Tag: writing

A Brief, Unprofessional Study of James Franco’s stories, Palo Alto

Caitlin Rose Stuart2 Comments

The passage from Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past (Within a Budding Grove) that James Franco includes at the beginning of the book addresses the spirit of being young. What we lose as adults. When we reach adulthood, we become afraid of life. We are scared of the consequences of not conforming. We defer all logic in the name of logic. We agree to what is right based on what the masses think is right, repeating in a nonsensical loop. To which we lose ourselves furthermore. 

Whereas adolescents follow their own loop and invite the loops of others to join. They beat their drum loud. They love harder. Fail grander. Create more. And the young are spontaneous as hell. 

Morrison lived more years than his ex-hippy counterparts who made it to 80.

A human’s brain continues to develop well into its 20s. Therefore the assumption is that full maturation in decision-making cannot be reached until development is complete. I couldn’t disagree more. If anything, the brain digresses in decision-making with age. At least with the things that are meaningful. 

Proust’s quote:

“There is hardly a single action that we perform in that phase which we would not give anything, in later life, to be able to annul. Whereas what we ought to regret is that we no longer possess the spontaneity which made us perform them. In later life we look at things in a more practical way, in full conformity with the rest of society, but adolescence is the only period in which we learn anything.” 

The Kids are Alright

In Palo Alto, there are some moments of hope that all people aren’t deplorable—a kind gesture from the author to break up the darkness of this text. 

“She smiled and I felt the soft skin bunch under my fingers. I looked into her smile. There was someone in there.”

But those moments are few and hard to find. I won’t pretend that Franco’s characters are likable. Most aren’t in the least bit. The ones who are, come across as victims falling prey to a group of classmates or the older soccer coach. The ones who aren’t, are their bullies or predators: bored misfits. Lewd lords. Pure shitheads.

But that’s high school, right?  

Not for everyone. Certainly not me. I was a band nerd focused on tennis and writing. But I saw what my peers went through. A notoriously bullied, talented violinist I faintly knew hung himself. A group of baseball players egged the wrong house and one was shot and killed. 

Whether or not Franco thought up all these events or borrowed anecdotes is irrelevant. Palo Alto is an integration of strangers’ experiences in one voice. One character. That all of us—no matter our background, race, gender, and upbringing—share. This commonality is most apparent at the sunbaked track fields, on the bleachers the night of homecoming, and in the stingy classrooms and yellowed hallways of high school, when we’re acting out our most savage or heroic selves.  

We’re just one big soul. Whether you like it or not, we’re tied by one string. 

“The bear had ribs like I had ribs. Underneath had been lungs, and a stomach and a heart and they all got burned away.”

Youth and Moods like James Dean

Franco, through this collection of short stories, represents the action of youth Marcel Proust lamented. He jumps off a cliff knowingly with a faulty parachute just to experience the view before it’s gone—or before his youthful courage dissipates.

This is how I see Franco’s stories compared in likeness to Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, and Cormac McCarthy: it isn’t just the similarity of sparse prose, stream of consciousness, and bleak subjects; it is the conviction to express truth just the way it is. And nothing more. 

The last sentences from “Caffe Buon”:

“After that, I left Pam alone. I’d see her in the halls, but she was someone different. It was like I didn’t know her. 

When we got older, I did things in my life and she did things in her life.”

The stories are like entries jotted in furious haste from the frontline of a war. The benign turned epic. 

In “April”:

“‘You remember that night in eighth grade, after Shauna’s bat mitzvah, we went to Gunn and sat under that tree? And I carved a heart in it?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I wish we could go back to that night.’

‘Ivan and I cut it down.’

‘The tree?’ I said. He nodded in the reflection and smoked.”

The author’s vignette prose is brutal. His subjects and characters are dangerous. Disturbing. Hedonistic. Franco has the courage (blame it on grasping at youth?) to pen candid observations we’ve all mused (even the most innocent of beings); the same inner secrets we fear to admit we think about even to ourselves.

In the story “I Could Kill Someone”, the narrator says:

“Brent had problems, and he had skin, and he had a mom, and one day he would die too. If I shot him, it wouldn’t really matter. There would be more people like him. Deer get shot all the time. Deer blood and deer guts all over the forest floor. Blood in the leaves, breathing slowing down. And then gone. Brent would be forgotten too.” 

Many of the characters are self-centered, borderline sociopathic. It is easy for the reader to distance one’s self as righteous, good, and “not that person” compared to these characters. But to denounce the shadow of your unconscious is just as dangerous as submitting to your shadow. 

