[Excerpted from 'The Visiting Professor']
“I’m Jack Dawson. This is Writing 514 where you will learn how to write great works of fiction. Of course, I don’t teach this from my own experience, but from reading better writers. Usually we study Vladimir Nabokov, author of a great memoir and six or seven perfect novels. If you want to be a writer you should read his stuff as priests read their missals—daily.
“But this year I’ve decided to see what can be learned from imperfect novels, and so we will visit Alexandria, a city known to Lawrence Durrell as ‘The Winepress of Love’. The Alexandria Quartet is a wonderful example for aspiring writers—by which I mean an example full of wonders.”
“Those of you who took Writing 314—I recognize Ms. Johnson—anyone else?” he looked around hopefully, but there was no one else, “Well, if you had, you would recall that I don’t believe in ‘Reality’. There is none in Durrell’s Alexandria. What might be called the ‘real city’ was ably described by E. M. Forster in a travel book. So, there are facts, and they can, to a certain extent, be checked. But the facts in Durrell’s Alexandria are not the same facts you might have observed if you had lived there. I suppose it was nearly as dull a place then as it is today—but littered with bright fragments, to be observed, selected and fitted together into a mosaic by a very good (perhaps great) writer. If you stay with me we’ll study his techniques, and attempt to do what he did.”
He stared at his notes for a moment then continued, “Since most of you weren’t in Writing 314 you won’t mind, I suppose, if I reveal what Ms Johnson was so astonished to discover there—that the so-called ‘Real World’ is only a pathetic imitation of Art.”
“Reality is totally imponderable—it’s too much—too complicated. It can’t even be visualized, much less comprehended. Unlike reality, narrative is intelligible. You can tell what counts and what doesn’t. In good fiction, everything counts, but even ordinary fiction is selective as to the facts, it has ‘point of view’. It has a beginning a middle and an end—which may not be conclusive—for it may lead to other stories. Call it what you will—history, biography, journalism, philosophy, religion—anything that makes sense is a ‘made up story’. And what, Ms. Johnson, do we call made-up-stories?”
“Well, you call them, ‘Fiction.’ At least, that’s what you called them in 314.”
“Bravo, that was the great lesson of Writing 314. ‘Reality is the unexplainable—narrative is the explanation.’ Or to put it another way, ‘Reality is Real to the extent that Art is Artful.’ Ponder it in your hearts.”
Jack paused for a moment while the students pondered. As in almost every class there was an acolyte. She was seated immediately in front of him. He peered over his glasses at her notebook. She had written, ‘Fiction—made up stories’ and dotted the i’s with tiny hearts. He sighed inwardly and continued, “O.K, Since I switched from Nabokov to Durrell rather late in the day, it may take awhile for the bookstore to get copies of the Quartet, I’ll start you off with a plot outline.”
"Not surprisingly, there are four books in the Quartet. Don't despair--they are short. The first is Justine. The title character, like all great heroines, is both beautiful and hot. Sex sells, people. Don’t forget to put some in your novel—no matter that it’s all delusion. In Reality, as in Alexandria, delusion adds poignancy—makes it more believable. She’s married to the City’s leading banker, a man known as Nessim. Money and power are fascinating to readers, most of whom are nearly as poor as writers. She’s a Jewish refugee—a great theme of 20th Century literature. He’s a Copt, a Christian sect claiming descent from the pharaohs, so we have a touch of the mysterious and spooky., also desirable in fiction.”
“The protagonist, Darley, is a young writer. He loves Melissa, a pathetically inept nightclub dancer. She also loves him, but he can’t support her. When not dancing, or with Darley, she’s mistress to an old furrier named Cohen. Hopeless love and bitter necessity, folks, it's almost Dickensian. Later it turns out that a smelly old man can love a woman more truly than a young writer—a nice ironic twist.”
“Durrell’s Alexandria is filled with wanderers, exiles and expatriates. The writers and artists all know each other, and Justine knows them all. She introduces Darley to her husband and thereby to the world of wealth and power.”
“Like most writers, Darley is boring—forever babbling about ‘Art’. But Justine begins a torrid affair with him—so naturally, he assumes he’s captivating. Their trysts are beautifully described—the blowing curtains, the sweaty sheets, the caresses, the extreme anxiety and danger—for you must recall that Nessim’s power is what attracted Justine to him in the first place.”
“Are you with me so far? A young writer’s fantasy—total wish fulfillment. It begins to sound suspiciously easy. And so it is. Darley is too young, too callow, too British, to be hanging out with Justine. She is Lilith, ‘woman’ with a capital W.”
“And being too young he is unable to leave a good thing alone. He wants to know too much. I ought to warn you, since some of you are also young, that the past is not a place where lovers should roam unsupervised. If you have loved you understand the need to know, but, like Darley, you may be punished for your curiosity."
