The Plot, the Arc, and so forth

Heaven is High and the Emperor is Far Away, A Play is in revision and will soon be

available in a slightly different version. My primary goal in undertaking this revision is to address the criticism made by some readers and reviewers that nothing happens in the play. One who attended the reading/performance of this  play articulated this judgement as the absence of the "arc."

The beginning, the middle and the end of a puzzle or a conflict is indeed an important ingredient in plays and books. I myself am often put out when reading something that does not appear to me to have these elements. But it has occurred to me that such a literary contrivance may not be essential or even important.

Consider The Lord of the Ring. The conflict, the quest to defeat Sauron certainly gives the work a strong propelling emotion. But it does not replace--it might even distract from--the inventiveness of the author who has created a universe filled with Elves, Dwarves, Men, Hobbits, Ents and much more. The battle against Mordor is a very distant consideration when we read the songs of Tom Bombadillo or imagine the exploits of elven lords revealed in all their fury or ponder the journey that Gandalf the Grey might have (must have?) taken after his battle with the Balrog to return as Gandalf the White. That is why the fragments that Tolkien's son  offered, the Silmarillion and other pieces, fascinate.

Further, one may ask if "what happened" matters in The Alexandria Quartet. Are we not permanently charmed by the word pictures of mud-brick apartments, wind-swept desert, lush emotions and inexplicable decisions? Honestly, who would care to know how the book began or ended?

Finally, consider the plays of Chekov. College students may have to regurgitate plot summaries (they used to)  even as scholars have formed a consensus that these dramatic pieces are not "plot driven." Indeed; to capture the atmosphere of lives lived in quiet desperation or the passions that arise despite the impending sense of failure or the longing, the expectation, that change is possible and may be glorious, or if not so at least better than the present--is this not what sends readers and watchers of the dramas back into their own lives with a livelier spring in their step and a happier song in their hearts?

Therefore, I have tried to strengthen the frame around Shopkeeper Wang and the Yutai Tea House, but I will send it back into the world hoping that readers might be moved by what is revealed or hinted at in the lives of those who come to and go from the Tea House: the foolishness, the anger, the grace, the menace, the injustice, the yearning for more--more food, more elbow room, just more.  

KILL THE DRUG TRADE

I feel strongly about this and am happy to feature Dave Finch's book of the same title and my review of it.

KILL THE DRUG TRADE: Ending the War on Drugs in a System of Toleration, Counseling and Control.

The book presents a dramatically different approach to dealing with drug use and addiction.  Our current prohibition system has fostered powerful criminal cartels and gangs, easy street access of drugs by adolescents, and the motivation to commit property crimes, prostitution and drug dealing by addicts to finance their habits.   Yet our forty year war on drugs has failed to stem the tide of irresponsible drug use, overdose death and addiction.   The book shows how this failed approach could be replaced by state regulated dispensary systems that allow adult users to purchase drugs of certified purity and potency at below street prices, provided only that they cooperate with counselors on a regular and frequent basis to keep them informed of drug science and affordable treatment options.

My review:

I am in complete agreement with the author and welcome this thoughtful and clear exposition of the reasons why.

The "war on drugs" is like the Crusades, full of good intentions and a complete failure. It costs, just at the Federal level, $20 billion a year not counting the average of $30 thousand per prisoner--and two million were put into prison in 2010. This is more than is required to support a family of four at just above the poverty level.

The author marshals arguments and facts to show that addicts are not particularly moved by the threat of punishment. On the other hand, very few drug (ab)users are addicts, and if they are, many are able to function "normally"--hold jobs, maintain family relationships, etc.

So what is wrong? Imprisonment for one is harmful, hurtful and costly both to society and the individual (ab)user. Many abusers are young enough that they do not yet have the mental capacity to make good decisions; they have not reached the age of discretion. For those of age, the drug trade has been made more dangerous and expensive by the laws that have sprung up since the 1980s.

The author proposes instead a "free market solution" which he calls the System. My only complaint is that the solution is too complicated and that his analysis is too fair-minded. To paraphrase George Eliot, in this political effort, the intellectually honest is at a disadvantage. Suitable sound bites are wanted. 

Background on Aeschylus and the Oresteia

The Oresteia is the only Greek trilogy that has survived to the present. It is said to have won first prize in an Athenian festival in 458 B.C. Aeschylus, is known to have written

at least seventy plays of which only seven have survived. Although he won at least thirteen prizes equivalent to the Oscars for Best Picture, his gravestone speaks only of his service and valor at the Battle of Marathon (490 B. C.).