On Jungian psychology and his understanding of the shadow, professor Jordan Peterson explained that what disgusts you the most, the darkest thing, where you least want to look—that is the gateway to what you need to know.

Welcome your madness. The revelation of the darkness within is part of the journey to enlightenment. 

Like most of the characters, the narrator in “Jack-O’” is obsessed with escaping and feeling. Something. Anything. Not sappy feelings, but the raw feeling that you’re actually here and not an enigma of some dude’s imagination. And that the other person sitting next to you in the car is actually there, too. And that there is a life after this shit life. Something to look forward to. Impulsively, he wants to know what it’s like to live.

“And I feel like I’m remembering all this from somewhere, but I’m not sure where, and everything is a little hazy, and I remember that there is an angel named Michael, and he had a flaming sword, and …

And I say to Joe, ‘Let’s drive the wrong way down the other side of the freeway.’

Joe is almost asleep, but he says, ‘Wha?’ and I can see the black gap just to the left of the center of his mouth. 

‘I’m going over to that side,’ I say. 

And I think of the olden times, when knights would aim huge lances at each other and you would feel that when it hit you, feel that force of the momentum of the horses’ pumping, channeled into the lance, and for a second you might know that you were really alive. And a little ways down the freeway there is a gap in the center barrier, and I turn the wheel and cross over.” 

He gets his way, right or wrong. Like all young people do. 

And as I reach the end of the book, I wonder what it was worth reading about the ugliness of people and their mediocrities of goodness. And then I think, why not?

Break on through to the other side.

A Brief, Unprofessional Study of André Aciman’s novel, Call Me By Your Name

Caitlin Rose StuartLeave a comment

Desire: A Complicated Organ 

From the first page, the first sentence, the first word, we know this relationship is going to be complicated. This is more complex than a safe romance novel. This is human. 

“‘Later! The word, the voice, the attitude. I’d never heard anyone use ‘later’ to say goodbye before. It sounded harsh, curt, and dismissive, spoken with the veiled indifference of people who may not care to see or hear from you again.”

The protagonist, Elio Perlman, is a cultured, multi-lingual 17-year-old musician and avid reader who spends his summers at a cliffside mansion on the Italian Riviera. A bit too romantic and unbelievable? Slightly. 

But what is very much relatable, believable, and transcends any hint of cliched summer youth romance is André Aciman’s skilled ability to string together the perfect words to describe and show the intricacies of a human being’s inner turmoil of raw, primal desire for another being. 

“This very image of him would become like a night-light in my life, keeping vigil on those days when I’d all but given up, rekindling my desire for him when I wanted it dead, stoking the embers of courage when I feared a snub might dispel every semblance of pride.”

As well as the trappings of remembrance. 

“Then I’d stand here and ask the statue and the straw-backed chairs and shaky wooden tables to remind me of someone called Oliver.” 

All details, from Italian landmarks and “dinner drudgery” to the soft, pale soles of Oliver’s feet, are from Elio’s lens. His worldview. An unreliable narrator to the tenth power. Is Oliver’s “polite indifference” on page 6 actually meant to be a tactic to push him away as Elio scathingly claims in his head, despite Oliver hardly knowing Elio?

That is one of the the endearing qualities of Call Me By Your Name; Aciman explores the bleak and at times humorous reality of the human condition: we judge, we assume, we dramatize. 

Before 20 pages in, it is established that Elio does not hate the new summer house guest. Quite the opposite. He assumed Oliver hated him with his icy glances and on and off again attitude, to which Elio absorbed and returned; set point, the men stroked the tennis ball in an endless rally. 

Despite not much of anything externally happening, Aciman yanks us up the hill of Elio’s internal thoughts and emotions, then pushes us down, over and over without respite. Another beauty of this story: no real plot. Just feelings. Images. Conflict. That is life, isn’t it?

Oliver is the epitome of Italy, summer, of Grecian gods, and Elio is his worshiper. He knows Oliver will soon be gone, so he basks in his beauty. If not for the gold Star of David necklace both men happened to wear around their necks, Elio may have been able to write Oliver off as a fantastical physical desire that fizzled, like most things in life, into nothing. 