"In Darley's case the risk is not merely psychological. Justine and her husband are holding secret meetings. Who knows whether it is just a group of friends gathered to study the Kaballah, or an actual cabal. The Egyptian police are curious. The British colonial authorities are concerned. Darley realizes, too late, that he is in over his head. He has no idea what’s happening, or how far Justine’s husband might go."
"He is invited to a shooting party. Again, a lovely description of duck blinds scattered across the Nile delta. The rising sun, the flight of the ducks. But in all the shooting, another guest is killed. Murdered, Darley suspects. Shortly thereafter Justine disappears.”
He looked up. The class was writing furiously, perhaps hoping that diligent note-taking would substitute for careful reading. He continued, “Melissa dies, leaving a baby girl—neither Darley’s, nor Cohen’s. There is nobody to care for the child. A penitent Darley takes her with him to a Greek island. He tries to write a ‘true’ account of his time in Alexandria, but the little girl draws pictures on his notes and mixes them up, so that the memoir he finally writes (‘Justine’ the very book you will be reading) is not only subject to his many misunderstandings, but also to the random loss and confusion of data--a brilliant illustration of our point about Truth and Fiction. Just as his story is completed he learns that Justine has been found at a kibbutz in Palestine. End of Book One.”
Jack looked up from his notes, His half-glasses had slipped to the tip of his nose, He pushed them back, but then bent forward to peer over their tops, “That’s it,” he said, “But Durrell was a great observer and a pretty good poet. The exotic city, the vocabulary, the imagery and the characters, are dazzling. If I hadn’t told you the story, you might have been swept along in a Nile flood, not noticing that the plot is either too complicated, or not complicated enough. For our purposes the story is not important. We’re interested in what he is doing. Why? Are things under control? In short, does it work?"
"We can all see the exterior world, and draw conclusions. These abilities are quite wonderful, but they have little to do with Reality. Luckily we have ‘Imagination’, a faculty no less limited and askew, but which, in combination with observation, produces understanding—or rather, ‘an understanding’.”
“Durrell’s Alexandria was not the reality of the city even in the 1930's. It is an artistic construct, and yet it is so crowded with memorable detail you’ll think you know something about the place and the time. You will remember this scabrous seaport as a sensual place, gasping under the weight of accumulated human desire."
“But this year I’ve decided to see what can be learned from imperfect novels, and so we will visit Alexandria, a city known to Lawrence Durrell as ‘The Winepress of Love’. The Alexandria Quartet is a wonderful example for aspiring writers—by which I mean an example full of wonders.”
“Those of you who took Writing 314—I recognize Ms. Johnson—anyone else?” he looked around hopefully, but there was no one else, “Well, if you had, you would recall that I don’t believe in ‘Reality’. There is none in Durrell’s Alexandria. What might be called the ‘real city’ was ably described by E. M. Forster in a travel book. So, there are facts, and they can, to a certain extent, be checked. But the facts in Durrell’s Alexandria are not the same facts you might have observed if you had lived there. I suppose it was nearly as dull a place then as it is today—but littered with bright fragments, to be observed, selected and fitted together into a mosaic by a very good (perhaps great) writer. If you stay with me we’ll study his techniques, and attempt to do what he did.”
He stared at his notes for a moment then continued, “Since most of you weren’t in Writing 314 you won’t mind, I suppose, if I reveal what Ms Johnson was so astonished to discover there—that the so-called ‘Real World’ is only a pathetic imitation of Art.”
“Reality is totally imponderable—it’s too much—too complicated. It can’t even be visualized, much less comprehended. Unlike reality, narrative is intelligible. You can tell what counts and what doesn’t. In good fiction, everything counts, but even ordinary fiction is selective as to the facts, it has ‘point of view’. It has a beginning a middle and an end—which may not be conclusive—for it may lead to other stories. Call it what you will—history, biography, journalism, philosophy, religion—anything that makes sense is a ‘made up story’. And what, Ms. Johnson, do we call made-up-stories?”
“Well, you call them, ‘Fiction.’ At least, that’s what you called them in 314.”
“Bravo, that was the great lesson of Writing 314. ‘Reality is the unexplainable—narrative is the explanation.’ Or to put it another way, ‘Reality is Real to the extent that Art is Artful.’ Ponder it in your hearts.”
Jack paused for a moment while the students pondered. As in almost every class there was an acolyte. She was seated immediately in front of him. He peered over his glasses at her notebook. She had written, ‘Fiction—made up stories’ and dotted the i’s with tiny hearts. He sighed inwardly and continued, “O.K, Since I switched from Nabokov to Durrell rather late in the day, it may take awhile for the bookstore to get copies of the Quartet, I’ll start you off with a plot outline.”
