Ah, well, I am glad to read this, Stephen, as I know Natalie Goldberg somewhat
and so am glad that you found these qualities of "honesty and openness in
coming to terms and reconciliation." The title is interesting too, because Natalie
was originally a poet who became frustrated with the poetry world, I remember
her saying in exasperated pain at some poetry thing in Santa Fe "I can't believe
this was once my only world" and became very successful for writing about
writing, _Writing Down the Bones_ instead of writing, which made some
caustically say, "Oh I knew her when she used to be a poet," the usual sort of
backbiting. And then she wrote a novel which was not very well received. So I'm
glad for this bit of good word concerning her new work, as if some wheel of the
world had turned in her favor for once, some karmic balancing at work,
best,
Rebecca
---- Original message ----
>Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 14:32:04 -0800
>From: Stephen Vincent <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: (memorial) Snapshot
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>On someone's rec, I just finished Natalie Goldbergs new book,
>
>The Great Failure : A Bartender, A Monk, and My Unlikely Path to Truth
>
>From a Zen Buddhist practice perspective, she confronts the abuse of her
>father and her Roshi. I think it's very balanced and - in both the actual
>life and the autobiographical writing - she is able to come to terms with
>both of them - a tale of honesty and openness in coming to terms and
>reconciliation with each person rather a vanquishing revenge on both of
>them.
>Though the writing is not consistently good, I found her experience and
>resolve brave and refreshing.
>
>Stephen V
>Blog: http://stephenvincent.durationpress.com
>
>
>
>
>> Hi Edmund
>>
>> On 31/1/05 3:22 AM, "Edmund Hardy" <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
>>
>>> And for those at a remove by accident of birth or time, what can they
write,
>>> in what language? Geoffrey Hill's Triumph of Love is restricted to a kind of
>>> moral landscape of rhetoric, and I find it powerful because of it. Maybe
>>> this too is "indirection" but it seems like poetry directed at that which
>>> can be examined at this remove, the specific use of language.
>>
>> The Triumph of Love is a poem I like very much; I thought it emotionally
>> powerful, in how it seemed to dramatise a kind of aesthetic breakdown, the
>> neurotic repetitions of memory (which is one definition of trauma). Hill is
>> one of those writers who merits the term "powerful", but, much as I admire
>> it, the sheer polish of his earlier work, its control and recondite
>> aesthetic, create a distancing that can be a problem, I think, when he is
>> speaking of atrocity. No matter how beautifully done, it's a bit difficult
>> to escape the feeling that atrocity is no more than the occasion for
>> beautiful writing. TOL seemed to be a full-on confrontation with this
>> problem, among other things.
>>
>>> Sometimes I want to ("go AT") the events my own family - Anglo-Japanese
and
>>> caught up in devastation, defeat, victory during the second world war -
>>> lived through but when I try to do this it always veers away in my hands
>>> from anything personal. How terrible to trespass. But is it always trespass?
>>
>> It probably is trespass. That doesn't mean one shouldn't do it, but it's a
>> question that has to be acknowledged honestly somehow. Have you tried
>> reading Peter Handke's book about his mother, Sorrow Beyond Dreams? An
>> extraordinarily painful book, which by some intense effort of will goes
>> beyond the merely "personal" by being, um, intensely personal. There's a
>> knife edge balance in the writing which gave me a clue about
>> autobiographical writing.
>>
>> Best
>>
>> A
>>
>> Alison Croggon
>>
>> Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
>> Editor, Masthead: http://masthead.net.au
>> Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com
|