In the orchard, Oliver assists the house help, Mafalda, pick apricots that are “almost blushing with shame”, according to Mafalda. Oliver playfully asks if this apricot (gesturing to one hanging off the branch) is blushing with shame? To which Mafalda answers seriously, “this one is too young still, youth has no shame, shame comes with age.” We discover a secret about Oliver that is never outwardly stated or technically confirmed, but is nested in this brief interaction with Mafalda: Oliver is ashamed of his desires. He may or may not be ashamed of his sexual preferences. There is not enough backstory to know. What is refreshing about Aciman’s choices is his omission of sexual orientation. Whether Elio and Oliver identify as bisexual or not is irrelevant for this story; we are human.  

The Star of David: Elio wears his with discreet shame; Oliver wears his openly without a care. This seemingly small detail—it’s only jewelry after all—catches Elio’s attention. It is a symbol of brotherhood. Shared history. Shared pain. Shared people. A transcendence of differences. A detail that makes Oliver intriguing in the eyes of Elio. He’s something more than eye candy. 

Within a one-sentence paragraph that takes up almost an entire page, Aciman gifts us a glimpse into his poetic, Faulkner-Proust-esque style (Aciman is, after all, a professor of Proust’s works), as Elio muses upon a dream he has of Oliver in his room and then on top of him, affirming Elio’s suspicion all along that yielding to Oliver is indeed his home, the most natural of all things, that Elio was put on this planet for Oliver, and vice versa, all his, his, his, his. Pure desire. Upon reading this I became starved for the author’s extended moments of poetical prose, which Aciman feeds at pinnacle stages of Elio’s awakening, like offering a madeleine cake only for the most special of occasions. 

Mortal friendship is not sufficient. Oliver is what makes life livable for Elio. He can lift Elio to elation and crush him in one swipe. Because Elio is so smitten with Oliver, surely it will some day be reciprocated. It has to, according to the Inferno. 

This is a story of desire. Of nostalgia. Not love. At least not the type of love that endures the drudgeries of every day life through hard work and commitment; perhaps the type of love that is every bit unreal as it is real. Youthful love. Oliver knows this, though we don’t know at first that he knows it; by binding their desires through consummation, he undoes it. 

Do not assume that desire is entirely physical; it is desire for the consumption of the soul, body, and mind of another. To become that person. To morph into one identity. To remain in a set period of time and place, like somewhere in Italy or the non-existing Monet’s Berm, in 1983. To defy time. To ignore circumstances. To renounce responsibility. 

Aciman spares no time for exposition. He gets right to the point. Conflict out the gate as soon as the love interest and his billowy blue shirt pads in espadrille-wearing feet across the grounds of the Perlman estate. No explanation needed, which is greatly appreciated and further proves that this is an exploration of remembrance. Within the span of six pages, we know that the new summer house guest, ‘“la muvi star’”, is a problematic presence for Elio. We know this before we even know the house guest’s name. Oliver. 

The 24-year-old graduate-student assistant is, from Elio’s point of view, difficult and unapproachable. Worst of all, indifferent. This is coming from a person who scrutinizes every gesture, every word, every look or lack of a look, and ascribes meaning. Elio is very much an intuitive introvert who is content spending his afternoons reading Dante or transcribing Haydn. And overthinking everything. 

“But why wait for midnight, then? Who ever picks midnight to have such a conversation? Or was midnight going to be midnight? What to wear at midnight?”

But, this does not mean he does not desire human contact. More specifically, Oliver’s skin. Just skin. To look, not touch. Worship and obsess. When Elio does consume Oliver’s skin in part 2 (Monet’s Berm), Elio is sickened both physically and emotionally. The pain of his first time is prolific, but the emotional pain is more scarring. 

“Had the loathing I felt always been there, though camouflaged, and all I’d needed was a night like this to let it out?”

Though he does come to arousal and gives in to Oliver’s persistent advances, Elio’s desires are forever changed. Out goes naive desire of youth that is eventually sullied by nostalgia, reflected in the last part of the book that is aptly named Ghost Spots. 

Gone are the clean lines of desire; Elio wants to show Oliver his real self in all human aspects. 

“We had never taken a shower together. We had never even been in the same bathroom together. ‘Don’t flush,’ I’d said, “I want to look.’”

This scene is jarring, as it catapults you from normality to a whole other level of humanity. People do not want to know or think about excrement. But Elio wants everything: the entirety of the flesh, clean and unclean. Aciman presents being human in the shape that it is. You can take it or leave it. 

All is holy. 

Of Time and Death

Time is death. The process of death is not necessarily the ceasing of a beat in the heart and ending of synaptic nerves in the brain, but also the passage of one end to the next start. 

