The Rock That Is Higher
Page 10
In Genesis it is, of course, the disobedience of the human beings, making it inevitable that redemption can come only through God completely entering into the story in the life of Jesus.
P: Peripety is an unforeseen event that precipitates the denouement. It is unforeseen, but probable. It is not a coincidence. According to the dictionary it is a reversal. In fiction it is often a change from love to hate, or from ignorance to knowledge. In Oedipus it was the unexpected arrival of the messenger from Corinth to tell of Polybus’s death. In Scripture we might look at Jonah and Jonah’s surprise when the Ninevites repent, and Jonah and all of us who read his story have to think about human unforgiveness and divine forgiveness.
We are reminded by Oedipus, as by every masterpiece, that the hero always has a tragic flaw. Almost invariably this flaw is hubris, pride, as it is in King Saul, Macbeth, Faust.
It is interesting in this Trinitarian world how often the great storytellers do things in threes, because the storyteller knows that the reader can’t register a thing if he’s told only once. For instance, Oedipus tries to project his guilt first on Tiresias, then on Creon, then on Jocasta. King Lear asks the same question of his three daughters. Macbeth is tempted by three witches and starts his career of murdering first with Duncan, then Duncan’s servants, then Banquo. Satan offers Jesus three temptations. Peter denies Jesus three times. In John’s first epistle we read: For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.
Even a description is usually done in threes, and the third thing is usually sound. In Madame Bovary we read:
Now the sky was blue, and the leaves were still. There were clearings full of heather in bloom, and the sheets of purple alternated with the multi-colored tangle of the trees, grey, fawn, and gold. Often a faint rustling and fluttering of wings would come from under the bushes; or there would be the cry, at once raucous and sweet, of crows flying off among the oaks.
It is an interesting thing, in wondering why sound comes last, to remember that in the physical world light travels faster than sound. We see before we hear.
The storyteller never goes back into the past until he has made us sure of the present. He never puts the cart before the horse, as the beginning writer tends to do. He puts the explanation after, the action first. In conversation the gesture, posture, tone of voice of the speaker is put first, the words after, as in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, where we read,
The Fish-Footman began by producing from under his arm a great letter, nearly as large as himself, and this he handed over to the other, saying in a solemn tone, “For the Duchess. An invitation from the Queen to play croquet.”
In the story of David and Bathsheba, we read, The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.” If the speech is put first it gives the effect of a disembodied voice.
The great storyteller sets the scene immediately, never leaving us stranded in outer space. The word scene comes from the Greek word meaning “tent,” because the first Greek plays were held in a tent. This contains the scene, and in setting the scene immediately, the storyteller focuses the action.
Second Samuel chapter 11 starts,
In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem. One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful.
The scene is superbly set for David’s adultery with Bathsheba.
In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight the scene is set thus:
King Arthur lay at Camelot upon a Christmas-tide, with many a gallant lord and lovely lady, and all the noble brotherhood of the Round Table. There they held rich revels with gay talk and jest; one while they would ride forth to joust and tourney, and again back to court to make carols; for there was the feast holden fifteen days with all the mirth that man could devise, song and glee, glorious to hear. Halls and chambers were crowded with noble guests, the bravest of knights and the loveliest of ladies, and Arthur himself was the comeliest king that ever held a court.
In Madame Bovary we have our perfect example of attention to the literal level. As a matter of fact, Madame Bovary is often referred to as the perfect novel, and I have read it several times to try to learn from it. But it is not a lovable novel just because it is perfect. I learn more about love from Anna Karenina, which is full of imperfections. However, there is much about the technique of fiction to be learned from Bovary. Every page is fully developed with sensory details. Flaubert also gives us our perfect example of the long view and the short view.
A long view:
Daylight, coming through the windows of plain glass, falls obliquely on the pews, and here and there on the wall from which they jut out at right angles is tacked a bit of straw matting, with the name of the pew-holder in large letters below. Beyond, where the nave narrows, stands the confessional, and opposite it a statuette of the Virgin: she is dressed in a satin gown and a tulle veil spangled with silver stars, and her cheeks are daubed red like some idol from the Sandwich Islands.
