writers'
landscapes
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writers'
landscapes
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Bruce Jefferson (a) on Babis [grandmas] ; (b) on the European republic |
Now I have been writing for a while I seem to have a map of the landscape my work inhabits. I find my characters wandering about the place. It reminds me of the marvelous maps you get in the front of some children's books like Pooh and Milly-Molly-Mandy (my favourite as a child because of the map). The centre of this landscape is a tor surrounded by flat land, rather like the land that surrounds Glastonbury Tor which I live quite near to. There is a lake and a forest and then waste land on the edge of a city. There is a river that flows through the city which is often a route into town for my characters. There are streets and houses and then the sea which stretches out into the distance with varied locations of rocks or sandy beaches. I set my stories in this land which I can see so clearly and the people I write about can be found wandering about the place where I can follow them anytime and just write about what they are getting up to.
Everyone sees the
world in their own way. The things that concern them become important.
If you are an environmentalist, the water tastes funny, the air isn't clean,
the E numbers on the goods in the supermarket leap out at you.
If you are a health writer the elements above might apply but with additional
aspects: every egg you eat is ticked off a check list: 'Two eggs a week - one
left'.
If you are a 'creative' writer, a fiction writer, your world is the world of
story. The tax bill on the doormat kicks off ideas of a bankruptcy story. The
ambulance screaming by with the klaxon howling conjures up visions of a paramedic
on his last chance, a mother who dare not die because of her kids, a man who
has sneered at the disabled but now cannot feel his feet.
As you live your life as a writer, thousands of characters, scenarios, themes
and beginnings and endings whirl about your brain like snow in the Christmas
paperweight. Then, when you establish a starting point for your story, the snow
starts to settle, not random snow almost magnetic snow hurtling from all the
disparate parts of the brain to form together in a magic web between the branches
of your plot. The thoughts, good or bad, happy or sad, will never leave you.
Sometimes as Virginia Wolfe and Edgar Allan Poe found they can possess you,
destroy you. But you can no more resist the story impulse than the rock can
resist gravity. The weaving machine of your mind is never still.
The world is an infinitely interesting place. Prague conjured up for me tanks
in Wenceslas Square. When I went there I saw their ghosts. When I walked the
streets I saw the little shrines they still have for those who died in 1945
in hand-to-hand fighting with the Germans. I saw the narrow streets, heard the
crack of the bullets. I saw the little house of Mozart's mistress and imagined
Tom Hulse laughing as I heard the magical music. This is my imaginary world.
This my writer's imaginary country. The world is my imaginary country. There
is no beginning. There is no end. If you are a writer you are stuck with it.
If imagination frightens you, you are in a foreign land. Leave at once! Magic
can harm you! This is NOT a government warning. Imagination can affect your
mind!
Sunday
Lunch by Bruce Jefferson
It's Sunday lunch, like many other Sunday lunches around the world. A family
around a table, three generations, and three sorts of vegetables. I am in the
Czech Republic having Sunday lunch. I can only recognize about 20% of what is
being said as my Czech is not so good. This means I spend even more time than
usual watching people. Chicken, potatoes, but no gravy? Hum. At the opposite
end of the long table is Babi, (Grandma). There are two Babis here; one is 92
and the other 86. The younger one is staring at me with her dead eye. She has
been going blind for about two years and this has left her with about 30% vision
in her left eye, but it's the right one, the glazed one that's staring at me.
That side of her face, the blind side, seems to be smiling whilst the side that
can see looks very sad? I look down at my plate and push my food around a bit,
so as I don't have to be drawn into that dead eye again. When I look back up
Babi is still staring. That eye is piercing my soul, it sends out a steel rod
straight from it and into my pupil, so as when ever I look up I am forced to
look right into the center of that eye again. I wonder if behind that blind
eye Babi now sees an imaginary world and that's why she is smiling. The other
eye, the seeing eye, is her window to the outside word. The new reality that
is now the Czech republic, perhaps that's why that side of her face looks so
sad, perhaps it's just too scary for her. I mean right at this moment she is
looking down the table at a long haired "Cizinec" (foreigner) and I am sure
she has had her fill of "foreigners". First it was the Austria Hungarian's then
The Germans, then comrade Stalin. Now here was the new foreigner, looking something
like Attila! I wondered if she hankered after the past, I wondered what Babi
would imagine as freedom, it's such a new concept and she is so old now. So
I asked my friend to ask her.
" All these changes, all this choice, it must be difficult for young people
nowadays and it's so dangerous and expensive, I don't know what to think, I
really don't" Babi had worked for the state agricultural co-operative. They
took her parents cattle and everyone else's in the village to a shed six kilometers
out of the village. Then they gave all the young women jobs at the center. Babi
had cycled there and back for over forty years, every day, that's weekends as
well. She would get up at four in the morning lay the fire, and then cycle to
the cattle shed to milk the cows, by hand. Then cycle six kilometers home again.
In winter the temperature drops to -20c. Two days away from work brought the
police to call and if there was no good reason it would "go on your record"
and that was to be avoided at all costs.
