Bart Westgeest

Kategori: English

  • C.G. Rossetti – Dreamland

    I read a handful of poems yesterday and liked two by C. G. Rossetti (1830-94). Easy to spot that she had something to do with the pre-raphaelite movement. In the poem Dreamland the same themes are apparent as in some of the paintings by this movement.

    DREAM-LAND.

    Where sunless rivers weep
    Their waves into the deep,
    She sleeps a charmèd sleep:
    Awake her not.
    Led by a single star,
    She came from very far
    To seek where shadows are
    Her pleasant lot.

    She left the rosy morn,
    She left the fields of corn,
    For twilight cold and lorn
    And water springs.
    Through sleep, as through a veil,
    She sees the sky look pale,
    And hears the nightingale
    That sadly sings.

    Rest, rest, a perfect rest
    Shed over brow and breast;
    Her face is toward the west,
    The purple land.
    She cannot see the grain
    Ripening on hill and plain;
    She cannot feel the rain
    Upon her hand.

    Rest, rest, forevermore
    Upon a mossy shore;
    Rest, rest at the heart’s core
    Till time shall cease:
    Sleep that no pain shall wake,
    Night that no morn shall break,
    Till joy shall overtake
    Her perfect peace.

    Source: gutenberg.org

    I liked the image of the “waves into the deep” in the first couplet. It made me think that using nature to describe things is one thing, but using it right another. There is a world of difference between a painting of a landscape made by someone with an superficial eye or by someone with passion and devotion. Using nature in poems must be like that too. Yes, it has been done ever since people where able to write, and every symbol has been used numerous times (a rose, anyone?) but that doesn’t mean that it can be effective when used rightly.
    The dead body let by a star and the contrast of the body “willingly” floating to the dark side, a side that is considered not a good place to be anyway, away from the rosy morn – fields of corn etc. is intriguing.

  • Thought about a Style

    I read a little in the autobiography “Tove Ditlevsen Om Sig Selv” last night and noticed that the style of that book was somewhat unusual in my eyes. The Danish writer had written it in a light tone and without going into many details anywhere which meant that she didn’t spent more than a few lines on most of the thoughts of events. The result was a rather weird kind of storytelling as big emotional events all sounded almost like a sidenote. It was as if she didn’t really cared about them or had truly experienced the situations and where she said she cared it sounded as if she was telling that she cared about the little mouse being chased by the cat in the children-cartoon on tv. Her husband joining the resistance during WW II sounded like if she was discussing him joining a soccer- or biliardclub. I expected that she would say that joining the resistance would do him good as he was a little fat and this running around during the nights would probably help.

    It reminded of a writing style of a woman magazine, where great events in life unfold without giving the impression that those events are fully experienced or lived through, as if they happened because that’s life and that is what people do so I, the writer, did it too and then I went on to do the next thing people do.
    I never read anything by Tove Ditlevsen apart from what I just read last night, so without referring to her writings and her success I thought that it is probably one way to become successful as a writer. Use a light, easy style reminding of for example woman magazines and write a little more complicated stories, including more original thoughts and make it all a bit longer than an average short story in those magazines. It should be a way of writing a well readable book that might appeal to many.

  • Sources of inspiration for J.M.A. Biesheuvel.

    After rereading some of the stories I eagerly read in my youth by the Dutch writer J.M.A. Biesheuvel I noticed that he actually gives clear hints about his ways of collecting material for his stories.
    In for example the story Broos’ boze droom from the bundle Slechte Mensen (1973) Biesheuvel tells about a man who writes down his dreams that are a mixture of all sorts of events and combines this with weird stories heard from all sorts of people around him.
    Looking at a number of Biesheuvel’s own stories this seems to be a valid explanation for the contents of a lot of his works. The majority of his short stories is packed with anecdotes and sometimes surreal situations with clear autobiographical elements. It creates a wonderful mixture of dialogues, events and images.