A short view:
As he crossed the roofed market he stopped behind a pillar to stare for the last time at the white house with its four green shutters. He thought he saw a shadowy form at the bedroom window; then the curtain, released from its hook as though of its own accord, swung slowly for a moment in long slanting folds and sprang fully out to hang straight and motionless as a plaster wall. Leon set off at a run.
Flaubert makes his long views as detailed as his short ones. The fundamental difference between a long and a short view is in Time. A short view is located in Time as well as in Space. The master snatches the telling moment (David rose from his bed and walked on the roof)—the moment that may stand for many other moments.
Viewpoint: the storyteller must establish a viewpoint as soon as possible. For most of the story of David we see it from his point of view, his honor in refusing to kill Saul, his lust in taking Bathsheba, his repentance, his grief at the loss of their baby. When David is told that the child has died, he
got up from the ground. After he had washed, put on lotions and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the LORD and worshiped. Then he went to his own house, and at his request they served him food, and he ate.
Point of view is often difficult for the beginning writer. There are three (three again!) customary ways to tell a story:
1: FIRST PERSON NARRATOR
This may seem the most straightforward and easy way to tell a story. Actually it is supremely difficult. The narrator may be a villain, a hero, a moron, a madman. He may be ignorant of things the reader must know. He may reveal the truth through telling lies. F. Scott Fitzgerald tells The Great Gatsby in the first person. “In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.”
Milton’s “Lycidas” is also written in the first person:
Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear
Compels me to disturb your season due:
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer.
Milton knew Scripture, and might not have been able to write about the death of Lycidas had he not been familiar with David’s song of grief for Saul and Jonathan, also in first person:
The beauty of Israel is slain on your high places!
How the mighty have fallen!
Tell it not in Gath,
Proclaim it not in the streets of Ashkelon…
How the mighty have fallen in the midst of the battle!
Jonathan was slain in your high places.
2: THE CONCEALED NARRATOR
Scripture, in fact, uses all points of view, and we can learn much of storytelling from the biblical narrator.
3: THE OMNISCIENT NARRATOR
This is a very ancient method. Homer used it in The Iliad and The Odyssey. Tolstoy used it in Anna Karenina; Dickens, Thackeray, Stendhal all used this point of view, and it was certainly very popular with the Victorians, where the storyteller knows everything: “Had she only realized, dear reader, what lay on the other side of the door, she would never have opened it.” Many works written from the point of view of the omniscient narrator are leisurely and long. Alas, nowadays if I am given a book of six or seven hundred pages I hesitate to start it; where am I going to find the time?
Longevity is seldom the problem of the beginning storyteller, who often scants the literal level. The inexperienced writer often starts a story in disembodied space, instead of being specific, as for instance, Faulkner is in the beginning of Intruder in the Dust, which starts,
It was just noon that Sunday morning when the sheriff reached the jail with Lucas Beauchamp, though the whole town (the whole county, too, for that matter) had known since the night before that Lucas had killed a white man.
All the facts are given us swiftly, those four important Ws.
Who the story is about.
What the person is doing.
Where the person is doing it.
When the person is doing it.
In reading the writers I most admire, I have noticed that they do not put a lot of ideas into one sentence, but usually have one point in each sentence. For instance, Thomas Mann in The Magic Mountain uses three sentences to tell us three things (three again):
He was dressed for out-of-doors, in sports clothes and stout boots, and carried his ulster under his arm. The outline of the flat bottle could be seen on the side pocket. As yesterday he wore no hat.
Romain Rolland in Jean Christophe does the same: “The day after Rosa was alone. They had given up the struggle. But she had gained nothing by it save resentment from Christophe.” And yet once again we realize that the great storyteller shows us what is going on, rather than talking about it.
Beginning a book can sometimes be the most difficult part of the whole enterprise. The first paragraph of a novel should set up the entire story. Often I have had to write my way into a story, and when I have arrived at the beginning, then I cut the paragraphs or even pages which preceded it. These were not wasted effort; they were necessary to get me to the beginning of the story, but then I must have the courage to cut them out. This book about story began, originally, with the beavers making a lake for us at Crosswicks, and it wasn’t until long after last July 28 that I knew where to begin.
The storyteller must learn the craft in order to seek the truth.
