Hello Gentle Reader,
There is something to be said about poets who dare to dabble in the inkwells of prose. Afterall, poetry and prose approach language and narrative from completely different starting points and have varying expectations of what the destination is. Poetry is the lark form. There is an understanding of language. The composition, the textures, the resonance, the cadence followed by the echo. Whether or not the tune is sharp or flat; if the rhythm and rhyming scheme floats with elegance, reaching for the effervescent points of euphonic, or if the rhythm clatters, the lines dragging along the stanza as a series of chains clanging and jangling in a Marlian procession of rusted grating damned cacophony. Turners of language; cultivators of silence. Poets master schools and forms; be it Elizabethan or Italian sonnet, limerick or villanelle. These defined forms exist to support and provide structure to the ephemera which poetry courts. Whereas prose is the catchall. Where poetry corresponds with air, the lightness of the sky, the shapelessness of clouds; prose encompasses the solid and firmness of the earth; the salt and the spice of it. Not concerned with tradition or form, prose maintains itself through the universality of grammar. Structured around sentences and paragraphs; punctuated with comas, semicolons, colons; concluding with periods, exclamation marks and question marks. As long as these principles are adhered to, the form is malleable and shapable. Prose is flexible beyond the traditions of established thought, theories, schools or forms. This of course being said, the prose written and celebrated today is best described as punchy. Sentences are hardboiled. They are rendered down to their bleached and translucent bones, whereby they rattle with solemn and hollow reportage. As a point of personal judgement, this scaled, scalped and trimmed sentence structure complete with concrete pithy style, can be traced to Hemmingway; whose barebones reportage writing style was praised upon its initial debut as a significant departure from the exuberant eloquence of Henry James. Now, however, the style has become propensity of every writer milled out of some creative writing fine arts degree program. It is understandable why students and aspiring writers are instructed not to emulate the overwhelming cascading verbosity of Henry James. Yet the directness championed by Hemingway has all but washed, glazed and baked the writings of today to a templated scripture. There is no scrolling expressiveness. Its all been replaced by a style effectively described as write by numbers or the building block composition. The poet, however, who splashes in the ever-expanding pond of prose, is capable of approaching language and sentences from an original and different perspective. Gone is the utilitarian and wooden production of sentences, since replaced by a prose whose qualities invoke an undercurrent of sophistication, evident in a complexity of metaphors and imagery; the smoothness of the sentences rippling forward in controlled purposeful current; not a series of blocks assembled in a manner of tracking the trajectory of point to point. Nevertheless, there is a word of caution to poets who move into the vacuous realm of prose. Unencumbered and therefore unmoored by form or structure, it is easy to become enveloped and lost within the sheer quantity of an overabundance of text and be swept out and away. Some poets when turning to prose, loose the plot and the point, whereby readers drown (or give up) in a novel that is infused with beautiful language, but has no where to take hold or take shape or form. While others take to prose with ease, mastering both forms. Hélène Dorion is one such poet.
“Days of Sand,” has been classified as a novel. Yet, this assembly of text by the Québécoise poet Hélène Dorion, would be best defined as a meditation rather than a novel. While French publishing is open to a myriad of genres to at least attempt to describe the insurmountable shapes and figures prose can take; the counterpart of English publishing is less generous in accepting terms such as meditations or fragments as standalone literary forms unto themselves, they can certainly be a part of a novel or essay, but as singular compositions, no it just wont do. Which inevitably explains why “Days of Sand,” for all intents and purposes is described as a novel. Despite this, Hélène Dorion embraces the free form of prose with ease, crafting a series of vignettes compromised of memories; meditations on language; thoughts and ponderings, become collated into a seamless menagerie of what may be described in the loosest of terms as a memoir. Hélène Dorion’s vignettes are impressionistic in scope and scale. Rather then being an oil painter, Dorion is a watercolourist providing impressions and insinuations to shape the negative space, without anchoring the work into the firm elements of autobiography or requirements of a traditional memoir. Furthermore, Dorion’s memories are nonlinear in scope and spirit. The spark alight with the spontaneity of reminiscences. How they are incited, provoked and spurred on is never revealed, such a detail is inconsequential in “Days of Sand.” Hélène Dorion’s interest remains firmly interested in tracing the memory and revelation as its recalled and considered.
“Our lives depend perhaps upon what wanders about in our heads as children, and which we only re-encounter in pieces, in images that are only ever fragments, half-true stories driven by words. We reshape the thread linking the worlds, delving into the imaginary and reality, without concern for the other.
One day the window opens on its own. We are ready to let in the scenery. The wind blows, bringing with it faces, scenes, minor events, others more troubling. The present carries enough weight in the balance of time to modify constantly the vision we have of the past. We turn the glass around. we listen to what has been echoing forever in our voices. We are ready to reconstruct our memory.”
Memory via the pen of Hélène Dorion is pétillant in spirit. A carbonated chaos were flashes of memories whip and whirl through the window, becoming half remembered truths and stories. A convoluted mosaic constructed of chipped and fragmented tiles. The brightness of Dorion’s prose comes from its enveloping sensory qualities enriched further by the lyrical and poetic qualities. The distance between remembered and the event itself, creates a crystalline – almost cold – understanding. Dramatic incidents of escaping house fires, nearly drowning, the solitude of illness and recovery, are recalled and reflected on, but never melodramatically chewed over. Rather they lead to observations, mediations, and realizations. The understanding of one’s parents eventually ceasing to exist in the world, witnessing their own entrance into orphanhood. There are ruminations of the complexities of piecing together the origins of one’s family, or at the very least, the semblance of it. This is complete by half-true stories and personal mythologies in which we all come to accept as the testament. Memories of long-haul road trips for family vacations, hallmarks of childhood. The resolve and understanding that one will become a writer, not as a point of cultural pedigree, but as a inherent vocation from within oneself. In the end though, the “Days of Sand,” persists through its flashes, snapshots, and fragments: “The sand runs out and the wave soon will carry everything away; all we can do is love.”
Hélène Dorion’s border cross into prose is a beautiful success. In maintaining the same adherence to sharp and precise language, Dorion is capable of striking at the heart of the matter, rather than linger over details in any excessive or languid fashion. “Days of Sand,” is a collection of reminiscences, meditations, recollections and reflections. Each sequence or vignette an exquisite pearl along the strand. Readers, however, should be forewarned in advance. While “Days of Sand,” is titled a novel and won the now defunct Prix Anne-Hébert award in 2004, it is not concerned with narrative or character. There is no story to grip to it. Rather it’s a free-flowing series of short recollections and reminisces, examined from a new temporal reality, truths and observations can be understood with some degree of clarity granted by the privilege of age and distance. For readers who enjoy their prose with a greater sensory appreciation and delight in the freefall of poetry in prose, “Days of Sand,” is perfect, complete with an at times ellagic quality of time passage now viewed within retrospect.
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
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