Thoughts and Words

A lot has happened to me since Monica posed for these pics I took of her while on a kibbutz in Israel in 1971. She was my „girlfriend“ at the time, and I recently dug out these photos. They helped me look back on some good times. Why did I do this?

Well, perhaps it is because the time of corona offers us the opportunity to reflect on good memories. After all, they can evoke feelings of contentment – something many of us probably need at this time. Apparently, I am not alone in this. I have read that nostalgia playlists are particularly popular at the moment along with a surge in hobbies such as knitting, baking bread and lots of community singing – albeit over the laptop.  In other words, in uncertain times, it seems the past is perceived as a safe place – certainly safer than the present! 

A lot has happened since Monica posed for these photos. I recall we both talked about our futures. I was going back to England and to university and she was soon to do her compulsory army service. I don’t like the idea of „what would I tell my younger self now?“ or „what would I say to her if I had the chance?“  Given the opportunity I would, uncharacteristically, shut my mouth. 

But when I took these pics, the fun, the sadness, the warmth, the danger, the conversations, the loves, the losses, the travel, the friendships, the personal developments were ahead of us both and all these things have made us who we are today – assuming she is still alive!

Of course, nostalgia is a popular theme for writers. My own favourites include the following. 

The Garden of the Finzi-Continis by Giorgio Bassani – concerning the lives of Italian Jews in the northern Italian city of Ferrara during the Fascist period.

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh – exploring themes connected to the age of English aristocracy, Catholicism, and homosexuality.

The Magus by John Fowles – inspired by Fowles‘ experiences on the Greek island of Spetse, where he taught English for two years.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald – inspired, perhaps, by the author’s disillusionment with the American dream.

Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier – dealing with the search for a lost love.

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro – concerning a man’s recollections of a bygone era.

I love these books but there are many others that deal with nostalgia. Please share your own and use the commentary box! I would love to hear from you. 

Look at the pic below. It shows the author and his best mate at the time with a Danish girl they met one summer night while on holiday in Ibiza in 1969. I do remember her name – but I will rename her for the purposes of this blog because, if she is still alive, I don’t want to embarrass her.  I’ll call her Julia.

Suppose, 50 years later, the chap on the right tells a story about how he was a little bit in love with Julia and that after the holiday and back home in England, he would daydream about donning his white Aran sweater and sailing a boat across the North Sea, battling storms and all sorts of other problems, to find her waiting for him on the quayside in some Danish port.  As he steps ashore, battered but strong and beaming his love for her, she falls into his arms and his soft woollen pullover… 

Sounds a bit Walter Mitty-ish, doesn’t it? „Not necessarily,“ the now-elderly chap might say. „But I could write a book about it.“

Well, in a way that it is exactly what I have done. 

Although I never saw Julia again, she is the first girl I can remember who acted as a sort of muse. The memory of her was the spark which sent me off on fantastic daydreams and in these dreams, she really loved me too, and was just waiting for me to come and find her and whisk her off to…well…I don’t know where.

There is no doubt that the idea of Julia had a very positive influence on me. The memory of her inspired me to work hard for my A-level exams and I passed them with flying colours. And when my feelings for Julia were replaced by forever-unspoken feelings for other girls, they all provided a spur to act, to succeed. These girls acted as the individuals for whom I wrote, acted as recipients of the love letters that were written as short stories or novels. But, most importantly, all these girls remained untouched, untarnished and as perfect as the day I first met them. Why? Because I never really knew them.  To know them would have meant destroying them. The muse must never be known, at least not well, or the muse might die.   

Is there anything wrong in all this myth-making? I don’t think so. After all, isn’t the ability to lose yourself in daydreams a necessity for fiction writers? Personally, I think it is fine to daydream so long as your feet are very firmly set on the ground and provided that there are other girls with whom you can have a „normal“ relationship. Ready, steady – dream away!

Which thoughts?

Writing fiction has a variety of side effects. Jumping at will out of the head of one character and into the head of another and asking yourself questions concerning how a person feels or how a person might react in a certain situation has made me develop empathy to a much greater degree than before my writing life.  

