THE EARTHRISE DIARY (SPRING 2015)
DON DIESPECKER
© Text, Don
Diespecker (2015); guest writers retain their ©
Writing is in itself a joy,
Yet saints and sages have long since held it in awe.
For it is being, created by tasking the great void;
And it is sound rung out of profound silence.
In a sheet of paper is contained the infinite,
And evolved from an inch-sized heart an endless panorama.
The words, as they expand become all-evocative,
The thought, still further pursued, will run the deeper,
Till flowers in full blossom exhale all-pervading fragrance,
And tender boughs, their saps running, grow to a whole jungle of
splendor.
Bright winds spread luminous wings quick breezes soar from the earth,
And, nimbus-like
amidst all these, rises the glory of the literary world.
Lu Chi: The Joy of Writing (translated lines)
[Or] Introspect on when you last went
swimming: I suspect you have an image of a seashore, lake, or pool which is
largely a retrospection, but when it comes to yourself swimming, lo! like Nijinsky
in his dance, you are seeing yourself swim, something that you have never
observed at all!
Julian Jaynes: The
Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of The Bicameral Mind.
The sea is high again
today, with a thrilling flush of wind. In the midst of winter you can feel the
inventions of spring. A sky of hot nude pearl until midday, crickets in
sheltered places, and now the wind unpacking the great planes, ransacking the
great planes…
Lawrence Durrell: Justine
This edition of the Diary is dedicated to the memory of Susan Adams
(1957-2015). Susan and Kerry Smith co-wrote the 4-WD (Outback) essays that
appeared in recent issues of the Diary.
CHARIVARI
August 29 2015. At
winter’s end I totter down to Big
Lawn feeling light, airy. Perhaps it’s the weather at the cusp of spring. And I
can still hear Sibelius’ music in my head and also feel it or something akin to
it in my hand because I’m taking the battery/dynamo radio with me and also
using the other hand and the other arm to conduct the Sibelius Fifth, an
exercise that works well for my pleasure. I’ve decided to cancel any agonizing
over what to draft into a developing novel and am now happy that I abandoned my
indecisiveness simply by starting three new books instead of merely one and
thereby adding a touch of anxiety to my writer role. I suspect a touch of angst
might be inspiring. Gather ye rosebuds. And yesterday morning I was wrestling
wild blue ageratum (ageratum is what it appears to me to be), mist flower and
blackjack all of those vagabond weeds on the (or on “my”) roadside bank (it’s
Council land really, the bank and verge and a concreted stormwater drain that
Council had themselves placed and which their bank profiling guys passed by
without risking their slasher blades
on their generously concreted
roadside ditch, if you see what I mean). Floods in recent years have always
left their river-delivered gifts spread over nearby lawns, gardens and roadside
verges. Weed wrestling is a good exercise and also can be meditative if you’re
willing to be mindful concerning your Outside time. The roadside stormwater
ditch is also choked with debris that otherwise by now would have washed down
to the river a few metres away. This debris includes broken branches and some
small logs all of which have tried their best with a little assistance from
meagre rain to reach the river and then sail away. I start moving the biggest
and have my hands full as I stagger riverward with the decaying wood. Who
lives next to both river and road experiences the most bountiful of roadside stormwater
debris and rubbish from further up the road that unfailingly blocks the Council
stormwater ditches and distributes debris onto Darkwood Road (Old Earthrise saying).
September 8 2015.
The first of the spring reptiles to greet me is a black goanna that pops up in
several locations during the afternoon. We stare with interest at each other.
The goanna seems unfazed. I busy myself with trimming and reducing tree debris
at the back of the house and from a respectful distance the youthful goanna and
the old retainer keep wary eyes on one another. He or she isn’t at all big but
is probably hungry. For those not used to these critters: goannas eat big
venomous snakes for breakfast, they move quickly when they need to and they
also relish very old bits of flesh. I reflect on the toxicity of a goanna’s
teeth.
September 10 2015.
Two birds are (from my perspective) hassling on Big Lawn near the road. I
realize that one of them is a noisy drongo: the first of the gang to arrive
from wintering in the far north. If I’m correct, there will be several more to
follow this vanguard arrival in the next few days. That goes for snakes and
goannas, too.
October 6 2015.
Not only is it warmer than mild and just about hot: the air is now hugely
humid. The humidity follows five days (last week) of no access to email and the
Internet (plus a sixth day following the Labour Day long weekend holiday). No
explanation is forthcoming either from the all-powerful Telstra or from any of
the media. Perhaps that hardly matters in the Darkwood and Upper Thora? The
Valley community is geographically stretched along the Bellinger’s twisty
course. Valley residents like me appreciate communications that are reliable:
some locals operate their businesses via phones and the landline. There’s no
doubt that such failure for whatever reason in any of Australian cities would
not take five or six days to remedy: faults and failures would be fixed within
hours.
October 11 2015.
Today is hot. I take my brisk walk
late in the morning. I see that some gateway entrances to properties have been
partly “blocked” by lines of rope or twine and a chunk of cardboard on the line
implies “Cattle” will be moving along the road. A ute pulling a horse float
stops alongside me and a passenger confirms cattle are being moved along the
road. There’s never a dull moment here. I hasten home and rig a tawdry line at
short notice and only just in time. There’s a rider shooing the herd from
horseback as I gallop to and fro discouraging cattle from a serendipitously
found green pasture (that’s this property,
unfenced these days following numerous breaks in 30-years old poor grade steel
fencing wire and the theft and also the destruction of some bloodwood posts
that would otherwise have lasted many more years). The bellowing cattle are
chivvied down the road and over the bridge; a cloud of dust marks their
passage; there’s been no invasion or damage; normalcy restarts.
November 7 2015.
Suddenly it’s the end of the first week of November: this year feels like the fastest
ever and the pace of being retired at this time increases: a probably good sign
of increasing necessary activity on my part, rather than unhealthy inactivity.
