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Liza Kirwin | More Than Words

by | Sep 27, 2021 | Book Thoughts

More than Words cover, quill pen in ink well, handwritten letter with large drawning at top

Left: More Than Words book cover | Right: Letter of Dorothea Tanning to Joseph Cornell (1948)

“. . . they capture not simply eras but moments and personalities. They are legacies each one, though minute.“

Although the Smithsonian exhibit for More than Words was mounted a while ago, I only recently came across the exhibition book–More Than Words: Illustrated Letters From the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art (2015)–as a bookstore remainder. [1] I have a small collection of books about illustrated letters, but this one is by far the best of them.  The descriptive text is eloquent but kept to a minimum; the images are distinctly and vividly printed; the pages are made of a paper that is hefty, smooth, and a delight to handle; and there is an appendix with full transcriptions for each letter (printed on a softer paper in blue ink).
The type of drawings and the quality of their sketching varies. Some are carefully crafted, some are cartoon-like, and some are similar to those seen in the modern urban sketchers movement. Their purposes vary as well. One writer, separated from his fiancee for over a year as he travels to Europe, woos her with almost daily charming missives that contain his illustrations of himself acting out the cultural flavor each new locale. Another author, writing to a potential publisher, coyly includes a well-sketched self portrait as an example of his work.  

Handwritten letter with pen and ink drawing of artist studio

Letter by Paul Bransom to Helen Ireland Hays

 

Postcard with handwriting & 2 drawn images: a costumed monkey emerging from a box & a family group portrait

Robert Frederick Blum to Minnie Gerson, 1883 December 6.

 

The transcriptions in the appendix are jewels. Not all antique (one letter was posted in 1963); they capture not simply eras but moments and personalities. They are legacies each one, though minute. So strongly present is the sense of making: of friendships, of connections, of the letters themselves. 

Letter Writing as a Movement

 

Book cover shows postage stamp of open sensuous mouth licking a postage stampThe final paragraph of the Introduction urgently notes the loss of these material treasures that are “all but disappearing from our culture.” I am less convinced that this is so. The Mail Art movement has been running strong for half a century now. I regularly come across websites dedicated to either mail art or letter writing specifically (see below). And the Maker Movement, the Steampunk movement, and rise of elaborate cosplay events all bespeak a yearning for solid, physical and playful culture that is being energetically acted upon. Twenty-first century letter writers are not so much looking looking back as creating their own legacies of now.

In the 1960s performance and conceptual artist, Ray Johnson, spearheaded the mail art (or correspondence art) movement. According to the Artists’ Pub network site “Mail Art does not refer to the personal correspondence between two individuals but the communication with art about specifically announced projects.” [2]

The long out-of-print book Correspondence Art: Sourcebook for the Network of International Postal Art Activity (1984) is worth tracking down. Published during the height of the mail art movement it’s regarded as a key work. (See the Sources list [3] for complete publication info and a link to detailed information about the book and the movement.)

Epistolary Books

Title page of the second edition of Samuel Richardson's epistolary novel Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded (1740)A delightful cousin of illustrated letters is the so-called epistolary novel. The classic is Pamela by Samuel Richardson (1740).

This from Wikipedia details this format succinctly:

“An epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of documents. The usual form is letters although, diary entries, newspaper clippings and other documents are sometimes used. Recently, electronic “documents” such as recordings and radio, blogs, and e-mails have also come into use . . . . The epistolary form can add greater realism to a story, because it mimics the workings of real life. It is thus able to demonstrate differing points of view without recourse to the device of an omniscient narrator.  An important strategic device in the epistolary novel for creating the impression of authenticity of the letters is the fictional editor.” [4]

Jen Petro-Roy, in their recent article “Writing Epistolary Novels in the Modern Age” (2021) identifying a key aspect of the form that appeals to authors and readers notes that “The form allows for intense emotions while also giving your narrator the option to hold certain details back.” [5]

The format has evolved since the 18th century. The early titles were almost entirely letters. As authors explored the approach the types of communications expanded to include diary and journal entries, newspaper and articles, sections of wills and other legal documents . . . to the modern inclusion of electronic documents such as emails, blog posts, and the like.

The format is not limited to a particular genre. Mystery writer Dorothy Sayers, in her book The Documents in the Case (1930), tells the story via character letters assembled as a kind of dossier. [6]. Speculative SF author Ursula K. Le Guin’s groundbreaking work, Always Coming Home (1985), is comprised of stories, poems, maps, dictionaries, charts, and songs (some with footnotes and journal entries) that interweave the two main characters’ narratives. The first edition of Always Coming Home was packaged in a box that included a cassette recording, “Music and Poetry of the Kesh,” created by Le Guin and collaborator Todd Barton. [7] The magical realism trilogy Griffin and Sabine (1991) by Nick Bantock took the notion of an epistolary story literally: the tale is told via letters (that the reader must remove from the physical pages) and postcards printed to show front and back. [8]

Note: The Wikipedia article cited above provides an extensive list of epistolary works from the 18th-century to the present.

