Not dreaming much, lately
I'm the sort of writer who relies on dream output to spark off the seeds of my creative writing. In my more magnificent moments, I like to imagine that I follow in the distinguished line of surrealists from André Bréton to David Lynch. My favourite authors, like Haruki Murakami and Lewis Carroll, infuse their writing with a dream logic so seemingly random that it reads like game theory.
But it's a path fraught with peril and littered with the unworthy literary corpses of the un-selfcritical. Reading an unadulterated transcript of a dream is much like reading someone else's Instant Messenger conversations. The insights are opaque and unfathomable and the rest is annoying and too specific to another's experience to enjoy. So it should be - why should anyone feel that others should be interested in the quixotic sortings of their sleeping minds?
A striking example of this technique taken to it's ugliest conclusion is Dreams, a late, semi-senile work by the great Japanese film-maker, Akira Kurosawa. By common concensus one of his worst films, it commits the staggering conceit of presenting a meandering series of shorts based on his (very unthrilling) dreams, directed with a shocking and ploddingly literal lack of lyricism. The unmediated dream is simply not enough to sustain a work. This is the lesson.
So, I go through phases of having incredibly vivid and memorable dreams. I like to use them as the basis for writing but I'm more than aware that like a summer cloud, the imaginative importance of their content can be fleeting. Having said that, my creative process plunders my dream self a lot.
For example, a lot of my comic story, Askance Glance, is based on resampling several dreams I had in close sequence a few years ago while living in the house in the strip. The house itself was very similar to that depicted. The crack and the subsidence, even details like the insurance company engineer's speech in part 2 are based entirely on the real thing. But the dreams plonked several new and exciting ideas in my head and prompted the creation of the story.
I guess the key thing is that the dream itself is merely the starting point. The hard work starts afterwards. Kurosawa's mistake was that the dreams in themselves aren't interesting enough in their own right. They just meander into life, follow some nonsensical narrative strand for a few minutes, then evaporate away.
When I'm in a creative frame of mind, I tend to dream a lot (or rather I tend to remember a lot of vivid dreams when I wake). I'm not having a lot of great dreams at the moment, and perhaps this is consistent with the fact that I'm not making a lot of creative leaps right now. The dreams I do remember are of the boring, "I did this, then I did that then I went to the shops" variety.
I'll know the good ones when they come.
Probably this is why I like the surrealist writers and artists the best. I feel that those who take dream narrative and the very closely linked and fashionable "game logic" as the starting point of their work create amazing, imaginative works of art that truly move me.
Quenyel's Light
My friend Lindsay (who introduced me to weblogging) is one of these people. She's a hugely talented but undiscovered poet and writer. She is also prone to a very vivid dream life, and last year we realised we shared a passion for dream-based narrative and started swapping stories. I was enraptured by one particular short story she wrote based on one of her dreams.
Quenyel's Light was originally presented on one of her old weblogs but that's no longer there. I think it's a beautifully funny, taut, economical and evocative piece of writing and I was thrilled when Lindsay agreed to let me present it here again.
And here it is:
Quenyel's Light
by Lindsay Vaughan
The average Quenyellian woman spends most of her time in a rocking chair, knitting or reading a book or perhaps simply sitting quietly with a pensive expression. I interviewed one who gave birth to all five of her children without stepping away from her rocker for even a moment; I didn't ask how she'd managed to conceive the children in the first place, but in a village like Quenyel it isn't hard to imagine a newlywed couple indulging themselves even when required to assume the most ridiculous postures.
And if Quenyel is anything, it is ridiculous.
The village is surrounded by a stone wall twenty feet high, made seemingly vulnerable by dozens of circular windows along the circumference. What the ignorant passer-by does not see is that a mysterious light enters the city from these windows, casting tubular shafts of dusty rays that span and intersect across the diameter. The light beams have been plotted on maps all over the city, but most Quenyellians memorize the layout by the age of eleven. Duck here... hop there... don't go anywhere near the old bridge...
Upon my arrival in Quenyel I was greeted by an anxious young boy who was to be my guide. He escorted me through the maze of lights, alerting me when it was time to quickly swerve or jump in order to avoid making contact. The stories he told on the way, of the sudden collapse of women folding their linens and of men tipsy from after-work beer binges, did nothing to soothe my nerves. We arrived at the meeting hall, where a dozen Quenyellians sat in cold metal folding chairs while they told me the history of their city, or at least the small amount that they knew.
No written record exists to explain Quenyel's mysterious circular wall or the light that spills through the windows, although the first death is recorded in an old hardback book with the word "Regina" printed in illuminated text on its olive cover. To summarize, Regina was the fiancee of the city's most highly esteemed equestrian; she collapsed while skipping stones in the creek that runs beneath a bridge near the city gates. Regina's father and future father in law attempted to carry her home in order to allow both families to pay their final respects, but when the men tried to pass through the stream of light shining on her face, they too fell. Onlookers were convinced the dead girl was cursed and from that day forward the creek was blocked off and nobody allowed to go near. According to this book the light became more common throughout the city until a certain amount of beams were produced, and the number remains the same to this day.
One might wonder why the Quenyellians did not try to escape and join a neighbouring town, but Quenyel is a desert village, poor and isolated; the few who attempted escape were turned away as cursed untouchables at the gates of Eron and Chrysopolis, almost as if their inhabitants had prior knowledge of Quenyel's fate.
I was taking notes on these histories when the grandfather of my young guide, who was seated amongst the others, offered to escort us back to the main gate for my departure. As we ducked and jumped and swerved our way across town, some excitement caught our attention and we followed the din; I was careful not to misstep even an inch until we arrived before a large recreational pool near the centre of town. My young guide explained to me how most of Quenyel's citizens had become experts in finding areas of town with virtually no malignant beams, and they would proceed to construct entire buildings on such sites to establish safe havens where people could congregate free of anxiety. I carefully pulled my notebook and pen from my pocket and jotted down the fragments of conversation I could hear around me.
"...thought he fixed the problem last month?"
"A new light beam..."
Someone, I assume the building's proprietor, was fishing something out of the in-ground pool, and when I stood on my toes to get a better look I saw that it was the body of an elderly gentleman. The proprietor nervously tugged at his collar before frantically addressing the crowd.
"This man has had a heart attack. There is no light problem here. This man has had a heart attack."
We stood in place and watched as the solemn crowd slowly dissipated, and the pool's proprietor stood shaking next to the latest corpse, unconvinced by even his own lies.
© 2004-5, Lindsay Vaughan
I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. Another friend of Lindsay took the Quenyel idea and ran with it. You can read Ray Sweatman's Quenyel piece here. I like it but I can't say that it can hold a candle to Lindsay's compact, stylish and gripping prose.
I'm now getting a new bit of writing, The Island ready for here. I hope you'll enjoy it.
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