The Magnum Opus

So I have decided to start including weekly book reviews in my blog-o-mania as another way to keep myself writing/thinking about writing and to make sure I keep reading regularly.  Plus, I like telling people what I think (teehee) and proselytizing about excellent things I read.  Each entry will have a theme I think, with an introduction explaining why this particular theme on this particular day, and will include reviews of one or more books that are germane to the theme.  For this first book review entry, I have decided to go with the “magnum opus” concept – i.e., the defining Grand Master Work that dances before the eyes of all authors like the proverbial “visions of sugarplums” at Christmas.

I don’t know if every author actually gets to produce a grand master work – the culmination of years and years of blood, sweat and tears that defines the author’s world vision and/or dreams.  I suspect authors write books for myriad reasons – to tell stories, to earn a living, to avoid “real” work (or the “real” world), to exorcise demons, to become famous, to leave a legacy, etc. etc. – and that those reasons can be garbled together and evolve over time.  I personally have found myself wanting to write for various reasons – and sometimes have even felt compelled to do so (although apparently not too strongly compelled, as I have yet to actually finish even a short story) – and suspect that those reasons will continue to mutate and other reasons will glom on over time.  And I can’t imagine I’m all that different from most other authors.

I don’t know if I really have a world vision or personal philosophy that I’m trying to espouse in my writing – although many authors surely have – or that I have a master idea that I have to impart to the world before I die – although again, many authors surely have.  I have things I want to say, mind you, but am not yet sure if they rise to the level of Magnum Opus status.  I do love when I find a book/an author that has had such a vision/dream, however, and enjoy reading those books a great deal not only for the stories they tell but also for the labor and struggle that went into bringing them to me.

The Little Book by Selden Edwards is a prime example.  Edwards spent over thirty years writing this book – he began it in 1974 and continued to rework and refine the story until 2007, when he finally deemed it complete (see http://www.seldenedwards.com/about-little-book).  The incredibly well-written story encompasses time travel, true love, rock-and-roll, turn-of-the-century Vienna (that would be the nineteenth century), baseball, fate, family (lives, loves and drama), mid-life crises, and the vagaries of fame.  It makes the reader think about his/her conception of time and space, inevitability, paradox, and the meaning of life and love.  The central character – Frank Standish “Wheeler” Burden III – is absolutely believable and a prescient and at the same time all-too-human protagonist that you find yourself rooting for from the get-go.  His “dislocation” in time is written in a thoroughly entertaining and plausible fashion and makes you wonder whether time is in fact quite as linear as we have been led to believe.

Edwards obviously spent a vast chunk of his thirty years involved in intense research and plot/character development; supporting characters are flawlessly introduced and weave in and out of the story artfully, and the descriptions of time/place are detailed enough to give you an authentic feel for the given year and location without ever rambling on and resulting in the “you researched, I get it,” skimming effect (i.e., bane of many a historical novel, in which the author feels compelled to describe everything in minute detail as proof that he/she did their research and in which the reader subsequently (and guiltily) feels compelled to skim through the details in recognition of the effort put forth even when the details are snooze-inducing).  All in all it is a perfect story.  As they say, it made me laugh, it made me cry; I gave it a “10”.

Imagine though – Edwards spent thirty years to make it that way.  Thirty years.  Three decades of holding on to the perfect image of his story and refining and reworking and rethinking it until he felt it was just as it was meant to be, just as it had always presented itself in his head.  I cannot imagine having that kind of dedication to a vision or idea – being able to continue hammering away at something for so long with no apparent end in sight simply because I knew that it was not yet just so.  It is the very embodiment of perseverance.  I read the book in days – it was definitely one of those that I wished would never end – and once I knew the story of its development I selfishly wished he had written it faster so that there were/would be more novels from him available for my reading pleasure as soon as possible.  Then I thought about how slowly I am writing.  EEK.

I have a hard time sticking with an idea for three days, let alone three decades.  So I asked myself, “Self, what is the deal?”  Now usually Self has some very insightful and clever retort full of wit and wisdom (HA!) – primarily because Self is, in fact, the personification of the answer-giving, repartee-tossing-about, all-things-fabulous aspects of your very own Jill Elizabeth.  As a result, Self can usually be counted on to point that self-same Jill Elizabeth in the right direction.  But this time Self was stumped as much as she was.  She came up with a few possibilities though:

• Maybe Edwards (and other comparable Great Authors) are fundamentally different from us “regular” people – maybe they have a stick-to-it-ness that is the key to what makes them Great in the first place.
• Maybe I haven’t found my Great Story yet – the story that NEEDS telling as opposed to the stories that I want to tell – and if/when I start writing my own needful story, I won’t be able to stop until it is perfectly finished either.
• Maybe not everyone has a Great Story or gets to be a Great Author.  And maybe (or more than maybe) that’s ok.  As my mother used to say, “the world needs ditch diggers too” – both literally and figuratively.

So that’s what I have taken away from my conversation with Self on this subject: most authors are the literary equivalents of ditch diggers, and that’s perfectly fine.  By the way, please know that I don’t mean this pejoratively – I think the world needs people who write enjoyable books that simply entertain us and provide a brief distraction from our lives.  Even if they do not take us on epic journeys and lead to profound insights, entertainment and escape are still important and valuable reasons for writing/reading, aren’t they?  Lord knows I have gotten tremendous enjoyment from many books that no one would really consider “Great” for those reasons, and I would consider it a job well done if one day someone told me they were entertained and/or able to escape through my writing.