Monday, February 20, 2012

A Different Throne

I should preface this post by saying it's completely uninformed, all things consider.



As you might have seen, if you've read this regularly for the past month, I dubbed Stephen King my personal "author of 2011."  As honors go, that doesn't really mean much to anyone but me.  Even so, there's a better chance for a "repeat" next year than there's ever been since I've started making those "personal best of the year" lists, 6 years ago.  There have been a few repeat musical artists (mostly because I used to be obsessed with synth pop, when there are less than 10 really great, consistently creating, national synth pop groups)

So far, I've only read the first five "Dark Tower" books by Stephen King.  As a writer, he's passable but nothing too special.  He reminds me of a great American restaurant...even if it's the best American restaurant, it's still American, and for my taste, that means it's 4th best in the world, at best (because I'll always prefer Chinese, Italian, and French food).  It's not King's nationality that makes him "nothing too special" (though I'd be dishonest to say that it plays something of a role in how I consider novels).  It's his hearkening to Hemmingway in his simplicity without the "every-sentence-is-cathartic" sensation.  He just tells a story.  In a way, he's like the American J.K. Rowling for adults (though a better writer by leaps and bounds).  He tells a great story, and that's his best quality.  It's the story and the creativity that erases one's concern over the ever-present inelegantly simple sentences.

As an artist, I respect his ability to write the stories he writes- horror or not (and I'd argue he's more a Hitchcockian thriller writer than a purely fear-driven writer).  Taking King's art as an expression of his inner being sheds light on a genius who seems to inhabit, mentally, a completely different world.  King's persona-as-writer is enthralling to me- I envision him constantly holed up in a cabin by a lake in Maine, grinding out sense-of-place masterpieces on the daily.  To think that an artist could stay in Maine (the place he loves) and attain his  heights of accomplishment gives Cleveland artists hope, doesn't it?

As a writer, he's no Philip Pullman.  Though the two have little to do with each other it's pertinent because Pullman constantly refuses to call himself a "Writer."  "I tell stories" he says  "When you think of yourself as anything but a storyteller, you begin to lose focus."  And yet, Pullman is one of the greatest technical writers living today.  He tells passable stories, but does so with structure, diction, and elegance unparalleled by most.  As a writer, I'd rather read Philip Pullman's shopping list than Stephen King's non-fiction (seriously...read some of his book reviews- if it wasn't "Stephen King,"  I doubt they'd be published).  And yet- His Dark Materials is brilliant, but did not keep me reading into the late hours (figuratively- I read primarily in the morning) nearly as often as The Dark Tower has over the past year or so.

It is a tyranny for me to write this.  I'm as much a literary purist as you'll ever find.  But there's something appealing, even so, about a story unfettered by human artistic artifice.  For me, it's almost as if King's failings as a sentence-builder make the story that much more interesting because I'm not distracted from the plot by the beauty of the writing.  It's easier for me to overlook the mundane- as it ought to be, in most things.

As time passes, it's true- I'll always consider His Dark Materials, Ulysses, and Wuthering Heights greater works of art, more ultimately meaningful to my life as a writer and student of language.  But the works of the likes of King and Rowling have worth as well- as interesting, riveting stories- inaccurately told, to be sure, but full of an enjoyment I'd miss if the same story were told by a better writer.

And yet- that's not possible.  Sometimes, I beat myself up for not being able to come up with ideas as creative as King or Rowling.  But it's not my place to write those stories.  Faulkner couldn't write The House on Pooh Corner.  Though I don't have an unending tolerance for less-than-perfect writing in the face of a great story (sorry Twilight, you just don't make the cut), I'm glad to be able to say that finally, I can enjoy a story for a story despite how it's told.  I'll always be more Stephen Dedalus than Leopold Bloom; an aesthete incapable of seeing sentences as nothing but functions toward pleasures- but so was James Joyce, and that's company I don't mind.

-Zack 

"So come to me, come to me now, lay your arms around me"
-The Decemberists

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

On every Corner

I may have found a new spot to work at night.  I'm locked out of my house right now, because I left my keys in my other coat, after walking the dog.  I was going to drive to Starbucks (an impressive Starbucks).  That's where I normally end up, if I've got time and I've got to write.  But today, as I said, I'm locked out of my house.  So I walked.  In Lakewood, where we live now, there's essentially a coffee house of some sort on every single corner.  I ended up in what sounds like and is a hotbed of 21st century Hippy culture- the Root.  It's terribly crowded in here.  Because I'm reading Les Miserables right now, I'm reminded that this is the sort of place where the French Revolution started.

No one here is starting the French Revolution.  I can only hope, in some way, I'll get to be a part of what I envision as something of a Cleveland revolution.