I’ve been reflecting on my inability to prevent the occasional rodent from
dropping by on unannounced visits. The house has been well secured and
continues to be well protected thanks to Pete Thompson’s meticulous works of
repair, renovation and restoration. Small rodents however, and without the
benefit of university degrees or magic or of levitation have all too easily
penetrated the Don Bunker. Whatever the rodent tactics are, they are apparently
best employed when I’m at my sleepiest: 02:00, 03:00 or thereabouts, times when
I’m supposedly deeply asleep. I say supposedly because I’m generally a light
sleeper and wake to the smallest of sounds: the discreet sneeze of a mosquito,
the grooming scratch of a freeloader rodent. There are exceptions though. If there’s a colonising or a
freeloading snake close by, the four-footers lie watchfully low in dark
recesses such as the spaces between the outside weather boards with their
minute apertures here and there and the inside walls, such spaces fortressed by
the studs and battens comprising the wooden frame of the walls. It’s hardly
credible but some snakes are also able to penetrate where there seem neither
ingress or egress points (it’s all my fault because I built the original walls
as well as the roof). And as strange as it may seem snakes are particularly
noisy in and on and around my house. It’s hard for me to be kind to snakes or
ever to think affectionately of them, any of them, all of them. It’s at about
this time, November under way, with me resting on my bed late in the day that I
hear snake activity. These times of relaxation are partly for regrouping and
partly for fantasizing and imagining forthcoming
scenes and dialogue in the current novel being drafted (it’s also head work that looks like relaxation; there has
to be some time for reflecting quietly on the developing story)…
Snaky interruptions are never welcome. There was a time when
snakes appeared outside and anywhere near the house or on the house and even in
it if they could wangle a way inside: they would be here, there and everywhere
a few days prior to mid-September. Recently I was relaxed, busily reflecting
and imagining in the late afternoon when the obvious sounds (right over my head
and in the ceiling this time) of a 300-kg mountain gorilla suddenly
concentrated my mind. Strangely, it wasn’t a gorilla at all. The ruckus died down.
I was wary; I was suspicious. The light was fading now. I stood up and searched
with an LED torch beam: there was nothing to be seen inside on the top floor of
the house. Finally I peered through the glass wall at the end of my bed. Above
the outside deck with its wonderful downstream views two snakes were
socializing on a rafter, perhaps in amorous embrace and a third considerably
bigger, thicker, longer serpent lay aloof on an adjoining rafter. Each of the
three snakes was a bright pink. Could
these be the same ones that put on a similar display last spring and were they
also variants (if such is possible) of what locals vaguely refer to as “night
tiger” snakes? Good question! I don’t know the answer. Over the years most of
the springtime snakes up here at Master Bedroom altitude (where at least twice
they’ve managed to drop playfully on to my bed before we engaged in astounding
and deadly duels won ultimately by me: such reptiles used always to be grey with a few drab maroon or perhaps
pinkish lengthwise stripes). The so-called “night tiger” has a small head and
is surprisingly venomous. The 2015 guys are a bright pink with no stripes. They do have small heads,
though. On November 22 I found a snakeskin (that had been shed) on the TV
antennae (the antennae that’s fixed to the handrails of the outside deck (or
balcony) upstairs. I carefully recovered the skin from the antennae and a
rampant tree fern that likes heights and measured the skin when straightened on
the floor: 1.93-m and without identifying markings. This probably was discarded
by The Third Snake I’d seen previously: of the other two serpents: no skins so
far to litter the deck. Two metres is no great length for some local snakes:
the pythons here are bigger and longer (and sometimes apparently cooperative
when I encouraged one (at a time) on to the end of a long and strong bamboo
before dashing away with it downstairs and then outside, as distantly as
possible where I would leave the pole and its burden in a place well beyond my
house. Snakes come with the territory: on occasion they even visit houses in
towns and cities: you city folk might need to check your homes, too…
Drongos generally fly in during early September from their
wintering somewhere in the Deep North: they’re late this year. How on earth do the same (presumably
the same) birds manage to leave here in late summer, travel thousands of
kilometres and return to this place in the spring as if on cue?). I don’t need
to know, but I would love to find out. Swallows travel great distances too:
when they appear on the river and at the bridges, my intuition is that they
often must be the same birds that
I’ve previously seen in the same places…
November 28 2015.
Staring moodily through the drizzle from my eyrie yesterday afternoon I’m pleasantly
tired after 2 ½ hours of mowing the lawns. Other lively creatures seen recently
include a bunch of healthy-looking bees (hardly a swarm) determinedly parked on and seemingly sending out scouts from the birdbath, of all places, that’s
been on the belvedere riverbank edge for years. What on earth has drawn them to
this location? The old faithful ever-flowering red salvia adjoins the birdbath.
Perhaps the birdbath on the belvedere is becoming a hangout for bees as well as
for humans?
Recently what I first saw as a large wallaby hopped up on
the stone wall of the Dog’s Garden and thoughtfully chewed on the remains of my
one and only blue rose: but it was surely too big (about twice the size) to
have been a wallaby: stalwart kangaroos are surely a rare sight in the Valley.
November 28 2015.
This has been one of the more peculiar springs.
The temperature here two days ago was 34˚ C; down the road at Newcastle, it was
42˚. One day is hot and the following day is cool and also very humid. Some
butterflies have resumed operations (particularly the white ones that fly so
unerringly though the tree canopies whilst climbing). Small black flying ants
have issued from the hot and damp earth and expired on and in the house. On
November 18 during the early evening the first sinister sounds of awakening
cicadas were heard: their beating will be increasingly heard through the likely
hot summer. Squadrons of midges and suchlike miniatures have control of the
shaded belvedere and are comfortably holding this and adjacent territory as
though having annexed these areas. At dusk the ascending flights of fireflies
bring a fleeting beauty to the steep hillside behind the house. I imagine kid’s
stories for grownups that feature collaborations between butterflies and
fireflies (that implies another Midgeworld book, I feel, like The Midge Toccata listed below).
The variable
weather here has played a part in the collapse of several trees and of heavy
branches breaking. Looking up from a kitchen window I was surprised to see a ‘Moreton
Bay chestnut’ (I think that’s what it
is) flowering. There are so many tall trees on high ground and the steep slopes
above the house that it’s difficult to distinguish species.
*
NOT SO MUCH AN EDITORIAL AS A WORDY STATEMENT
I’ve not been one for editorializing although I do like to
be clear about what I write. I still have the tattered remains of my first
‘short story’: it was scrawled in pencil and featured a heroic aviator who flew
his biplane over jungles. I was aged about ten and living in Pilgrim’s Rest, an
alpine part of the old Transvaal. A year or so later in 1940 I was using Dad’s
old Royal typewriter to compose my first ‘newspaper’: short pieces based on the
news from real newspapers that were published in Johannesburg (and were always a
day or so old by the time they reached us). My uncle, Dick Diespecker in
Vancouver, BC, a newspaper and later a radio journalist, also was a published
poet and a novelist and importantly for me was also my childhood writer-hero
and later, mentor.
