Useful: Quote and Book of Essays

[pegkerr]

I ran across this quotation today, and it strikes me as exactly what I'm going to try to be doing in this book:

"A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us." Franz Kafka

Yes, yes, yes! Solveig has a frozen sea within her. How did she get it, and what serves as the "ax" in this book to break it loose?

Does it have to be broken loose?

I had the great good fortune to pick up a book of essays while I was at the signing at Dreamhaven Books this weekend: Mirror, Mirror On the Wall: Women Writers Explore Their Favorite Fairy Tales edited by Kate Bernheimer. It was only with great difficulty that I refrained from chortling aloud with delight as I read it on the bus tonight. Particularly useful will be an essay by A.S. Byatt on "Ice, Snow, and Glass." I hadn't thought of examining the fairy tale of the princess and the glass mountain, but I can see the connection. I hadn't read A.S. Byatt's Possession when it was up against The Wild Swans for the Mythopoeic Award (Peter Beagle beat us both out that year). Now I don't dare read Possession because I'm afraid it'll influence the book I'm trying to write too much. One line: "The ice palace [in Andersen's "The Snow Queen"] is a false eternity, a duration out of time, something to be escaped from." She does consider, however, whether human warmth/cold reason might be a false dichotomy; she too mentions that cold can be for the purposes of preservation.

Must go make dinner. Later tonight I'll post the questions I'm preparing for Inga, my architect expert.

Cheers,
Peg

Comments

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Your "axe" could be an actual axe.

Possession is indeed a beautiful book. Rumor has it that there is/was a movie, but I don't know details.

B

[daedala.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen the movie, but a friend whose judgement works very well for me says it's very good.

(That is an utterly gorgeous quote. May sig it. Or frame it.)

[ari-o.livejournal.com]

Kalfka - frightening - but so brilliant. That quote is double edged - because it can be the writing that breaks up the sea in the writer - or reading that breaks up the ice in the reader. I never fail to marvel at his ingenuity with words and clarity of thought. But that is cool that ou are aking it one step further - that the story can act as an axe upon the frozen sea in the characters. That makes some sense when I think about my own novel - but the metaphor is not as perfect. My character needs a valium mostly...

*sighs*

I read that Byatt essay this summer - my writing prof handed it out! I loved it. Byatt floors me. Possession is a wonderful novel.

oooo i should read your novels. new stuff to read! yay!