In Which I Go Back To High School

I just got home from a whirlwind trip across the country to attend my grandfather's funeral. On Tuesday, my niece was working on an English assignment, and she asked me for some help. Her class is reading Frankenstein, and this was the assignment:

Mary Shelly writes in her introduction, “Everything must have a beginning, to speak in Sanchean phrase; and that beginning must be linked to something that went before. The Hindus give the world an elephant to support it, but they make the elephant stand upon a tortoise. Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of a void, but out of chaos; the materials must, in the first place, be afforded: it can give form to dark, shapeless substances but cannot bring into being the substance itself. In all matters of discovery and invention, even of those that appertain to the imagination, we are continually reminded of the story of Columbus and his egg. Invention consists of the capacity of seizing on the capabilities of a subject and in the power of molding and fashioning ideas suggested by it.” Explain what she is saying. Do you agree or disagree with her? Support your thoughts with evidence and examples.

I found this quote and assignment so fascinating that I decided to turn my thoughts about it into my blog post this week.

The funny thing is, I'm pretty certain I'm not going to interpret this quote 100% correctly. I can think of at least one more likely interpretation than the one I'm going to use here. Part of me wonders if she is trying to explain where her own story ideas came from--that there is nothing truly new, but only things we pull out of chaos and make our own. When I try to backtrack and find out where my ideas came from, it does seem as though it is "turtles all the way down." Though fascinating to think about, this is not where I'm headed with this blog post.

The first time I read that quote, I was certain I knew what she was talking about before I'd even finished the first sentence. "She's writing about backstory," I thought to myself, and it wasn't until I had finished reading the whole quote that I realized I might be wrong. Such is the joy of not really being in high school though. This blog post can meander wherever I want it to.

The Great Paradox

Everything must have a beginning...And the beginning is hard. As we've lamented many times here on The Prosers, finding the right place to start your story is a treacherous endeavor. A book has to begin somewhere, but wherever your story begins, it's still right in the middle. It makes me think about the beginning of David Copperfield, when he said, "To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born..." Even trying so desperately to begin at the beginning, David Copperfield comes to realize that he is still a product of everything that happened before.

Instead of lamenting this fact, authors should rejoice in it. Revel in it. Use it to write thousands of pages and loads of sequels, prequels and companion novels!

This morning, after I dropped my kids off at school, I went swimming, which is something one of my characters loves to do. I thought about her as I swam, and I found myself wondering if she was the kind of person who would get up early in the morning to swim, if it was her only chance. I found myself inventing a whole story around the answer to that question. That story probably won't make it into the book. But I'm certain it will make the book better, nonetheless.

Thanks, Kayla, for giving me such a fun topic to write about this morning!

Melanie

P.S. I'm the kind of person who can't stand not knowing something if I think I could find the answer on Google in 30 seconds or less. For your edification, this is what I googled today:

"To speak in Sanchean phrase" Sanchean phrase refers to Sancho Panza from Cervantes' Don Quixote, when he said "In this matter of government, everything depends upon the beginning." Apparently, Shelly was a big fan of Cervantes.

Columbus and the egg refers to a brilliant idea or discovery that seems simple or easy after the fact. There is a popular story about the time Christopher Columbus was told that discovering the Americas was no great accomplishment. The story is often alluded to when discussing creativity.

The Columbus story may have originated with Italian historian and traveler Girolamo Benzoni. In his book History of the New World,published in 1565,[2] he wrote:   

"Columbus was dining with many Spanish nobles when one of them said: 'Sir Christopher, even if your lordship had not discovered the Indies, there would have been, here in Spain which is a country abundant with great men knowledgeable in cosmography and literature, one who would have started a similar adventure with the same result.' Columbus did not respond to these words but asked for a whole egg to be brought to him. He placed it on the table and said:'My lords, I will lay a wager with any of you that you are unable to make this egg stand on its end like I will do without any kind of help or aid.' They all tried without success and when the egg returned to Columbus, he tapped it gently on the table breaking it slightly and, with this, the egg stood on its end. All those present were confounded and understood what he meant: that once the feat has been done, anyone knows how to do it."

The elephant and the tortoise: There are some very interesting modern-day discussions about the world being supported on the back of the elephant, who is standing on the back of a tortoise. Stephen Hawking, in A Brief History of Time, tells a story about a scientist wondering what the turtle is standing on. A little old woman tells him there are "turtles all the way down." Start looking this up on google, and you might be there all day, learning about infinite regress and Terry Pratchett's discworld. Fun, fun stuff.