But we're here, in a nice, alternative, sort of town on the west side of Cleveland.  Lakewood's the closest thing to a college town lacking a college as I've ever been.  It feels more like a college town than most towns I've ever visited.  But it's still Llakewood.  It's still, at its core, a nice-ish sort of place.

I can't speak for anyone else in here anyway.  At best, most people are just hanging out or doing homework.  I like the vibe in this place, and the coffee's pretty good.  If it's always this crowded, I don't think I'll ever really be able to work here.  But I can hang out here- it's like George House North, but far more granola.

This afternoon, I was on the East side.  I missed my exit going to a Bible study to which no one showed up.  I needed gas, so I stopped at a Marathon on E. 55th.  That's in the heart of Hough- very much one of Clevelands formerly organized and now de facto ghettos.  In this part of town, there's a gas station on every corner.  As such, I wasn't surprised when someone asked me, the moment I got out of my car, if I could help him get something to eat.  I wanted to.  I always want to.  I'm a remarkable sucker for anyone asking for anything on the street.  But I had to get going, so I told him I'd talk to him after I pumped my gas.  He waited for me, didn't get too close.  I didn't have much cash on me, but he let me get him a corned beef sandwich (in Cleveland, more places sell those than don't).  As we waited, I talked to him a bit.  His name is Bruce.  He's in the homeless donut hole, so to speak.  He is waiting to get his birth certificate so he can get his i.d. and move into a shelter.  As he put it, he's living on the streets right now, just him and God.

I don't know if I could have done more.  I don't know if he would have let me anyway.  I hope and pray he found somewhere to sleep tonight, even while I noticed, myself stuck outside for a bit this evening, that it's getting colder by the minute in Cleveland tonight.  I probably won't see him again.  But I'll pray for him, as often as I remember, as often as I can.

I left Bruce, as he walked across the street, toward Burger King, for whatever reason, I don't know.  I left knowing that I had no idea what could be done for him.  I don't know anything about the process to get the birth certificate and the id.  I can't do much to anything to help with that, and I don't have any strings I could pull.  I'm glad he got a meal, but what else and how, will his needs be met?  He's not even allowed into the shelter right now.

I missed my exit.  No one came to Bible study.  And yet, today, in a completely accidental, some would say coincidental sort of way, I think I was glad for what I experienced, for where God placed me, more than I've been at all since leaving Wooster.  I'm probably given to hyperbole, I know I often overstate.  But no matter what I've done in my IV staff career, or what I've yet to do, I know my calling is to Cleveland, to the homeless, to the disenfranchised, to those in the midst of a struggle tied to legal red tape.  And that's why I have to go to law school.  It doesn't take a law degree to buy someone a corned beef sandwich, but I've been thinking, all day, about how I would at least have had the opportunity to do something more for Bruce today, and could do more for people like him in the future, if I had more knowledge, more resources.  I was more excited to talk to Bruce today, to buy him a corned beef sandwich, than I've ever been for coffee with even the most stellar student.  InterVarsity does great work, but I'm so sure, right now, that the rest of my life has to be directly tied and devoted to whatever "the least of these" means in Cleveland.  InterVarsity fights for justice and raises all sorts of awareness.  But all of that only matters when it is actually spurring students, upon graduation, into fields that do the same.  Art, law, business, medicine, all require the hope and love of Christ if we're actually going to see the world changed.  I'm glad for InterVarsity staff.  I'm hopeful more and more will come on.  But I know it's not for me.  It's not how I'm wired, not anymore at least.

We're all made differently.  At Urbana '06, it was all about "the calling you have received."  It was there that I decided I was going into law for the wrong reasons, and that's the starting point of the journey that took me onto staff.  But, in its own way, that's the starting point that got me back to a law career.  I couldn't admit that I was doing the right thing, had I never abandoned it then.  Now, I know, deeper than almost all else, that I'm doing the wrong thing to do anything else.  Bruce needs people to fight for him.  Legally, I'm not even sure he exists right now.  Even so, even farther than that, he's one of the realest people I've ever met in Cleveland.

I don't want to sound like there's a dichotomy between staff/law/anything else as right/wrong/anything.  It's not that.  But we are who we are because that's the person God made us to be.  It's a great thing to be on InterVarsity staff and say yes to God, saying yes to the field of vocational ministry.  It's a dangerous and foolish thing though, to say yes to vocational ministry and say no to God at the same time.  I said yes to God last fall, fully and finally.  Today, in the person of Bruce, God answered a resounding "Welcome to reality" right back.

Pray for Bruce.  Pray for Cleveland.
-Zack