Tuesday, February 19, 2002
Higher Grounds Café, San Francisco
Andrew,
I had a good run yesterday. I felt like shit but I managed six hand-written pages in the notebook and none of it even in real time. It was all exposition. No dialog. Not real action. I love that kind of writing. I’m afraid of it, but I love it. We’ll see what happens today. I am getting a late start (it’s already 10:20) and it is raining. Sometimes I am surprised at how prolific I can be off-routine.
Today I will also finally finish Green Hills of Africa, a book which at first surprised me at how boring it was but has since, in the second half, become almost astounding. There is one part, covered by perhaps three chapters, in which EH is in pursuit of Kudu. He has one day left in country and no Kudu. His luck is running out and he fears not getting one. But after much effort he manages a huge, beautiful bull, the taking of which may be the best passage of descriptive dialog I have read in a long time. It is on pages 230-231 in the Simon & Schuster Touchstone paperback. Pay particular attention to the description of the fallen bull. It sends shivers up my spine and draw tears from me. He is so damn good that it kills me. It’s going to take me years and years to better him. How in God’s name does he show such restraint? I am all flourish and pomp. I’m a green-horned kid, all pistols and flash. If writers were gun fighters, I would be decked out in silver and black with tassels hanging from my gloves and Hemingway would be Wyatt Earp, all calm and cool and dark and subdued. You would be Doc Holiday sans TB.
Okay, so today I get back into it. And I discovered something important yesterday. It’s funny how you make little connections and little discoveries that shed light on your own characters. But this is big. This is potentially huge. You see, a sign-follower must invoke the Holy Spirit before engaging in dangerous acts of faith. It is the spirit who protects him. This is called the anointment of the spirit, and is accomplished through the combination of living a true, clean life, and by prayer. A sign follower must attain and maintain a state of mind conducive to the coming of the spirit. I imagine that this is much like meditation. It requires work, great effort and it is not full proof. It can fail. The spirit can not come. But Jacob you see was born with the spirit in him – like John the Baptist (see Luke1:15). He need not invoke the spirit, the spirit is already there. He can tap into it anytime. But he does not know this yet. And the question is: what does this mean? And this is a huge question Andrew, huge. Too big.
You can tell David Plante that I am following his advice in spades, I am writing about what is much, much greater than myself. I have the naivete of a child, and my ignorance is my strength. This is what I have in common with Jacob.
VC
[ view entry ] ( 9486 views ) | permalink |
( 3 / 5188 )
Random Entry
