I finished Téa Obreht’s novel The Tiger’s Wife this week.
I’m reluctant to put down a good book so I always read the pages at the end: the dedication, all the names in the acknowledgements and the reader’s guide, if there is one. It happens that this book includes an interview with the writer tacked on before the guide, which is especially juicy if you’re into hearing about the writing process.
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As we were clearing the counters following our book club meal, our host reached into her fridge and opened a plastic bag to show another member the nettles she just picked in her yard.
Nettles.
Last week I mentioned them as if foraging was time out of mind. As if they wouldn’t show up until April or something. Poor me: glum about the lack of local produce; resigned to eating last year’s nettles preserved in local cheese.
Well. Our mild winter is yielding, I see (is it too early to say so?), and now the shoots are unfolding.
It’s funny when things happen this way. When I give up, something arrives.
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In his book On Writing, Stephen King throws this out:
“On the other hand…there is Harper Lee, who wrote only one book (the brilliant To Kill a Mockingbird). Any number of others, including James Agee, Malcolm Lowry, and Thomas Harris (so far), wrote under five. Which is okay, but I always wonder two things about these folks: how long did it take them to write the books they did write, and what did they do the rest of their time? Knit afghans? Organize church bazaars? Deify plums? I’m probably being snotty here, but I am also, believe me, honestly curious. If God gives you something you can do, why in God’s name wouldn’t you do it?” (p. 147)
I’m not sure you can appreciate, without reading King’s quote in context, how funny this came off. Funny and dead on. Sure, he sounds flip. But I believe him. The author of (now) over 50 books and more than 200 short stories is having a hard time understanding what the holdup could possibly be.
He’s right, of course. He questions them as a means of questioning us. What are you, writer, doing with your time?
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Last night I was sitting on a concrete floor, getting a kiss from a big sweetie of a dog.
My husband called the pup over while I sat in the chair, listening to a shelter volunteer read bits of the dog’s history from a thick folder in front of her. Then he’d ask a question and I’d sink to the floor again, call to the dog and try to persuade her to give up her stuffed toy. By the end of the evening, she’d abandon it readily and wait for me to play with her.
After our visit I’m trying to figure out if the big dog I’m imagining is this dog.
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