History as Story

History comes from the Greek word historia meaning to inquire.  I imagine history to be sort of like an autopsy. Cut the body open and examine its parts. We find the damaged areas and make a supposition. If there’s a knife wound to the heart, we can say it was blood loss.  Then it’s the detective’s (or maybe the storyteller’s) job to figure out why.

History begs for storytelling. Even the word contains story. And what is story, exactly? Story is narrative, story gives meaning to random events. Story creates meaning. Without story, life would be a series of events, disconnected, isolated, and without meaning. No matter if we recreate story from historical fact or from contemporary life, or from imaginative futures, story is part of being human. And when a story doesn’t make sense, we walk away shaking heads, wondering why we wasted our time.

But history is not simply story. History has the added perspective of time. It’s the writer’s job to create importance and meaning from facts that time uncovers. Then the scattered jigsaw pieces must be arranged into a landscape, a face, or a scene. They must be framed. 

 

Curiosity drives my writing and I’m a research junky. There’s nothing more thrilling than learning some obscure little fact and fitting it into the rest of the story. For example, just the other day I learned that Jews were not allowed to have pets under the Nazi regime. Maybe that’s common knowledge for other Third Reich researchers but it was news to me.

I think it was Isaac Newton who famously gave us this law: for every action there is a reaction. If this, then that. And whether it’s science, math, history, or speculative fiction, a story has to make sense.  And sometimes that means veering away from the facts so that you can be true to your characters and to the story arc.  As a novelist, I’m interested in how the characters feel and the reasoning behind their actions. Guilt and shame, love and fear. These are the jigsaw pieces I want to get right.

Because we humans have something called memory, we can experience events and then re-experience them—embellish them.

I visit a nursing home where I see old people sit and stare vacantly into space. Do they spend their time making a story of their life? If this, then that. If I’d done this, maybe then this wouldn’t have happened. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the mind simply grows confused and stagnant. I’d like to think that everyone tries to make sense of their life until the very end—that it unfolds like the pages of a novel.

So if everyone has their own life story to work on, why would anyone read a novel?  David Shields suggests that novels are losing their power and that memoir is the future of storytelling. I have to disagree. I think novels will always be important tools on our journey of self-discovery because they connect us to each other and that connection is where all the power—the magic— happens. 

Novels are powered by imagination and go beyond the facts of memoir. They are not just works of self-reflection, they are new creations. It's in creating, not reflecting, that we are go beyond ourselves. And yet, like a paradox, the two are linked—each incomplete without the other. 

Memoir or Fiction?

The other day I attended a workshop facilitated by Maurice Mireau (author of Detachment: An Adoption Memoir).  The topic?  Memoir writing.  It was a worthwhile event.

The difference between fiction and nonfiction is something I’ve often thought about. My first two books have been inspired by true events and yet I was determined to create fiction out of them. Why? I felt that it gave me more freedom to explore my characters.  I had the plot—the historical events—that was straightforward. But I wanted to play with the characters and for that I needed the form of the novel.

Now as I work on my third, which is my most imaginative book yet, I question my imagination and my purpose. I am inventing the plot set against the bigger political scene and have done much research to build a base for the drama of the story.  It’s been an intensely interesting journey.

And yet, for me, as the writer, I seek a different truth than that found in the history books or even in the oral histories of people I interview. I’m seeking the truth about my mother. I’m seeking her reaction to life events. This is my focus. What made my mother tick? Why is this so important to me? Because it helps me to understand the truth about our relationship and insight into myself. (Narcissism? Or maybe just an insatiable curiousity?)

As I continue to explore this relationship, and of necessity that tumultuous history my mother lived through, I find the line between memoir and fiction blurring.  Am I writing fiction or memoir? How do I decide?

It’s with relief that I’ve discovered that the line between fiction and memoir has become more smudged in recent years. David Shields  (Reality Hunger: A Manifesto) borrows from everyone as he discusses the blurred distinction between fiction and nonfiction. He quotes, among others, Picasso: “Art is not truth, art is a lie that enables us to recognize truth.” (82) 

What is memoir?  In Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir,  William Zinsser writes that memoir is an attempt at ” inventing the truth”  and not necessarily fact-based.  The novel is an illusion of reality—an invention—with a heavy focus on external plot.  Memoir, on the other hand, focuses more on internal plot. Memoir attempts to discover personal truth, while fiction attempts to entertain through escapism, through invention of reality. Neither excludes the other.

This mumble-jumble of story...mixing up reality and fiction under the guise of truth is what defines creativity.  As artists we borrow, we steal, we re-invent. I’m feeling a tad more confident in my own writing now because my stories are a confusion of fact and fiction—still seeking truth, between the lines. And like Rudyard Kipling says, “If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten.”  

Looks like there's more than one way to tell the truth!

Kakushka

Kukushka

Russian for cuckoo bird.

That was the nickname the KGB gave to Svetlana, youngest child and only daughter of Josef Stalin, when she defected to the USA in 1967.

I’ve done previous posts about those cuckoo birds in the former Soviet Union. Cuckoos will lay their eggs in other birds’ nests and let their young be raised by foster parents.

Rosemary Sullivan’s biography, Stalin’s Daughter, is a fascinating psychological and historical study—even if at times I found myself frustrated with Svetlana’s choices.  Margaret Trudeau’s memoir Changing my Mind is fresh in my memory, and I can’t helped but suspect that Svetlana had bipolar. Her mood swings, her impulsivity, her instability—yes, she was Stalin’s daughter—but that can’t account for the entire confusion of her life. Can it? 

