I like the theme of defiant freedom. It is a self-destructive notion, and yet, at the same time it is a liberating idea. To be honest it is something I have referred to before, when talking about surfers and climbers.
On a recent trip to Lewis in the Outer Hebrides I took some photographs of some surfers on one of the island's many windswept beaches. They were pitting themselves against wind and the power of the water as it rose and fell and finally crashed in on shore. A few seconds being driven along on a board toward the sand on wind and wave power while trying to maintain balance by shifting the feet, defying physics before the inevitable fall into the ocean.
I actually love beaches, and rocks and mountains and all those sort of places where natural things like the wind and the sea and heavy rain remind us of our mortality.
A few years ago I was walking in the Dolomites when I came across some climbers scaling a huge slab of about one to two hundred feet of rock. I remember it was a scorching hot day in July and I managed to also take some photographs. For a while I sat on a rock and watched them inch their way up their ropes like spiders moving on a thread. Some waved to me, and I waved in return. Life affirming waves, and I could see they were having fun.
Both these sports have fascinated me, though I have never wanted to surf - not really my thing. I could, however, see the defiant freedom in both activities. In a way I felt they were giving two fingers to a world which would probably condemn both sports as being crazy.
It intrigues me, however, why anyone would want to participate in either. Both are, to some extent, pretty scary things to do, and in a way actually taking part would mean overcoming fears. But in managing to suppress those feelings of fear there would surely be that sense of defiant freedom.
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3 comments:
Sergei,
To (try) and answer your question about the evolution of your style –
I think that whereas with “Dark Ghosts” I would have likened my reading experience to a visual experience of surface pattern – rich, complex, intriguing, quirky, increasingly with DK I feel as though the reader is plumbing a deep well – and that your writing (the layering of your imagery, etc.) just keeps getting deeper and deeper.
Yeah, it’s almost like how I imagine the visual effects of dyslexia to be – the letters form words which float on the surface but the mind’s eye is drawn down, down into the fabric of the fiction.
Does that make sense?
Axasha.
BTW, I have a healthy respect for the sea. I grew up next to it and I love it but I know of too many fishermen and oil rig workers (Piper Alpha!) who’ve lost their lives to it to harbour (Ouch, sorry!) and romantic notions about it.
Oh yes and I’m scared of forests – on a primal level I think. Silly I know!
Forests are often supernatural or sacred places in world religions though aren’t they? Frequently having a key role in folk lore and/or our collective primal imagination. So, I suppose my fear kinda makes sense?
BTW(ii), I’ve always found mountaineers slightly annoying – mostly because I associate this past-time with weekend Charlies who end up getting into bother and forcing volunteer mountain rescue teams to risk their lives rescuing them. That’s unfair of course and it must be great fun to actually climb a mountain……however I digress.
Yeah, it does make sense. I think that's what most writers are trying to do. First of all grab the reader and have them read the story. But also try and get them to think about more deeper issues. It's like Swifts 'Gulliver's Travels' was allegorical, as you probably know, essentially about a man who travels to diiferent and strange lands but it wasa really all about the politics of the time.
It's like when you walk in a room and your senses immediately tell you several things. Visually, you will probably pick up - often unwittingly - on the body language, then you'll check out the smells, perfume, Hai Karate aftershave (yes I still use It why?) smoke, beer and so on, and then the sounds, people chattering away. Try it the next time you are sitting in a cafe. I saw an old couple recently who looked totally morose with each other. She said something, he looked out the windwo, nodded to the waitress, stared at his feet and about half an hour later he answered her 'Aye, I suppose'. They were like spies talking in code. I always think it's about observing and then sometimes exaggerating to bring about an 'effect'. Billy Connolly does this with his comedy. The drunk man at the bus stop holding onto the pole and in his other hand a the half ton fish supper. Okay the fish supper doesn't really weigh half a ton but it does seem to be weighing him down and the image is funny.
Have you also noticed that whenever you walk home from the pub with a drunk person on a freezing night in the middle of winter they always stop to speak. They stagger along slowly, then they stop and say - 'And I'll tell ye anither thing!' and you're thinking ' come on just keep walking. It is as if they just can't co-ordinate walking and speaking, they always want to stop - burst into song, whoop, start shouting at somebody 'Heh! Whit ur you looking at!' At this point they are usually staring at themselves in a shop window!
BTW have you ever climbed a mountain? And, I do take your point re the sea. Always been strangely fascinated by the oceans, but, yeah tons of respect. Forests, scary? That's just being a girl!
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