But I had to reach the half century before I realised how intricate is the relationship between thoughts and words.

„If you’ve got nothing to say, keep your mouth shut.“

„Your writing is sloppy and should never have been written by a university student.“

Both of the comments above miss the point. The point is that our thoughts are very often formed in the process of speaking and writing and not before. In other words, we sometimes only discover what we really think and feel in the actual process of writing or speaking. Thoughts come through the pen, the electronic keyboard or are formed in the mouth.

This relationship between thoughts and words is important for writers because it stresses the necessity of the rewrite. You often hear writers say, „I don’t write books, I rewrite them.“ This is certainly true for me. I work on my chapters in the same way that a sculptor works with a block of stone. When I have finished a book, I usually wonder how on earth it came into being in the first place. Certainly, I never really know what I want to say or argue or present in a book until the first draft is out. Then, I might discuss it with friends and so begins the rewrite.

There is another point here. Discovering one’s thoughts through speech or writing can also help individuals discover who they are by expressing them. It is this relationship with others that is vital here. In other words, I am what I think I am through my relationships with other people. No wonder we can get hurt when bad reviews come in or people tell you the book was rubbish! It can feel like a very personal attack.

For those readers who want to know more about this most interesting topic I suggest s/he reads the last chapter of Lev Vygotsky’s Thinking and Speech (1934). A word of warning, however. This chapter is not for the faint-hearted. It is a long chapter with a complex argumentative structure in which Vygotsky gives his view on the relationship between thinking and speech. As a writer myself, I would not be surprised if Lev wrote innumerable drafts before producing something he was satisfied with. Perhaps, like many creative people, he was never satisfied with what he had written. Capturing those thoughts and expressing them through words or music is a formidable task. 

„Purpose“ can be defined as the intention to achieve a long-term goal that makes an impact on the world and gives some meaning to your life. Purpose should motivate you and give you a good reason to get up in the morning. Unfortunately, what is often called the “third age” of your life (typically characterized by end of career, end of parenting, or both) can be brutally void of purpose and we may now decide to fill the void and create a new version of ourselves through writing.  

My question is this. If I decide to give myself a purpose in life by writing, what purpose does my writing actually serve? Should all writers, regardless of their age, be asking themselves this very question and concern themselves with instilling a purpose of some kind in their efforts or is it enough to say that the story’s only purpose is simply to exist? Let me put the question another way. Should all fiction writing have to have some message or purpose to be worthy of existence? For example, should writers concern themselves with educating or enlightening readers? 

For me, it is enough if my books make readers think. Yes, most writers create novels to entertain and/or to inspire and there is no question that I write them with the purpose of touching others or of challenging their perspectives. 

Apparently, research indicates that having purpose (and inspired by something bigger than yourself) allows you to be persistent and resilient when you experience setbacks. When you see that your writing contributes to others, in a unique way, you might appreciate the value of what you do and this will be the foundation for your passion to write at whatever age you find yourself. 

Cecil Roberts (1892-1976) was an English novelist, poet and dramatist. He was a prolific writer and his novels were very popular in his lifetime. He is now almost forgotten. His books include A Terrace in the Sun and the Pilgrim Cottage trilogy. 

During my teens, I read and enjoyed many of his novels, in particular, A Terrace in the Sun, a novel which introduced me to the idea of the past returning to haunt or delight us in the present. I find his novels interesting today because they are, in a sense, a commentary on a society which was on the brink of great change. It was the 1940s and 1950s he wrote about and I have included him in my blog because he is a product of the first half of the 20th century – a very different society from that in which we live today. Here is an extract from the fifth book in his autobiography – The Pleasant Years (1974). 

I was back in New York at the end of April. I dined with Mrs Cartwright at her Fifth Avenue apartment. One of the guests was Mrs Dorothy Caruso, her cousin. She was very surprised when I recalled that in 1924 she had given me and my travelling companion, Armand de la Rochefoucauld, her box at the Metropolitan Opera House, and we had taken with us the two Mdivani brothers, Prince Serge and Prince Alexis, then in poor lodgings in New York. She had married Caruso a few years before his death. They had one child, Gloria, whom he adored. I said I remembered that she had told me Caruso would not allow any birds to be shot on his Italian estate near Florence, unlike other Italians. “What an incredible memory you have!” she exclaimed, “He loathed ‘other singers’ being shot.”

