Blog #15; Tolstoy, the Undisputed Master

The “Count,” Leo Tolstoy, the champion author of the voluminous and unmatched, WAR AND PEACE.  That one book is so rich in its psychological realism, so textured in its various portrayals of the human species, that it puts all other serious fiction writers to shame.   Even the great Hemingway famously tried and failed to match the Master.  That is because, despite Tolstoy’s many other flaws as a man, he had a deep heart and a measure of humility seldom matched by other authors.  And that is Hemingway’s downfall: his enormous ego.  Only in “The Old Man and the Sea” do we see Hemingway right-sizing himself when beholding the majesty of the great sea, and the powerful forces that lie within it.  It is indeed humbling, and we as readers are awestruck and humbled by the might of the ocean.

Tolstoy achieved the unachievable.  He knew the nature of women, he knew the nature of men, and he knew the nature of humans in general.  And more than any other author, before or since, he knew how to render them realistically in prose that rings.  There is much to learn in WAR AND PEACE: how to love, how to conduct oneself with dignity and compassion, how to deal with difficult people, how to wage war and survive the most grueling of the sufferings that our Lord can throw at us.

I am not afraid here, as I have not been afraid in other Blogs, to identify as a Christian and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  I don’t think spiritual belief and a keen intellect are mutually exclusive, and I believe, as Tolstoy did, that we are to help the less fortunate, to seek to live good and simple lives and to be a servant of God.   Tolstoy spent much of his later years searching out a more spiritual way of life, founded schools, wrote mystical fiction, and lived as a peasant.   He was certainly a humble man in a way we could never imagine Ernest Hemingway being.

Blog #14; On Moral Fiction/Novella available for FREE

I prefer to read and write fiction that has moral heft to it, a clear moral choice, or choices, that must be made by the characters and ways in which the consequences of the choice lead to good or bad outcomes.  In IN LOVE AND WAR, Mack and Inga make unwise decisions, ones that cause them a lot of pain.  Their choice to have premarital sex leads to an unexpected child that Inga must live a lie to protect.  Inga choosing to go to Germany at the onset of the war also has horrible consequences.

In most, if not all of my fiction, there are such moral or ethical dilemmas.  A CONTRITE SPIRIT is one elaborate dilemma.  How can Hyrum live with himself after the horror he has participated in in combat?  He was not merely fighting, he was leading a unit of men, many of which he lost.  How does he make peace with his Maker and his fellow man?

I would challenge my fellow writers to give more attention and energy to the moral dimension of their work.  It adds depth, causes the reader to pause and have valuable insights about the nature of being human.

Novella available for FREE.  For three days, from February 21 to February 23, I will be giving away "Under Old Glory," the prequel to my novel A CONTRITE SPIRIT, due to be published later this year.  If you are a fan of good historical fiction, and family stories, this booklet is a must for your collection!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07SD7SQC8/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1

Blog #12; Good Literature in Relation to Spirituality; the Spiritual element

Good literature, by which I mean not all literature, but rather all literature that is good and praiseworthy, contains some element of the divine.  The work may be mystical in nature, or rather conventionally spiritual, may have metaphysical themes or be concerned with questions of morality or ethics.  I have said in the past that all good literature is healing in some way, and authors are merely practitioners of the healing arts.

 

Any work of literature that exhibits compassion, either on the part of the narrator or the characters for each other, can be said to have a spiritual element; the great religious leaders throughout time have stressed compassion in their words and deeds.  Jesus of Nazareth himself is a very vocal proponent of compassion, and demonstrates it abundantly.

When a work is not spiritually based, things become problematic.  I don’t think we should in lock step sing from the same hymnal as we compose stories and poetry, but I prefer stories especially, that have the transcendent about them, like, “A Small, Good Thing” by Carver, or “The Sorrows of Young Werther” by Goethe.   The Russian authors of the 19^th C. are also examples, the ones I mentioned in a previous blog.  Many parts of Tolstoy’s WAR AND PEACE are transcendent, particularly the scene where Andrei dies in battle.  Perhaps one of the most moving and transcendent scenes found in world literature.

Blog #13; New Short Story, never before published.

