The Stuff of Suffering

August 5, 2011

I had a student ask me once why literature is depressing. “Almost everything we've read, quality literature, but depressing as all hell.” It's a fair question. I can't remember what I told him, but I hope it was this: Yes, most of good literature is depressing because it is about suffering. And there is a lot of stuff in suffering. Happiness and contentment is fairly straightforward. Suffering is always unfolding, facet upon facet. Suffering and all its stuff, is about transformation and transformation is growth and I have to believe this is why we're here, plopped down on this planet and all its head-scratching experiences, to evolve spiritually. There is this great scene in the movie Little Miss Sunshine where the characters discuss suffering. Here it is:

Dwayne: I wish I could just sleep until I was eighteen and skip all this crap-high school and everything-just skip it.
Frank: Do you know who Marcel Proust is?
Dwayne: He's the guy you teach.
Frank: Yeah. French writer. Total loser. Never had a real job. Unrequited love affairs. Gay. Spent 20 years writing a book almost no one reads. But he's also probably the greatest writer since Shakespeare. Anyway, he uh... he gets down to the end of his life, and he looks back and decides that all those years he suffered, Those were the best years of his life, 'cause they made him who he was. All those years he was happy? You know, total waste. Didn't learn a thing. So, if you sleep until you're 18... Ah, think of the suffering you're gonna miss. I mean high school? High school-those are your prime suffering years. You don't get better suffering than that.

Suffering also allows for empathy. We recognize in others what we have felt ourselves and this produces immediate community. No, I am not alone with these dark thoughts and here's the proof, right here in this book. Great literature is true empathy that exceeds the confines of time and space. It helps us change, and by this, it moves humankind to a higher plane. This is why it is more important than religion, because religion tends to divide. Great literature breaks down barriers. Great literature spans borders and unveils the same human experience, albeit in different shapes in colors, but that's what makes the fabric of life so interesting, yet not so foreign, we cannot recognize it. I think of the muslim poet Rumi; he lived thousands of years ago, in a different country, a Muslim and a man. I am a Christian woman living in the twenty first century and I see myself and what I know of humanity in his poems. That's success in literature right there, when a writer and a reader connect like that.

This is also another argument agents should not get so caught up in plot. They're always looking for a plot that sells (they may tell you they are looking for strong characters, but that's hogwash). Look, agents, there's only so many plot lines out there. We got the coming of age plot line, the person in a bad marriage plot line, the love story plot line, the demented killer plot line, the missing persons/mystery plot line yada yada yada. And yes, these plot lines degenerate into genres, but only if the characters are lacking. It's characters that connect us, not plot lines. And good characters make good literature. They get us thinking about our own lives; they may even set our course.

August 1, 2011

Some poems exist still on the other side of our lives

And shine out

but we'll never see them.

They are unutterable, in a language without an alphabet.

Unseen. World-long. Bone music.

These are stanzas from Charles Wright's poem “Body and Soul II”. It got me thinking, if there are unwritten poems kept in a secret vault, perhaps there are children there as well, and love affairs, and the socks you lost in the laundry. And maybe this place runs by different rules, and maybe we carry this place with us where ever we go.

55. Death and I

I stop at a lemonade stand

at the side of the road

and Death is counting his money.

His skin is draped

over his bones like an oiled

hide. I see his lackluster

sockets, dirt underneath

his fingernails, his felled

limbs.

The flowers around him

are turning out seed

and birds fly in to rampage

the withering stalks.

Hurry up! Hurry up!

my dog says, her tongue

dancing over the glass.

I spy the iced pitcher,

and my mouth waters.

Ask how much for a cup.

Ten dollars, Death says,

and his arm falls off.

My dog laughs.

Ten cents, I barter, like

every other kid on the block.

Inflation, Death replies.

Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Nothing I can do about it.

Damn right. (Small talk)

Everyday, something

bruised or busted.

Battles inside us, forged.

Death drums his good fingers

on his knee. Fetches the arm

and tosses it to the compost pile,

which is everything.

(On second thought)

I know the deals you make.

I've seen you crouch

and whisper in ears like a lover.

Now wait a minute, Death says

picking at his teeth

with a splint in his good hand.

You wait a minute.

My father's swan song.

For hours and hours.

What did you say to him

to make him quit?

If I told you, I'd have to kill you,

Death says.

Oh yes. Perhaps a hard wired

bolt in the brain? Or the heart?

I've thought about

that moment.

A lump, a spot, an ache, a steering

wheel filleted and fried?

Ay, aware of every last inconsistency,

Jesus. I would hate to be you, he says.

Do you stir when your

knife whittles away at the pith?

You coo, then dice us to pieces.

Sallowed, well yes. (Death clears his

throat, ahem ahem).

Blood retreats to the four corners,

The mind says to the heart: you're

fired. Get your shit and get out.

The heart telephones the soul,

Listen, there's a train leaving

in an hour.

The soul, that quicksilver dash-

(Death clears his throat

` a second time, ahem-)

that aeroplane with its engine

tagging five miles behind, that

pinhole of ricocheted light- he smiles

and spits out a tooth.

I remembered then, the angels

tapping at the windows and doors.

The stone rolled away from our

front door. The bed sheets empty.

That glorious October sky.

My dog hiccups then whines.

A cloud burst of birds, now

their wings speaking in tongues.

The grass behind me whispers

and people come

dressed like Mennonites in

black hats and bonnets. They barter,

settle, and drink it all down.

Through the fields they go,

children again.

Death packs up his imaginary wagon,

tips his imaginary hat.

See you later alligator, he says.

In awhile, crocodile.