THESIS EXCERPT

An excerpt from my practice-based PhD thesis which takes a creative-critical form.

ABSTRACT:This thesis demonstrates, pragmatically rather than theoretically, that perceived dissonances between the critical and creative elements of postgraduate study in Creative Writing need not alienate the creative practitioner. To exemplify the opportunities faced by student writers, this thesis comprises two elements: a novel, Wake Me When It’s Over, and a critical narrative, Will the Real Scarlett O’Hara Please Stand Up: A Critical Meditation on Creative Study. Together these elements emphasize the importance of creative discovery while embracing the indispensable benefits of rigorous critical exploration. Wake Me When It’s Over is an American picaresque novel in which the main character, Rachel Bennett, takes to the road with a death wish and an unhealthy fixation on an incomplete collection of state spoons. Along the way Rachel examines the clichés and normative values that form the bedrock of her self-perception and finds that her will to destruction may be the very thing that saves her life. Will the Real Scarlett O’Hara Please Stand Up: A Critical Meditation on Creative Study continues this theme with Rachel’s help. A tribute to Hunter S. Thompson and Lewis Carroll, this Gonzo-through-the-looking-glass critical narrative combines homage, parody, satire and humour to illuminate the relationship between the critical and creative, to dispel misconceptions about the writing life, and to examine ways that these myths manifest on the page and in the classroom.

WILL THE REAL SCARLETT O’HARA PLEASE STAND UP: 
A CRITICAL MEDITATION ON CREATIVE STUDY

1. Train Ride to Edinburgh: My Creativity Books the Executive Suite

We were at Queen Street station waiting for the last Edinburgh-bound train. I remember saying something like, “There’s no way this is a good idea. Let’s go home.” But by that time the train had arrived, and a dozen bridesmaids dressed in black leotards and hot pink tutus and hot pink cowboy hats and hot pink feather boas had joined us on the platform. We were hemmed in by a plague of oestrogen-rich ponies and, when one bridesmaid started humping a hot pink inflatable guitar that looked fit to burst under the pressure of her banger and mash thighs, I heard a voice screaming: “There is no salvation in becoming adapted to a world which is crazy.”[1] If the bridesmaids heard the voice, they didn’t let on.

I was travelling with my novel’s main character, Rachel Bennett. While this might seem implausible, I hasten to point out that the only unusual thing about being accompanied by one of my characters is being accompanied by only one of my characters. When the luggage was stowed and we were settled in our seats Rachel said, “Why were you screaming back there?”

“If you have to ask, you wouldn’t understand.”

“I understand plenty.”

It was eleven-thirty on a Friday night. We still had the best part of fifty miles to go before we arrived at The Point Hotel and, even then, there’d be no time for sleep. The trip wouldn’t be easy. The train was full of twisted automatons. Weekend robots smeared with war paint and scented body butter, ready to guzzle a paycheque’s worth of Whole Lotta Rosé cocktails, ready to get sideways on fortified wine. I didn’t need spirits. I was in the grips of a savage guilt trip. There’s no drug in the world that can rival the highs and lows of an honest-to-god guilt trip.

I had two days to complete and submit the critical element of my dissertation, two days to complete what I hadn’t managed to complete in four years. Rachel had convinced me earlier in the evening that the only way to salvage my PhD was to make reservations at an expensive hotel. The plan was ridiculous. Even I saw it as a thinly veiled diversion. She had said, “Don’t think of it as running away from a problem. Think of it as running toward a solution.” It’s easy to be seduced by potted witticisms when the hour for reasonable action has past. The idea was to remove myself from the familiar triggers and trappings, to suspend my anxiety long enough to get to that place in my head where writing happens.[2] I needed a deprivation tank, a luxurious one. Rachel promised to help me write the thesis. I promised to let her help me write the thesis.

When I moved to Scotland my parents gave me an American Express card for emergencies. I used that card to book three nights in an executive suite. I packed suitcases with books, articles, interviews, quotes, paper, pens, pencils and highlighters. I carried my laptop and printer in a canvas tote. I carried folders containing notes and false starts in a plastic bag. Packing took eleven minutes. There was no discrimination. If it was remotely related to the thesis, or any previous incarnation of the thesis, it went into a suitcase. I worried about forgetting something essential and anything could become essential by virtue of being forgotten. I didn’t want to arrive in Edinburgh to find that a self-published pamphlet on Aroma Therapy and Proper Seating Arrangements for Creative Writing workshops (purchased on Amazon for 1p plus shipping) was the key to making the whole mad plan work, if only I’d remembered to pack it.