In old age I love now to write in different styles or
different tenses, particularly when writing prose fiction. And I particularly
enjoy writing novels that tend these days to be present-tense compositions and
sometimes I like to please myself by writing fiction in mixed styles (James
Joyce wrote Ulysses in mixed styles
and it’s my opinion that Ulysses is
an astonishing work of art).
As a writer I have certain bad habits one of the worst of
which is long-windedness. I’m going to make another point or two about writing
and you’ll see what I’m presently getting at. Here’s the first point: one my
favourite teachers in high school (Mansfield High School, Durban) was Joyce
Kidger who taught English (and I particularly remember her teaching about
literature). Joyce Kidger also encouraged me to write in several ways. She
kindly lent me some of her books (written largely by British and American
novelists). One Saturday morning whilst searching a popular second hand
bookstore I discovered The Essential
Hemingway a hardcover book that I still have and which now is much worn
(there is one complete novel, extracts from three others, twenty-three short
stories and a chapter from Death in the
Afternoon). The complete novel is Fiesta
(The Sun Also Rises). That Fiesta
was the first Hemingway (1898-1961)
novel was a revelation to me because it was published in 1926 when he was in
his mid to late twenties. I learned about aspects of writing and style that
particularly interested me and I also was inspired to travel to Europe, where I
intentionally chose to live and work in Paris for some months. Another
favourite High School teacher was Oscar Palin, my science teacher who was also
an instructor to the school’s Cadet Corps: he taught me how to shoot straight
and we later became friends when I’d completed high school. I like to give
characters and protagonists in my stories composite names that memorialize
friends and teachers from my past (“Avra Palin” in Success (and also in the draft “Excess” is a character whose names
were borrowed from Avra Pavlatos who lived in Greece when Pam and I met her in
1954; Oscar Palin was my high school Science teacher in the 1940s). Now I’m
remembering the graffiti chiselled in a broken temple column on the coast near
Athens: “BYRON”.
The second point: in 1951 Paris I met many students and
young writers who were doing what I was doing: hitching around, meeting my
contemporaries from many countries. Some who were university or college
students explained that the best way to properly learn about James Joyce’s Ulysses, for example, was to study such
writing at university which several years later I was able to do in Newcastle,
NSW, (where Professor Clive Hart was a renowned scholar specialising in the
works of James Joyce). Later still, I was also attracted to the writings of
Virginia Woolf.
Dear Reader, I’m tempted to write much more about myself as
an apprentice writer but will resist. Writing, whoever is doing it, begins in
our minds as words that we have learned. We use learned words when we think and
reason and daydream and compose. From the heavenly whirl of words and languages
in our wondrous minds our wonderful brains, we scribble or tap keys and buttons
to make artworks. Shopping lists, diary and journal notes, novels, poems, our
names chiselled or painted, our experimental and research reports our published
papers, military orders, dispatches, prayers, music, songs and the lyrics of
playwright and hundreds of other writings including graffiti. All these
writings are artworks whether we like it or not: words and legible other
symbols that we produce enable our communicating one with another. Words spoken and then also written thousands of years ago may be
accessed, read and understood in this
era.
I recently decided to discontinue composing monthly Earthrise
Diaries and then to publish only four seasonal ones each year because
retirement is a busy time. Selfishly now, I’ll be publishing The Earthrise Diary infrequently so that
I can use my writing time to complete personal works (particularly novels as
well as non-fiction anthologies). Paradoxically I’ve also decided that future
Diaries will emphasize what I’m calling The
Environment and Our Being In The World.
This label might look clumsy but it will cover topics that are a concern for
most of us: health and illth (the abbreviation for ill health), lifestyle, the
health and processes of our planet (such as global warming and climate change).
The first items (see below) that will I hope highlight some of these concerns
now get at least a mention although they deserve comprehensive discussed in a
new section. For those readers who may not know: The Earthrise Diary currently has readers in Australia, Canada, the
USA, the UK, France, Germany, Israel and South Africa (and possibly in other
countries, also).
If you are a regular Diary
reader and have experiences or views or knowledge that may be relevant and
appropriate for the new section in this Diary, please share by emailing copy to
me. I’ll include copy that requires little or no editing: paragraphs, longer
essays written in Times New Roman 12-pt or similar sent as Word attachments. No
poetry, thanks (we all write poetry and authenticating its themes would be
unrealistic). I’m inviting prose writings, particularly those that include factual information that’s reliable
because it’s proven or has been fact checked. Your views and opinions and
suggestions may also be considered.
*
THE ENVIRONMENT AND OUR BEING IN THE WORLD
Fluoridation of water
supplies is an emotion-charged subject, but is linked with a potentially
serious health hazard, fluoride pollution, and it must be discussed. The
scientific evidence supporting the efficacy and safety of mass fluoridation is
not as good as it ought to be, but neither is there convincing evidence that it
is harmful. Although there are certainly some “cranks” in the anti-fluoridation
school, there are also some serious and competent scientists and responsible
laymen who have been unmercifully abused because of the position they have
taken on this controversial issue. Individual treatment with fluoride is simple
and can be supplied cheaply on public funds for those desirous of using
it.
Fluoride pollution is
a serious problem. Fluorides are discharged into the air from steel, aluminium,
phosphate, glass, pottery, and brick works. It can add to the fluoride uptake
of individuals who drink fluoridated water. In addition, increased fluoride
concentration has been detected in foods and beverages processed in communities
supplied with fluoridated water. The difference between “safe” and “unsafe”
levels of fluoride uptake is small and it is clear that some people in
fluoridated communities and elsewhere are now taking in more than the official
“safe” level (there is evidence that even this level may be unsafe for certain
people). Fluoride pollution and water fluoridation should be monitored much
more closely, and a way must be found to assay the benefits and dangers of
fluoridation in a much calmer atmosphere than has prevailed over the past
decade or so.
Paul R Ehrlich and Anne H Ehrlich: POPULATION, RESOURCES, ENVIRONMENT:
Issues in Human Ecology (1970, 1972).