* * *
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In the spring of 1990 I gave a talk at Wheaton College in Illinois. Wheaton has always been a “safe” place for me, where I have felt that my stories have been loved and understood, and where I have learned much about God’s love. Clyde Kilby and Mel Lorentzen “discovered” me as a writer who is a Christian, and their understanding has always been a great treasure to me. I have been going to Wheaton for a quarter of a century, and it is a special place, a place where I truly have felt “at home.”
On this particular occasion I was to give an open talk for the public in general as well as for the college community, and I talked about story and truth, and the talk was from my heart. It was warmly received, but when I opened to questions I had my first experience of public heckling. There were people there, noncollege people, who had come with an agenda, and who asked questions to which they did not want answers. Many of the questions came from misconceptions about my science fantasy A Wrinkle in Time.
When Wrinkle was published in 1962 it was discovered by the evangelical world as a book written about a universe created by a power of love, and entered into by Very God Elself. It was through Wrinkle that my happy connection with Wheaton began. When Clyde Kilby asked me if I would consider donating my papers to Wheaton I was thrilled. It was a tremendous honor to be housed under the same roof as my beloved George MacDonald, Dorothy Sayers, J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and G. K. Chesterton. And when, a few years ago, Frederick Buechner and Luci Shaw, among others, agreed to give their papers to the college, I was delighted.
So what was happening during the Question-and-Answer session that evening at Wheaton was all the more strange and unexpected, even though I realized quickly that my attackers came from the outside.
“You are writing about a medium,” one woman accused.
“No, no,” I said. “She’s a happy medium.”
She repeated, “You’re writing about a medium.”
“Meg was always accused of never having a happy medium,” I explained, “so I gave her one. It’s a play on words. It’s a joke. It’s funny.”
The students thought it was funny. The questioners didn’t.
“You are putting Jesus on a par with Einstein and Buddha,” I was told. This accusation was based on the page where the children are listing those on our planet who have fought against evil. They start with Jesus, and then go on to name some of the other men and women who have sought the truth. This, I felt, was completely scriptural, in accordance with that marvelous passage of Paul’s:
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
I tried to explain that no, I was not putting Jesus on a par with Einstein and Buddha, and I tried to quote from Paul and was interrupted with the reiteration that I was putting Jesus on a par with Einstein and Buddha until finally I had to say, “Please will you let me finish quoting Paul,” which I was able to do only with further interruptions.
When I managed to finish, the attacker simply repeated, “You are putting Jesus on a par with Einstein and Buddha.”
At that I replied, “Lady, I am not putting Jesus on a par with Einstein and Buddha. You are.” Which the students appreciated. It was true. I wasn’t. She was.
But the saddest question of all was, “Do you believe in the literal fact of the Resurrection?”
I replied, “I stand with Paul: No Resurrection, no Christianity. But you can’t cram the glory of the Resurrection into a fact. It’s true! It’s what we live by!” Had the questioner not heard a word of my talk?
What the antagonists did with their slings and arrows was to turn the majority of the audience to my side, which certainly helped take the bitter taste out of my mouth. I thought that was the end of it.
But one of the attackers, a large donor to the college, wanted all my papers to be removed from the library. This woman had taped my talk, had had it transcribed, and was passing it around. First of all, this isn’t legal. It is a serious infringement of copyright law. And it is certainly not courteous. But worse than that, in her transcription she cut out any reference I had made to myself as a Christian, and that was deliberate misrepresentation.
The dean called me from Wheaton to talk about this and I said, “I’m afraid Mrs. X would not want me to pray for her, but that is all I know to do.” Not to coerce or demand, just to offer this woman and all her anxiety and anger to God for healing lo
ve. And I don’t need to know how God is going to heal. That is up to the Creator, not me. And all the while I know that I, too, am in need of that healing love.
This was not the first time my books have been attacked, nor the first time that I have written about it. But it is the first time that the attacks have been personal. I cannot pretend that it wasn’t disturbing. It was. Obviously I am still wrestling with it.
The Sunday after the Wheaton dean’s phone call the Epistle for the day was from Peter’s first letter. He urges Christians to love one another. And he writes,
Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened….Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins….Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you….If you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name.
How do I glorify God in this matter? I think the only way I know is to continue to write what is given me, to write to the best of my ability. I wrote A Wrinkle in Time as a hymn of praise to God, so I must let it stand as it is and not be fearful when it is misunderstood.