The Discussion

A few days ago I completed writing on "The Discussion." I wrote this novella, if I can term it anything like that, entirely by hand, in a small journal. The pages are about the size of index cards, and in sum total, it's about 300 pages. 

I didn't "fill the page," however, which is always a kind of burning desire of mine when I look at blank page. Get something on there, my gut tells me. That page is naked, by god, clothe it.

For some reason, perhaps as a result of all the "challenges" I've done through the years with my good friend Pete Duval, I forced myself to write one sentence paragraphs. So literally, what you have here, is a series of single sentences, which somehow managed to tell an extended story. No kidding, there are no multi-sentence paragraphs here.

I'm reminded, in some ways, of a Larry Brown story from Dirty Work; but that was really a poem, and this has no poetic quality to it. 

Anyway I'm pleased that I've finished it, and I wanted to tell you about it. Am I pleased with the story involved? I'm no so sure, but tonight I started a reading of it, like picking up a strange book off a shelf, encountering the thing as it's totally alien to me, as I would any other book; and I've found it curious so far. The whole piece takes place over twelve hours, in essence an intense conversation between lovers on the verge of estrangement, in a remote hotel in the north Georgia mountains. The whole thing is charged sexually, and there's an eerie side story involving the unusual son of the older woman. Okay, it reads like a modern French novel. Does it say as much? Or as little? I'll know on subsequent readings and writing.

The next step is to type the damn weird tale. I've started doing that, and I'm retaining the one sentence graph structure, which is so ridiculous it makes me laugh. But who the hell knows, maybe this is the start of my true nature as a writer -- the essential experimenter. Or, perhaps, it's the start of a new process for me. It does occur to me that the one sentences are nothing more than the beginning of paragraphs I've yet to write.

From the Bookshelf: Michel Rio, Dreaming Jungles

I staggered across this book by my favorite means of book discovery: browsing in a bookstore. I picked it off the shelf at a new/used shop near Emory University called Eagle Eye Bookshop for $2.99, which was a total bargain.

After finishing the book – and it was quick, though dense reading experience – I surfed around the Web trying to get some info on the author Michel Rio, a Frenchman. I found very little. I don’t know anything about this writer other than a poorly written NYTimes review from the 90’s and a single line in Wikipedia. If I could read French, I’d be better off. Good reason, I think, to take up another language.

This book is almost like a second telling of one of my favorite books of all time, Heart of Darkness. No kidding, literally (it’s in translation) there is a sentence about the narrator “plunging into the heart of darkness.” Coming across that silly line, I was wondering if I was reading a highly sophisticated parody or satire. The plot of this novel involves a young man going upriver to study chimps in the wilds of Africa, and as you might imagine, he loses himself (deliberately, in this case) in the “savagery.”

I think it’s likely the brilliance of the writing that I can’t pin down the tone. Or that could be the flaw of the writing, not sure. I love the setting, and I love the plot, which moves along more rapidly than any novel I’ve ever read. Even though it feels partly like a Conrad rip-off, I was drawn into the jungle narrative, and I was impressed with the intense, carefully constructed diction (obviously an ode to Conrad, unless the translation is embellishing).

The novel is also a peculiar philosophical discussion. Large chapters are simply banter, in that upper-crusty civilized Brit way, about issues of evolution, natural selection, and Art. Sounds like a crazy mix, right? Well, it is damn crazy. Imagine a scene in which several well-to-do explorers are sitting around a campfire, amid pitched tents, in the deepest reaches of an African jungles, and they’re getting drunk, and they’re arguing the finer points of existentialism. That’s what happens in this book, and I supposed it’s a wonder that Rio pulls it off without too much absurdity.

There’s also a pretty ridiculous sexual plot here. I couldn’t reconcile this aspect of the novel. We read lofty paragraphs, in ornate prose, about the nature of man, and then the narrator is caught Peeping-Tom on the lone woman on the expedition, lounging by her candle in her tent. What does she do? Naturally she stares at the narrator, and then undresses and orgasms. Yoo-hoo! Somehow, her behavior, while erotic, doesn’t jive with the tone and topic of the rest of the novel. And indeed, the narrator’s climactic act (sorry about the language there) is to hole up, miles from civilization, in the deepest part of the jungle, alone, for a year. He lives in the treetops, eat only fruit, and studies chimps. When he returns to the camp, he confesses to the woman, a Lady Savile, that he loves her, and that’s why he engaged on such an improbable adventure.

Okay, so it probably goes without saying – this isn’t believable. And I agree. All the same, I was compelled by the unusual “artifact” of this novel. And you know, I’d love to be able to write something so fluid, so concise, and so unusual. It’s an utter Conrad carbon copy, and despite the lovely convolutions of language, it’s worth reading. I’ll never be able to write even poor Conrad, which Rio does; but I do think, now basking in the odd afterglow of this crude African Queen, that I could write an adventure/colonist/turn of the century novel with a more original plot. Really it comes down to one question. I picked the book off the shelf, I read the scintillating teaser, and I read the whole damn thing with a certain amazement. That’s an achievement. I’ll let time figure out the nuances of my reaction and where this book sits critically. In the meantime, I say, plunge into this strange jungle, and enjoy.