The deterioration of
our natural environment has been accompanied by a corresponding increase in
health problems of individuals. Whereas nutritional and infectious disease are
the greatest killers in the Third World, the industrialized countries are
plagued by the chronic and degenerative diseases appropriately called “diseases
of civilization,” the principal killers being heart disease, cancer and
strokes, and strokes. On the psychological side, severe depression,
schizophrenia, and other psychiatric disorders appear to spring from a parallel
deterioration of our social environment. There are numerous signs of social
disintegration, including a rise in violent crimes, accidents, and suicides;
increased alcoholism and drug abuse; and growing numbers of children with
learning disabilities and behavioural disorders. The rise in violent crime and
suicides by young people is so dramatic that it has been called an epidemic of
violent deaths. At the same time, the loss of young lives from accidents,
especially motor accidents, is twenty times higher than the death rate from
polio when it was at its worst. According to health economist Victor Fuchs, “
‘epidemic’ is almost too weak a word to describe this situation.”
Along with these
social pathologies we have been witnessing economic anomalies that seem to
confound all our leading economists and politicians. Rampant inflation, massive
unemployment, and a great mal-distribution of income and wealth have become
structural features of most national economies. The resulting dismay among the
general public and its appointed leaders is aggravated by the perception that
energy and natural resources—the basic ingredients of all industrial activity—are
rapidly being depleted.
Fritjof Capra: THE TURNING POINT: Science, Society, and The Rising Culture (1982).
BEGININGS
I’ve intentionally chosen overlong quotations as epigraphs
to this new Diary section. Notice that the Ehrlich and Ehrlich text was first
published 45-years ago in 1970. In 1970 I began teaching psychology at The
University of Wollongong (NSW). I had made a point of first discussing with my
colleagues the Ehrlich book (intended as the chosen text for first year
Introductory Psychology). My colleagues were critical: the title implied
disciplines other than psychology. My argument, viz., that each of the three
principal words in the book’s title related unequivocally to aspects of human
behaviour, persuaded them, though grudgingly and the Ehrlich book became the
set text. (Subsequently there were fewer objections to my having chosen a text
by a physicist for my Third Year Health Psychology course).
The views and sentiments in the above quoted passages would
perhaps not be surprising or out of place in this era and that also implies
that there might not have been much change in the past 45-years in some of our
contemporary thinking about the health of our societies in Australia as well as
in other Western countries.
I experienced similar difficulties when several years later
I had a tougher job introducing (as 300-level teaching courses) “Humanistic
Psychology” (as the psychology of the whole person); “The Psychology of
Health”; and “Consciousness.”
I make this point: when in the 1970s and the 1980s I
introduced as teaching subjects in psychology in The University of Wollongong
(NSW), courses on Humanistic Psychology, The Psychology of Health, as well as
Consciousness, they were to the best of my knowledge the first of their kind to
be offered in an Australian university. Perhaps the conservative and defensive
thinking that I imply here has now changed? I don’t know and I doubt any of my then “radical” approaches to teaching
psychology in the 1970s and 1980s have survived as contemporary courses offered
in 2015. (Most of my writings in old age are currently available as eBook
novels and anthologies of essays written about life and nature in the Bellinger
River Valley: Google my name + Amazon/Kindle or see the appended list at the
end of this blog). “Retirement,” whatever that may mean to you is proving to me
that retiring is absolutely the busiest of experiences and is, as well, the
time of my life. This is the time too to share some of what may be helpful to
anyone reading this.
Another point: old age whatever else it may be is not the
time to be sitting restfully doing nothing beyond trying to comprehend how
quickly time seems to be passing so quickly. Old age is also Opportunity Time:
rather than sitting idly, consider working harder
to be healthy, working harder to continue doing what you best can do.
There was a compelling segment in The Science Show broadcast
on November 21 2015 (ABC Radio National) (in Australia). That segment was about
vigorous exercise following cancer
surgery and so-called chemo. A rest regime would seem to be the sensible thing
to do following a harrowing illness + treatment or surgery. Our immune systems
do the best they can to return us to health but their further stimulation by
hard exercise will ensure that the immune system is encouraged to work at its
best by the patient doing lots of exercise that will probably seem as extreme
by proponents of rest.
At this point I introduce to you my good friend, Bruce
Furner whom I’ve known since 1961 when I was a mature age student and we were
both First Year psychology students at Newcastle University College that later
became The University of Newcastle (NSW). Bruce and Tracey Furner were
listening to The Science Show, as was I, on November 21 2015.
Bru Furner writes:
I was recently diagnosed with lymphoma and have just commenced two years
of treatment, the initial period of six months being RCHOP Chemotherapy, 8
sessions at intervals of three weeks. I was told to rest after treatment, but research
carried out by Professor Rob Newton at Edith Cowan University, Western
Australia strongly supports the adoption of strong physical activity throughout
the treatment period. This activity should comprise both Aerobic and Anaerobic
exercise.
Benefits appear to be a reduction in side effects of the chemo and
better long-term outcomes. In addition, it has long been known that regular
exercise is helpful in maintaining a positive emotional state.
At a purely intuitive level it seems obvious to me that being physically
fit is a big plus in dealing with any health problems. So, despite being
told by nursing staff to rest after chemo I have begun to exercise. I like the
feeling of being active, of drawing in more oxygen, which cancers hate, and of
not being a passive recipient of treatment.
Prof Newton has suggested that the exercise schedule that I pursue
should be tailored to my own circumstances and in particular to the type of
treatment that I am receiving. He suggested that I seek the advice of an
accredited exercise physiologist.
In addition to exercise I have been looking very closely at diet and
have consulted with a dietitian and a nutritionist and biochemist. This is
another whole (and massive) field of inquiry.
Also included in my treatment regime is the practice of meditation of
which I have many years of experience and regular tai chi that is of course a
moving meditation.
I've also been advised to drink between 2- and 3-litres of water a day.
I'm not au fait with the pros and cons of different waters but we use filtered
water for all drinking and cooking purposes.
Bruce adds: There is lots of information about diets on
the web and the link to the Science Show featuring Prof Newton is: Exercise
and cancer on The Science Show - ABC Radio - https://radio.abc.net.au/programitem/pen5DBG4N3?play=true
*
I was encouraged both
by Bru’s words and by information that readers may find and follow at Edith
Cowan University (e.g., Google Edith Cowan University + Exercise Medicine).
"Edith Cowan University’s Exercise Medicine Research Institute is a
cross-disciplinary alliance of research centres and expertise with extensive
national and international linkages. It is the first institute of its kind at
an Australian University bringing together an expert team of researchers
committed to improving community health and wellbeing. In partnership with
national and international networks, it enhances collaboration and promotes a
holistic approach to health and lifestyle".
