It's always fascinating to me how one book can make you think about another, even if they are completely different from each other in many ways. After finishing and thoroughly enjoying Maria Semple's Where'd You Go, Bernadette, I was oddly reminded of a well-known children's book by Eileen Spinelli called The Dancing Pancake.
I was struck by how Bernadette's daughter Bee responds to the marital problems her parents are having. She totally sides with her mother and hates her father for ruining their family (a somewhat understandable reaction, given the circumstances). Spinelli's younger heroine Bindi also has to deal with a family breakup. Although Bindi is younger and less experienced than Bee, her reaction to her parents is the same -- especially the anger she feels toward her father. Fortunately both Bee and Bindi are ultimately able to reconnect with their fathers in a satisfying way.
Why Semple's book made me think of Spinelli's, I haven't a clue. Reader psychology is intriguing -- as is the magic of fiction.
Monday, August 27, 2012
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Louise Penny on the role of poetry in her novels
I just ran across this helpful quotation from Louise Penny on how important poetry is to her mysteries:
http://www.cbc.ca/books/canadawrites/2012/05/louise-penny-help-desk-part-3.html
"Robert Frost said that for him, ‘A poem begins as a lump in the
throat’. For me a book begins that way. Some emotion strongly felt. I
always advise emerging writers to read poetry because it’s all about
emotion. And a surgical choice of words. ‘I was much too far out all of
my life/And not waving but drowning’—the great Stevie Smith lines. Or
Auden’s, ‘Goodness existed: that was the new knowledge/his terror had to
blow itself quite out/to let him see it.’ What better inspiration for
novels of the heart—and that’s what crime novels, at their best, are
about. Not the cold-blooded crime, but the hot emotion that led to the
thrust. Yes, for the most part, I decide on the overarching emotion of a
book, and then watch it played out in the characters. All my books are
inspired by poems. The Beautiful Mystery is inspired by TS Eliot’s "Murder in the Cathedral". The work in progress by "The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner". Paradise Lost plays a role in most of my works."
http://www.cbc.ca/books/canadawrites/2012/05/louise-penny-help-desk-part-3.html
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Poetry in "A Trick of the Light"
One of the fascinating aspects of Louise Penny's Three Pines mysteries is the way poetry is used in each. Sometimes, as in Still Life, the first novel in the series, Penny's use of poetry is extensive. Sometimes, as in A Trick of the Light (2011), the poetry is less dominant.
A Trick of the Light references two poems that add to the richness of the book -- "Up" by Margaret Atwood and "Not Waving but Drowning" by Stevie Smith. Each helps develop character in its own way.
Famous Canadian poet Margaret Atwood is probably referenced more in the Three Pines mysteries than is any other, so it's not surprising that "Up" is used in A Trick of the Light. Only the last stanza of Atwood's poem is highlighted in the novel:
"Now here's a good one:
You're lying on your deathbed.
You have one hour to live.
Who is it, exactly, you have needed
all these years to forgive?"
Harm and forgiveness (or lack of it) are key to A Trick of the Light. They are central to the murder in the novel. In addition, many of the key characters in the book need forgiveness for their acts or need to find a way to forgive others.
Atwood's stanza is particularly used in relation to Inspector Gamache and Ruth Zardo, the old, bitter, but nationally famous poet in the mysteries.
When a group of the women in the village set out to do a healing ritual for Lillian, the murder victim, Ruth "quoted one of her poems" -- namely, Atwood's last stanza from "Up" (p. 113). Late in the novel, Gamache quotes the first three lines of the stanza to Ruth, who asks how the last two lines apply to him (253). Gamache seems to have these lines in mind later, when he thinks to himself about Suzanne: "She hasn't forgiven . . . At least, not completely (p. 284). Finally, when Gamache is going around the room person by person before identifying Lillian's murderer, Ruth thinks of Atwood's last two lines again (p. 324).
Where "Up" is directly tied to the main themes of A Trick of the Light, the last stanza of Stevie Smith's "Not Waving but Drowning" applies directly to Clara, an artist who has finally become famous even as her marriage to her artist husband Peter is falling apart. Penny uses the last three lines of Smith's last stanza to reveal Clara's character and emotions:
"(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning."
The novel opens with Clara thinking about Smith's lines (pp. 1, 5). Terrified as she prepares to meet people at the first exhibition of her art, she applies these lines to herself.
Later Clara thinks of this poem again, this time remembering the first two lines:
"Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning: (p. 124)
In this context Clara is thinking of her husband Peter and how he is becoming dead to her.
At the end of the novel, Clara quotes from Smith's poem again. But this time, she applies it once again to herself. She has been dead in many ways, pretending to a happiness she has not felt. Now she determines she will be herself, preparing for a total change in her life (p. 315).
Only two poems play an important part in A Trick of the Light, but each plays an important role. Margaret Atwood's "Up" is connected to the major themes of the novel, while Stevie Smith's "Not Waving but Drowning" helps to give emotional resonance to Clara's growth as a human being.
A Trick of the Light references two poems that add to the richness of the book -- "Up" by Margaret Atwood and "Not Waving but Drowning" by Stevie Smith. Each helps develop character in its own way.
Famous Canadian poet Margaret Atwood is probably referenced more in the Three Pines mysteries than is any other, so it's not surprising that "Up" is used in A Trick of the Light. Only the last stanza of Atwood's poem is highlighted in the novel:
"Now here's a good one:
You're lying on your deathbed.
You have one hour to live.
Who is it, exactly, you have needed
all these years to forgive?"
Harm and forgiveness (or lack of it) are key to A Trick of the Light. They are central to the murder in the novel. In addition, many of the key characters in the book need forgiveness for their acts or need to find a way to forgive others.
Atwood's stanza is particularly used in relation to Inspector Gamache and Ruth Zardo, the old, bitter, but nationally famous poet in the mysteries.
When a group of the women in the village set out to do a healing ritual for Lillian, the murder victim, Ruth "quoted one of her poems" -- namely, Atwood's last stanza from "Up" (p. 113). Late in the novel, Gamache quotes the first three lines of the stanza to Ruth, who asks how the last two lines apply to him (253). Gamache seems to have these lines in mind later, when he thinks to himself about Suzanne: "She hasn't forgiven . . . At least, not completely (p. 284). Finally, when Gamache is going around the room person by person before identifying Lillian's murderer, Ruth thinks of Atwood's last two lines again (p. 324).
Where "Up" is directly tied to the main themes of A Trick of the Light, the last stanza of Stevie Smith's "Not Waving but Drowning" applies directly to Clara, an artist who has finally become famous even as her marriage to her artist husband Peter is falling apart. Penny uses the last three lines of Smith's last stanza to reveal Clara's character and emotions:
"(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning."
The novel opens with Clara thinking about Smith's lines (pp. 1, 5). Terrified as she prepares to meet people at the first exhibition of her art, she applies these lines to herself.
Later Clara thinks of this poem again, this time remembering the first two lines:
"Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning: (p. 124)
In this context Clara is thinking of her husband Peter and how he is becoming dead to her.
At the end of the novel, Clara quotes from Smith's poem again. But this time, she applies it once again to herself. She has been dead in many ways, pretending to a happiness she has not felt. Now she determines she will be herself, preparing for a total change in her life (p. 315).
Only two poems play an important part in A Trick of the Light, but each plays an important role. Margaret Atwood's "Up" is connected to the major themes of the novel, while Stevie Smith's "Not Waving but Drowning" helps to give emotional resonance to Clara's growth as a human being.
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