Now Babi's ability to deal with the changes, the huge changes that have occurred,
is stretched to the limit. Even in her wildest imaginings she could not of dreamed
of such things. Now there are all these colors and choice and just as they arrive
Babi is going blind and all she can see are half tones of grey? So the blind
side smiles and the seeing side cry's, I would love to see into Babi's imaginary
world, the world behind "the blind side"
23-03-00 Prague.
A
EUROPEAN REPUBLIC? By Bruce Jefferson. Oct 1997. Prague-CZR
I had just finished packing my pick up truck for the drive from my hometown
of Bristol to Prague. The last box into the back of my truck was my box of current
reading material and old favorites and there on the top of the box sat one of
my favorites "The Age of Reason" by Thomas Paine. As I was to drive right across
Europe (the western half) it got me thinking about how long it might be before
we might begin to build a European Republic. I would have plenty of time to
think on this journey that would take me to London - ferry to Hamburg on to
Berlin, Dresden and along the E55 on to my final destination of Prague.
The newspaper headlines on the morning I left concerned themselves mainly with
two subjects. Firstly will Tony Blair shake hands with Gerry Adams! It would
be the first meeting between a British Prime Minister and a republican leader
for more than seventy years. I couldn't help thinking that if after seventy
years they could not even muster a handshake then perhaps they might as well
forget the talking part and both stay at home. I know, this is a positive move
towards peace, but there seems to be so many people who want to see these talks
fail.
The other issue making headlines was to do with trouble at the England v Italy
soccer match held in Rome's Olympic stadium. British officials moved quickly
to blame the "Italians" for this latest outbreak of violence that involved British
soccer hooligans. Whilst the Italians were quick to blame the "English", siting
numerous other occasions when steroid fueled bulldogs, also known as English
soccer fans, invade Europe reeking mayhem and havoc. I wondered how much this
has to do with a warped sense of patriotism on behalf of the British soccer
hooligans. After all only a few hundred years ago these same young men would
have been behaving in similar way but this time they would of been in the employ
of King and Country in some far flung corner of the British Empire. So from
only a cursory glance at the morning papers I realized that the cultural divides
that have kept Europeans separatist's were still alive and kicking, oh my poor
Republic.
I stopped at the services near London for some petrol and a coffee, whilst I
was paying for the petrol I noticed the Herald Tribune in the newspaper rack.
I wondered if they had any comments on the Headlines I had just read in the
British press and sure enough there it was. "Nobody in Britain seems to think
it odd that the "English" alone of all nationalities cannot be trusted to mix
with foreigners!" I paid up and walked back to the truck, was I surprised about
this headline? - Not really it seems everyone's aware of this problem except
for "us". You only have to go to the Costa de Sol and there you will find the
same Brits as you find on the football terraces. But what about all this generalizing,
The Italians, The English, The Irish, The, The, The, and all that "The" implies
about each country. Boundaries, stereotyping, generalizing, hum my Republic
is not going to be easy.
I arrive at Harwich and join the car line to board the ferry to Hamburg within
an hour I am aboard and we cast off. After wandering around the ship and watching
my island slip gradually into the distance I decided to get some food. I arrive
at the restaurant and decide to play the game of "guess the nationality". Although
I say it myself I am pretty good at it. For example I am queuing up to get my
Coke from the dispensing machine at the state of the art self service buffet,
aptly named "The High Seas Deli". Then with out warning, just as it is my turn
to fill my cup two large men push in front of me without a second thought and
begin to pump coke into their cups, guess the nationality? - Yep, right first
time. However in the interest of the expeditious establishing of a European
Republic I shall not reveal the answer, but yes you are absolutely right.
We arrive in Hamburg 20 hours later after breaking ice on the Danube on the
way into the Port. I am off the boat very quickly and pick up the signs for
Berlin. Within ten minuets I am heading along the Autobahn with the countryside
out of my Pick up window looking almost the same as England? Hours fly by and
soon I am driving around the Berlin ring looking for signs to Dresden. Within
six hours I am heading into the suburbs of Dresden, now every thing begins to
change. It seems much darker the street lights are dim and give off a yellow
light. Everything looks grey, probably because most of the buildings are painted
grey. Under communism Grey and Brown paint were the only colours readily available.
But even the cobbles on the street seem to be grey and so do the people. Then
I see a group of skinheads shouting and saluting the commuters on their way
home from work. Some of these commuters wave back and blow their horns. Suddenly
a wave of sadness sweeps over me followed by a real feeling of fear. I realize
that London is only a few hours away by road, and here I am in "The East" behind
the old iron curtain. I have travelled the entire width of Western Europe, in
America I would of not covered LA to San Francisco. Yet when I told people in
UK that I was driving to Prague they thought I was going to the other end of
the world!