*
Potable
water will surely be a promising topic for readers to explore provided there
are relevant and appropriate articles that can be found via the Internet. One
of my fantasies is that “potable water” has surely attracted researchers around
the world, but what if it has not been intensively studied where each of us
lives? I use a Firefighters pump to lift river water to a storage tank and use
a smaller pump to bring water as required to the house (the small pump is
electrical and set to keep water in the line under pressure). Before the “house
water” is reticulated it passes through a paper filter that hopefully removes
all or most of the organic material likely to be harmful. For the past 30-odd
years I’ve always boiled water first
before drinking and my cooking water is boiled during cooking. Boiled water is
also used when brushing my teeth (there is no access here to “town water” as,
e.g., may be supplied to households in nearby Bellingen. Violent thunderstorms
these past few days have caused debris and soils to pollute and discolor the
river so that this is not an appropriate time to collect such water). More
recently Pete has installed a (chemical) filter adjacent to the kitchen sink
that produces alkaline water. Some locals also collect rainwater from roofs and
store this in large tanks (but I don’t know what further processes might be
employed on such water).
I imagine
that universities in or close to this region (the Mid North Coast of New South
Wales) may have done research that would distinguish, as health issues,
differences between river water, rainwater, “town water,” chemically filtered
(alkaline) water from various sources, and varieties of “bottled water.” If so,
there would likely be important differences
not only between varieties of water but there would likely also be health differences between those
respondents who drink (and cook with) varieties of water. Or is that
information assumed or taken for granted? What do we know as factual, concerning the water that we use for drinking and
cooking and how might the water that we drink be affecting our health?
Some of my
correspondents have been reading information now readily available on the
Internet. For example: there are indications that although alkaline water is
generally considered to be safe it may also “dilute” (my word) or even
neutralize powerful acids in our digestive systems that we use to break food
down. In other words some water that we drink has the potential to produce side
effects deleterious to our health. Check metabolic alkalosis. “Town water” is
cleaned by certain chemicals before the customer accesses it. To what extent do
we know exactly what our drinking water contains? Thank you for your research
notes and comments, Sharon Snir and Jill Alexander.
If you have
an interest in researching some of these notions on the Internet and also
writing essays: please contact me. We don’t have to be Nobel Prize winners to
review literature on the Internet and to discuss in reports or essays what we
find.
*
CREATIVE WRITING
POSTCARD
from INDONESIA
Peter
Thompson
We’re cruising at 901-kph (ground speed),
somewhere over the Kimberly, WA. Making up for lost time, the outside
temperature is minus 61˚-C and the
inside cabin temperature a comfortable 21˚ -C. I can feel that we’re descending
now as we’re past the halfway mark though nearly two hours from our
destination: Denpasar, Indonesia.
*
Earlier. Our journey begins at about 22:00 hours and we’re well provisioned
for our long journey with nibbles, fruit and alkaline water. We drive for 40-min
to Urunga railway, our tiny local station where we join the North Coast Express
for our five hours journey to Roma St., Brisbane. The train arrives right on
time; there’s no platform announcement: it just stops. We get on and we’re off
in about 60-sec flat. We enter our darkened 1st class car where we
can see just enough to get settled. Our conductor, courteous and efficient,
promptly shows us to our seats: we’re offered two each: that means there’s a
slight chance of our getting some sleep.
We settle in and
find the ride is much smoother than we had imagined. We recline our seats and
settle in for the next five hours although I tend to roll forward whenever the
brakes are applied and also when stationary at lights or stopped at a station,
I waken. Railway crossings brightly lit where roads intersect with railway mean
that it’s advisable to draw the curtain if we want to get any sleep. I’m just
starting to get the hang of this two seat thing when the conductor bursts in,
walks through the carriage with a sense of urgency and the lights are turned
on. There is no announcement: we assume that we’re getting close to our
destination.
Arriving in Brisbane
it is now 3:30 am we were surprised to find a cold breeze on the platform: it
is chilly to put it mildly so we decide to take advantage of the almost
deserted platform and do our morning Tai Chi and meditation. I imagine the
security cameras don’t see that every day! It’s almost as though we are
invisible on this breezy platform as we wait for our connection to the
International terminal; nobody looks directly at the crazy people! Arriving at
Brisbane International Airport we make our way from train station to departure
terminal where we locate a comfortable lounge area and we settle in for a
couple of hours whilst waiting for the check-in to open. It is now 6:00am.
Check-in is quick
and easy: a printed ticket or itinerary is no longer required, just a passport.
Our boarding passes are issued: carry-on luggage is weighed at 7.1-kg each
(just 100-gm over). We have a basic breakfast before heading through the
security, customs and immigration checks to the departure area where there’s
plenty of time for coffee and home baked muffins. We re-stock our precious
water supplies transferring plastic bottled water into our stainless
containers. Our departure has been delayed about 30 minutes, but we are soon on
board a very full Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft waiting our turn to proceed to
the main runway. We have chosen seats at the rear so as to have a little space
and a little it is as we share our aircraft with 331 other passengers.
We’re soon airborne
and climbing, the seatbelt sign is turned off and the passenger in front
reclines her seat almost into my lap. I have just enough room to breathe, but
there’s comfort in the knowing that I can pass the time counting the hairs on
her head that is now about six inches from my face. The word sardine comes to mind, packed in this
alloy and plastic tube we’re hurtling through airspace at ridiculous speeds. We
have now flown nearly 3500-km, three hours have passed and the passengers
appear to be getting restless. Call buttons are franticly lighting up as I
notice on my personal screen (in the back of the seat in front of me) that we
still have just 1 1/2 hours to go. There are queues to all the lavatories, most
likely due to the bumpy descent we are now experiencing.
It feels warmer in
the cabin as we descend perhaps the crew have turned the temperature up,
perhaps the passengers are nervous and getting warmer or perhaps it’s a sign of
what’s below and ahead. I deduce that even the pilots will want to stretch
their legs after four hours of sitting at the cockpit.
Our arrival at Ngurah
Rai International Airport goes smoothly. We’re issued with our VOA’s (visa on
arrival) that means we can stay for pleasure purposes only for 30 days before
we apply for another 30 days. Our friend Katut (Ki-toot) is waiting for us out
front, it’s great to see him after a year and he’s recently married and is expecting
his first child. The usual heavy traffic on route north to Ubud is surprisingly
light; we catch up on all the family news as Ketut has much to share with us.
