The Body’s Long Madness
It is with an understandable difficulty that I attempt to articulate what this book is briefly about. I would like to say it is impossible but I know it isn’t, simply deeply personal. It is easier to write about writing it, which I have here and here. To say that it eludes description is also a lie; it’s going to have to be described, one day or another, by me or by someone else. Shouldn’t I then be the one to start?
The book has gone through many transformations, but is basically what I began writing, what I have continued writing, for a broken five years running. The last year and a half I’ve worked steady and in another half a year it should be ready. When I mean ready I mean beginning another process that I know nothing about: Getting it published. But I don’t think about that yet…
Written first person, The Body’s Long Madness is autobiographical, but it is fiction. I’ve vacillated like a see-saw on who would stand the highest behind the dominate podium. The “voice” which won out by loudness and blunt honesty was the impervious “I“—maybe next time Valerie. In a way, the book is about finding this “I”, I guess it is appropriate.
The bulk of the action is set in Rome, where I and other characters figure out what it is we are doing. I’m not talking about the meaning of life here, but the aimless yet not aimless bumping around that we all tend to do and is part of finding one’s own way. Before Rome there is travelling and after Rome there is writing. All of it is still pretty fresh. It’s like holding my heart and trying to describe its functions.
The title, The Body’s Long Madness was taken from Autobiography by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. It is a title very relevant to the story for there is much to-do about “The Body.” Mainly young women’s relationships to their body, by their person, in society, among pressures, men, etc. Four females help me explore this better: I, Arianna, Elina and Katherine.
Along the way I have posted many excerpts. These are from various drafts. As I have gotten nearer to yet another end of yet another draft I have found myself wanting to keep the words to myself, to let them sit, to let them ferment. Here is what there is:
The Firsts: Four first lines I have struggled with.
Characters: Isaac, Arianna, Klaus
Travelling: The Train, Brittany #1111, How Sonia Slept, Eid ul-Adha, The Desert Nomad
Rome: Behold! A Pantheon, On a Bench
Inspired: Reflections, Blood and Guts, Femininity and the Present, The Tree with its Life in the Air, SEX
In addition, here are two Short Stories (completely unrelated): Of Death and the Garden and The Children