CHAPTER X. THE OTHER WORLD

Your hero tells it like it is.

“The mystery of literary creativity!” Our annual address calls for standing delivery, at present peril of low ceiling. I was well rehearsed, fortunately, as the dedicated lighting was inadequate to the penciled handwriting of my prompt. My audience awaited the edification. You also are in luck, as I am prepared to share the notes. A rare wisdom, as you will acknowledge. At least you should.

“Pickwickians, your brother humbly submits that he has solved that mystery. What we are wont to call creation is another thing altogether. My solution would strike prisoners of conventional wisdom as extravagant, but will come as little surprise to you, free of those chains. I make no secret of my thesis and am honored to accept the challenge of considered exposition.”

The floor was all mine. Common respect for Lamar and a motion to rein in runaway discussion had led to a stunning vote. Lord of the Rings would make our next continuous reading, at a time and place of later negotiation. You may assume that no member voting in favor had performed the mental arithmetic. “This address has flowered in a soil of exasperation. As you all know, my bookstore thrives, and we recently offered a forum to a local writer, who proceeded to abuse the privilege by contending that the subject of his talk, the mainstay of my business, the very foundation of our society—the novel—was dead. And I am sorry to report, the audience did not laugh him out the door. Contemporary critics wallow in obituary, and I know of no writer who stands tall in defense. A crisis of confidence has befallen the world of books. Great novels have shaped humanity, but such noble ambition is now subject to the derision of small, ignoble minds. I have taken it upon myself to stop the rot, bring the literary world to its senses.”

No one stirred. I enjoyed undivided attention, as you will appreciate. Tommie could take a break from clerical duties, as I had promised him a written statement. I took center stage for no momentary edification; we enshrine any address that passes oral examination as our official position. “You may have quenched your thirst for ideas at the fountain of physical sciences and encountered the hypothesis of a parallel universe. Cosmologists believe that a world of antimatter exists alongside our visible home—”

“One other universe? I would hope a veritable cornucopia.” The fusspot failed to fully respect the occasion. Sister Coralynne is want to take an unnatural position during extended meetings. I had consented to questions from the floor.

“The indulgence might amuse.” A latecomer had taken advantage of the staircase, joining us for the main event, suppressing the supposed cough. “But speculative metaphysics hardly lends itself to Nobel Prize consideration.”

“Brother Cordelio, I share your reservations.” And if I survived his scrutiny, I would be in the clear. “The idea runs afoul of the nagging positivism of freshman indoctrination. But my thesis contrives no world of extravagant speculation. Had I no argument, I would have refused the invitation.”

“Brother Anselm in the batter’s box.” Junior underwrites the refreshment. “No curveballs over here.” We never schedule the annual meeting during the season.

“Writers confess to exhaustion”—I was just getting started—“supposing that, like the age of chivalry, the novel has run its course, the reader no longer willing to suspend disbelief. Like small-town rubes disgorged from a tour bus into full Manhattan, they mistrust the evidence of their senses. What we please to call fiction is no quixotic realm cooked up in the writer’s fancy. Rather, that world is as real as our own, and exists alongside, discovered by a sense of uncommon possession, a critical clairvoyance, a cosmic telepathy. For just as mankind needed Galileo to bring the heavens into telescopic sight, we depend on gifted novelists to share the news. The inspiration they claim to cherish is rather a peephole opening onto that other world. What makes a great novel is not fertility of invention, but depth of perception—”

“Were it more on display.” Cortés takes a dim view of the literary scene. Our kingfisher flashes over a sluggish river of inconsequential hacks.

“Sister Jocelyn inquires after his health.” I nodded toward the portrait. “A customary pleasantry. I am now dislodging that tongue from cheek. The well-being of Pickwick lends itself to genuine question. Samuel, I will never meet you in the flesh. Jane Eyre, I would count myself the most blessed of men. So-called fictional characters have no creators, rather confidants. The genius of Charles Dickens and Charlotte Brontë is the gift of special vision, they have seen that world, have met the denizens, and returned to tell the tale. We talk of lifelike characters, but should make the likeness identity. They have a life as real as our own.”

“Brother Anselm, you have whetted the appetite.” Dorothea had relieved the last folding chair of electric cord entanglement. “Your advertised support?”

“You will have it. Pickwickians, I expect no uncritical reception. You are no credulous children, believing in Santa Claus. But I need appeal to no considerations more abstruse than your own reading pleasure. Sister Cecilia cannot count the nights she has gone to bed with Madame Bovary.”

—Ma chère Emma, s’il vous plait, pardonne mes libertés.—

 “Brother Lamar claims the company of Bilbo Baggins, and we have no reason to doubt his word. I pick up Jane Eyre every year, at the very least.”

“You rascal.” A guffaw enlivened the gloom. “A fine filly, no doubt.” Junior had his day.

—Jane, you might not follow the merriment. Trust me, ignorance is bliss—I admit to some weakness for a play. Women now have the vote, men have been to the moon, and girls rarely die of the tuberculosis that took your friend Helen, but the march of progress has yet to fully make it through the mire.—

 “What keeps us coming back?” I had plenty more! “The element of surprise is long gone, we know what will transpire. We appreciate fine language, but simple words often exercise the most tenacious hold. The indubitable phenomena call for clarity. And my thesis best delivers the goods, closely shaved by the razor of worthy Occam: We never tire of our favorite books because they bring us real people, whom we care about as friends, with whom we cherish the time together. Were they mere fancy, why would their suffering move us, their mistakes disappoint, their triumphs lift our spirits? Sister Coralynne weeps at the murder of poor Nell, our dear Brother Warren, sadly taken from us last year, waxed indignant at the suffering of the Joads.”