The two men discover more about one another without outwardly doing it. Without plans to do it. They talk of Heidegger while basking in the sun with their toes in the water. Heaven. Oliver and Elio both know the poet, Paul Celan. Oliver playfully probes Elio to share his private thoughts, to which Elio most times does not. Elio has an embarrassing moment in his swim shorts, something that Oliver surely saw and decided not to discuss. These fluttering moments of “being” build the foundation of what is to come. They do not seek to build a relationship, the relationship subconsciously builds itself. 

Elio and Oliver move on from their childish antics, (does he like me? does he like me not?) and bond over discussions of poets and musicians. Oliver befriends a child with leukemia named Vimini, whose shadow is the Grim Reaper waiting to take her at any moment. Elio confides to himself that her presence and friendship has brought him and Oliver closer together. Is the inevitability of death the ultimate teacher of life? If we were to live in Elysium, how could we know that we are in paradise when there is nothing to contrast?

If there was no such thing as time, Elio and Oliver may never have embarked in any type of journey. They would have remained content playing games, knowing that the warm Italian summer days would never end. Heaven is today and mañana. But alas, the passage of time is real and time waits for no one, especially those trying to navigate the complexities of desire. It is not until part 2 (Monet’s Berm) that Elio fully realizes summer is dwindling like the sun setting at the edge of the Piazzetta, which means his time with Oliver is coming to an end. 

“This was probably the first time I allowed myself to count down his remaining days in B.” 

As a part of Elio’s maturation, he comes to terms with reality. Shortly after Elio admits this sobering realization, death crosses his path as he points out to Oliver the area of the sea where the lifeless waterlogged body of Mary Shelley’s husband, Percy Shelley was found, and the physical possession of his heart was fought over. 

After intercourse, after the peach, Oliver has his own realization that being somewhere in B., Italy in 1983 made him happy. Perhaps he’ll never be happy like that again. Perhaps Oliver is hurt the most over their inevitable separation. He cynically tells Elio that he’ll get over him soon enough. 

They spend their last intimate moments together in part 3, The San Clemente Syndrome, in Rome, kissing in a side alley that will forever be idolized in future nostalgia.

“I wanted to tell him that the pool, the garden, the house, the tennis court, the orle of paradise, the whole place, would always be his ghost spot.”

Ghost Spots was meant to serve as closure of the story of Elio and Oliver. Find Me (the future sequel) most likely was not on the roadmap at the time. But, if Aciman had ended their story hip-to-hip, lips-to-lips in that alleyway in Rome, I would have been left satisfied knowing that such a perfect moment was sealed away there and nothing more could be said about the matter. 

Elio and Oliver’s love was never meant to be for the future, nor everlasting. It was meant to stand still in a particular place and time between two people who for a brief moment, merged as one. 

That, is more lasting.

An Excerpt: The Sweater

Caitlin Rose StuartLeave a comment

My sweating palms clutch her tennis sweater. Oversized white cable knit, blue and red stripes at the collar and each side of the ends of the sleeves, alligator logo, Lacoste. 1987. I saved the sweater from my summer—été—in the French countryside.

I can still smell the sweet lavender summer nights woven in the threads of her tennis sweater. Smudges of dusty maroon stain the end of the right sleeve, exposing her first love affair: tennis on clay.  

I can still see her, alarming features I’d never seen in a person before or after; features so noticeable and addicting as the pungent piles of ripe peaches pandering in outdoor market stands for consumption: a gap playfully placed at the center of her front teeth, thick brown hair any girl would die for with fringy bangs that danced on top of old soul orbs, dark olive dewy skin made up of the entirety of the sun. 

As I walked down the dusty road scuffing my hand-me-down tennis sneakers, she lounged past by bicycle. Out of nowhere, really. It was a peach cruiser. 

White ruffled lace socks hugged lean, dark calves. A white pleated mini skirt dared to ride higher. Dark hair tied back in a white ribbon bounced against a brown Prince Woodie tennis racket case strapped to her back—the same racket on my back. And the oversized white cable knit sweater. A tennis icon. She turned her head back to look at me. Oversized rose-tinted aviator sunglasses hid her eyes and cheeks. Then, gone. Past the green horizon. 

Was she going where I was going?

A Short Update

Caitlin Rose StuartLeave a comment

I admit that I’ve been all over the place: from filming vlogs published to YouTube and planning feature films, to posting seaside photos on Instagram. All my life I’ve acquired and pursued many interests that have landed anywhere on the scale between hobby and passion. But, nothing has ever quite stuck long-term.

Except for writing. More specifically, fiction stories.

