Isla McKetta, MFA, Author at A Geography of Reading

Ruminating on the Supernatural with The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton

October 20, 2013 by Isla McKetta, MFA 4 Comments

This time of year I always start to crave ghost stories and caramels, so when I found The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton sitting on my to-read shelf one night, I knew the time was finally right to read it. I’ve always liked Edith Wharton, and although these stories speak to the genteel turn-of-the-century world I came to love so much in The House of Mirth, they were not at all the October scares I expected. Instead they got me thinking about my own relationship with the supernatural.

A Spook-Filled Childhood

When I was a very little girl my aunt told me stories of La Llorona–of her imprisonment by her jealous husband and how she wandered the deserts of New Mexico wailing. I know this story varies, but that is the version that will always be true for me. As she told me this story, I snuck peeks at the blackness of a nearby closet and pictured her presence there. I still have a thing about closets.

Whether it was that story or some other inspiration, ghost stories are the first books I remember choosing for myself. Something about the thrill of the scare combined with insight into another plane of existence held me rapt and kept me coming back for more. I was raised without religion and I think in some ways I invested my sense of spirituality in the supernatural. As I grew older I started reading about more real horrors like the Holocaust and other mass murders, but ghost stories and the supernatural continued to interest me.

And then there was the ghost. When I played in our basement I often thought I heard my mother calling me. I’d run to the stairs to answer but she always said she hadn’t called. I didn’t think anything of it until one day I saw a woman in the doorway of a long, spooky hallway we had. It’s difficult to describe what she looked like but she wasn’t a solid form or detailed. All I remember is her long, brown hair and her yellow, flowered dress. I feel like I saw her twice. I think I was afraid when I saw her, but I don’t remember screaming.

I was obsessed with the paranormal for years. I read all the books and wished I had ESP. I played with a Ouija board and candles. I recited Bloody Mary into bathroom mirrors so many times that I still can’t look in the mirror after watching a scary movie.

Losing My Taste for Scares

I loved scary stories and movies well into my twenties. I may or may not be watching The Others right now as I type. But somewhere in the past few years the scares have touched a different part of my heart and I am more genuinely afraid of ghosts.

Perhaps this has something to do with a trip my husband and I took to Taos, New Mexico to see the Nicolai Fechin Museum. Some people say that Taos has a hum, that so much evil was committed there over the years and it’s infected the place so deeply you can hear it. I know we felt ill at ease when we drove into town and as we went to the store for supplies, but when we checked into an amazingly large hotel suite at a very cheap price, I think we forgot all of that. But then, sometime late into the night, I woke up and I could feel something in our room. My memory is of a shape standing by the window. Clayton remembers it being on the other side of the room near the closet. I was so scared I couldn’t even move to turn on the lamp. Somehow my husband and I figured out we were both awake and experiencing this same feeling. We got out of bed, hurried down the corridor, and set up camp in the living room with all the lights on. When dawn came, we got the hell out of town. Even today I have difficulty talking about that night and how I felt.

I still enjoy the odd ghost story or movie, but these days I seek out Spanish directors who tend to focus more on the coexistence of ghosts and the living than on movies with big scares.

What About Edith Wharton

What I found so astounding about Wharton’s book is that it isn’t scary. Or at least not mostly. There are people in the stories who are scared of the ghosts, but for the most part the ghosts are a kind of curiosity. They portend death or provide echoes of it, but they don’t jump out of closets or levitate beds. They remind me in some way of the ghosts in Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits. They are a natural part of the life cycle. I like this idea of acceptance and of the layers of time and existence that co-exist.

There are stories that feel unfinished and stories that lack tension, but I still enjoyed this book very much. And as much as I say I’m not up to a good scare anymore, “All Souls'” was both the scariest of the stories and the one I enjoyed the most.

I don’t know if ghosts are real, but I do believe in the continuity of energy. And while I will still be closing my closet tight tonight, I’m also going to see if I can get through The Sixth Sense while my husband’s away and not have to dodge the bathroom mirror afterwards. Session 9 will have to wait until he’s back, though.

If you want to explore the spiritual side of ghost stories, pick up a copy of The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton from Bookshop.org. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

Sailing the World with Guest Boy by Djelloul Marbrook

October 13, 2013 by Isla McKetta, MFA Leave a Comment

I’ve been writing a lot about the unmoored experience of being a third culture kid lately and Guest Boy by Djelloul Marbrook captures the darker side of that experience with the story of Bo Cavalieri, a sailor adrift in the world.