—Friends, Romans, countrymen were put on notice. I now call on my people to lend their ears. It gives me great pleasure to address your cohort. I also suffer a handicap, unable to acknowledge you all. I have my own story to tell!—

 “Brother Thomas rages over the infamous battle royal.” I allowed myself a stretch.

Tommie mustered a grunt. The clerk is guarded of opinion, a study in contrast with neighboring Lamar.

“Those feelings would be frankly perverse, were they not occasioned by real people.”

“I hear you, Mr. Speaker. Men are such a disappointment.” Coralynne was picking up the pieces after the breakdown of a third marriage. “I might be more forgiving had I never fallen in love with Atticus Finch in high school. He spoiled me for any other.”

—My people, settle down now. Mr. Finch has found some favor; Ms. Eyre enjoys my eye. But so many of you have our blessing. And the love will never die.—

 “What would Oprah make of all this?!” Junior’s mischief belies his age. I have mentioned the availability of liquid refreshment.

“The speaker has been meaning to call her.” I will not be outdone. “Brother Cordelio could use a little help. If only the celebrity would recommend his Confabulations to her book club!”

“Popularity?” Cortés picked up the gauntlet. “I pooh-pooh the easy pickings! The most memorable book does not cater to the public, a new reader is born of the book.”

“Our brother believes in immaculate conception.”

“Magic? Rather, because I say so! Like the making of a promise, the word creates the thing. And I give readers my word, they are reading an original, which very declaration suffices for success.”

“Our brother is very sure of himself.”

“On good authority. The daredevil gets the girl, the dauntless fighter delivers a knockout punch, the confident writer builds a trust.”

 “Isn’t that the truth!” I picked up the podium.

Merrywood! . . . I am the speaker here! . . . Is this a memoir, or manifesto? . . . A Lovely Man is a novel undertaking! . . . All well and good, but can you really deliver? . . . Just you wait and see!

 “Homo fabulens, the storytelling animal.” I held on to the  thread. “My store carries a collection with that title. The contributors pontificate on our suspension of disbelief, which credulity survives the turgid tests of postmodernism and experimental fiction, although I cannot speak from experience, as my reading rarely strays into such benighted territory, just as I pillory the moral collapse of magic realism, the antinovel. One essay amuses with evolutionary psychology—a propensity to explore counterfactual space would have secured our ancestors’ survival, no less. The speculation misses the point, no disbelief needing suspension. I find the ubiquity of the otherworldly perception more interesting—do we possess the faculty in embryo, which needs development like Sister Cecilia’s hard-won appreciation for fine wine? Or is the endowment fully formed, but gifted only to the few?”

“Brother Anselm, you make an ingenious case, we expected nothing less. But I foresee a chilly reception, at least in some quarters. Does not an observer best withdraw from notice?”

“Madam Chair, let us not scant the observer. Observation changes the phenomenon.”

“Yet writers thrive on adulation, could never efface themselves.”

“The medieval craftsman left his maker’s mark, a gargoyle carved on the cathedral arch, hiding in plain view. The playful author may leave his own signature, an enigmatic construction that makes no contribution to the architecture.”

 Reader, I have posted an alert. Some may not remember, others may miss the mark. But if you uncover the author’s person, you win the reader’s prize—best of the bibliophiles! And be warned, you need to pay close attention, will find no further announcement.

 “You deny me credit?” Cortés had no need to expand, in present company.

“Brother Cordelio, the club imposes, the speaker must tell it like it is. No one here denies the singularity of your work. But with respect, I do question its source. Recall our last conversation, Plato supposed that mathematical insight was really memory. His contemporary Pythagoras might suppose he were exercising himself on a novel proof, but in fact his soul had previous exposure to the timeless truth. Similarly, I suggest you mislead yourself about your famed invention. You suppose your ideas drawn from a well of your own possession, but like the same Plato’s cavemen, you must look outside for the truth. Literary inspiration is really vision, though of a reality different than the dull prison that confines us here—”

“You can’t expect a basement . . .” Sister Dorothea is proud of her house.

“Brother Lamar, Matthew 8:26. And he saith unto them?” I will admit to some rehearsal.

“Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?” Lamar knows the good book like Junior the baseball almanac.

“I have a like message for wavering writers. You fret that the end is nigh. Have faith. Like Paris, we will always have that other world. You must trust the deliverances of your special sense. Readers will no sooner tire of literature than reject their closest friends. The people of that other world, like our own, remain an inexhaustible source of interest, a trove of good company. How could the novel ever run its course?”

“My brother, like our Lord, you have rebuked the winds and the sea. I feel a great calm.”

“The club relies on his dictionary, and my respect for the good Doctor knows no bounds. Fiction is what did not happen? You are wrong sir, it did happen, only elsewhere.”

“Isn’t that the truth!”

 “. . . so much more to say. But I will end the address now, with a prescription.” I am a merciful man, as you must admit. “We are all no doubt immersed in a novel, that is who we are, why we gather here today. When you next pick up that reading, turn your attention on itself. Why are you so absorbed? Why do you care? Oliver Twist asks for more, and you are moved. Could you really lose yourself, believing you were tracing a fabrication of Dickens’s arbitrary choosing? You care about the boy because he lives in a poorhouse and is hungry. Oliver, you had your share of indignity, without us blasting your very being. No well-adjusted individuals could so engage with the fluff of concoction, and Pickwickians, your radios are tuned to a fault. You must then suppose writers enjoy special access to the truth, albeit of some camouflage, even to themselves. They abuse the privilege, test you with unreliable narration, try you with tedious cleverness, and torture you on a rack of verbosity. You survive the challenge. You are reading a novel, making the acquaintance. This character confesses, that one confides, yet another confabulates, and you listen to them all, sharing their hopes, feeling their pains, considering their ideas as much as anyone you know. Your very reading is the proof!”