As I arrive at the Czech boarder there is a huge line of vehicles as I am waiting
I begin to wonder how this boarder got to be here. Then I remembered a question
my nine-year-old son asked me when we were studying a map of Europe. He asked
if all the boarder lines that were drawn on the map were also drawn on the ground
and if so who painted them there, like who said that's where they go? As I sat
at the boarder I noticed that on the back of the Welcome to the Czech Republic
sign was the Welcome to Germany sign! I looked at the earth under the sign,
the grass ran straight underneath it there was no join line or anything. The
grass was the same colour and was even the same length. I wonder, whatever happened
to my childlike questioning?
On across the boarder and I begin my descent down the mountains into the boarder
town of Teplice. When I enter the city limits I notice a dominant Police presence
and streets that once were full of prostitutes now empty. Later I found out
that the Police had recently busted a Hungarian gang that had been trading women
and making huge profits. It seems the gang was making $500,000 a month, almost
all the customers are from the "west". You see they were told that when the
"East" dispensed with communism they could make money from free enterprise!
So eventually I arrive in the beautiful city of Prague. I immediately notice
how much the traffic had increased since my last visit less than a year previously.
I also notice that everyone has a mobile phone, even the road sweeper. I would
never been able to imagine such growth in such a short time.
I am interested in learning more about how all these prejudices and beliefs
are learnt. Each country in Europe has someone to blame, whether that be a neighbouring
country or some ethnic group or another. Geographical biases, yes that's it
- Northerners don't like Southerners and the Welsh don't like the English and
the English don't like the, - and so on, I know it's madness but I was subjected
to this irrationality from a very early age. So I decide to look at the newspaper
headlines in Prague to see what news I gripping this land.
The first one I find is "Did The State Ever Stop Sterilizing Romany Women" yes
this is 1997. My mind jumped back to Dresden and the skinheads. At least I could
see them; they were out in the open declaring their National Socialism, but
taking away Romany women and forcing sterilisation, under the cover of a new
democratic republic, suits, ties, smiles an all! Give me the skinheads any day,
at least I can identify them. So I got interested in the Romany problem, it
seems "they alone " are responsible for the problems of the new free Czech Republic.
I came across this story which in 1997 seems kind of hard to believe but please
believe it. Ludovit Gorje who under the 1993 Czech Citizenship law was told
that he was not Czech but in fact Slovak. (Formerly part of the same country
Czechoslovakia). This was decided after he had committed some petty crime for
which he was sentenced to expulsion for life from the Czech Republic. However
when the court tried to carry out the sentence he was denied entry to the Slovak
Republic because he could not prove that he was born there or anywhere else
come to that. He had been born of no fixed abode and given to an orphanage.
Therefore he had no papers or any idea of who is parents were. It did not seem
to matter that he had lived in the Czech Republic for 23 years. So he had no
option but to return to Prague. Some time later he was arrested by the Police
and charged with violating the expulsion order! It did not matter that the Czech
Court could not implement it, it was Gorje fault. So that just locked him up
and that's the end of that!
You might ask what dose the demise of the Romany people have to do with the
establishment of a European Republic. Well these stories are endemic of the
cultural and bureaucratic disease of the European states. It's an old story,
Oh how awful, but it's not my problem. Surly we have learned by now, ethnic,
minority, religious and geographical persecution must be thing of the past,
it can not have a place at the approach of the 21st century, can it? I think
the problem is related directly to boarders and where one should live rather
than where they might choose to live. I think we are at a momentous time in
the history of Europe. I think we can build something beautiful and enduring
for future generations of Europeans. A United Europe that encompasses all of
that geographical plate, not just the tiny politically defined western European
business club, yes that would be good.
Inner
space. By Jenne
This is my Country; no one may enter without my express permission. This country
is only limited by my imagination.
My Country is a place where I can explore my inner feelings without prejudice,
without fear of rejection. I can wander freely through hidden corners of my
mind. Lurk among the shadows of long forgotten memories. The only thing that
can limit me is myself, my own fears, and in this country that I have created
I can confront those dark shadows, face the ghouls of the past that still haunt
me and conquer them. Each time I turn a corner I can reflect on my past as I
stare into the abyss that is limitless in it's depth. This is the core of my
country, the core of my being, the reason I exist, to learn, to grow and to
nurture this abyss.
My country sprawls across all continents, encompasses and welcomes all new cultures.
The staple diet of my country is diversity and new ideas. Without this diet
my Country would surely starve. Each time I stoop to drink from the fountain
of knowledge my country grows. Whenever I encounter a new traveller in my country
I learn and grow.
My country has no right or wrong, no morality, no given society to hold me back.
Here I can be a true individual. I can dress how I wish. Observe anyone I want
and converse with any one on any subject that interests me. I make my own laws,
my own choices and can exile those that I choose to. I police my own state of
mind; I am my own pyshician. I can help absorb the pain of the people that visit
my country but cannot absolve them of their guilt anymore than they can absolve
them of mine.
This country of mine is still evolving, still being shaped by the people and
experiences I encounter as I travel through it. Each crossroads that I encounter
is a challenge. Each corner that I turn a leap into the unknown. Every person
I meet an experience. All these things shape my country, each serving it's own
hidden purpose, some will be revealed in the future as my past takes shape.
This is my inner space, my state of mind….