12th August 2007
Life Times
This morning brought the realisation that my life was divided in two parts.
Yesterday was over. Everything I’d already done - the written contents of my life, so to speak - was behind me.
Today was about to begin. Everything I could do - the pages left blank so far - was ahead of me.
Simple.
 | I came to this thought in a post vacation mood, still basking in the echo of rest and relaxation, mind arrested before the return to normality.
This thought presented the opportunity for escape. Why do you need to return at all? If the past could be marked as complete, it would have no more power over the future. I’d be released to write a fresh life story; one featuring all of the brilliance of spontaneity and freedom I’d experienced whilst granted temporary reprieve from the day-to-day. In this new life, I’d do the things I wanted as opposed to the things I’d become good at. A great, creative thought that liberated me, that gave vent to the reality I would soon face, where what we’ve done weighs heavy on what we can do.
|
Writing in the Saturday Guardian 14.Jul.07, Caryl Phillips suggested three parts to James Baldwin’s Literary life. These spanned:
1941 – 1956 and took in,
Go Tell It On The Mountain (1953) and
Giovanni’s Room (1956).
1957 to 1970,
Another Country (1962) and
Tell Me How Long The Train’s Been Gone (1968) – non-fiction
Nobody Knows My Name (1961) and
The Fire Next Time (1963) and a play
Blues for Mr Charlie (1968).
Finally, 1971 – 1987,
If Beale Street Could Talk (1972),
Just Above My Head (1978) – and a clutch of non-fiction. Phillips finds greatness in the early novels, great competence in the middle novels, and particularly in the books of essays, and a decline in the third and final act of Baldwin’s life.
And, I find strange parallels: not in the modest efforts of
my writing in development as compared with the accomplished brilliance of (Baldwin) one of my literary heroes, but in the division of life into discrete periods of time.
If in the end we are destined to have our lives set to the narratives of others, perhaps in life,
we should try writing our own.
©
editor@unheardwords.com, 2007
Comments, Answers, Feedback? WriteIn or email
editor@unheardwords.com (editor@unheardwords.com)
Back to Top or
Return To Home
