In the course of surfing hither and thither to find material for an article, I came across a beautifully written piece by Canadian writer/performer Cass King on writing about sex and love. Sex, she says, is easy enough to write about satirically because it's a fairly ridiculous act, innit? (And she gives a delightful example vaginas making noises like whopee cushions! Well, hers might ...)
But:
Writing about love, on the other hand, is like shooting at pineapples in the dark. It is dangerous, messy, terrifying. Writing about love is wrestling with weird ghosts, ectoplasmic riots of the spirit, intoxication of the senses. Love is the Bermuda Triangle of the intellect, the place where reason lists to starboard and navigational instruments become unreliable. I'm not one to believe in love as a falling; love never seems so passive. Infatuation can be uncontrollable, but to me, true lovers are pumpers of handcarts on old-fashioned railways. Love requires effort; sweating, swaying, holding on for dear life, that is being in love.As a cautionary note she adds:
But writing about love is thankless; it's like writing about old dogs at the pound: nobody really gives a damn about love unless it belongs to them.The great writer is the one who can make the reader feel that that love belongs to them too. Who manages it? Neruda, Rumi, Shakespeare, de Bernieres ...
Footnote:
I spent a very happy hour getting lost in Cass' website. Check out her poetry and (if you're 18+ and not a prude!) her pieces for Organ Grinder which yes, is a sex column.
6 comments:
"Why else would the Creator have invented vaginas that occasionally sound like whoopee-cushions?"
Hahahahhahahah....what a riot this piece was Sharon!
Check out those erotic short pieces by Anais Nin. She wrote them without any gushing; very direct but very sexy. And also Story of O.
Yes, Leon, she's a favourite ...
"The great writer is the one who can make the reader feel that that love belongs to them too. Who manages it? Neruda, Rumi, Shakespeare, de Bernieres ..."
..and Terry Pratchett. Seriously. He's got great characterization. You look at these two people and you can see the chemistry, although both of them are denying it in the book. That's the best kidn of writing I think, to not tell the reader that they're in love, but to create a situation that is so familiar to so many people that you look at these two people and think "they're in love and they don't know it."
That's the best kind of writing I think, to not tell the reader that they're in love, but to create a situation that is so familiar to so many people that you look at these two people and think "they're in love and they don't know it."
Yes, well said. Now I have to read Pratchett ... (More bookguilt.)
"That's the best kind of writing I think, to not tell the reader that they're in love, but to create a situation ... "
Yup, that's what makes good writing - show, don't tell.
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