Balinese wedding rituals are complicated and happen over several months, all
relatives and friends are expected to attend and guest numbers are around 550
for Katut and Iluh. The catering is huge for a large family of hungry
Indonesians: seven pigs are slaughtered and many helpers are required. We’re
making such good time when suddenly we stop and are going nowhere because
there’s a procession ahead and we’ll just have to wait. Rumah Roda, our home
for the next eight days is close but it’s way too hot to walk. We continue our
catch-up with Katut and soon we arrive at our Balinese family compound. It is
nearly 7:00 pm (home time) as we come to the realisation that we’ve been on the
move for 21 hours. Iluh (Ketut’s wife), our adopted Balinese daughter is
waiting for us. There are big, big hugs and lots of smiles. Dharma comes down
to greet us also, as well as Suti (Darter’s wife), Ibu (Darter’s mother), Kadek
and Putu from the kitchen and Koman from the restaurant. It’s great to see our
Balinese family and there are several new smiley faces around as well. Iluh
shows us to our favourite room, number 7, overlooking the entire family
compound. There is a cooling breeze moving through our semi-open room, with
bamboo blinds providing shade from the western sun.
We rest until dark,
freshen up in cool clean well water and then make our way across to the family
restaurant where we meet the head of the family, Suddartha (Darta) who is very
pleased to see us. We catch up then he gestures for us to go up to the
restaurant, relax and have a nice Indonesian meal. We thoroughly enjoy our
delicious Gado Gado and soak up the village ambiance. Life is good!
NOTES FROM AFAR
© Don Diespecker
Dearest One,
Liebling,
Here I am again. At
last I offer my Australian English language letter to you! It is also a letter
at the end of my visit here in New South Wales. I am wishing for this letter to
reach you before we meet again in Germany. Our meeting will be soon my love and
I plan to leave here because I have completed my work. Now you have two
surprises I think? First I write to you in this my new language and second I
advise that I am close to following my letter home to you! Of course you have
read some of what is written here but previously written only in German so my
Australian English writing, my beloved, will seem strange. This letter may
serve us both in the future if we are in English-speaking countries. My
Australian English is not so fluent as your English but I believe you will
understand me. I have been given much assistance to learn to speak this
language and also to write this, my first English letter! My teachers are the
local people who in turn learn some of our German. They are two schoolteacher
friends: Chris who teaches English and his wife Beulah who teaches music! I
could not be more fortunate! I continue to live as a camper in my tent and on
the riverbank in this beautiful Bellinger Valley. The local people here call
this part of the Bellinger Valley “The Darkwood” and it is also the place where
all of my time continues to be lived on the riverbank: it is always so
wonderful a place!
In the middle days of
June I shall begin my return to you my love. I cannot completely believe how
far we now are apart! It is truly a distance unimagined. In my mind the
distance is entirely real: it is a truth of geography, but my heart advises
that we continue to be very close to each other. It is as if our hearts beat so
strongly that they can be heard aloud as if only millimetres apart! I know you
will better understand English because you have already learned it so well when
in School. I must announce that my struggle with this Australian English
language is also a joy. I will tell you another surprise or two in this
language so you will please continue to read my letter!
As you know from
earlier letters, where I live in my tent all is beauty. Seeing and experiencing
this beauty is like seeing and experiencing you and our being together in our
own happiness: I am unable to feel sad here. My tent is at a bend of the river:
there are rapids nearby and the water white and filled with sounds: sometimes
it is as if I can identify these sounds of the river as voices, as voices
singing. It is a completely new experience! It seems to me a kind of magic. The
river water is now clear again after much rain and again begins to turn pale
green. I can see along the downstream to the next bend. There are many great
trees. Some trees near my tent are very high: these are so beautiful and
straight and white and are named Flooded Gums. Many more trees along the banks
are Casuarina: these continue to be a surprise also because they remind me of
pine trees yet they are not pines. When after rain in the night the Casuarina
trees shine in the morning with water drops on the points of the branches: they
are like many jewels on pine needles in sunlight. The sun rising is so
magnificent that I forget to make breakfast at the right time! The morning
sunlight makes the river coming from the rapids look flashing and swirling like
molten metal. I mention too that on this side of the river there is forested
high ground. I have seen downstream some of the great trees on that steep slope
that flower in the late summer in February: they are the Bloodwoods. Sometimes
there is rising mist from the river trying to become clouds. The mist is also
rising through the Bloodwood bunches of flowers high on the steep slopes. When
sometimes there is light rain falling the river is seen with smooth clear
streams within the wider river stream. It is so strangely beautiful to see and
I the only person here to see this!
I mention again the
birds seen in this place. Many are a very big surprise, also. I have seen this
morning a Regent Bower Bird: his colours are black and gold. I stop breathing
to watch it nearby. There are wild turkeys, always busy scratching for food.
Herons walk in the shallow water, hunting their prey. The best flyers are
cormorants that fly so beautifully one by one or several together. There are
swallows that fly to Europe when the season directs! One nearby bird is now
making a strange sound: a whipbird that calls to its partner with a sustained
whip-cracking song, most loudly (the female makes quite different short notes).
Here there are even ducks and hawks and eagles. The fishing eagle floats up
marking a spiral progress through the air over the river.
Also in the river
there are small fish and eels and a most strange animal named a platypus that
looks somewhat like a beaver. And there are turtles, too.
All here is very great
beauty and with very few people living on small farms or ‘properties’ nearby. I
would say that to live here is to live within this beauty. The nature here
enfolds one! I write of this country life to explain how wonderful it is for me
to be able to do my work here: this place is without you or it would be completely
heaven to be both of us here.
When drinking tea
after breakfast today I saw a small kangaroo that is named a wallaby. He is
altogether a wild creature, too. Although the wallaby was close to this tent
and eating, I could not disturb it. I was accepted. The most dangerous creature
here for me is the snake: there are many kinds and some are extremely dangerous
because they are poisonous. Nothing disturbs at night when I close the tent and
lie listening in my blankets. Inquisitive possums that live in the forest here
come to visit my tent at night to be noisy and are most curious creatures being
like very big furry cats. They are loud but harmless.
You will be surprised
to learn that all of this great splendour (so many different creatures and the
trees and the river) experienced altogether means that working here is so easy
that it is also astonishing pleasure! I am reminded here of my childhood and
Bohemian games in the forest, the wildness of the natural countryside. The
greatest difference in living here on the riverside is that there is no
village, town or city that I can see. How strange it is that what I write of in
my daily work is a narrative about a city, of all things! Here I am sitting at the edge of the
forest and on the green riverbank: there is no house to be seen. My story, the
narrative about lives in the city (narrative is an English word that I very
much like) improves I am certain because I am in the country! As I have
written, the more I think of this country place the more it is as if I am being
enfolded (another very good new word for me) by the country as though enfolded
by you, joy of my life!