The trilogy was based on a popular group of legends surrounding the royal family of Atreus, king of Mycenae and father of Agamemnon and Menelaus. The two brothers were married to sisters, Clytemnestra and Helen (of Troy). When Helen was seduced and abducted by Trojan prince Paris, Agamemnon led the fleet of “a thousand ships” against Troy (possibly ca. 1250 B. C.).

The Trojan War lasted a legendary ten years. When Agamemnon returned, he was murdered by Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus, Agamemnon’s cousin.

In the second play of the trilogy, Orestes returns several (?seven) years later to Mycenae to avenge his father. He is accompanied by his sister Elektra and cousin Pylades, and is urged on by the god Apollo, one of the “younger gods” from Olympus. After he kills Aegisthus and Clytemnestra, the Erinnyes (“Furies,” old earth goddesses) set upon him. Apollo finds that the Furies are unmoved by his purification of Orestes. Unable to deliver on his promise to protect Orestes, he sends him to seek Athena’s protection.

In Athens, Athena persuades the Furies to submit the question of Orestes’ guilt and of their right to punish him to a debate adjudicated by a court of Athenians. A verdict is arrived at with Athena having to cast the deciding vote. The whole of the third part of the trilogy is devoted to his "action."

***

Following is a list and brief description of the characters involved in the legends, the Oresteia and in Agamemnon Must Die (Agamemnon in short). They are grouped by “generations.” Names significant in Agamemnon are in capitals.

Atreus, his brother Thyestes (father of AEGISTHUS), and his wife Aerope.

AGAMEMNON, Menelaus and Anaxibia were born to Atreus. CLYTEMNESTRA and Helen were married to the brothers and Anaxibia was married to king Strophius of Phocis.

Iphigenia, ORESTES and ELEKTRA were born to Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. PYLADES was the son of Strophius and Anaxibia.

Non-royals were ARISTIDES, one of the Chorus of Elders mentioned in the Oresteia and named in Agamemnon, the WATCHMAN, and the HERALD, named AGATHON (in Agamemnon but not in the Oresteia).

***

The significance of the Oresteia for the development of Greek drama and of Greek

and Western religious and political thought continues to be a subject of much scholarship.

I first read it in the translation by Richmond Lattimore (1942, 1959) which seem to me then and still to breathe the worshipful tones of Greek civilization as interpreted by C. M. Bowra (The Greek Experience) and Werner Jaeger (Paideia). It was then clear that the trilogy told of the triumph of rational new gods over bloody-minded old ones, and/or the rise of humane/democratic justice from the barbaric cycle of vengeance.

Two generations of classics professors and scholarship have passed. The landscape has changed. I have not “kept up” with this research but have told the story, selecting from variations from Aeschylus’ version and elaborating on characters as I felt would make sense and “connect with” a modern audience.

The images of Aeschylus in this post were downloaded on April 15, 2014 from the Wikipedia article on the dramatist/poet.  The one near to top of this post is an image of a bust in the Capitoline Museums in Rome, while the other is of a bust in the North Carolina Museum of Art (Raleigh, NC).

Interview on Smashwords

Why do you write?

Because when I am writing, it feels like there is nothing else I would rather do. 

 

Have you always been a writer or why did you start?

Writing is actually my "third act." I was a college professor, then a banker/finance manager and now a writer. When I retired, I thought I should study calculus to keep from going crazy but that was an insane idea. Then I thought of studying Mandarin (I am Chinese); soon I got bored with the text books and started translating "real stuff." One of the items was a famous book called The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, said to be the best introduction to traditional Chinese culture. From that study, four years later, came The Battle of Chibi, my first book. 

 

Who are your favorite writers and why?

I have read Tolkien and J.K. Rowling over and over because they have created new worlds and write flawlessly. I also like Salman Rushdie, Larry McMurtry and a host of others I continue to discover. I am fascinated by the stories and how they are told, unusual stories told with a difference. 

 

How do you approach cover design?

The covers for my first two books came courtesy of Createspace and its templates; I published in paperback then. When I change to publishing in ebook format, I made adjustments, easy with software today. With my third and fourth books I got more ambitious (and lazier) and turned to professional help, both with proof-reading and the covers. 

 

What do you read for pleasure?

These days, almost everything I read is for pleasure. I have pretty much given up on the news and politics. I do like to challenge myself and so have read stories about young adults, even young teens, or the paranormal and some things which one would not associate with pleasure so much as with learning about how and what to write. Learning itself makes that a pleasure. 

 

What is your e-reading device of choice?