It’s too bad that Sullivan chose to title this book, “Stalin’s Daughter.” It seems so exploitive and insensitive to what her subject would have wanted. Svetlana tried all her life to escape that label and now in death it haunts her still. I heard Sullivan talk at the Winnipeg International Writers’ Festival last fall and she admitted that Svetlana wouldn’t like the title. Maybe it was a publishing decision—a business move. Publishing is about making money.

Svetlana died, penniless (as if that matters, once you’re dead!) and in obscurity, in Wisconsin in 2012.  She would have been the same age as my aunt, who was also born in 1926, in the former Soviet Union.  Svetlana’s father, Stalin, arranged for my own grandfather’s execution during the paranoia of the 1937/8 Great Terror. My aunt and Svetlana would each have been eleven years old at the time. One had a father who killed millions. The other had a father who was one of millions killed. Of course who their fathers were affected who they became. Of course.

Why would people ever ask if history matters? History is who we are.

After reading this book, I can only say, wow, she was so naïve and trusting and good (in spite of who her father was). And that controlling, money-hungry woman, Olgivanna Wright, running the Taliesin West retreat for architecture sounded like an absolute terror to someone as vulnerable as Svetlana. The American man she married, Wes Peters, under Olgivanna’s power, was a money-loving wimp. Svetlana looked for love in all the wrong places. A sad life. I hope she found serenity in the end. 

All in all, a fascinating, page-turner for a Russophile. 

Onomatopoeia

*

 Onomatopoeia is a literary device where a word actually sounds like its meaning. The buzz of a bee imitates the bee's flight. The written down howl of a wolf contains the same long vowels of the wolf's cry. It's pure genius the way these words work. Onomatopoeia gives flat letters on the page another dimension—lets them jump off the page and be heard. 

There once was a German seaside resort on the Baltic called Rauschen. Rauschen is an example of German onomatopoeia. The word imitates the roaring of the sea. I’m determined to set a scene in that town just because I think it’s a most wonderful backdrop to the drama of my characters’ lives. I wonder if there's a literary device for words that convey a sense of smell? I want readers to inhale the salt spray off that restless sea.

Here are a few more facts about Rauschen, East Prussia.

1. Name changed to Svetlogorsk in 1946 after the Soviet takeover.

2. Currently it’s part of the Kaliningrad Oblast in the Russian Federation.

3. Population hovers around 10,000. (About the size of Nelson, BC)
4. Rail connection to Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) made it a popular holiday destination.

5. Had a horse racetrack until the Second World War.
6. Is still a popular spa town today, attracting wealthy Russians who have built new vacation homes. 
7. Is on my 'bucket list' of places to go...some day!

(These photos are from Rauschen in the 1930s. Click on them for a bigger image and then note the nazi flag in the lower photo.)

(Photos from the Facebook group: East Prussia in Old Photos)
*For some reason the font has changed and I'm not able to control it. 

In the forest of blogs

A post about blogging, over at the Anita Factor website the other day, caught my attention. It got me thinking about my own blogging which is spotty and irregular. (Gosh! It sounds like I'm talking about women's menses!)

When I first started this blog I wanted to share the research behind my first novel, The Kulak's Daughter. Having a big research trip to Ukraine behind me sure helped keep me motivated. I was quite passionate about the topic of communism in the 1930s, with lots of photos and tons of curiosity.

Fast forward seven or so years later and I'm on to other stories. My research is now focused on Hitler's Third Reich—before the war. The setting is East Prussia, a place many people have never heard of.

Back when I explored the history behind The Kulak's Daughter (now Red Stone), I still had kids at home around the dinner table. They got big spoonfuls of Soviet history along with their vegetables. They've since moved on to their own dinner tables. Did I scare them away with all that gulag talk?  No matter. This blog will now be my dinner table. I've been doing some fascinating research while working on my third book.  It continues Katya's experiences before the Second World War.

At least I think it's fascinating research. Maybe I'll be talking to myself during this dinner conversation. And that's okay, too. If a tree falls in the forest, I'm convinced it makes a sound, whether someone's there to hear it, or not.

Curious Breadcrumbs

CBC radio is always on in our kitchen. The other day I was passing through, but stayed to do dishes because an interview on the program 'q' with Shad caught my attention. Turns out it was a re-broadcast of an interview with Elizabeth Gilbert about her new book, Big Magic. She was gushing all inspirational, as is her style. Yes, I did read Eat, Pray, Love, but I wasn't in a big hurry to read Big Magic. Yet as I lingered and washed my son's plastic drink bottles (that I usually avoid!) I connected with her ideas. I do believe that we are all meant to be creators. Dis-ease, unhappiness and stress happens when we are not creating. I like how she said we should follow not our passion, but our curiosity, and that curiosity is like a trail of breadcrumbs leading to discovery.

I googled and found a quote she refers to by St. Thomas. “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you don’t bring forth what is within you, what you don’t bring forth will destroy you.”  She calls the term "creative person" redundant and I agree. 

So, interview over, bottles washed, I poured myself a mug of green tea and returned to my own trail of breadcrumbs—following Katya to the brink of the Second World War. I'm curious!

Happy 2016!

I love this time of year...a time of nesting, of reading, of reflecting, of conversing and...of writing. A time of sharing slow-cooked meals and of snuggling with a cat who...ouch!...likes to attack petting hands.

Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy the cold outdoors. Nothing compares to a walk in the snowy woods, where Robert Frost's words haunt at intersecting trails.  I love the crunch of snow and the brilliant sun on the fresh white stuff. Or at night, the sprinkling of stars in the huge night sky. Winter is winter and since this is Winnipeg, it's not going away anytime soon.

It's the cycle of nature that comforts most. With the December solstice now behind us, winter's end lights up the distant horizon. Knowing that spring will come, lets me enjoy the cold for what it is. Temporary—like life.  My word for the new year is PATIENCE.

Happy Trails to you!