The mixed media aspect of the format, I confess, utterly fascinates me! I have a speculative SF book that is currently backburnered while I try to sort out if, or when, publishing technology will let me create the book I have in mind–my notion for the storytelling needs printed page, loose documents and foldout elements a la Bantock, and audio (and possible visual) recordings a la Le Guin.

Locating Pen Friends

Over the years I’ve enjoyed real and fictional correspondences. I currently have two real ones running using a Google Drive folder as the mailbox. This is in part due to the problematic postal delivery issues in the U.S. at the moment and, in part, due to impatience. Letters for me are very active communications. Unless I am handwriting or typewriting a letter—and the point of that is the delicious reality of creating a physical thing for my correspondent to hold, read, and, in theory, treasure—I like my letters to be quickly sent and received.

The letters illustrated in the Smithsonian’s exhibition are those written, for the most part, between friends. If you are interested in developing a snail mail correspondence, one’s friends–be they family, writing compatriots, etc.—are the place to start. Another place to try is The Letter Exchange which has been running since 1982. And TravelandLeisure.com posted this article in 2020 (video included): These Websites Connect You With Pen Pals Around the World. Searching on the phrase finding pen friends also helps. As with any match-up site, you’ll want to vet for safety.

NOTE: This essay is an updated version of one I originally published on my artist blog,  Dante’s Wardrobe.

© J.A. Jablonski 2021. All rights reserved.

ABOUT BOOK THOUGHTS

“Book Thoughts” is an intermittent column within my blog. The essays are not so much book reviews as a book responses. I like to converse with and around the books I read.

HOW TO CITE THIS POST

Jablonski, J.A. (2021, Sept 27). Liza Kirwin | More Than Words. Blog post. J.A. Jablonski (website).
https://jajablonski.com/2021/09/27/more-than-words/

IMAGE CREDITS

Cover of More Than Words. From the Bookshop.org info page.

Letter Image: Tanning, Dorothea. Dorothea Tanning to Joseph Cornell, 1948 March 3. Joseph Cornell papers, 1804-1986. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Letter Image: Bransom, Paul. Paul Bransom to Helen Ireland Hays, 1943. Helen Ireland Hays papers concerning Paul Bransom, circa 1903-1983. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Cover of Correspondence Art. From Mail Art Chro no logy (website).

Title page of the second edition of Samuel Richardson’s epistolary novel Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded (1740). Public Domain image (retrieved from Wikipedia). Version here has been slightly modified with image of torn edge and background color.

 

SOURCES

 

Disclaimer: As a Bookshop Affiliate (US only) I will earn a commission if you click through on a book title I’ve linked to and make a purchase.

[1] Kirwin, Liza. (2015). More Than Words: Illustrated Letters From the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art. Princeton Architectural Press.

[2] Mail Art-Archive at the Staatliches Museum Schwerin. Collection note. Artists’ Pub website. Accessed on 4 October 2021.

[3] Stofflet, Mary & Michael Crane, eds. (1984). Correspondence Art: Sourcebook for the Network of International Postal Art Activity. San Francisco: Contemporary Arts Press. ISBN: 0931818028. https://www.printedmatter.org/catalog/288/

[4] Epistolary Novel. Wikipedia post. From version last edited on 6 November 2021.

[5] Petro-Roy, Jen. (Updated Oct 8, 2021). Writing Epistolary Novels in the Modern Age. Web article. The Writer website.

[6] Sayers, Dorothy L. & Robert Eustace. (1930). The Documents in the Case. Brewer and Warren.

[7] Le Guin, Ursula K. (1985). Always Coming Home. 2001 edition via University of California Press.

[8] Bantock, Nick. (1991). Griffin and Sabine: An Extraordinary Correspondence. 25th Anniversay Edition (2016). Chronicle Books. | Sabine’s Notebook: In Which the Extraordinary Correspondence of Griffin and Sabine Continues. (1992). Chronicle Books. | The Golden Mean: In Which the Extraordinary Correspondence of Griffin and Sabine Concludes. (1993). Chronicle Books.

