Pangolin Issue 12

A student came in. I explained that the project was to investigate whether he (yes, we were all male at my college in the olden days) could remember some words. He was allocated randomly to either a cold pantry or a warm bedroom and shown some words so rare as to be almost extinct. In the pantry he looked at a new word card every time I tapped a tin with a teaspoon. I cannot remember what trigger was used in the bedroom (Ethics Committee where were you?) I probably just said ‘now’. Whichever room students started in, they ended up seeing the same number of words in each room. Subjects returned the next day and – this is the clever bit – instead of being asked to tell me all of the words they could remember, they were shown the words and asked to remember where they saw them. Deceptively simple cutting-edge research – or so I hoped. Remembering context in this way is called ‘incidental memory’.

‘I’ve seen you before somewhere, weren’t you at…?’ Our brains are very good at tagging events and people with as much context as they can and, of course, the more emotional or pivotal the event, the more anchored it becomes.

Over a year ago I was fortunate to attend an Arvon week at Totleigh Barton. On the first evening, we assembled in the refurbished barn – ancient rafters, comfy sofas, big space, small talk. Bernadine Evaristo asked us to say three things about ourselves, two of which were true, one of which was a lie. As an ice-breaker it worked well, but it also made the point that it’s the detail that makes a story, or a character, convincing. Generalisations and – even worse – cliches, are not memorable.

I wrote about ‘voice’ in Pangolin 11, so this time let’s go beyond character recognition, let’s start to scrape at the rich seam of deeper knowing. Escorting us through their worlds, good writers may help us to meet someone we’ve met before, or greet an arresting new character who is believable. Even better writers evoke feelings within us that we recognise in our hearts, or dread that stirs the guts. In pursuit of the ineffable, apprentice writers like me can so easily throw in too many raising agents that the whole thing falls flat.

Not so long ago we had a nature writing competition at Leeds Writers Circle – I wrote what I hoped was a lyrical piece about visiting Robin Hood’s Bay shortly after the biggest storm surge since 1953. Our adjudicator fell over a phrase in my first paragraph: Pale grass quivers in obeisance to the west wind. The word obeisance spoilt it for him – the piece was doomed in his eyes. Playing with rare words can be tricksy, as my student friends discovered.

Nature writing is one thing, getting under the skin of the human condition is another. Unless you happen to be Robert Macfarlane who manages to do both. His prose is so beautiful, his words so well chosen, he’s the only author who slows me down to a walking pace every time I read him.

‘A few well-chosen words’ – one of my Dad’s phrases. A master of understatement, he only used this phrase in the context of someone being told off. Immediately I wrote that trigger phrase, Dad was there in my memory – embodied after just a few short words; evoking not just his physical presence but his nature as well. But that’s a personal memory, the phrase can’t do the same for you.

So I’ve been looking through my ‘collected works’ (tee-hee) to see if I can find an example, any example of writing that might make my readers say ‘yesss, that’s nailed it.’ There’s one bit in Walls of Fire that makes me cry every time, even though I wrote it. My prose is taking a while to get there, very occasionally a poem opens a window which others find they can see through. This one perhaps?

The folding of sheets

When I was six and bewildered,

I found us in the folding of sheets.

For you, a task among many,

for me, a slow dance in the light.

 

You take two corners, I follow,

we stretch, taking care not to drop;

gather edges together together,

bring hands to touch near your heart.

 

Then there were hospital corners,

bedspreads, Bri-Nylon and Lux.

Now we have duvets and futons

and beds left unmade just for art.

 

Others make your bed these days,

as limbs don’t bend to your will.

To talk or to eat is a struggle,

the bed is both safety and cell.

 

The body flutters and falters,

as your spirit waits for release.

We cherish frayed remnants of living,

until the last fold of your sheets.

(C) David Cundall

My next pangolin is due out on 29th November. It might try to dig a bit deeper, or then again it might opt for a bit of frippery. We’ll have to wait and see.

 

 

 

 

 

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