Born of a German mother and an Arabic father he never knew, Bo isn’t even his name. “Bo” is short for “Bosun” which identifies his role aboard a ship, and the fact that Bo is more comfortable being identified by his title than his name says so much about the depth of his identity crisis. At times, the narrative slips into calling him by his birth name, Amir, and I wondered if in the subsequent books he will begin inhabiting that self. I very much enjoyed following Bo on his quest and how well Marbrook laid out the paths available to him: denial, discovery, integration, and erasure. It’s a struggle I could identify with and one I learned from.

“A people, in order to be proud of their past, they must be acquainted with it.” – Djelloul Marbrook

Deconstructing Geography

Like many of my favorite books, this story defies the arbitrary geographical boundaries I’ve placed on this blog. The narrative traveled from Oman to Somalia and Edinburgh to Algeria and New York. It took me through unfamiliar histories of Arab, Portuguese, and Greek sailors. At times I wanted the book to be full of hyperlinks so I could dig deeper into those histories–to learn more about the kamal, the ancient pearl trade in the Persian Gulf, and the Antikythera computer–but I was glad, too, to stay on the page and inside Bo’s world.

“Each cargo carries with it a disposition towards a particular misfortune.” – Djelloul Marbrook

Bo is never at home anywhere and he holds himself closely as he wanders between groups of people as much as he does places on the map. From the Sultan of Oman to Moira Sayre a woman on one of the many ships he crews (who I’m certain was named in honor of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald), small parts of Bo are revealed as he drifts and draws, drifts and draws. Even when he meets Rose MacQuarrie, the only woman besides his mother who could tell him about the true nature of his father, Bo holds himself closely and instead we learn most about Bo’s mother and father, a Danish count, and Rose herself.

The Language of a Poet and a Seaman

“I stopped and unbuttoned my skirt and swept it off to the side. I had no undies, so I just presented my familiar long-stemmed rusty rose to Count Von Melen in his garden.” – Djelloul Marbrook

Marbrook is also poet which is evident in his fresh imagery, the way he chooses words, and the structure of his sentences. The book is not overly flowery, but there are times that I could feel him crafting the sentence so that I’d have to slow down and pay attention, like when he buries the verb inside a conjunction, “I didn’t need money. I’d not only my father’s…” There’s a softness to this syntax that I loved, even as it made me go back to read and reread the sentence over and over to get the sense of it.

There’s also a looseness to the writing that I wouldn’t believe if it was written by someone else, but Marbrook is so in control of his subject that as he waxes metaphoric about the relationship between chemistry and alchemy, I’m willing to suspend my usual disbelief. And I was willing to trust him implicitly as he described all the parts of a ship and of sailing in what must be a pitch-perfect sailor’s vernacular.

There is not much tension in the novel, but it’s fascinating nonetheless and I was always torn between devouring the book and taking careful notes.

The Role of the Author

“The Sufis say when the student is ready the teacher appears. What blinds us is what we want.” – Djelloul Marbrook

I did wonder at times how closely this story mirrored Marbrook’s own story. He also has an Arabic first name and a European last and his understanding of the subjects at hand was so complete. I’m sure like many authors his fiction does draw in some ways from life, but I found I enjoyed the book most when I allowed myself to let go of my curiosity about the author. It’s something that’s difficult to do in an era where personality seems to triumph and we talk more about Jonathan Franzen’s denigration of Twitter than we do his books, but letting the work speak for itself appeals more to my sensibilities.

It’s the same reason I struggle at times in these reviews. Sharing books comes so naturally. Sharing my struggles with identity and depression does not. But it is in books like this that I seek answers and guidance and I travel my own path to enlightenment and contentment. This book opened a struggle in me but it’s one I cannot yet name. I hope you will accept this review and this writer our their draft states because I wanted to share this book with you before even I fully understood it just as I want to share myself with you even as I learn to understand myself.

On Sequels

This is only the first of three Light Piercing Water books and I’m torn about reading the rest. On one hand, I deeply enjoyed getting to know Bo and learning from his life and his struggles. On another, this story felt complete and I kind of want to float inside of it for awhile before going on to further adventures. I can only hope that the next two installments are as thoughtfully written and meditative as this one is.