Already I have
corrected (I mean I have re-written) much of the first, second and third acts
and so I have prepared for any final changes and “polishing” of the entire work
that I can consider on the ship home and indeed rehearse for next year, also.
Here I am seeing in this moment the quietness of a long pool on the river. At
this time of the day this long pool has a surface still and reflective like a
mirror or sometimes with green and gold colours like a painting. Naturally what
is most important in the narrative (where I have been re-writing) is about
glass, a mirror a picture: being here is like seeing the narrative itself! And
now I am thinking of you smiling. I recall from your recent letter that you and
our friends hope to again visit Bruges to see some of the ceremonies there.
Writing those words in my letter to you encourages me to write ‘a Bruges visit’
directly in to the story that I believe is now completed. Writing the story has
been so much easier simply because I am here and being here now is like being
with you, my dearest!
I have “confirmed” my
reservation to sail home next month. For now I shall rest a little and swim in
the river and also entertain my Australian friends with some music on their
piano.
My plan is to ride
this week to Bellingen with my friend Chris: he lends me both horse and saddle.
We shall ride on May 29, my twenty-second birthday and I shall post my letter
to you from there. One year from now in 1920 when we are together in Germany I
shall be twenty-three and “Die tote Stadt “(forgive me: I should write here
“The Dead City”) shall have its first performance! I am certain this will be a
wonderful success!
Dear One I have now
the best surprise of all the surprises. Lying in my blankets at night or
sitting by the campfire, I hear the amazing sounds of the rapids and from those
“water spirit voices” I also have written one special and altogether new
composition for this, my very best opera. The new piece of music will also
carry a song for two voices: mostly for the female voice and also as a duet for
the female and a male voice, soprano and I think, tenor. I have titled this
“Marietta’s Lied” (I should write, “Marietta’s Song”).
This new song and the
entire opera I dedicate to you, my love. I know you will love it as much as I
love you and as much as I love the song, also: it is entirely your song.
With all my love,
Your Erich Korngold.
May 25 1919.
*
SNIPPETS
November 30 2015.
Eucalyptus barks began splitting and falling ten or twelve days ago. Recent
thunderstorms and heavy showers have loosened and felled several trees, enabled
dangerously large branches to fall. Along the road at daybreak swallows fly
through the mist feeding on the wing. Small green frogs jump for their lives
from the overlong lawn grass when I’m mowing. Three and sometimes four large
crows now stalk the lawns following mowing: they first visit the kitchen scraps
I leave in one location. A bronze coloured lizard has found its way into the
house: it rattles playfully about seeking food and water. The bleeding heart
leaf trees are flowering: the flowers are insignificant; their hard green seeds
will satisfy brown fruit pigeons during summer. Insurgent midges patrolling the
belvedere air ensure their dominion of the riverside sky. On the dampest of
dusk evenings single fireflies lift off at house level and spiral upwards
through the higher forest behind the house. The midges whir beyond my hearing but strident cicadas now make
their presence felt; perhaps there’s a treaty, a Memorandum of Understanding
between them? Though the native violets have been mowed they’ll flower again in
about three weeks. There are areas not yet mowed where jacaranda flowers share
the longer grass with smaller violets. Jacaranda flowers come but once a year.
Jannelle and I planted the jacaranda seedlings about thirty years ago: the
resultant trees look ancient now. Flame trees that we also planted are now as
high as some eucalypts. In this humid and hot spring ticks attack whenever they
can, even from above by manifesting in my hair. Small leeches move like
terriers to attach themselves to moving legs and boots. How have ticks and
leeches learned such skills or were the skills ready and waiting, inherent? The
brightest and most healthy looking flowers are the indestructible impatiens (called balsam in my childhood. The impatiens
flowers and bright blue orchid-like weeds thrive in sunlight in front of the
high stonewall. A drongo flies out from riverbank cover to dip into the water
and out again without stopping.
Thundery showers make lengthy patterns on the trunks of the high flooded
gums. I stare at the fallen dead tree below the old campsite: how best to move
the timber? Maybe use the barrow as lever and also transport? It’s too big.
Maybe ask Pete to chainsaw it. Everything changes. The afternoon river comes
chinking through the rapids, swirls into the pool in front of the house, runs
winking to the downstream bend and fades to the green and gold of the forest.
*
With thanks to my guest writer, Pete Thompson. Best wishes
and good health in 2016 to all readers from Don.
E: don883@bigpond.com
*
APPENDIX
Appendix One: Don Diespecker’s ebooks
One of my novels, The Selati Line, is a South African
railway story, a mobile or even picaresque story and also a road story. Several
of my novels start as if in the minds
of fictive characters in airplanes (usually a Tiger Moth): somewhere up in the
clouds above the Bellinger River.
The imagined flyer (usually a quite elderly person who once was a
teenage young woman in the Air Transport Auxiliary) imagines the story unfolding in a place beneath. Happiness, for example, begins on the nearby Trunk Road
between Bellingen and Thora and soon makes a second start on Darkwood Road
(right outside the house where I’m now writing this). The Overview (a novella) starts in the air (directly above my
house). The new sequel to Happiness,
Success starts in the air, too. That
most distinguished writer, the American James Salter (who once was a Korean War
flier) uses the device of ‘the unnamed narrator’) to tell some of his stories:
I like that notion and also employ a variation of it.
(1) Finding Drina is a light-hearted sequel to my two print novels (now also available
as eBooks) published in one volume as The
Agreement and it’s sequel, Lourenço
Marques). Finding Drina is
written in three parts and in three different styles that also are intended
homage pieces (to GG Marquez, Ernest Hemingway and Lawrence Durrell); thus this
little book is also meta-fiction (novella, about 30-k words).
(2) The Earthrise Visits is an Australian
long story set at Earthrise (about 20-k words): an old psychologist meets a
young literary ghost from the 1920s (his girlfriend meets her, too) before a
second old literary ghost, unaware of his spectral state, arrives unexpectedly.
(3) Farewelling Luis Silva is an Australian
dystopian long story partly set in Australia, Portugal and France (about 23-k
words). A sniper meets an Australian Prime Minister, an old lover and a
celebrity journalist; three of them meet a terrorist in Lisbon where there is a
bloody assassination.