Rachel put her foot between the seats in front of us and slumped into a comfortable travelling position. She said, “I’m telling you, the train’s the way to go.” She worked a crossword puzzle against her knee and hummed a tune that I couldn’t identify.

When we stopped at Falkirk a dark-haired girl close to six-feet tall got on the train. She was beautiful. She was beautiful in a way that made me want to buy her a basket of warm brioche. She sat a couple of seats in front of us, and I imagined that her hair smelled like green apples. She was a serious-looking girl, and she wasted no time in losing all sense of the outside world to whatever was happening within the world of her phone. As she techno-vegetated, she bit her bottom lip.

Rachel said, “I’ve got to have one of those.”

I said, “A beautiful girl?”

“No. An iPhone.”

“You’d just end up losing it in a public bathroom.”

“Please. You don’t want to hear about things I’ve lost in public bathrooms.”

Rachel was in a good mood. Everything was easier when Rachel was in a good mood. She wasn’t always calm, cool and collected but she could be a rock if she had nothing to lose. I was calm too. I was calm in a sickly, history repeating itself way.

When the train stopped at Linlithgow Rachel said, “Get a load of this guy. He’s missing a shoe.”

I said, “And he’s bleeding.”

A man, wearing a torn kilt and missing one of his black brogues, boarded. He looked up and down the aisle and then made his way toward us. His knuckles were split. His knees were scrapped. His mouth was a pulpy mess. I wasn’t surprised. A set of teeth like that was a liability in a fight. Poor fellow could’ve eaten an apple through a picket fence. He sat down across from us and said, “You should see t’other guy.”

Rachel gave him a thumbs up and I tried not to stare as he spat blood into a glass Coke bottle. Once we were underway, he leaned against the window and passed out. When the ticket-taker came by, she didn’t wake him up.

I said, “I think we should go home.”

Rachel had lost interest in the crossword puzzle. She was making a list of things to do. In particular, she was making a list of things we needed to accomplish on the trip. The list was long. “No more trains tonight. You can’t go home unless you pay for a taxi back to Glasgow. Do you want to pay for a taxi back to Glasgow?”

“I will.”

“Too late to cancel the hotel. You’ll pay whether you stay or not.”

“I don’t care.”

“Yes, you do.”

She was right. I did care. I was sick to death of caring.

The man across from us said something indecipherable in his sleep. Rachel shifted so that she could watch him. “I mean, just look at him. Where do you suppose he left his shoe?”

“Top of a wedding cake?”

“The groom’s arse, maybe?”

 “Maybe the bride’s.”

He was a sight. I wondered if he was drunk or crazy or both. I wondered why, even though it was impossible to ignore the warning signs, I was attracted to him. “I should write a story about this guy.”

Rachel went back to her list and, without looking at me said, “That’s the last thing you should do.”

“I suppose that I’m already writing a story about him. We should find a way to include him in the thesis.”

“We should not.”

“Don’t be jealous. If I include him, it doesn’t diminish your role.” As soon as I said it, I knew it was the wrong thing.

“I’m not the least bit jealous, thank you very much. Go ahead, waste your time. You’re the author. Wake him up.”

I recognized Rachel’s tone. She was trying to tempt me into a familiar argument, an argument that had defined our relationship since our relationship began.

“Okay. I will!”

“It must be exhausting playing ‘capital-G’ God.” And there she was with the air quotes. She knew I had a special kind of hatred for air quotes.

When the train stopped at Haymarket the man across the aisle woke up.

Rachel sighed. “What do you know? The man across the aisle wakes up! Happy now?”

“Not quite.”

The man across the aisle said, “This my stop?”

I said, “No.”

He said, “I’m not drunk.”

I said, “Neither am I.”

“I’m not crazy either.”

Rachel patted me on the knee. “The jury’s still out with this one.”

When the train started moving again the man across the aisle said, “My name is Gordy Rowe.”

I said, “I know.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I just named you.”

Rachel shook her head. “Don’t be such a bore. This whole metafiction thing has been done to death.”

“Don’t blame me. You started it.”

Gordy was confused.

Rachel said, “Gordy, darling, please wipe that bewildered expression off your face. It’ll only encourage her.”