 Blog #13; New Short Story, never before published; for the next few days, my short story, “Regret” about two veteran friends who struggle with mental health issues, is AVAILABLE FOR FREE!   This story is only twelve pages in a kindle ebook format, but has never been seen before now.  New fiction from the award-winning writer Chris McClelland.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08W87WX7J

Blog #11; Compassionate Contemporary American Fiction Writers

 Continuing in the theme of writers with heart, let's look at some Modern and Contemporary Fiction Writers who follow in the tradition of the Russians.  Hemingway's early stories are compassionate, tender, but he fails to live up to his early promise in this regard throughout his career.  He becomes a more hard-edged writer as he experiences more death and combat, until he is chasing death through the hills of Spain and in WW II, the forests of Germany.   Steinbeck may be seen as compassionate and tender; however, there is a certain emotional heavy-handedness driven by his political motivations to incite real-world change that leaves the compassionate aspect not fully realized.

By the time we get to the contemporaries, the pure vein of tenderness is refreshed.  The trio of Raymond Carver, Tobias Wolff and Richard Ford are most noteworthy in their profound renditions of their generations' deep emotional life. In fact, I would venture to say Carver's "A Small, Good Thing" is possibly the closest thing American letters has to a perfect short story.

So this is what I aim for in my own work: a view toward that divine attribute of tenderness, with my narrators and characters.  Also, especially in A Contrite Spirit, is the attempt to immerse the reader more deeply not only in felt-life, but also deeper into the characters' interior emotional and spiritual geography.

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Blog #10; current projects; a continuation of the discussion of the Russian fiction writers and their hearts

 The Russian writers of the 19th century showed a particular capacity for sensitivity and sympathy with their characters.  Tolstoy, Chekhov, Turgenev, and others had an almost inordinate capacity for heart.   Two friends in publishing once told me that as a writer, you are given gifts which you are obligated to share with your readers.   These gifts are then "gifted" to your readers at a value far beyond the mere cover price of a book.  I don't know what exactly the value of my books are to others.   I'll leave readers to make that distinction.  My job is to write as well as I can, and that I pledge to do for you.

Tolstoy I find not only the overall author of that period, but also the one with the most tenderness, and sensitivity to the human condition.   War and Peace contains a wealth of human moments, and gifts us as readers abundantly.  Chekhov works on a smaller pallet, but reaches depths nearly as profound as Tolstoy. His sympathy for the serf class is heart-crushing and he moves us with the ease of a true artist.  A master of the short form.   I must admit I am so impressed with Chekhov that I have yet to read any of his drama.  I am afraid it wouldn't measure up to his short fiction.   Turgenev is also a great master of the short form.  If we have nothing else to thank Hemingway for, and we have so much to be grateful for, bringing Turgenev's work to the attention of the 20th C. Americans is surely one accomplishment to be thankful for.  Two blogs back I was going through a long dark period in my outlook on the vista of my writing.  No longer.  I am at once invigorated and inspired.

Current projects include: The ever growing A Contrite Spirit, which is growing both more metaphysical and supernatural as I write more on it, is my main concern.  Also a fiction nonfiction hybrid that promises to be both my most personal work and my most anonymous one.   Various short stories, etc.

Blog #9; Modern Fiction, thoughts on materialism vs. spirituality in modern fiction

How fortunate!  Reading Virginia Woolf's "Modern Fiction" this morning left me with a plethora of answers to the questions I had in my last blog.  The proper role of fiction, the strong points, the importance of conveying lived life as it were, as closely as Joyce does in Ulysses and the importance of the Russians and their heart and compassion.  Woolf points out Chekhov and where he does this extremely well, though perhaps I prefer Tolstoy's novels, the trend in many of the Russians runs strong and deep.

I thank Woolf for pointing out the British "materialists" of her time and comparing them to a "spiritual" writer like Joyce.  Give me spirit!  Give me fiction with heart.  After all, it is how we wretched humans commune with God, or at least one way.  We seek the divine in fiction, the evanescent, that which sparkles.  And that is what I want to give to you, Dear Reader.  The sublime.  The closest thing to a spiritual experience you can find expressed in words.