Literary Thoughts – Ann S. Epstein Writer

“J” Writer

I don’t consider myself a “Jewish writer” or the author of “Jewish literature.” Most of the protagonists in my novels and stories are not Jewish; those who are, are not necessarily concerned with matters of religious faith, observance, or identity. However, I resonate with this statement by Dara Horn (scholar, novelist, and essayist author of People Love Dead Jews), who says, “My understanding of Jewish literature — descriptive, not prescriptive — is less about language and more about artistic humility. The best writers avoid giving their characters redemptive endings, or epiphanies, or moments of grace — things that our subtly Christian culture has taught us to expect from literature, and things that many of my favorite Hebrew and Yiddish writers clearly never even thought about. Instead, their stories rarely resolve because life rarely does. These authors are asking questions rather than providing answers” (Hadassah Magazine, November-December 2023). According to Horn’s definition, I am a Jewish writer. My stories have ambiguous endings. The characters may have hopes or hypotheses, but the narrative doesn’t provide a neat answer about what happens next in their lives. Nor are my badly behaving protagonists fully redeemed, although they may be working toward that end. Moses, the “hero” of the Torah, is praised for being a “humble” man. Likewise, honoring the story of our origins, Jewish writers are humble too. More in NOVELS and SHORT STORIES.

Why writers write: “I write to dispel the myths that I am a mad prophet or poor suffering soul.” – Gloria E. Anzaldúa

Webb Wonders

“Webb [telescope] can also see further back in time [than Hubble] — a mind-bending thought. The light from this galaxy [Stephan’s Quintet] traveled through space for 40 million years before reaching Webb’s mirrors, which means we’re seeing it as it looked 40 million years ago. Webb is showing us the earliest moments in our universe’s history, fossilized in light.” (A Beginner’s Guide to Looking at the Universe by Kate LaRue, The New York Times Magazine, 11/12/23) “Fossilized in Light” — A metaphoric title for a story?

Stephan’s Quintet photographed by the Webb Telescope

Character Rules

“For me the novel is character creation. Style is nice, plot is nice, structure is OK, social significance is OK, symbolism worms its way in, timeliness is OK too, but unless the characters convince and live the book’s got no chance” (Author Larry McMurty in a letter to author Ken Kesey). I agree. For me, before the seed for a story or novel can germinate, I have to answer the question, “Who is the book about. What’s the point of view?” Once I know the character(s), the ideas begin to flow and I can write. See more thoughts about writing in REFLECTIONS.

Why writers write: “I just knew there were stories I wanted to tell.” – Octavia E. Butler

In Praise of Vanilla

I adore chocolate and eat it very day. Yet I increasingly appreciate the taste of vanilla. Real vanilla (not artificial vanillin) is fruity and spicy-sweet with a mild floral aroma. So how did this complex flavor earn the epithet “plain vanilla,” synonymous with bland, boring, unadventurous, in short, blah? It wasn’t always so. In the 18th century, when vanilla was scarce, it was an incitement to lust. The Marquis de Sade purportedly spiked desserts with vanilla and Spanish fly. A German physician claimed to have turned “no fewer than 342 impotent men into astonishing lovers.” But when vanillin was synthesized in 1874, making it cheap and readily available, it lost its cache as a luxury. Fortunately, vanilla is undergoing a high-end revival, much like coffee and chocolate. Beans are now imported not only from Madagascar (source of 80 percent of the world’s vanilla), but also Hawaii, Mexico, Peru, India, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, and elsewhere. Each terroir brings its own distinctive flavor(s). Vanilla is once again classy. Might the same happen to trite literary metaphors, taken out of retirement like old clothes and paraded as vintage treasures? I nominate “sweet as honey,” given that the decline of the bee population has made honey scarce. What banal metaphors would you like to see revived?

There’s nothing “plain” about these fragrant vanilla beans

What is Knowing and Knowledge?

A new book, Knowing What We Know: The Transmission of Knowledge from Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic by Simon Winchester looks at how we transfer knowledge without quite saying what knowledge is. However, reviewing the book for The New York Times, Peter Sagal (host of NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me), says “one workable definition night be: information that gives pleasure, arouses curiosity and widens, if only by a small fraction, one’s appreciation of the vast world beyond one’s immediate vision.” My maternal grandmother Mindel used to say (in Yiddish) whenever she learned something new, “I’m glad I didn’t die yesterday or I wouldn’t have known that.” So, Sagal’s apt definition is consistent with the Mindel Moments I share in my monthly ASE Writer Newsletter. (Want to get the newsletter? Email me via CONTACT US and I’ll add you to the list.) I delight in the initial discovery (gives pleasure) and do research to learn more (arouses curiosity). Even the smallest tidbit triggers the “Wow!” factor (widens appreciation). I would add that knowledge is more than cognitive (or intellectual). Knowledge can also be emotional, spiritual, esthetic, sensory, somatic, and so on. I’m grateful that the world’s knowledge exceeds what I can learn in one lifetime. Mindel possessed more than knowledge; my grandmother also had wisdom.

Knowledge takes may forms, can be transmitted in multiple ways, and elicits many reactions

Leap Year in Literature

Although 2023 is not a Leap Year, I was curious about literary references to this quadrennial event. A search turned up surprisingly few. Here’s a calendrical listing of what I found. Can you cite more?

