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LUNCH WITH A DEAD MAN: A Parley with Jack London, p. 3 "How can I make readers experience the fragrance of these flowers, the crispness of the sea breeze?" "By adequate hints, just enough to evoke resonance from what all humans have in the depth of their being, a remembrance of a lost garden." "Today that's easier said than done. With television, the span of attention is ever shorter. Students leave college without the least notion of what it is to participate as a reader. If only they knew what they are missing. You didn't have that problem." "No, in my time people were either illiterate or loved to read. Recent arrivals told me about TV dysfunctions. We have television here. I enjoy peeking at what's going on in the dream world." "Now, wait a minute! Television!? You must be joking! This is absolutely incredible!" "Why? Nothing incredible about it. All realities are refracted here. We can touch them. We can visit them, in ghostly fashion so to speak, just as you do in your dreams. That is a surrogate of freedom." "I bet you have a lot of good laughs!" He smiled broadly and moved a lock of hair from his forehead. "We laugh, all right. You should see the faces of those who died before the 18th century when they watch. I've seen them rolling on the floor. That would be an experience for you." I tried to imagine Jefferson's reactions to CNN. He paused, and his cheerfulness vanished abruptly behind a veil of sadness. "We often weep, too," he sighed, stood up, and gazed at the sea. I remained still until he turned back and sat down again facing me. "Of all mysteries, none is more impenetrable than evil. God's mercy is infinite, but so is human stupidity. When this century opened, I foresaw the rise of tyranny in my book The Iron Heel. Since I died in 1916, over 170 million have been slaughtered in the name of ideologies. The task of a writer now is to deflate whatever promotes collective madness." "All generations add a chapter," I ventured, "but I doubt anything is in our control. We fenced ourselves in 'private property reservations.' We destroyed what we loved." I pointed with a gesture of my hand to the splendor around us. "And now we live in fear of criminals, just as the Indians did when we came. Each generation reaps what the preceding sowed." "I feel like weeping when I think of millions of buffalo exterminated! What stupidity!" he said. "Now we're pulverizing the last primordial forests to make toilet paper, but let's not get depressed,"I quickly added, " I'd rather learn more from you." "You're my guest." Jack bowed slightly and, touching his heart, confessed, "I will admit to cutting down a few redwoods to build Wolfhouse. I should have paid attention to Teddy Roosevelt. In our day most Americans felt nature was inexhaustible. I made mistakes. But forgive me. I'm getting sidetracked. Please go ahead. Direct our parley." "All right. Perhaps I'll write about this meeting after all, especially about the mystery of the possible. It's going to be as difficult as your writing about Hasheesh Land. In John Barleycorn you spoke of enormous extensions of time, how your travels were seared on your brain in the sharpest detail. You related how you tried with endless words to describe the simplest phases and tiniest particles to persons who have not traveled there.'" He nodded, and for an instant I caught the passing of an emotional cloud in his eyes as he spoke slowly, reminiscing, "With those words I introduced the 'White Logic.' One never forgets that sort of inspiration. I wrote the entire chapter in one uninterrupted flow." "That was evident." "That's it. Something compelled me as I penned the words: 'I talk for an hour, elaborating that one phase of Hasheesh Land and at the end I have told them nothing. And when I cannot tell them this one thing of all the vastness of terrible and wonderful things, I know I have failed to give them the slightest concept of Hasheesh Land. But let me talk with some other traveler of that weird region and at once I am understood. A phrase, a word, conveys instantly to his mind what hours of words and phrases could not convey to the mind of the non-traveler.' "And: 'I used all the hyperbole of metaphor, and told what centuries of time and profounds of unthinkable agony and horror can obtain in each interval of all the intervals between the notes of a quick jig played quickly on the piano.' That was the White Logic speaking, which to the sober mind sounds like madness, for it lies beyond ordinary thinking." He took a deep breath. I commented, "To those untraveled, the traveler's account will always seem unintelligible and fantastic. Like Dante in his Paradise asking readers to take his poem on faith." He nodded in agreement, "That's what you must do. I'm pleased you've understood that. You must bring your story as close as you can to the edge of a true account, but never, never cross the line. Let the reader suspect that there is something more than fantasy behind your words, but never let him be absolutely sure." |