In a sense, Roberts was simply writing about what interested readers of his day. Apart from style, is there really a difference between his writing and the reports on celebrities we read today? Have a look at the following report from a UK newspaper concerning a celebrity party. The article also drops names – but the style is very different.

While Lauren Goodger still may have looked all glammed up, she was feeling souped up and sassy as she flipped the bird to fans on her way out – seemingly proud as punch of her nude manicure and wanting to show it off for all to see. Pulling an emotive grimace, the former-TOWIE beauty also toted the exclusive gift bag, no doubt filled to the brim with a bunch of luxurious goodies. Sarah Harding clutched a massive gift bag as the Girls Aloud star held onto a pal’s friend on the way out. While Jess Shears and Dom Lever were on their very own Love Island as the brunette beauty jumped a ride on her boyfriend’s back as he carried her out of the event and into the cab line.

At first, The Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton (below) does not appear to be a novel about war. Appearances notwithstanding, it is a novel about WW2 but the war is revealed from a different perspective. The year is 1943, but there are no descriptions of combat, of troop movements, or of battles. Nonetheless, for the inhabitants of Thames Lockton (based, apparently, on Henley) „…conditions were those of intense war, intense winter and intense black-out in the month of December.“

The novel begins with the London train arriving in Thames Lockton „…up against buffers…and it hissed furiously. That hiss, in the blackness of the station, might have been the sound of the crouching monster’s last, exhausted, people-expelling breath in this riverside outpost of its daily influence…or it might, tonight, merely have been the engine hissing through its teeth against the cold.“ And the passengers were, „…  a small army of home-seekers, in full attack, rushing towards the dim black-out light – like moonlight gone bad – above the ticket collector.“

„Moonlight gone bad“ – I like that.

For the occupants of the boarding house „Rosamund Tea Rooms“  the war means blackouts, rationing, shortages, newsreels, propaganda and many other minor inconveniences and it is a reminder, if we need reminding, that suffering is relative. Terrible things were going on in Europe, (e.g. concentration camps, Stalingrad) but for the inhabitants of our guest house on the Thames, events in Europe are so far away that they are difficult to engage with. War and its sufferings were restricted to their immediate environment and to the here and now.  Furthermore, the people did not know, as we now know, that 1943 was a turning point in he war, that 1944 would see an invasion of Europe and that war would end in May 1945. 

Hamilton is not a name known to many readers today. Although his work was acclaimed in his lifetime, he was virtually forgotten by the 1960s, his writing thrown into the shadows, perhaps, by others, for example: Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh. Perhaps the reason for his relative obscurity is that he likes to break the rules. He changes the narrative point of view several times in this book and he does not refrain from making authorial intrusion when he thinks it appropriate. Further, the book does not fit easily into any other literary style or movement. To me, the book seemed entirely original. 

Hamilton refers to his main character as Miss Roach. Although this formality creates an emotional distance between the reader and the character, it adds weight to her solitude and helps the reader better understand the title of the book. Miss Roach is, after all, a slave to her solitude. And so, perhaps, was Hamilton himself. He had followed in his father’s footsteps and become an alcoholic. He died of this at the age of 58 in 1962. The theme of fathers and sons has always interested me and it is one theme, amongst others, in my novel, Feeling the Distance. 

Hamilton ends his own novel on an upbeat note and with a reminder to us, if needed, that this is essentially a novel about how war is experienced by those living through it.  Miss Roach is in Claridge’s and decides to take a bath.