“For leap year comes naething but ance in the four.” (Robert Shennan, “Leap Year,” Tales, Songs, and Miscellaneous Poems, Descriptive of Rural Scenes and Manners, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, 1831)

“This being Leap Year the signs of the Zodiak are all on the rampage. There is no cause for alarm. Once in four years this frolic occurs, and is said by the doctors to be necessary for their health.” (Josh Billings, Farmers’ Almanac, 1872)

“In Leap Year the weather always changes on a Friday.” (Belgian proverb quoted in Rev. Charles Swainson, A Handbook of Weather Folk-Lore, 1873)

The while you clasp me closer,
The while I press you deeper,
As safe we chuckle,—under breath,
Yet all the slyer, the jocoser,—
“So, life can boast its day, like leap-year,
Stolen from death!”
(Robert Browning, “St. Martin’s Summer,” Pacchiarotto, and How He Worked in Distemper, 1876)

“So it was that on the twenty-ninth day of February, at the beginning of the thaw, this singular person fell out of infinity into Iping Village.” (H. G. Wells, The Invisible Man, 1897)

“Surely this was a sign on Leap Year night! It’s the 29th. Go in and win. Don’t be afraid.” (A. A. Milne, Lovers in London, 1905 )

“For jaywalkers every year is leap year.” (Bill Holman, “Auto Suggestions,” The Travelers Insurance Company, Thou Shalt Not Kill!, 1935)

Hobbits observe twelve 30-day months every year, including Solmath, equivalent to February. Five days are added to make 365 per annum. (J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, 1937)

Leap Year: A Novel by Steve Erickson (1989)

Leap Year: A Comic Novel by Peter Cameron (1990)

Other Leap Year Trivia

People born on leap year are called leaplings.

The first arrest warrants in the Salem witchcraft trials were issued on February 29, 1692.

Sweden and Finland added an extra Leap Day to February in 1712 to synchronize their outdated Julian calendar with the new Gregorian calendar.

British-born James Milne Wilson, who became the 8th premiere of Tasmania, was born on Leap Day 1812 and died on Leap Day 1880, his “17th” birthday. The rarity of the date aside, it’s not unusual for people to die on their birthday.

In 1928, bartender Harry Craddock invented a Leap Day Cocktail at London’s Savoy Hotel:

1 dash lemon juice
2/3 gin
1/6 Grand Marnier
1/6 sweet vermouth
Shake and serve, garnished with lemon peel

Cheers leaplings. Next year is yours!

Remnick Interviews Rushdie

“Rushdie went on, ‘I just thought, There are various ways in which this event can destroy me as an artist.’ He could refrain from writing altogether. He could write ‘revenge books’ that would make him a creature of circumstances. Or he could write ‘scared books,’ novels that ‘shy away from things, because you worry about how people will react to them.’ But he didn’t want the fatwa to become a determining event in his literary trajectory” (“Defiance” by David Remnick, The New Yorker, 02/13&20/23). Writing takes courage, vision, and sometimes, heroic single-mindedness. For more literary thoughts, see REFLECTIONS.

Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie writes fiction and nonfiction

Why writers read: “People can lose their lives in libraries. They ought to be warned.” – Saul Bellow

What Writing and Chocolate Have in Common

“Weekends and weekdays don’t matter to a writer. I’ve discovered through my life, if you take the day off, it takes you two days to get back to where you were. You need to keep it going in your head” (Erica Jong, “How Erica Jong, Writer, Spends Her Sundays,” The New York Times, September 24, 2022). I agree. Writing is self-fueling. A day without writing is as unsatisfying as a day without chocolate. More thoughts about writing in REFLECTIONS.

Chocolate is a daily necessity for this writer

Why writers write: “If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.” – Isaac Asimov

Play’s the Thing

“When you’re an adult watching a kid playing with a little toy, you just think that kid’s doing that and there’s nothing else to it. But from the kid’s perspective, that toy is playing with them. It’s interactive” (Lynda Barry, interviewed by David Marchese in “A Genius Cartoonist Believes Child’s Play Is Anything But Frivolous,” The New York Times, September 02, 2022). As a writer, as well as a developmental psychologist, I wholeheartedly concur. Creative writing is a form of play. The story is a toy and the writer must be open to playing with it. Psychologist Jean Piaget said, “Play is the work of childhood” and Mr. Rogers described play as serious work. Creative play should also be the work of adulthood.

Why writers write: “If a nation loses its storytellers, it loses its childhood.” – Peter Handke

Wonder What Defines an “Indie Press?”

According to LitNuts, an online book promotion service that only features publications by indie presses, “A book by an indie author (many of whom have created their own imprint) is definitely an indie book. So are books from the small, university, and micro presses competing for attention with the Big Five corporate publishers and their ~250 imprints. (The Big Five are HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group, and Macmillan. They may be about to become the Big Four, pending the outcome of the antitrust suit to block the merger of Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster.) The Big Five have an 80%+ market share in the United States. That translates into 80%+ of shelf space in bookstores and 80%+ of online book real estate, as well.”

My novels are all published by indie presses (Vine Leaves Press and Alternative Book Press). When you buy books from indie presses and encourage others to do the same, you support their efforts to publish a wider variety of voices than those represented by large commercial presses. Thank you for investing in this vital share of the literary and publishing world!