Micheline Aharonian Marcom on A Brief History of Yes

October 6, 2013 by Isla McKetta, MFA 4 Comments

As a writer, how do you critique the work of friends? In private you read drafts of their work and point out the parts you love and areas for improvement. You both know you can’t be objective but that red-penning a draft is in fact a loving act that will make the work stronger. With any luck you are different enough writers that you can learn from each other but also at similar stages so that it’s an equal exchange.

But how then do you review the work of your teacher, your advisor, the person who helped shape your voice? When reviewing a book, I always try to look at the best of what the book has to teach, so I wasn’t worried that I’d review A Brief History of Yes by Micheline Aharonian Marcom in a negative light. I did know, however, that Micheline will always be my mentor and that when I read her words on the page I hear her voice.

When I told her that I wanted to write about her book here but that I wasn’t sure that I could be objective, she graciously offered to answer a few questions. So what you see here, rather than a straight-up interview, is me asking both questions about the book and the questions that would help me continue to find my way as a writer.

A Brief History of Yes

“He still lies in the mind of the Portuguese girl, for as the lover of yes knows, the absence created by the end of a love affair is another form of presence.” – Micheline Aharonian Marcom, A Brief History of Yes

A Brief History of Yes by Micheline Aharonian Marcom is the portrait of a love affair from beginning to end between the Portuguese Maria and an unnamed American. The way the book is structured, we know always that the affair will end, but the writing is so gorgeously inhabited that I was deep inside the emotional thrall of the ups and downs from the thrall of new love to the deep loneliness of knowing something is about to end.

With echoes of Clarice Lispector, Fernando Pessoa, and William Faulkner, Marcom’s carefully crafted blend of lyricism and concision is inimitable. I know, I’ve tried. She plays gently with grammar, combining words and changing punctuation, so that I always feel the possibilities of language are opening before me. And the way she reveals the unsaid is something I’m still ruminating on, even months after reading the book.

Interviewer: You’ve led such an international life, how has that shaped you as a writer? Is that part of the reason you read trans-nationally?

Marcom: I think that literature, like painting or music, cannot be appreciated from the vantage point of only one culture or country or epoch—it would be as if I only looked at American painters, for example, and skipped Cézanne, Picasso, Klee, Velasquez, Goya, the ancient Mayan sculptures…. I seek the books that are “aesthetic achievements,” that make the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. Wherever and whenever they were written.

I: I loved the way you revealed the things that were “not said” between Maria and her lover. Is this something you started with or did it evolve as you wrote and rewrote?

M: I can’t any longer remember. But I don’t think that it happened in revision, and more or less emerged that way. Although, of course, I did revive the book extensively. But I am a writer who follows my intuition, who “listens to the voices,” as Faulkner said. So although I revise continuously, I also allow for the strange and unpredictable. And I am always interested in what people don’t say to one another, as much as what they say.

I: The events in A Brief History of Yes are not at all chronological and yet the book has an inherent logic. How do you think about time as you are writing?

M: When I’m writing first drafts, I don’t think, I follow my obsessions, my interests, my inklings—as I said: I tune in and listen. Later when I have material I shape and trim and work to cull a book’s final form. But I usually find the pattern had already been made and it then becomes my job to “lift” it to its final shape.

I: What are you reading?

M: Right now re-reading Faulkner’s The Bear for a literature class I’m teaching, and all the Lispector I can fit into my day for an essay I’m writing on her work. So, as you can see, I’m returning to the tried and true.

If you want to read A Brief History of Yes, pick up a copy from Bookshop.org. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.

The Road Home Asks: Who Are We On the Inside?

September 29, 2013 by Isla McKetta, MFA Leave a Comment

I understand why we use stereotypes. They are easy shorthand in a world where we don’t want to take the time to look deeply at the people around us–beyond their clothes and their gender and the color of their skin. But running around judging each other based on these exterior factors means we miss the richness of the lives around us. Rahul Gandotra’s short film The Road Home beautifully exposes this paradox.