I like my laptop because it has versions of the reading apps that allow for the greatest control, but I am learning how to use similar apps on a 7-inch tablet that I have just acquired. Originally, the idea was to be able to read lying down, but I find that that makes me sleepy. 

 

What book marketing techniques have been most effective for you?

None that has brought fame and fortune so far, but I expect to keep learning and trying.

 

Describe your writing process.

For The Chinese Spymaster which is the novel that was entirely made up, that is, it was not a translation and/or an adaptation of some other work, I started with an idea or two that I wanted to make work. Then I created some characters and they led me to situations, actions and other characters. I often wrote notes of what I thought some scenes would play out but felt that if I kept in mind the integrity of each character the scenes would often develop differently. By contrast, in writing The Battle of Chibi, I felt obliged to follow the text quite closely; I did make radical decisions about which chapters or parts of chapters of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms I would keep.

 

Who were the greatest influences on your writing?

More than the writers I mentioned earlier, I think of my high school senior year English teacher and my college English teacher. They were both very dedicated and required a five hundred word essay a week which they would have graded before the next one was due. My high school teacher even required that the essay be written during class! But he was less strict about the number of words.

 

What's the story behind your latest book?

I have heard a great deal about Judge Dee; his fans are as devoted and loyal as those of Agatha Christie or Nero Wolfe or Carl Hiaasen. So I thought I would see if I could turn his stories (written by Robert van Gulik) into a play. (I also have an interest in community theater.)

The Chinese Spymaster goes on a "blog-tour"

Like many (most) authors, I give almost no thought to promoting my books. This is unfortunate for a self-published or "indie" author. Promotion is what publishers do for their authors although one hears complaints that more and more these days they don't do much. It is the rule of 80-20 (a phenomenon Vilfredo Pareto discovered and so it is sometimes named after him although he is most famous for the principle of "Pareto optimality"). For publishers 80 percent of whose revenues are generated by 20 percent of their clients will spend their time and resources on the 20 percent. The other 80 percent are much like like their self-published ("Indie") brethren: they have to do it themselves.

Into the vacuum ("opportunity") has flourished a plethora of book-promoters--from the many full-service marketing/PR like services ($$$$) to a great many how-to books or web-sites ($/*). Naturally there is a full spectrum of these services; in marketing-speak, it is called "differentiation"--the services provide various levels like whiskeys that are red, black or blue and aged for ten, twenty or thirty years. 

Some experts on book promotion recommend that authors visit book or publishing conferences. Others swear by readings and book-signings. Still others claim that the only way is to get the book reviewed, the more frequently the better. This appeals instinctively to writers; we write and read and so it seems logical that reviews should be the trick.

But there are, it used to be said, many roads to Rome. I have commented before on how helpful certain web-sites can be for authors in search of feed-back, comments or reviews of their writing; that is probably the first category of help that writers look for. One of those web-sites also provides help in promoting one's work.


The Making Connections Group on Goodreads (note link to a sample tour) has dedicated moderators who are active bloggers. They also arrange for "blog-tours" and The Chinese Spymaster has been on one of these with a promotion, a review and/or an interview blogged by a different blogger every day for a week, some days by more than one.  The work of arranging such a tour has been undertaken by the gracious and hardworking moderators of this group. This clueless writer shuffling slowly into the social media of the twenty-first century is more grateful than words can express.

Agamemnon Must Die

My current writing projects include Agamemnon Must Die. This is my attempt to satisfy myself about Aeschylus' Oresteia. It includes my first attempts to compose and use poetry in a novel. As I thought about it, there were times when it seemed appropriate--the Greek choruses, the paranormal utterances or dreams, etc.

(This image was discovered by Heinrich Schliemann in Mycenae in 1876. He was a man with few doubts, having "discovered Troy" a decade earlier. The mask is now dated to the 16th century B.C. and more commonly called The Mask of Atreus, a reference to Agamemnon's father. It is on display as the Mask of Agamemnon at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens. )

I have attempted a form of hexameter, in imitation of Homer. But Greek meters are very different from English; they depend on vowel length as opposed to "stress" in English. I hope for comments on how to improve on these. They have been posted, along with several chapters from the project on Authonomy.com. This link is to the chapter from which the following is excerpted.  Small differences show the restless reworkings indulged in by an author.

I

What insanity drove the Greeks to sail against

Troy? A thousand ships and a hundred thousand men!

Half the principalities sent their best warriors,

Leaving enough to man their walls, and those too old

Or too young for the expedition. Fewer than half,

A quarter or a tenth would return years later.

