Winterson's Writing

I suddenly became industrious yesterday, writing a couple of poems and half of a short story. The two poems are about labor, it being the labor day weekend. The first poem tentatively titled "Work" (yeah, original) is a medium length narrative musing on the solidity and order of completed work. Like when you finish something and feel good about it. The other poem is about the German phrase "Arbiet Macht Frei" which means "Work Will Set You Free" which hung on the gates of the Nazi concentration camps, i.e. Dachau. A particularly chilling phrase.

I revised said poems today, and continued reading Jeanette Winterson's book of essays Art Objects which has some beautiful things to say about art, how we should read, and collecting books (she likes to collect signed first editions from the modern period, 1900-45?). She also has an extended diatribe on the greatness of Virginia Woolf, inspiring me to put her on my reading list, particularly the difficult but, according to Winterson, virtuoso The Waves. I must admit the only Virginia Woolf novel I've read is her well-known To the Lighthouse which I enjoyed, especially the beautiful interlude between the first and second part of the novel, such beautiful language describing the agelessness of time and the seasons.

I finished Winterson's Novel Art and Lies. The novel tells the story of three people: an ex-priest and ex-surgeon, Handel, who embarks on a trip away from the city to the eastern coast of Britain; a female painter called Sophia and nicknamed Picasso who also takes the same train as Handel, escaping an abusive family; and the mythical poet Sappho who, you guessed it, also rides the train, a mysterious character that sometimes seems corporeal sometimes not, also perhaps following Picasso who she once saved from death. The novel alternates between these characters, but the stories of the characters connect in mysterious ways. If it seems confusing, it is.

But it's a short novel, and I just continued on reading hoping that it would all of makes sense somehow. And it does, sort of. As usual Winterson left me breathless with some of her passages. She also made me wince with some of her mini-sermons. The tone of the novel oscillates from lightness to heaviness. Images of light, painter, and sex pervade the novel which is written in a poetic, associative language that moves and multiplies itself into plentitude.

I enjoyed the novel, and it created its own reality which is something I look for in a novel (something I picked up from Winterson), but its reality lacked a cohesiveness and left me confused without remedy. I don't mind reading books over to understand them better, like for instance, I had to read Faulkner's The Sound and The Fury three times to begin to understand what had happened and what was happening. But with "Art and Lies" I don't get the sense that it would be any easier to piece it together (it, being the story) my second time through. I like stories even if they are fragmented and pieces are in the wind. I can't read novels for their language alone. I think it will try Winterson's novel again, but not right away.

I watched a few movies the last couple of days. I rented "An American in Paris", Strangers on a Train, and "Great Expectations" (the contemporary version with Ethan Hawke). I watched the latter a couple of days ago, and once again rue the fact that I don't have a big screen TV. It's such a visually rich movie, beautifully shot with extraordinary art direction. It blew me away when I watched it on the big screen. Today I watched An American in Paris which I adore. The only musical I can stand. Principally because Gene Kelly is simply excellent, delivering the Gershwin music and dancing with a particular flair that entrances. Tonight I might watch the Hitchcock film, just to spice up my dreams with a little murder.