 

R.B. Lemberg | The Four Profound Weaves

by | Aug 30, 2021 | Book Thoughts

RB Lemberg Four Profound Weaves Book

R.B. Lemberg

“I am in the end . . . a creature of the work, of deep storytelling, and of imagination. In Lemberg’s novella, I find all three. “

When I read R.B. Lemberg’s novella, The Four Profound Weaves (2020.) [1] I expected not to like it but I hoped, very much hoped, that I would.

Reader: I did, very much did.

I expect to not like most things I read. I am something of an impatient reader. It is my private idiosyncrasy. It tends to flare more often when I read fiction. Non-fiction, it seems, just annoys me as it is often a matter of sloppy thinking, bad-writing, incorrect information, etc. (though I draw the line at plagiarism). These are not good things, but I tend to cut a non-fiction writer a little slack. The younger ones anyway. Experienced oldsters should know better and deserve every ounce of flack thrown their way.

Poets get all the slack and all the love from me. Poetry is its own universe. I go there, I write there, and I know that the poet’s mind is the mind of an artist who, as Ursula K. Le Guin noted, goes

“into the gap between . . . . They go limping and weeping, ugly and frightened, and they come back with the wings of the redwing hawk, the eyes of the mountain lion.” [2]

Fiction writers, many of them anyway, are artists too. And I try to temper my readerly temper on their behalf. Writing isn’t an easy craft. I know this. So to come upon a story that takes me into it then lets me walk back into myself and back again, well, it’s a rare work that can create that two-way bridge and make it an easy yet challenging walk.

The Quality of Craft

R.B. Lemberg’s The Four Profound Weaves is such a story. I am a long time reader of Ms. Le Guin. Her work is crafted down to the molecules as writing and to the subatomic in terms of story. One feels utterly held by her. Lemberg’s novella holds a comparable easeful regard of its readers while pushing, pushing that deeply reflective quality one hopes to find in works of imagination. There is world building and there is cosmology. Lemberg has managed to do both and, fittingly, woven them together so that each one is visible, yet not, while informing the other.

I will not summarize the story. Other reviewers have done this better than I could (See Foreword Reviews or Publishers Weekly). My intent is to relay my immediate response as a reader. (I wrote my notes for this post an hour after reading the book.)

For me the heart of a fiction work is character. I want to know the persons almost more than I want to know the plot in which they are encased. So I am sensitive to point of view. As a reader I typically balk at first person narration. It is too easy, I think, for the author to channel themselves. Solid, credible first person point of view is hard to master.

Lemberg does master it, twice, their chapters alternating between two trans “elders,” former/current friends, who travel together on a quest to find the aged aunt of one, a legendary weaver. One, Uiziya, seeks to know how to weave a carpet of bones, the other, nen-sasaïr, the so-called nameless man, to learn their new name. By narrative necessity their tales overlap, but who they each are, who they perceive themselves to be, what their respective “mission” is, what they each hope for, is succinctly delineated. They are different people but their cultures overlap, they have awareness of the other cultures. So it could have happened that Lemberg’s “first persons” could have sounded like one person. They do not. And the characters themselves are vividly rendered in voice, movement, beliefs, history, and emotion/psychology. They are real, which is something quite powerful when the story is not simply fiction, but fantasy fiction.

Opening Lines

Another thing that either catches me or doesn’t are the opening lines of the first chapter. Personally, I hate it when literary agents (on Twitter is where I tend to see this) harp on the importance of opening lines. But they are right for the most part. It’s not simply the content of those sentences, though one hopes they set the tone for the story and, if one is lucky, the whole damn story itself.

The opening two sentences of Four Weaves are “I sat alone in my old goatskin tent. Waiting, like I had for the last forty years, for Aunt Benesret to come back.” I laughed, out loud. For in that split second I recalled the opening lines of three other authors I’d read recently and semi-recently, all trying something similar with varying degrees of—to my eye—success. (Disclaimer: I do not presume that my take is anyone else’s but my own.)

“The steerswoman centered her chart on the table and anchored the corners around. A candlestick, a worn leatherbound book, an empty mug, and her own left hand held the curling parchment flat.” 

“Matt said you find things. For a living,” the woman said on the phone.”

“There was a wall. It did not look important.”

The first is from Rosemary Kirstein’s The Steerswoman, described as a science fantasy novel. It is the first of a series. Established here: who, something of a setting, an overall tone, and that wonderfully curious phrase, “her own left hand.” [3] The opening description was slightly cliché but that single phrase–her own left hand–caught me. It was a quality of character subtlety that intrigued. Going forward, I read the first three books, I was very much intrigued by the tale but the writing kept tripping me. Description overrode things, the “own left hand” turned out to be a phrase quirk and no more. The story got lost in the telling. I didn’t read book four and book five has yet to be completed.