(4) The Selati Line is an early 20th
century Transvaal train story, road story, flying story, a caper story and also
a love story sequel to The Agreement
and Lourenço Marques, lightly
written and containing some magical realism. A scene-stealing child prodigy keeps the characters in order
(novel, about 150-k words).
(5) The Summer River is a dystopian novel
(about 70-k words) set at Earthrise. A General, the déjà vu sniper, the
Australian Prime Minister and the celebrity journalist witness the murder of a
guerrilla who had also been an Australian university student; they discuss how
best to write an appropriate book about ‘foreign invasions’ (novel, about 70-k
words).
(6) The Annotated “Elizabeth.” I examine
and offer likely explanations as to why my uncle published a mixed prose and
verse novel in which his mother is portrayed as the principal protagonist and I
suggest why the book Elizabeth
(published by Dick Diespecker in 1950) is a novel and not a biography, memoir
or history (non-fiction, about 24-k words).
(7) The Overview is a short Australian
novel set at Earthrise (about 32.5-k words) and is also a sequel to The Summer River.
(8) Scribbles from Earthrise, is an
anthology of selected essays and caprice written at Earthrise (about 32-k
words). Topics are: family and friends, history of the Earthrise house, the
river, the forest, stream of consciousness writing and the Earthrise dogs.
(9) Here and There is a selection of Home
and Away essays (about 39-k words). (‘Away’ includes Cowichan (Vancouver
Island), 1937 (my cabin-boy year), The Embassy Ball (Iran), At Brindavan
(meeting Sai Baba in India). ‘Home’ essays are set at Earthrise and include as
topics: the Bellinger River and floods, plus some light-hearted caprices.
(10) The Agreement is a novel set in
Mozambique and Natal during December 1899 and the Second Anglo-Boer War: an
espionage yarn written around the historical Secret Anglo Portuguese Agreement
(1899). Louis Dorman and his brother, Jules, feature together with Drina de
Camoens who helps draft the Agreement for the Portuguese Government. British
Intelligence Officers, Boer spies and the Portuguese Secret Police socialize at
the Estrela Café (about 62-k words).
(11) Lourenço Marques is the sequel to The Agreement. Mozambique in September
1910. The Estrela café-bar is much frequented and now provides music: Elvira
Tomes returns to LM from Portugal and is troubled by an old ghost; Drina and
her companion return with an unexpected new member of the family; Louis faints.
Joshua becomes a marimba player. Ruth Lerner, an American journalist plans to
film a fiesta and hundreds of tourists visit from the Transvaal. Drina plays
piano for music lovers and plans the removal of an old business associate
(novel: about 75-k words).
(12) The Midge Toccata, a caprice about
talking insects (inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice stories). This book has a splendid
new cover designed by my cousin, Katie Diespecker (fiction, caprice, about 26-k
words).
(13) Happiness is a short novel set at
Earthrise. The ‘narrator’ is again the very elderly ex-ATA flier who
unexpectedly meets and rescues a bridge engineer requiring urgent
hospitalisation: she gets him safely to hospital in his own plane. She also
‘imagines’ an extension to her own story, one about a small family living
partly in the forest and on the riverbank: the theme is happiness. Principal
protagonist is a 13-years old schoolgirl, apparently a prodigy: she befriends a
wounded Army officer and encourages his plans. Her parents are a university
teacher and a retired concert pianist. The family pets can’t resist being
scene-stealers in this happy family (novel, about 65-k words).
(14) The Special Intelligence Officer is
part family history as well as a military history and describes the roles of my
late grandfather in the Guerrilla War (1901-1902) in Cape Colony. The Guerrilla
War was the last phase of the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902). The title of
the book is taken from Cape newspapers of the time: Capt Rudolph Diespecker was
a District Commandant; his responsibilities included intelligence gathering
that led to the capture, trial and execution of a Boer Commandant who was
wrongly framed as a ‘Cape rebel,’ when he was legally a POW (Gideon Scheepers
was never a Cape rebel, having been born in the Transvaal (the South African
Republic,) one of the two Boer Republics (non-fiction, about 33-k words).
(15) The Letters From Earthrise, an
anthology of my columns and other essays and articles written for the Australian Gestalt Journal between 1997
and 2005 (fiction and some non-fiction, about 70-k words).
(16) The Darkwood
is a dystopian novel set at Earthrise in the not too distant future (about 80-k
words). Earthrise is again central to other themes.
(17) Bellinger; Along
The River is an anthology of personal essays relative to my home and the
property, Earthrise, and the river at my doorstep (aspects and descriptions of
the river, including flooding) (nonfiction, about 28-k words)
(18) Reflecting:
an anthology of personal essays about the gardens, butterflies, a caprice, and
other motivating factors at my home, Earthrise: mostly non-fiction (20-k words)
(19) Idling: is a
collection of personal essays about seeing; a military history essay; a
speculation about lawns; a working visit to Griffith University; periods of
enforced idleness as “Don’s Days Out” in Coffs Harbour (mostly non-fiction;
about 36-k words).
(20) Bear Fat A
Memoir by Durbyn C Diespecker (1896-1977) with
Notes and a Biography Edited by Don Diespecker. (This partial memoir that I’d invited in 1950
was written by my father between 1950 and 1969 and describes aspects of his
life in South Africa, the UK and British Columbia, Canada; non-fiction; about
48-k words).
(21) Love. Selected Stories is an anthology of short stories old and
new. Of these narratives three are set or partly set in Bellingen, Dorrigo, and
the Bellinger River Valley; others are set in Africa, Greece, France, Iran and
Spain. “The Bellinger Protocol;” is a (magic reality) caprice. ‘Dragonfly’ is
an interior monologue set in an imagined Vietnam; ‘Season of Love’ is largely
interior monologue and set in the mountains surrounding Pilgrim’s Rest (then in
the Transvaal. Several stories are fictionalized non-fiction (e.g., ‘A Circuit
of Fields’ is excerpted from a non-fiction essay and set in pre-Revolutionary
Iran) and most of the narratives derive from real people and real locales (about
36-k words).
(22) Success, a novel, begins in the air,
gets under way in the familiar house on the Bellinger River, moves to Vienna
and Paris and is apparently narrated by several writers including one or two
who appear unnamed or unidentified. The story develops around Martha Haley, now
in her seventeenth years and her new friend, Tom Pearce, a musical prodigy,
aged seventeen: their parents are also in Paris (about 107-k words).
