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D.R. Ranshaw

D.R. RANSHAW

Foibles Here, Foibles Everywhere...

8/27/2018

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Picture
Gads, is it really that long ago? Chocolat, a terrific film based on the novel by Joanne Harris, starring a younger Johnny Depp, was released in 2000. I remember seeing it when it came out, and the other night, my wife and I watched it for the first time since then.
 
A woman and her young daughter arrive in a sleepy 1959 provincial village in France. (Intriguingly, but not very subtly as far as symbolism goes, they travel wearing bright red cloaks --- I mean, who does that? Besides Little Red Riding Hood, of course, and we’re all aware of her tribulations.) Now, small towns have been employed by writers of all stripes since the year dot as vehicles for all kinds of conflict --- Thornton Wilder, Shirley Jackson, Stephen King and Arthur Miller immediately come to mind, and the list could go on indefinitely. This is because small human conglomerations are such delicious hotbeds of all kinds of human foibles, sometimes more so than large ones. (Perhaps because the people are all packed into much less square footage… you know, you get double the vice at half the price.) But these foibles are usually masked by highly polished veneers of respectability --- depending on when your story takes place, of course. (Which is something to consider: how openly displayed are these foibles? In 1959, not very. Today, in contrast --- perplexingly and tragically --- bad behaviour seems not something to be even discreetly masked, but rather, openly celebrated. One of the reasons why Things Are Such A Mess, in my humble correct opinion. QED.)
 
Anyway, it never takes much solvent to strip away those veneers, and Lansquenet-sous-Tannes, the village that’s the setting for Chocolat, is no exception. And that’s what makes this tale so worthy of a writer’s inspection.
 
So… foibles… let’s see… where to begin? Well, all the Seven Cardinal Sins --- the staples of conflict --- are there, of course, because they’re present wherever human behaviours are involved. (I’ll save you the trouble: pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth. You’re welcome.) But the foibles that I think really stand out in this particular tale are xenophobia and egocentrism, two great foibles for writers to exploit because they’re just so universal, regardless of time or place, and that’s what I want to present for your entertainment and edification today.
 
Let’s start with xenophobia (literally, ‘fear of strangers’ or ‘outsiders’). Unfortunately, it seems so integral to the human condition: we’re afraid of people different from our ‘group.’ And also unfortunately, fear is only a short hop, skip and jump to active hate. Apparently, there’s something weirdly reassuring in our genetic makeup to homogeneity (sameness) and weirdly unsettling about heterogeneity (differentness).  And let’s not forget known and unknown as additional, related factors.
 
In Chocolat, the red-cloaked woman, Vianne Rocher, and her daughter, Anouk, are unknowns. They’re different from the townspeople. More than that: they actively refuse to fit in --- admittedly, mom much more so than daughter, which isn’t terribly surprising (pre-teen children in particular are generally very conscious about fitting in) --- which, of course, incurs suspicion and hostility. And in the case of the village’s mayor, who seems to regard Lansquenet as his own personal fiefdom (superbly played with quietly venomous determination by Alfred Molina), Vianne’s refusal to conform engenders active persecution on his part. And when Johnny Depp’s character --- a wandering hippy who literally sails into collective village life on a houseboat --- shows up and finds a spiritual ally in Vianne… well, that just stokes the fire of village xenophobia further (setting up a great scene reminiscent of Thomas Becket’s murder by King Henry II’s followers in 1170: one of the villagers hears the mayor’s frustration and unilaterally decides to torch the house boats --- although to his credit, the mayor is horrified on belatedly discovering this.)
 
Personally, I think egocentrism is the greatest sin/evil of all, trumping even the seven cardinals, because my life observations have been that all the others derive from it. I call egocentrism ‘The Great I Want.’ I want this. I want that. I want it right now. And I know better than you how things should be done, so it must be done my way. And (most importantly) my wants are paramount, while yours are irrelevant. Seems to me that most bad behaviours spring from those five statements.
 
Now, we’re all born egocentric --- it’s the only thing babies know. Nothing particularly wrong with that. But what’s supposed to happen is that parents gradually educate their children out of egocentrism, at least its most extreme manifestations: wait your turn; don’t take things that don’t belong to you; you can’t have everything, and in any event, you certainly can’t have it right away. (Again, personally, seems to me there are a pile ‘o parents out there either not doing their job or not doing it very well.)
 
All this is of absolutely critical importance to our survival as a species, because a society full of rampant egocentrics is irrevocably headed for imminent destruction (sound familiar?).
 
So egocentrism is, really, the great driver of character behaviour in our stories.
 
There, it’s great. In real life, well, not so much.
 
But perhaps our takeaway should be the anti-egocentric/anti-xenophobic comments made near the film’s conclusion by Pere Henri, the parish priest:  I'm not sure what the theme of my homily today ought to be. Do I want to speak of the miracle of Our Lord's divine transformation? Not really, no. I don't want to talk about His divinity. I'd rather talk about His humanity. I mean, you know, how He lived His life, here on Earth. His kindness, His tolerance... Listen, here's what I think. I think that we can't go around... measuring our goodness by what we don't do. By what we deny ourselves, what we resist, and who we exclude. I think... we've got to measure goodness by what we embrace, what we create... and who we include.
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It's Not Me, It's You

8/13/2018

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Picture
Oh, crap. Rhiss and Lowri have had a fight.
 