The second is from Kristen Lepionka’s 2017 mystery novel The Last Place You Look. Typical noir in cadence, snarkish tone, and an anonymous caller. [4] I know I probably shouldn’t, but I laugh at that noir verbal tic. I can’t take it seriously. I didn’t get beyond the first chapter. I couldn’t, and I wanted to. But time is precious and I only read what I want to read.

The last is from Le Guin’s SF novel The Dispossessed. The cadence is the same as Lemberg’s opening two sentences. Setting, tone, context nailed in nine words. [5] I have read most of what Le Guin has written, fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. I don’t like everything she’s done but I’ve read it. Not simply because she is a master at the craft of writing and an imagineer, world builder, and cosmologist of the highest level. She exudes the power of a soul sorted, explored, and faced with ruthless honesty. I am drawn to her in a way I am drawn to no other author.

Silhouette of exotic flying bird
A Singular Author

Lemberg does that for me and, frankly, I am floored. I came across them only recently and incidentally, someone I follow on Twitter mentioned them. Perhaps they quoted them, I don’t recall but I was curious. I started to follow them and saw mention made and discussions shared about this new work coming out that had a flavor of originality. I am keen for new stories. There was something else, though, a personal grief, which the nature of Twitter meant it was a public grief. I have been touched by the quality of their expressions and efforts in this deeply mournful time. There was grief, but an ineffable connection with life too.

I typically avoid seeking out the personal about an author. I want their stories, I don’t want them. I believe writers, like everyone, are owed their privacy. That I know what I do about Le Guin is mostly due to the scholarly articles I’ve read about her, the personal remarks she makes in her essays and writing instructionals, and Arwen Curry’s splendid documentary, Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin. I honored Lemberg’s mourning but did not, as a stranger, want to in any way intrude.

I preordered The Four Profound Weaves and, in awaiting its arrival, did something I never do. I avoided all reviews and all commentary as best I could. I don’t mind spoilers, so it wasn’t that. It seemed to me that this book might be the kind of book that gave my angry reader self a needed calming down. I have never before so prepared myself to read like this. And I am grateful that I was not disappointed.

I am in the end, I guess one might say, a creature of the work, of deep storytelling, and of imagination. In Lemberg’s novella, I find all three. They craft their writing. There is cadence to the sentences, the narrative flow, and the plot itself. They know how language works to deepen the culture surrounding people and their doings. Character names sound real. The words used to describe artifacts, cultural behavior, the sociology of the different peoples all ring true. With regard to the journey that is imagination, Lemberg bends their mind (and heart too, one senses) into that gap between and emerges with the wings of the redwing hawk. This tale seems to have been torn from their soul.

The Four Profound Weaves is an unexpected gift. In Lemberg’s Birdverse context, I am an elder (though I do not feel like one). I have not felt as young as I do now, as a child looking forward to sitting at their feet, awaiting future tales. I am grateful to know that their stories are and will continue to be told after I am no more.

NOTE: This essay is a lightly edited version of one I originally published on 2 Sept 2020 on my blog Dante’s Wardrobe.

© J.A. Jablonski 2021. All rights reserved.

ABOUT BOOK THOUGHTS

“Book Thoughts” is an intermittent column within my blog. The essays are not so much book reviews as a book responses. I like to converse with and around the books I read.  

HOW TO CITE THIS POST

Jablonski, J.A. (2021, Aug 30). R.B. Lemberg | The Four Profound Weaves. Blog post. J.A. Jablonski (website). https://jajablonski.com/2021/08/30/four-profound-weaves/

IMAGE CREDITS

Cover of The Four Profound Weaves. From Lemberg’s website.

R. B. Lemberg.  Author photo from Lemberg’s Press Kit.

Modified cover image of bird from Audible version of book.

Silhouette of exotic flying bird. From the Tachyon Press page for The Four Profound Weaves.


SOURCES

Disclaimer: As a Bookshop Affiliate (US only) I will earn a commission if you click through on a book title I’ve linked to and make a purchase.

[1] Lemberg, R.B. (2020). The Four Profound Weaves.  Tachyon.

[2] Le Guin, Ursula K. (1985)  Always Coming Home. Harper & Row, pgs: 74-75.
(Bookshop link is to the University of California edition.)

[3] Kirstein, Rosemary. (2019). The Steerswoman. Published by Rosemary Kirstein.

[4] Lepionka, Kristen. (2017). The Last Place You Look. Minotaur.

[5] Le Guin, Ursula K. (1974). The Dispossessed. Avon Books.
(Bookshop link is to the Harper Voyager 1994 edition.)