Forum / Rhapsodism, its ravages and realities

• 
  James Lloyd Davis

  Jul 12, 07:45am

  Having lost, more than once, a sense of mission in the pursuit of this art, the writing of fiction, I like to sit away from the desk from time to time and try to make sense of it.

  In doing so, I attempt to question my motives, examine them, even to the point that I break personal restrictions in the process of introspection. For instance, I've always believed that some questions, some aspects of our lives are simply unanswerable. Nonetheless, it's only natural, reasonable for anyone who uses words as a writer does to try to define the indefinable.

  Perhaps this vague thesis runs parallel to the question, "Can writing be taught?"

  Let me pose a question:

  There have been a few times when something I write has generated passionate reactions from others, but when I try to understand its appeal, or its specific influential energy, I find it cannot actually be satisfactorily explained. Sometimes, I am even aware that what I'm writing will elicit that response while I'm writing it. I can go back, reread it, and feel its passion as though I was reading something someone else has written. And I'll be damned if I have any idea what it is that sparks my own, much less anyone else's similar reaction. Sometimes it's so strong it even hurts, so why?

  Has anyone else experienced this phenomenon? If so, what do you call it? Do you ever try to rationalize it?

  I call it rhapsodism, think of it as something visceral and vague in origin, perhaps some synesthetic mix of hormones and the mind. Some call it duende, a passionate, elusive, mystical quality found in almost every form of artistic expression.

  What do you call it?

• 
  Matt Dennison

  Jul 12, 08:01am

  "It's a mystery..."
  --Father O'leary

  ;-)

• 
  Darryl Price

  Jul 12, 08:09am

  I'm with Matt. It's a mystery. And perhaps that's a very good thing because if it could be mapped so to speak the place would be overrun and ruined in no time flat by those anxious to cut in line. Human nature is not the most charitable thing--is there anything that man has not killed for instance? No, I think it's best that it remain what it is--magic that appears and reappears seemingly out of its own volition.

• 
  D'Arcy Fallon

  Jul 12, 11:26am

  Lots of times it's almost unconscious, no? Like there's a giant Ogalla Aquifer beneath us into which potent dreams drain and get mixed up. But you sure know it when you see it. Father O'Leary is right: It IS a mystery. So was that Emily Dickinson gal: "Tell it slant." My own shorthand for that: Seeing it out of the corner of your eye. I like the word rhapsodism.

• 
  James Lloyd Davis

  Jul 12, 11:29am

  Ah, Father O'Leary, can you never be more specific, boyo? Love that butterscotch booze yer makin', though.

• 
  eamon byrne

  Jul 14, 05:04am

  Maybe, James, it's the imaginative way you read.

  Here's something I've noticed about my own stuff. When I read my own stuff, I read it very, very, slowly. When I read others' stuff (hi y'all) I read it much, much, quicker. (Matt Dennison will appreciate my usage of commas there.)

  Now that is a mystery, a great mystery, but after puzzling over it for a while, this is what I've come up with. The SLOWER you read, invariably the BETTER it is. Isn't that a good one? Amazing, I grant you, but true.

  Here is more of the theory behind it. If you find yourself skimming, it's bound to be not much good.

  Now, with my own stuff, whether it is any good or not is beside the point, since I prefer to ignore theory. Thus I read my own stuff very, very, slowly, regardless of the quality. I do, perhaps, spend an inordinate amount of time over the commas. All this either means it IS good or, more likely, ahem, I'm a great man for the self delusion.

  I finish with a rhetorical question. Do you (hi y'all again) read your own stuff slowly? (I bet you do.) If so, are you, like me, possibly deluded?

• 
  James Lloyd Davis

  Jul 14, 06:48pm

  Thank you, Matt.

  Darryl, having seen the worst that human nature can dish out, I'd tend to embrace the cynic's view and often do. Magic works.

  D'Arcy, love the 'corner of the eye' concept of yours. Very Don Juan-ish. (That would be the whacky Yaqui, not the amorous Spaniard.)

  Eamon, thanks for the theory, but I read all things at a relatively slow pace, the result of something genetic, perhaps. It never made Hawthorne or Walter Scott read like the best of my favorites ... or my own writing, for that matter. But Kerouac? You can't read Kerouac slowly, but he does sing in tune with something raw. Maybe it all comes down to honesty, enthusiasm, and what the editors of Vanity Fair might call provincial naivete.

  I dunno. 'S why I asked. I'll settle for Father O'Leary's mystery. Appreciate the response, though.

  Gracias.

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