I've started listening to Miles Davis recently, after following Harry from The Cat Empire through his various side projects. Harry is a strangely charismatic person on stage. Felix, the other frontman, projects or affects an air of confidence and clarity - he knows why he's there, he knows what he's doing, and he knows how it's supposed to sound. Harry, however, draws attention because it seems that no-one, not the band, sometimes not even Harry himself, knows what he's going to do next. What he does may not always fit perfectly, but bloody hell it's fun to watch.
That sort of flow s something I wish I could do more often. I'm an extremely analytical person. It seems to be my natural tendency, and it's been reinforced for so long through school and university (where the majority of my studies were science and maths based) that I can't switch it off. This isn't a bad thing - it's taken me a long way, and it's a very powerful tool to have in my mind. The problem is, as Mark Twain noted after learning to pilot the Mississippi, once you understand something it seems to lose a sense of beauty that, to me, arises from the lack of understanding. Without understanding something, the mystery that is inherent becomes mystical, perhaps because it can't be understood, only experienced. I think Harry understands this, or at least knows how to not try to understand it and to feel it instead.
Today, as I was thinking about this, I realised something about the way I listen to music. I love having music as a soundtrack to my life - I think walking through Melbourne city in Winter with my iPod on is amazing - it doesn't separate me from the world, it gives an endless variety of contexts for the scene I'm in. It can change the whole mood of a landscape. This feeling comes most with music that either I know very well, or music that has not words, which brings us nicely back to Miles Davis.
I think that I might reach this flow that Harry seems to find so effortlessly on stage by moving through analysis and out the other side. With music that I know extremely well, I've extracted all the meaning that I can, and all that's left is the immediate experience. With wordless music, jazz in particular, there is very little to analyse in the first place, so this 'experience rather than understand' state arrives much faster.
This has given me hope. I've been thinking lately about James Joyce as I read Ulysses. It's a very dense book, with allusions coming faster than I can comprehend, and passages of extreme beauty. I often wonder how Joyce came up with his lyricism - the short stories he wrote at 25 I would happily accept as my life's work at 70. But then, while reading the scattered sentences composed variously in Greek, Latin, French and German, as well as Gaelic phrases and words he invented to fit meaning he needed, I had an epiphany - something Joyce would have appreciated. He reached his flow of language by understanding language so implicitly that he didn't need to analyse to experience the words he wrote, he just knew what words were required - the mental equivalent of muscle memory.
So what this says to me is that I can learn to write beauty.
I see words as objects - when I argue I become more and more precise and less and less emotional - it all hits me afterwards. I'm extremely careful with the words I choose, because I can see and feel the effect that they have on people. But maybe if I embrace this and learn as much about language as I can, I'll be able to find the words I want to express the feelings I have. I won't have to choose the words - I'll just know what's needed. That's what I want, and that's what I need.
In other news, I'm going to propose to my girlfriend on Saturday.
Showing posts with label James Joyce. Show all posts
Showing posts with label James Joyce. Show all posts
Wednesday, 8 August 2007
Tuesday, 10 July 2007
Harry Potter and the Great Expectation... No, Wait - That's Been Done
So I like Harry Potter. I'm counting down the days until book 7 comes out. Get over it. There are worse things I could be hanging out for. A trend of wearing red and green without something in between. Michael Jordan's next comeback. Michael Jackson's next tour. The apocalypse.
What can I say? I'm excited! Whoa... Better be careful - that felt like a heart flutter. I'm deliciously apprehensive. There's a lightning-shaped twinkle in my eye. I'm constantly contemplating character conundrums. I'm flirting with farcical facts that figure prominently in the paperback palace of my mind. I'm thinking up theories about horcruxes, hippogriffs, Hermione and high heels - I've said too much. You will disregard that last remark. Move to strike. So ordered. Denny Crane.
Is it wrong that I'm excited about the page count? Book 7 looks like being the longest in the series. This is a big deal for me. I read quite fast. I like reading fast - it keeps the sense of pace and action that some books need. The downside, of course, is that books are often over far too quickly. So I read them again. And again. I read books like movies. I've been asked "Why read a book twice? You know what's going to happen." My response: I know that Leo dies at the end of Titanic, but that doesn't stop me leaping around the room yelling "The tard is dead! Arnold, you're a twat! And you almost ruined The Beach for me!" whenever I see his sad little face fade into the depths. Or something like that. Regardless, more pages = more Harry Potter goodness.
