Translating yourself

Two arts and artist and creative types-related books. Both linked over there on the sidebar.

Of course I had to read The Story of Charlotte’s Web. 

My mother was a children’s librarian for a short while and had a theory about Charlotte’s Web. She hypothesized that one of the reasons for the book’s appeal was that White had taken three creatures that were generally reviled by humans – a spider, a rat, and a pig – and rendered them appealing and…well…human.

I read the book again and again as a child – along with Stuart Little and Harriet the Spy – my most re-read books.

When I think of Charlotte’s Web, I can’t disengage it from Garth Williams’ illustrations.  It evokes…softness..in my mind’s eye. Not a frilly, girly softness, but the softness of natural things, of wrinkles, of a well-worn life.

The Story of Charlotte’s Web is a biography of sorts, and an interesting one.  It’s also an invaluable peak into the creative process.

Sometimes we think that art springs from nowhere – but it never does.  We think that an E.B. White must have just received the story of a threatened little runt and the spider who saves him from nowhere and just written down in a spell. But that’s not the case at all, of course.  I loved this book because the author traced the origins of Charlotte’s Web  back to White’s childhood then back up through his adulthood and really – it all made such sense .  There’s gift, there’s astonishing newness, but what brought Charlotte and Wilbur to life was not a bolt out of the blue, but one man taking his own past and present, his observations and his drive, and fashioning them into a story. He said outright that the process was one of “translating” his own life and spirit into the unexpected form of a children’s book.

(And the title of this blog? The very last line of the novel? An interesting provenance – as they say.  The roots of it were in a spirited defense White’s wife gave of him. He essentially adapted it from her own words. )

I also learned a bit about Stuart Little.  I’m ashamed to say that I had always thought that Stuart Little had been written after Charlotte – but of course that’s not the case.  I have written before about Stuart Little.  As a child I actually always preferred Stuart.  Partly, I think,because I was always fascinated by stories of the very small (The Borrowers and so on). But I do think I was also taken with the ambiguity and strangeness of those last few chapters.  Of the fact that Stuart just books it and leaves his family. Of the oddness of his search for Margo. Of his temper tantrum at the lake.  Of his search.

And reading this book – Stuart Little makes a lot more sense now.

(Except for the author’s contention that White himself said that Stuart was not a mouse – but a child who looked like a mouse.  I could not pin this down, and I don’t agree.  I believe it’s one of the charming aspects of the book that evokes the innocence of childhood and the power of the artist who could convince you to accept his premise – and so effortlessly. I remember reading this as a child and wondering – but very briefly – how this could be.  But also not being distracted by it in the least.)

(Kerry Madden has a much better review of the book in the Los Angeles Review of Books.  Kerry Madden who – in one of the weirder “small world” moments of my life – was a year (or two? I’m not sure)  behind me in high school, went to UT,  who my friend Meggan & I are certain we met through the Catholic student center, who lived in LA for years and years,  has written children’s books,  and now lives…in Birmingham…and,  like me,  was a speaker at “Ultimate Author Day” at my children’s school last spring.  Weird? Yes indeed.  And when you consider that author Marcos Villatoro also went to Knoxville Catholic High School – he was a year behind me  and somehow, for some reason,  we carpooled for a short time – looks like a literary festival should be in the making – if anyone’s thinking.   Oh…and that other guy…that other KCHS alumnus who did some writing…what’s his name?  Mac something? Oh, right….Cormac. )

Now. The Family Fang.

I had high hopes for The Family Fang.  Killer premise:  performance art parents have children whom they royally screw up via the performance art.   Sets up all kinds of interesting questions about what art is – remember how E.B. White admitted that what he was doing was “translating” himself?  The artists in this book – parents and children – are trying to figure that out, too. Trying to figure out the most authentic way of doing that. The parents reject anything that claims to be “art” that puts any medium between the artist and life, embracing the idea that the “art” is how you react to me exploding into your life. The children are used in this process and grow up predictably skewed from the experience, but still unable to disengage from the process, unable to figure out how they fit into their parent’s lives and work.

The novel has been well-reviewed and I will say that I didn’t hate it  at all.  It was not a waste of a read.  But in the end – the last quarter or so –  the book lost its authenticity and became formulaic, and reading it became an exercise in waiting for the dots to connect in the way you fully expected they would.

Where it’s most powerful, though, is in ways that have less to do with art than to do with parenting and family dynamics.   You may not be a mother or father using your child to creating a happening in a shopping mall, but if you are a parent you have attempted to shape your child in some way, hoping that their lives will say something about your life too, and about Life. If you are a child – which every one of you are – you have wondered what the hell your parents were doing to you and why – and if all of that was for your sake or really for their sake the whole time.

Art. Life.

The medium varies.

But no matter what: we’re translating ourselves.  In hope that someone, somewhere will understand. And accept.