38: Character is Fate

38

 

Character is Fate 

I scanned one of my bookcases in my writing den the other day and my eyes fell upon a thick softcover book of short stories, light blue in color: The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction, Fifty North American Stories Since 1970; and I read the Contents, Forward and Introduction and then, for whatever reason, selected Tim O’Brian’s story “The Things They Carried” to read while sipping my morning coffee.

I loved the story. It was brilliant in its revelation of character by what the soldiers carried in the battlefield. And I loved the way Tim O’Brian wrote the story; lean, clean and true, if I may allude to my mentor Ernest Hemingway’s literary credo; that’s why I’ve been reading anthologies of best stories for the past month or so: I’m going to be re-working a book of short stories that I wrote fifteen years ago, and I want to saturate myself with the consciousness of literary excellence before I rework my stories.

I’ve already read my manuscript, which I titled Sparkles in the Mist and Other Stories (I see no reason to change the title), and despite the obvious editorial changes that jumped out at me (author intrusion, mostly), I’m glad I wrote the stories because they reflect the post-Gurdjieffian years of my life when I wanted to get back into creative writing.

I can’t begin reworking my stories until I finish the book that I’m working on now—Gurdjieff Was Wrong, But His Teaching Works—because I don’t want to split my focus and diffuse my best energies on two books; but this afternoon I read a story by Russell Banks from my Scribner Anthology called “Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story,” and I felt strongly nudged to write a spiritual musing that was inspired by one synoptic sentence in the story: “Character is fate, which suggests that if a man can know and then to some degree control his character, he can know and to that same degree control his fate.”

I remember reading F. Scott Fitzgerald saying “character is action,” which I filed away in the back of my mind because it’s a great insight into story writing, but I had forgotten about the even more insightful saying “character is fate,” which Russell Bank illustrated in his story; and not by telling either, but by showing his main character’s lack of character.

“Now that’s a great story!” I exclaimed, to no one in particular (I was sitting on our front deck, alone), and I put the book down and went for a bike ride because I was too excited by the brilliance of Russell Banks writing (his novel The Sweet Hereafter was made into a movie, directed by Atom Egoyan), and when I got back I came to my computer to start my spiritual musing; but not knowing why I was nudged to write this musing, I’m going to abandon to my creative unconscious and explore the saying character is fate… 

There’s an old saying, “a leopard cannot change its spots.” That speaks to character. There’s also the fable of the scorpion that asked a frog to do it a favor and carry it across the stream on its back, but the frog objected. “You’ll sting and poison me,” said the frog.

“Don’t be silly,” said the scorpion. “If I do, we’ll both die.”

The frog saw the logic and consented, but half way across the stream the scorpion stung the frog and the frog said, “Why did you sting me? Now we’re both going to die.”

          And the scorpion replied, “I couldn’t help myself. It’s my nature.”

This little fable also speaks to character; so when Russell Banks’s very good looking and fit and well-dressed lawyer narrator, who also happens to be the main character of the story, ten years after the fact reflects upon his sexual dalliance with an ugly overweight poorly dressed but honest woman named Sarah Cole he’s trying to come to terms with his own lack of character—which is why I love creative writing, because it brings some measure of resolution to the human condition and, as another mentor of mine Carl Jung would say, “kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.” Hopefully, my stories will do the same. 

♥