The others had listened to Atreus’ sons, Agamemnon

And Menelaus, pleading for support to punish the violation

Of the law of hospitality—the abduction of

His wife Helen by the Trojans! Having listened,

They firmly declined. Truth be told, they were wise.

Troy was a storied legend of wealth and power. No Greek

Had ever measured strength against Priam’s walls,

Or even braved the blue-green seas to assess the dangers

They would face. Brilliant Achilles agreed to go;

He sought his own glory for it had been foretold

That he alone could vanquish Hector, the doughty defender;

He scorned the oracle that tied his fate to this matchless deed.

He would not live long beyond this glorious moment,

Perfidious Paris, a mere archer, would fell this hero.

II

Insanity, the Judgment of Paris they called it, a divine jest

Was perhaps intended, but it brought tragedy:

Three goddesses who should have known better, vied

For the golden apple inscribed “To the most fair.”

And Paris the clueless presumed he could decide among

Goddesses which one should win this worthless prize.

So he chose Aphrodite who promised the fairest woman—

Helen, Menelaus’ wife—spurning wisdom and domestic

Bliss as promised by Athena and Hera respectively,

As bribes! Thus was set in motion events that would bring

Shame and pain, all the worst in gods and men.

The earth was young, gods and men still consorted;

Helen herself was said to have been sired by Zeus.

Who, insatiable, lusted also for Thetis, spirited

Goddess of the sea, beloved of Hephaestus

God of craft. But an oracle warned that any male offspring

Born to Thetis would eclipse his father. So Zeus

Chose brave but mortal Peleus whose son by Thetis, Achilles,

By brilliant and heroic deeds would slay Hector and rip out

The heart of Troy’s resistance and defense.

But to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, Zeus decreed

That Eris, goddess of discord and strife not be invited.

III

The “Judgment of Paris” would cause the Greeks much hurt.

It also broke the heart of the wood nymph whom Paris had

Seduced. She had tripped gaily through the woods

On Mount Ida when a Trojan hunting party

Led by Paris wandered, lost and confused by the

Trails cleverly fashioned by elves and nymphs in mischief

Within the forest. Mother Ida’s child was o’erwhelmed

By the beauty of the Trojan prince and allowed

Him to catch a glimpse of her. He loved her then

And came often to the sloped woods, until

Those three goddesses came shamelessly to seek his “Judgement.”

Olympians though they were, they could not escape the malice

Of Eris, provoked by exclusion from the wedding. Forlorn

And joylessly did the wood nymph wander around the valleys

Near Troy. What of Menelaus, brave, prudent and loyal?

He was left to bay like a young wolf wounded and lost,

Straining with every atom of his being and energy to find

The world he lost—Argos, Agamemnon and Helen.

Did all-seeing Zeus or far-seeing immortal Apollo,

His son, think they could out-wit Eris by dismissing her?

Big mistake, to belittle the goddess. The gods were foolish,

The goddesses no less, Eris alone did not

Deserve the blame. Agamemnon too, with his

Compliant brother, might have stepped back from war.

Yet he slew his own daughter, first-born Iphigenia. 

The whole poem may be seen at this link.

Poetry within a novel

In planning my new writing project, Agamemnon Must Die, I gave serious thought to including sections in poetry. This is partly because my inspiration, Aeschylus' Oresteia, was written in poetic form and partly because my work will be a radical retelling of the story that will include "paranormal" experience and exposition. It is also because I feel it a good thing to challenge oneself with a form, not prose, once in a while.

Upon the recommendation of a fellow writer, I chose to read some poetry new to me (not e.g., T. S. Eliot or the English Romantics), Stephen Vincent Benet's John Brown's Body, first published in 1928 but frequently  reprinted or republished since. I learned from this reading the following, adapted from a review posted on Goodreads and Amazon:

National epics do not make for good poetry. Virgil, for instance, pales in comparison with Homer. And of Tennyson's patriotic poems, the most memorable are really silly pieces with good rhymes, rhythms and a jingoistic spirit. Benet's work is sprawling and changes its rhythms often as it tries to encompass the Civil War. Would it have been better with a consistent meter such as empower The Iliad or The Spreading Chestnut Tree? A silly counter-factual question, I know.

But I found some lines heart-breakingly good:

What do souls that bleed from the corpse of battle
Say to the tattered night?
...
There was no real moon in all the soft, clouded night,
The rats of night had eaten the silver cheese,
Though here and there a forgotten crumb of old brightness
Gleamed and was blotted.

... and this on Abraham Lincoln:

Honesty rare as a man without self-pity.

The experience of reading Benet's work did not change my plans for Agamemnon Must Die and I hope to share selections from my forays into a new written form for me soon.