„Then Miss Roach, knowing nothing of the future, knowing nothing of the February blitz shortly to descend on London, knowing nothing of flying bombs, knowing nothing of rockets, of Normandy, of Arnhem, of the Ardennes bulge, of Berlin, of the Atom Bomb, knowing nothing and caring very little, got into her bath and lingered in it a long while.“

And just before she goes to sleep she whispers to herself: 

„God help us, God help all of us, every one, all of us.“

After a hectic day, my wife consulted her Fitbit and announced her intention of completing her daily quota of steps by going on a „little night walk“ around the town. „Night Walk“ – what a title for a film, a novel or a novella! „Night Walk.“ Career woman under stress goes on a little night walk every evening. She meets another night walker and the two become – well, they can become whatever you want them to be, friends, lovers, confidantes, shrinks. For the sake of argument, let’s say the career woman meets a refugee – two women of the same age but differing prospects. Then, one night, the refugee does not turn up and the protagonist sets out to find out what happened to her. The possibilities are endless.

Let’s look at another genre – the ghost story. Around the town in which our hero walks at night are innumerable „Stolperstein“ or stumbling stones. These stones, the idea of artist Gunter Demnig, remember the victims of National Socialism by installing commemorative brass One night, our night walker meets a young lady with a mysterious background. The two ladies discuss the past and our relationship with history in general and with the holocaust in particular.  Have we learned from it?  The possibilities are endless. But the point is that inspiration is all around us and we just have to be sensitive and grab it before the idea goes away. Always carry a pencil and a piece of paper when you go for a walk.plaques (left) in the pavement in front of their last address of choice. 

Lost Property was partly inspired by the current refugee crisis in Germany. But I also wanted to draw parallels with the refugee crisis in post-war Germany. In 1945, Germany was in ruins and yet it had to accept and assimilate ethnic German refugees kicked out of their ancestral homes in, for example: Poland, USSR, Czechoslovakia, Baltic States, Rumania, Hungary and Yugoslavia. The numbers are staggering: some estimates put the number of refugees as high as 14,000,000. Many of these never made it to Germany. Between 600,000 and 2,500,000 refugees died en route through disease, violence or malnutrition.

One elderly lady (let me call her Frau X) told me her story. She arrived (aged 6) in Breuberg in the Odenwald in 1946 with her mother and her twin sister (her father had been killed in Russia in 1944). She came to Breuberg because that was where the railway line ended. At that time, the railway helped service the tyre factory that had been used to supply tyres for the German army. Frau X stayed 6 weeks in Breuberg and then she moved on. She made a good life for herself in the Frankfurt area but in 2015, aged in her middle 70s, she expressed a desire to go back to the place where her life in Germany had started.

We spent time walking round the town but she remembered nothing. We went to the tyre factory (now owned by Pirelli) but she still recalled nothing. Then we visited Breuberg castle above the town. We examined the graffiti decorating the top of the tower – Lieutenant White, US army, 1943, had engraved his name along with other remainders and reminders of Russian presence in the Cyrillic script. But Frau X remembered nothing.

Later that afternoon we went for coffee and cake in a cafe in the centre of town. Frau X looked around her. She looked at all the local people and, as time went by, she grew dark and silent. Quite out of the blue, she said:
“I don’t like these people.”
“What’s the matter with them,” I asked.
“They are cold, hostile.”
She got up and hurried out. Clearly, at last, some buried memory of that time all those years ago was rising to the surface and she did not want to confront it.

Frau X’s story illustrates one of the main themes in Lost Property. This theme concerns the notion that an individual’s current feelings, his personality traits and her current behaviour may often be shaped by the past events the individual has been through. The theme suggests that an individual’s past may continue to affect his/her present until that individual becomes aware of the connection between his past and present and makes a decision to break the cycle.  The pic above left shows a number of child refugees arriving in Germany in 1946. How on earth did they come to terms with this experience of displacement? How did this experience affect their lives and, if they had children themselves, did these refugees „infect“ their own offspring? 

In Lost Property, my protagonist, Monty Brodnitz is unable to accept his own father for what he was and this has resulted in a poor relationship with his own son. His wife Ingrid has suffered traumas in the past that result in her inability to shed tears. Peter Lutz’s father was such a powerful figure that all the son can do is try and live in his father’s shoes. Lost Property suggests that forgiveness is a powerful tool for breaking the past/present connection so that individuals can move on.