Maybe I'm more excited about the story being all wrapped up in a neat little package. I can generally find at least one thing in a book that is worth taking away and thinking about - whether it be storyline technique, characterisation, subject matter, dialogue, whatever. There are very few books that have absolutely nothing to offer. There are many in the Harry Potter series. The series picks a tone that is, strangely enough, reminiscent of Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (although you probably couldn't rebuild Dublin from its pages). By not using the first person narrative, but not acting as a completely impartial omnipresent observer, J. K. only goes inside Harry's head. This leads to a narrative somewhere between the first and third person, with the reader learning as Harry learns, a very effective way to keep an interest in the storyline. And no, it's not called a second person narrative. No one likes a smartarse.
The other aspect of the series that has confronted me the most is the development of the story. Sometimes I listen to an musician and think "Why has no one else come up with that?" Some melodies are so simple and obvious, so right, that it makes me shake my head and wonder why it took this long. Mathematicians feel this way when a simple proof is given to a complex problem, especially if the problem has been around for a while. J. K. has a gift for picking ways forward from plot situations that are the most true, and that resonate with readers. This is an incredible talent, and something I aspire to. It's a strange feeling when you reach a state like that, what Aristotle called "flow", even if only in random peaks. You know what to do next - it's obvious. Sometimes it takes trial and error, but when the right course of action presents, you feel awake. It's a lovely warm wet slap in the face, like an espresso. It's a great feeling. Again, something to work towards.
I could go on like this for quite a while, but my lunch break is never long enough, and I still need to reread books 5 and 6 to prep for the big day, so I'll leave it there. But picture me, round at my local bookstore next Saturday morning, rain, hail or, well, rain. This is Melbourne in July, after all. I'll have my free hot chocolate for pre-ordering the book, and I'll be quivering in anticipation next the furry little freak holding the broomstick. Or maybe I'll just be shivering. Melbourne, July, remember? And no, I won't be dressed up. I'm far too dignified for that sort of childish behaviour.
What can I say? I'm excited! Whoa... Better be careful - that felt like a heart flutter. I'm deliciously apprehensive. There's a lightning-shaped twinkle in my eye. I'm constantly contemplating character conundrums. I'm flirting with farcical facts that figure prominently in the paperback palace of my mind. I'm thinking up theories about horcruxes, hippogriffs, Hermione and high heels - I've said too much. You will disregard that last remark. Move to strike. So ordered. Denny Crane.
Is it wrong that I'm excited about the page count? Book 7 looks like being the longest in the series. This is a big deal for me. I read quite fast. I like reading fast - it keeps the sense of pace and action that some books need. The downside, of course, is that books are often over far too quickly. So I read them again. And again. I read books like movies. I've been asked "Why read a book twice? You know what's going to happen." My response: I know that Leo dies at the end of Titanic, but that doesn't stop me leaping around the room yelling "The tard is dead! Arnold, you're a twat! And you almost ruined The Beach for me!" whenever I see his sad little face fade into the depths. Or something like that. Regardless, more pages = more Harry Potter goodness.
Maybe I'm more excited about the story being all wrapped up in a neat little package. I can generally find at least one thing in a book that is worth taking away and thinking about - whether it be storyline technique, characterisation, subject matter, dialogue, whatever. There are very few books that have absolutely nothing to offer. There are many in the Harry Potter series. The series picks a tone that is, strangely enough, reminiscent of Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (although you probably couldn't rebuild Dublin from its pages). By not using the first person narrative, but not acting as a completely impartial omnipresent observer, J. K. only goes inside Harry's head. This leads to a narrative somewhere between the first and third person, with the reader learning as Harry learns, a very effective way to keep an interest in the storyline. And no, it's not called a second person narrative. No one likes a smartarse.
The other aspect of the series that has confronted me the most is the development of the story. Sometimes I listen to an musician and think "Why has no one else come up with that?" Some melodies are so simple and obvious, so right, that it makes me shake my head and wonder why it took this long. Mathematicians feel this way when a simple proof is given to a complex problem, especially if the problem has been around for a while. J. K. has a gift for picking ways forward from plot situations that are the most true, and that resonate with readers. This is an incredible talent, and something I aspire to. It's a strange feeling when you reach a state like that, what Aristotle called "flow", even if only in random peaks. You know what to do next - it's obvious. Sometimes it takes trial and error, but when the right course of action presents, you feel awake. It's a lovely warm wet slap in the face, like an espresso. It's a great feeling. Again, something to work towards.
I could go on like this for quite a while, but my lunch break is never long enough, and I still need to reread books 5 and 6 to prep for the big day, so I'll leave it there. But picture me, round at my local bookstore next Saturday morning, rain, hail or, well, rain. This is Melbourne in July, after all. I'll have my free hot chocolate for pre-ordering the book, and I'll be quivering in anticipation next the furry little freak holding the broomstick. Or maybe I'll just be shivering. Melbourne, July, remember? And no, I won't be dressed up. I'm far too dignified for that sort of childish behaviour.
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