guilty for not giving credit to all the brilliant work that has moved me in so many ways(the list is longer than my arm) but it did not transform me. I want to believe I'm a thoughtful reader, vulnerable even. So I'm wide open to the idea, especially after reading others' comments, that literature can be life-changing.
I want to honor people's experiences, but I can't help feeling these questions prompted somewhat performative responses. Perhaps it's cynical, but "witnessing" is the word that comes to mind.
And, yeah, I know... boo me!
I appreciate the honesty... no hesitation needed!
Bart, I said the same.
Hurray for not being like everyone else!
Be good to know at what age you seriously began reading novels.
Probably around 14, mainly books like Sherlock Holmes, Les Miserables, The Count of Monte Cristo, and the books by Henryk Sienkiewicz at that time. In my late teens, I devoured everything I could get my hands on by Dostoyevsky, Tolstoi, Chekhov, and Gogol and classic British authors. It wasn't until after college that I started reading more contemporary work. I would say I've consistently averaged about 50-60 novels per year over the last three decades that would be categorized as "literary fiction" and maybe 20-30 others that are more genre-y, like Edgar winners, Elmore Leonard, Chandler, YA, etc.
I've read countless books that have entertained me. I'm often surprised by authors' abilities to surprise and amuse and shock and evoke an incredible range of emotions, but... change how I fundamentally think or the course of my life?
Nope.
I can't even envision a scenario in which that could happen, that is, a light-switch experience where I thought or believed my life was headed toward X at one moment and the next it was different.
I suspect (and willingly admit that I may be wrong) that when most people claim a fundamental shift of that nature they're focusing on and placing far too much emphasis on the last moment, the one prior to the change, but, really, that's simply the culmination of a series of experiences that are not being fully appreciated (or credited).
I think your last point here is a great caveat to my own comment. I recognize that I was already on a trajectory towards getting the help I needed and am grateful for each step (and person) that got me to that point.
But that book was undoubtedly the straw that broke the camel’s back, and I give credit for being exactly that. There’s no telling how much longer I would’ve gone on white-knuckling my healing, had I not found myself in some form on those pages.
Bart, this resonates with me. I too struggled to think of one book and a fundamental change. But when I thought more about it, there were a few books that I actively sought and found to feed an already growing interest and direction. They were little helpers, psychopomps to help guide me along a much longer path.
Bart - I’m certainly not implying that your experience vis a vis lit or reading is inaccurate or that somehow it’s a matter of time of life. Your experience is your experience and for all that valid. But others are transformed, and not always for the better btw, by artistic engagements. And literature is an art form. Perhaps a work hits at that precise right moment when a person is changing or growing anyway; and the work is given credit. Whatever, I find there’s a whole continuum on this issue and the only “mistake “ is to take one point on that scale and assume that that is the only one.
No worries. I didn't take it as that (though I appreciate how my response took that form). Also, I would agree that it's often a mistake to take a point along a continuum and assume it's the only one. I didn't think I was doing that (also not certain you're implying I did).
Obviously, people make decisions or have experiences that radically reshape their thinking or alter the course of their lives. In retrospect, I can see how certain decisions appear as forks in the road for me. But I've never had that experience with a novel and, as I said, can't imagine the circumstances in which that would happen.
I'm almost tempted to posit that the better read someone is, the less likely that's to happen. The cumulative effect of being well-read, I believe, is profound and life-changing. But it's also sort of like hiking the Appalachian Trail. The totality of the experience may be profound. However, it's difficult for me to imagine many, perhaps even any, thru-hikers pinpointing a single step that radically altered their thinking or changed the course of their lives (unless something tragic happens like falling to their death).
‘Fences’ by August Wilson changed my brain. How Wilson represented systems and institutions and identities and emotions in the play’s vernacular is mind-bending. I first read it in high school, and it was my first conscious lesson about how things thematic and conceptual and systemic can be said without saying them. I return to it regularly and I still don’t understand how that play exists.
Agree. The play is perfect. Gabriel’s trumpet sound at the end so powerful. Have you see. The latest film rendition by Denzel Washington? It’s excellent, Viola Davis so so good. Also Look for clips of James Earl Jones as Troy on Broadway. Incredible.
I recently rewatched it on the flight back from London! I’ll search for those clips.
Love it when you say you learned that things "can be said without saying them." That reminds me of a line in a poem by Archibald MacLeish (titled "Ars Poetica") - "For all the history of grief / An empty doorway and a maple leaf." Indirection - a secret strategy of magicians and writers!
It truly is magic.
Wow. I want to have that experience
That is a powerful recommendation-i'll make sure to watch/read it soon. Thank you.
Jeanette Winterson's Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit was my first hint that I had suffered religious abuse as a child. I couldn't unread that book. My whole identity started shifting because of it.
On what I imagine will be a less popular note, reading Ayn Rand's novels as a teenager gave me the courage to change the trajectory of my life. I moved out at 17 (sans job, sans phone, sans internet connection), got into university without a highschool diploma, and started building a life for myself, completely apart from my dysfunctional, impoverished, abusive and extremely Christian family. I don't "agree" with Rand's ideas now, but at the time, they absolutely catalyzed a very positive change in my life. I needed extreme arrogance to believe I could do what I needed to do, and they provided it.