I remember as a child spending all my summer time in nature inhabiting made-up characters and following their stories in my head, alone acting out the scenes during my outdoor escapades. When it was too cold to stand outside for more than five minutes, I hid myself away in the nook of the closet my mother cleared out for me and continued the adventures and dramas.

Perhaps we all did that when we were young?

If that is the case, that all children have the freedom of heart and mind for creative storytelling and writing, this knack has morphed into a need now as an adult.

Recently I decided to focus on one fiction novel. Though I’ve stashed away many ideas on my laptop (some partially written), I realized that I have gotten nowhere in my career as a serious writer by working on multiple projects at one time.

Last week I finished a handwritten outline for a fiction story idea (novel length) that has been following me since my husband and I arrived in Maine. It is a hybrid of romance and low fantasy with gothic elements. For now, that is all I will say about this writing project.

Regarding this blog, I plan to continue posting updates on my progress, publishing short writings, and sharing my thoughts on books that I finish.

Thank you for reading, and I hope to be able to “meet” all of you. Please feel free to comment and send an email. Also, visit my Instagram, caitlinrosestuart, if you are interested in books, nature, and cottage/dark academia/Victorian/Edwardian/romance aesthetics.

Valentina – an excerpt from “Amore”

Caitlin Rose StuartLeave a comment

sonnie-hiles-674755-unsplash

Love with her was pure irrationality and perfection in one sweeping, sudden fury.

The lancia boat I was lying inside on my back teetered side-to-side, creaking like trees moving by the wind’s hand. I felt the ancient splinters vying for my salt-dried skin. The sea splashed over the side of the boat, tickling my limbs, reminding me with each tongue of water that I was amongst the rawness of the sea, which could take me at any moment in one swipe. The sea reminding me of my immortality instigated the memory of Valentina. I closed my eyes, seeing her petal silk lips whispering if love, if love, if love, over, and over again until our lips were inches apart, almost kissing. Almost. It almost happened. Then I saw her hands dousing creamy white lotion onto my skin. Her hands pined for my skin. But she had already faded into a memory, as if what happened between us occurred many years ago, when it was only days ago. There was still more of her I had yet to experience; I feared this, and yet it thrilled me at the same time. She lingered, waiting for me to take the next step. One part of me wanted her to disappear, but never too far away from reach.

Hampton Diamonds

Caitlin Rose StuartLeave a comment
Harper and August cruise down Ocean Blvd strip.
Car lights flash, clap, flash.
The two roll down their windows. Harper looks over briefly at August whose head hangs out the window.
Harper smiles. The first.
The honking riffraff bursts the sensual ocean whisper and salt breeze.
HARPER
Indulge me.

Get. Some. Lotus. In. Your. Life.

When she looks back – Excerpt

Caitlin Rose StuartLeave a comment

A fire romps within the dwellings of a kept creature, I, a lost girl influenced by the masses, a timeless roaring rage to keep purity alive all in the name of doing what is right. Life seems long when the years trickle into a puddle, merging with otherness into sameness. It’s the acceptance of hiding which makes life normal. Sameness, hiding, long, acceptance.

I felt, I thought, I ceased. Time decayed after her.

The word lust is too sturdy and clear; whatever it was, it felt fragile and hazy in my bones and mind, as if for the past month I wandered lost in a foreign nightclub.

 

Another Passage– A Tease

Caitlin Rose StuartLeave a comment

Emerson said in Nature, “A man is a God in ruins.”

I am a broken statue— Donatello’s muse project gone wrong— mind chipped and irreparable.

But I come back to her, if even just in memory, and then I am whole.

Second Excerpt

Caitlin Rose Stuart2 Comments

I awaited during the lazy morning for this isolation. While all the others padded the stone courtyard musing upon their fresh pressed orange juice and tales of the crinkly-faced sun villagers who adore old lawless Virgil, I paced in a total wreck of a mood to get out.

The asters and carnations blooming near the eating table angered me for their sweet beauty that lived just for the sake of living and nothing else. The sun, always the sun out and about, irritated me, as the pits of my white shirt were already soaked through. Trickling water from the gold fiori water spout pulled at my chest as the water made its way to an idle, content state in the lilypad pond. My breathing became aware of me. I couldn’t swallow the grapefruit topped with sugar. The orange juice tasted dull.

Mother what is it?

My tongue pressed the backs of the front teeth in detest of… mater, mētēr, madre, mother. They contemplated me as if I were crazy or sick. Well, perhaps I am both.