Gordy said, “I don’t understand.”

“Where ignorance is bliss, tis folly to be wise.”[3] Rachel’s mood was on the turn. She was sensitive about things like authorial authority. She didn’t like the idea of me putting words in her mouth. I couldn’t blame her. I tried to change the subject.

“Did I mention that the hotel charges extra for a late check-in?”

But, she wouldn’t let it rest. “You know, just because think you plucked me from the ether of your imagination doesn’t mean that I am wholly your creation. It doesn’t mean that I am wholly under your control.”

“Plucked or otherwise, that’s exactly what it means.”

“I am not and neither is he.” Rachel pointed at Gordy.

He had no idea what we were talking about but gathered from Rachel’s rising temper that he should be impassioned as well. “That’s right. Neither am I!”

“Shall I stop writing to prove the point once and for all?”

Rachel said, “There are influences beyond your control that have a hand in shaping my character and that makes me dynamic.”

“I’m prepared to admit that there are uncharted, dragons-be-here territories of my imagination.”

“It’s more than that. If you think about it the act of writing can be reduced to the act of re-ordering a lifetime’s worth of experiences. Even your interpretation of those experiences will be tempered by a host of factors beyond your control. You’re operating on a system programmed by someone else, love! And if you want to talk about it in strictly literary terms, one could argue that writing is simply the product of a complex series of intertextual references.”

“I’m sorry, now you’ve lost me. Are you suggesting that I don’t have ‘control’ over you as a character but every writer before me does?”

“Don’t twist my words.”

“I’m not twisting anything, but intertextual references and the idiosyncratic manipulation of signs and symbols are not grounds for the autonomy of a fictional character. I don’t think that a writer is in the least free to write just anything. One doesn’t choose one’s subject.[4] The writer is free to choose material only in a limited sense, and those choices are governed by the deepest compulsions of personality.[5] But, if a thing isn’t discoverable by me or conceivable by me or accessible by me, it isn’t discoverable or conceivable or accessible by you.”

“That doesn’t mean that I can’t surprise you. A good writer would admit that a good character has a mind of its own.”

“I prefer to call those surprises: choices.”

Gordy said, “Somewhere Robert Frost is weeping.”

Rachel and I both looked at him, more than a little surprised.

He said, “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.”[6]

Rachel said, “According to Faulkner, it all begins with a character. Once the character stands up on his feet and begins to move, all Faulkner can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does.”

I said, “Don’t talk about Faulkner in the present tense. It’s creepy. Maybe he didn’t say that at all, maybe it was your ole pal Addie Bundren, talking from the grave again?”[7]

Rachel gave me a dangerous look.

“Don’t give me that look. It’s just a matter of words.”[8]

Rachel turned her full attention toward Gordy. They carried on talking across the aisle but I stopped listening.

In that moment, I knew why I hadn’t already completed the thesis. I had worried that writing a postgraduate dissertation was beyond my capabilities but sitting there sandwiched between Rachel and Gory as they tried to shore up romantic notions of character development with romantic slogans, I knew. I knew that I hadn’t completed the thesis not because I was incapable but because I didn’t want to.[9] I think that if there is any value in hearing writers talk, it will be in hearing what they can witness to and not what they can theorize about. My own approach to literary problems is very like the one Dr. Johnson’s blind housekeeper used when she poured tea – she put her finger inside the cup.[10]

Gordy tapped me on the arm to get my attention. He said, “What about Eudora Welty? Welty said that characters take on life sometimes by luck, but she suspects it’s when you can write entirely out of yourself, inside the skin, heart, mind, and soul of a person who is not yourself, that a character becomes in his own right another human being on the page.”

I said, “My point is that a fictional character isn’t a real person. A fictional character is an experimental person. The thing about a story is that you dream it as you tell it and in this way memory and imagination and language combine to make spirits in the head.[11] Eudora Welty also said that daydreaming had started her on the way; but story writing, once she was truly in its grip, took her and shook her awake.[12] The reality of writing is not romantic. I understand where notions about characters having a mind of their own and creating people not characters and plots rabbiting off without the writer’s permission come from. They tickle all the right writerly spots. There is an urge to mystify the writing process. I think quotes about raising characters from the ashes so that they can walk on their own two feet are just ways that writers put into words that which cannot be succinctly put into words. It’s a way to navigate imagination without spooking the muse. So, yes, there is a point in the creative process where characters do wander around ‘at will’ and do fantastic, unexpected things but as soon as I put pen to paper (fingers to keyboards) I’m making decisions, consciously or subconsciously. I’m editing my imagination. I’m editing you.”