"Not surprisingly, there are four books in the Quartet. Don't despair--they are short. The first is Justine. The title character, like all great heroines, is both beautiful and hot. Sex sells, people. Don’t forget to put some in your novel—no matter that it’s all delusion. In Reality, as in Alexandria, delusion adds poignancy—makes it more believable. She’s married to the City’s leading banker, a man known as Nessim. Money and power are fascinating to readers, most of whom are nearly as poor as writers. She’s a Jewish refugee—a great theme of 20th Century literature. He’s a Copt, a Christian sect claiming descent from the pharaohs, so we have a touch of the mysterious and spooky., also desirable in fiction.”
“The protagonist, Darley, is a young writer. He loves Melissa, a pathetically inept nightclub dancer. She also loves him, but he can’t support her. When not dancing, or with Darley, she’s mistress to an old furrier named Cohen. Hopeless love and bitter necessity, folks, it's almost Dickensian. Later it turns out that a smelly old man can love a woman more truly than a young writer—a nice ironic twist.”
“Durrell’s Alexandria is filled with wanderers, exiles and expatriates. The writers and artists all know each other, and Justine knows them all. She introduces Darley to her husband and thereby to the world of wealth and power.”
“Like most writers, Darley is boring—forever babbling about ‘Art’. But Justine begins a torrid affair with him—so naturally, he assumes he’s captivating. Their trysts are beautifully described—the blowing curtains, the sweaty sheets, the caresses, the extreme anxiety and danger—for you must recall that Nessim’s power is what attracted Justine to him in the first place.”
“Are you with me so far? A young writer’s fantasy—total wish fulfillment. It begins to sound suspiciously easy. And so it is. Darley is too young, too callow, too British, to be hanging out with Justine. She is Lilith, ‘woman’ with a capital W.”
“And being too young he is unable to leave a good thing alone. He wants to know too much. I ought to warn you, since some of you are also young, that the past is not a place where lovers should roam unsupervised. If you have loved you understand the need to know, but, like Darley, you may be punished for your curiosity."
"In Darley's case the risk is not merely psychological. Justine and her husband are holding secret meetings. Who knows whether it is just a group of friends gathered to study the Kaballah, or an actual cabal. The Egyptian police are curious. The British colonial authorities are concerned. Darley realizes, too late, that he is in over his head. He has no idea what’s happening, or how far Justine’s husband might go."
"He is invited to a shooting party. Again, a lovely description of duck blinds scattered across the Nile delta. The rising sun, the flight of the ducks. But in all the shooting, another guest is killed. Murdered, Darley suspects. Shortly thereafter Justine disappears.”
He looked up. The class was writing furiously, perhaps hoping that diligent note-taking would substitute for careful reading. He continued, “Melissa dies, leaving a baby girl—neither Darley’s, nor Cohen’s. There is nobody to care for the child. A penitent Darley takes her with him to a Greek island. He tries to write a ‘true’ account of his time in Alexandria, but the little girl draws pictures on his notes and mixes them up, so that the memoir he finally writes (‘Justine’ the very book you will be reading) is not only subject to his many misunderstandings, but also to the random loss and confusion of data--a brilliant illustration of our point about Truth and Fiction. Just as his story is completed he learns that Justine has been found at a kibbutz in Palestine. End of Book One.”
Jack looked up from his notes, His half-glasses had slipped to the tip of his nose, He pushed them back, but then bent forward to peer over their tops, “That’s it,” he said, “But Durrell was a great observer and a pretty good poet. The exotic city, the vocabulary, the imagery and the characters, are dazzling. If I hadn’t told you the story, you might have been swept along in a Nile flood, not noticing that the plot is either too complicated, or not complicated enough. For our purposes the story is not important. We’re interested in what he is doing. Why? Are things under control? In short, does it work?"
"We can all see the exterior world, and draw conclusions. These abilities are quite wonderful, but they have little to do with Reality. Luckily we have ‘Imagination’, a faculty no less limited and askew, but which, in combination with observation, produces understanding—or rather, ‘an understanding’.”
“Durrell’s Alexandria was not the reality of the city even in the 1930's. It is an artistic construct, and yet it is so crowded with memorable detail you’ll think you know something about the place and the time. You will remember this scabrous seaport as a sensual place, gasping under the weight of accumulated human desire."
"Your challenge, and I will be joining you, is to write a short novel about modern love in Portland, for practice, not publication. It should be populated by people you think you know, including people in this very class, but squeezed through the pastry tube of imagination. My hope is that all our novels will be different, but equally true--and that none of them will be unduly burdened by the tedious realities of our native place. We are not working for the Chamber of Commerce, but rather for the Goddess."
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