    Another hint about this way of collecting material comes from the story Het Medaillon from the bundle De Angstkunstenaar where he tells about two window cleaners that visited the office where he worked and that told a lot of colourful stories. He continues by telling that he regrets that he can only remember one of the stories because “In those days I didn’t make notes yet (…)”. This story is also a good example of Biesheuvel’s style as it starts with a situation sketch that is later completely abandoned, a detail that adds to the feeling of a spontaneous and personal way of telling stories.

    It seems like a practical way of composing stories that could fit me well as I like to write down all sorts of fragments, dialogues, thoughts and stories from inside my own brain or life around me. Combining some of them in short stories is a good way of using as much as I can.

  • Writing and the Internet – a Growing Discussion.

    TechCrunch is an influential blog that has clear opinions about the way the music industry is developing with regard to copyright and file sharing. Basically, the point of view is that the current development of music being freely and rapidly shared by most people is one that can’t be stopped and therefore attempts to control or even stop it are futile and unwise.

    A similar discussion can be brought up when dealing with writing and the internet and its many ways of copying and sharing data. Should one fight the tendencies, protect “dead tree” books violently or will books become scarce anyway? Should one just follow the trend and make the best out of it as the San Francisco Chronicle suggests in the article with the catchy title: “Take My Book, It’s Free”. Techcrunch took the subject up in this post.

  • Arcadia

    Arcadia

    Painting by Thomas Cole – The Course of Empire The Arcadian or Pastoral State 1836 (Source)

    In writing one can describe a perfect world. For some this might be a pre-industrial society in an ancient rural setting. Like a scene with peasants and shepherds, birds in the sky, green trees and wide open planes with mountains at a rugged coast at the background. I know from landscape painting that such a scene is often referred to as an Arcadia or a Pastoral scene. It is a subject in itself that has inspired thousands. I am not someone who reads a lot so I wonder about the writing world. There must be stories in contemporary literature using this theme for inspiration. Maybe even with a shepherd boy that meets and falls in love with a gypsy girl and lost sheep that will be found again. It is all possible and one can create the most beautiful painting and make it come alive. It’s a great way of expressing thoughts about alternatives to our own society and the life we live. When building a world like that one can write about the details to paint the picture. A tree, colour or situation. By describing simple things they will be transformed into words and thus become part of the new world created. If it can be done in painting it shouldn’t be a utopia in writing.

  • Dreams

    ….osme parts oar also half demolished

    and dot liook too goofd.

    Dreams are an important source of information about things I usually already know about me. But they make me aware of what I go through in a beautiful and fascinating way. When in a dream state I experience the emotions in a rather direct way and visualize them into images that often can be universal symbols that strike a cord with any human. They are simply great stories or fragments of it.
    As I want to write from the heart I want to use these sighs from my inner world when writing.

    In earlier days I would try to memorize the entire dream and write it down on paper as soon as I was out of bed or had time to do so. A few days ago I started the computer after waking up as I wanted to have it written down at the right place immediately. How irritating it was to wait for the computer to finish
    whatever it does. When I finally could write I
    noticed that I had a lot of trouble controlling my fingers, probably because I still wasn’t really awake and occupied by the dream and it’s emotions. They didn’t
    go to the right letters and I had trouble concentrating on doing it
    right. It was a frustrating experience but there was not much I could do. Luckily I can read sentences like “osme parts oar also half demolished
    and dot liook too goofd” and “….bu I can tog to far becuas ei must
    get back at some poitn venthoggh I am… “.

    In order to remember a dream it helps to go through it right after waking up. Following all the scenes in the story will often bring up already half forgotten fragments and will make you memorize it better.
    A few days ago I recorded a dream with my invaluable mobile phone only a few minutes after waking up and after finishing the going-through to find all the fragments. I simply spoke out loudly while rehearsing the dream a final time.

    Yesterday, a few days after the dream was dreamt, I transcribed the recording to my computer as literally as made sense in order to preserve a casual and direct tone in the text.
    I think this practice helps my writing as I get an insight in my personal world in inspirational story fragments written down in a manner of speaking that I can’t really duplicate when sitting down to write anything like it.

    I’ll make it a habit.