            Rachel said, “You really should be careful how you proceed with this argument or the whole idea of me helping you with your thesis will unravel.”

            “No, it won’t because I’m perfectly happy to admit that I’m using you as a literary device.”

            “You’re such an arse.”

            “That’s probably true.”

            We arrived at Waverly station in silence. Rachel was exerting her autonomy by not speaking to me and when I turned to ask Gordy if he’d like to join us at the hotel, he was gone. I stood up and looked for him. Nothing. I called his name. Nothing. I hurried to collect my suitcases, and I walked down the platform as quickly as I could under the clumsy load. When I finally made it through the turnstile I stood at the centre of the station and scanned the faces of passersby. I looked for a flash of colour that might be his torn kilt. I looked for a man limping for lack of a shoe. Out of desperation I shouted, “Gordy!”

            Nothing.

Rachel walked up and stood by my side. “Amy?”

I didn’t answer.

“We don’t have time for this.”

“What about Gordy?”

“He’s gone.”

Rachel took two of the suitcases and walked toward the taxi rank. I followed her. As we stood in line she said, “So tell me, what the thesis is about?” I said, “I have no idea.”

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[1] Henry Miller quote and epigraph for the novel Wake Me When It’s Over.

[2] Considering that Rachel is the main character of what could be described as an American picaresque novel, it’s no surprise that her answer to the situation was to hit the road. Rowland A. Sherrill suggests that “a figure’s alienation, his or her sense of exile, psychic dislocation, and marginality, all of which can erode the integrity of the self, often prompt or require the mobile life, send the figure out to accomplish the road work which could also prove to be a form of self-recovery or  -discovery.” Sherrill, Roland A. Road-Book America: Contemporary Culture and the New Picaresque. (Chicago: U of Illinois P, 2000) 84.

[3] Gray, Thomas. ‘Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College’. The Complete Poems of Thomas Gray. Eds. H.W. Starr and J.R. Hendrickson. (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1966) 10.

[4] Flaubert, Gustave. ‘Letter to George Sand (12 July 1872)’. Novelists on the Novel. Ed. Miriam Allott. (London: Routledge, 1965) 232.

[5] Allen, Walter. The English Novel. (London: Penguin, 1991) 15.

[6] Frost, Robert. ‘The Figure a Poem Makes’. The Collected Prose of Robert Frost. Ed. Mark Richardson. (London: Belknap Press of Harvard UP, 2007).

[7] Addie Bundren, a character from William Faulkner’s novel As I Lay Dying, who speaks from the grave (or at least from the coffin). Faulkner, William. As I Lay Dying. (London: Vintage Books, 1988) 157 – 165.

[8] Faulkner, As I Lay Dying. 165.

[9] Part of the reason that I ‘didn’t want to’ can be summed up in a letter from John Steinbeck: “A letter from Alicia [Alicia Patterson, publisher of Newsday, wife of Harry Guggenheim] today enclosed an interview with Bill Faulkner which turns my stomach. When those old writing boys get to talking about The Artist, meaning themselves, I want to leave the profession. I don’t know whether the Nobel Prize does it or not, but if it does, thank God I have not been so honoured. They really get to living up to themselves, wrapped and shellacked. Apparently they can’t have any human intercourse again. Bill said he only read Homer and Cervantes, never his contemporaries, and then, by God, in answer to the next question he stole a paragraph from an article I wrote for the Saturday Review eight months ago. Hell, he’s better than Homer. Homer couldn’t either read or write and the old son of a gun was blind. And Cervantes was broke, a thing Bill never let happen to him while he could go to Hollywood and turn out the Egyptian. THE ARTIST – my ass! Sure he’s a good writer but he’s turning into a god damned phoney.” Steinbeck, John. Steinbeck: A Life in Letters. Eds. Elaine Steinbeck and Robert Wallsten. (London: Pan Books, 1979) 529.

[10] O’Connor, Flannery. Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose. ‘The Grotesque in Southern Fiction’. Eds. Sally Fitzgerald and Robert Fitzgerald. (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1970) 36.

[11] O’Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. (New York: Broadway Books, 1990) 230.

[12] Welty, Eudora. One Writer’s Beginnings. (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1983) 87.