I did not see that coming, didn’t want it to happen --- which, I can state categorically, mirrors their feelings, too.
 
It wasn’t a screaming match or overtly dramatic --- you know, the sort of thing many of us have witnessed: a couple getting into a very public, very vocal (possibly very protracted) disagreement at a restaurant or other venue, so that, eventually, everyone within earshot abandons any pretense of paying attention to their own meal/conversation and just raptly listens to the Magnificent/Horrendous (depending on your proclivities) Unseemly Public Behaviour. Because watching a train wreck in slow motion is, almost universally, a guilty pleasure.
 
But in some ways, this was worse: private (nobody else within earshot), low-key, marked by dangerous questions that didn’t get answered forthrightly… and at its conclusion… well, it was one of those fights where you leave with a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach, knowing there’s a strong possibility real damage has been done to the relationship, and it’ll take time to process just how salvageable things are. If they are.
 
So, today’s questions: (a) How Did This Happen; and (b) What Do We Do About It?
 
These are real people, then, people you care about? you ask tentatively (because you want the sordid details but, being raised properly, are hesitant to ask outright). Well, yes and no. A little context: Rhiss and Lowri are very real and very dear to me… and, I hope, to those who’ve read my novel, Gryphon’s Heir. They’re characters in the book, you see --- Rhiss is the protagonist, and he met Lowri after a pretty traumatic event. She kind of sailed to his rescue, which, in retrospect, is rather a neat reversal of the hackneyed damsel-in-distress scenario (although I didn’t consciously plan it that way), and they ended up falling for each other fairly hard. They have some lovely moments together, although ultimately, Rhiss has to ride off and (figuratively) slay some dragons. Lowri could go with him --- he wants her to, in fact --- but she decides, for her own reasons, not to.
 
Currently, I’m industriously working on book 2, Gryphon’s Awakening. (What’s that? Oh, yes, it’s going very well… 131,000ish words and counting. I figure… 75-80% complete. Thanks for asking.) And recently, after a number of escapades with the ‘slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,’ Fate (read Your Ever-So-Humble Author) re-united Rhiss and Lowri. Oh, I was so looking forward to this: I wanted to watch their burgeoning relationship once more develop apace! I put them together and…
 
…they blew it. Against his better judgement, Rhiss asked some questions he kinda knew in his heart were better left well alone. And Lowri sort-of-but-not-really answered in ways engendering ambiguity instead of security. In short, they unfortunately behaved like real people all too often do, and while on the one hand, I wanted to smack them both upside the head, I was also… well, ‘pleased’ isn’t really the right word, but… perversely gratified they weren’t acting like puppets. And this brings me to today’s central thesis (plus a subsidiary one):
 
What Do We Do About It? I asked earlier. The depressing --- but fundamentally correct --- answer is starkly simple: Not A Damned Thing. Now, I know, as both author and reader, the immediate impulse is to alter what we see as a horrible miscarriage of love, if not justice. I mean, this isn’t the real world, right? We can right wrongs with the flick of a keystroke, yes?
 
Well, aye, we can. But I’m telling you, that’s a horrendous mistake. As a writer in this situation, you must ask: are you Creator, or Puppet Master? Do your characters possess free will, or are they merely convenient place-holders for your shallow wish-fulfillment fantasies? With both questions, if you have any integrity at all, your answers must be the former.
 
Now, to be clear, I want things to work between Rhiss and Lowri, I really do --- they’re a lovely couple, and (surprise!) there’s a great deal of me in him. But I don’t know if they’ll live happily ever after. I was, frankly, horrified as their conversation went sideways. What the hell are you doing, guys? I whispered as the words appeared on the page. (I went so far as to have Rhiss mirror my thoughts when he told Lowri this was definitely not the conversation he had planned or wanted to have with her. But they did. Sigh.)
 
But… if I’m true to them, and they to each other, it must be like that. Sure, I could re-write their conversation to make it lovey-dovey, devoid of thorny questions that got Rhiss into such trouble. But that would be flipping them the bird. When characters behave realistically, on their own… they’ve come to life, independent of me --- a wondrous thing --- and to attempt to strait-jacket them into artificial behaviours is just wrong. And, frankly, an abuse of power, too. (If you want to put this into a theological context, this whole dilemma goes a looong ways towards explaining why bad things happen, and why evil occurs. At least, I think so.)
 
The subsidiary thesis is that this incident illustrates again (to me, anyway) the futility of trying to plot novels in advance. (Plotters vs. pantsers, in writing vernacular.) We can’t plot our life stories beforehand, so what colossal arrogance makes us think we can do that for our characters --- if they’re behaving like real people? (This is very counter-cultural, I know: our society is obsessed with the idea of being in control. But the truth is… we’re not. You get to make choices, people, but stop kidding yourselves with the farcical notion you’re in control. You’ll sleep better.)
 
So, things are… strained… between Rhiss and Lowri right now. And personally, I don’t see any resolution to their contretemps in book 2. Might be book 3. Might not happen at all.
 
Oops. Sorry. Spoiler alert… maybe.
 
But, hey… that’s life, isn’t it?
 
Besides… they might surprise me. People often do, you know.

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    D.R. Ranshaw's Blog

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    Author of The Annals of Arrinor series.  Lover of great literature, fine wine, and chocolate. Not necessarily in that order.

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