The film starts with a young boy running away from boarding school in the Himalayas. And it’s easy to assume from his brown skin that he belongs there, but his blue polo and nattily knotted sweater stand out. It soon becomes clear that this boy, Pico, doesn’t speak Hindi at all and he’s running home to England. He hires a local cab driver (Kuldeep) to drive him to New Delhi but Kuldeep hassles him about not knowing his heritage so Pico decides to walk the rest of the way. Along his journey, we start to see how out of place Pico really is–both in India and the world.

“But I Don’t Feel Indian Inside”

Director Gandotra is a true third culture kid having grown up in eight different countries and the screenplay (co-written by Gandotra and Milja Fenger) captures that feeling of being from everywhere and nowhere.

That third culture kid feeling (or as Pico Iyer calls it, The Global Soul) is one I share but not one I talk about very often because I feel like there are so few people who truly understand it. My family is white and I was born in Idaho, but I spent time in Chile growing up and my brother learned to read in Spanish before English. I crave hard white rolls from a certain German bakery and when I say Neruda speaks to my soul, I mean something slightly different than a lot of people do. When I read Isabel Allende’s memoir of exile, My Invented Country I felt that I too had invented Chile, at least in my memories. And then there’s the time I spent in Poland…

I am an American and I mean that in the richest possible way. And sometimes I feel like I have more in common with the Somali girls giggling in the mall in their half-traditional, half-American outfits than I do with the woman at the pretzel shop. But I suppose I don’t know her story either. I never thought to ask.

What Does “Worldly” Mean to You?

In The Road Home when Pico has to be taught how to eat daal by a French woman named Marie, I felt for him and how out of place he was. Then we learn that Pico’s father has sent him away so that he’ll have the proper credentials to get into the London School of Economics and later Harvard so that he can become an international businessman. There was something so elite about it all and yet it rang true. Pico’s experience abroad was a check box for admissions, but he wasn’t ever going to be expected to mix with the locals just as we sometimes travel abroad and have drinks at the Hilton where the bartender speaks our language.

I thought for a moment that I hadn’t aimed high enough with my own admissions process, but I didn’t want to see the world from that pinnacle either, I wanted to be part of it.

When Pico runs into a British couple on holiday. They assume that he’s local and the man tries to speak to him in Hindi. It’s only when the woman addresses him in British English and Pico replies with an accent that’s much more posh than hers that we see he doesn’t fit in in England either–at least not where the couple comes from. He is out of place everywhere.

“What’s So Wrong With Being Indian?”

As I’m writing this, it’s been barely a week since the first Indian American Miss America debacle. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, just imagine a group of people who can only see “other” and how that must terrify them. Poor knowledge of geography and racist comments aside (not that it’s easy to ignore either), these events reminded me how one-dimensional we ask the people around us to be, and I wonder how far we can really get as a world when we fail to see the richness of experience and heritage in other human beings.

So when Marie asks Pico, “What’s so wrong with being Indian?” and in return he asks, “What’s so wrong with being English?” what’s important is that Pico isn’t either. He’s both, and the beauty of this film is how he starts to find that unique blend of his own identity. I’ve spoiled most of the major plot points for you, but this film isn’t about what happens, like the best literary fiction, it’s about how the moments are portrayed. Go watch it. You might be surprised how much you can learn about yourself in only 23 minutes.

Mia Couto and The Tuner of Silences

September 22, 2013 by Isla McKetta, MFA Leave a Comment

I wrote recently about a book so rich with description I didn’t know where to focus. How perfect it was, then, to open The Tuner of Silences by Mia Couto–a book so cleanly written, so tightly edited that every word matters. With this extraordinary concision, Couto leaves room for the reader and I became deeply invested in the story of Mwanito and Ntunzi and their father.

What’s most surprising to me about this book is how it can be so spare and yet so rich. If I said Couto’s language was like poetry, you might misunderstand me and think it is difficult to understand. Instead the language in this book is like looking into a crystal clear lake and being able to see every detail of the fish, vegetation, and geology while at the same time seeing your reflection and that of the sky and the trees behind you. Like the best poetry, Couto has placed on the page the framework of an extraordinary story but it’s in your mind that the full magic of the world comes to life.

Some of my impressions of the book are fragmentary because I’m still mulling it over. Although my writing won’t create the same magic Couto’s does, perhaps these fragments will inspire something in you.

A Life Contained

“I was eleven years old when I saw a woman for the first time, and I was seized by such sudden surprise that I burst into tears” – Mia Couto

From that enticing and strange first sentence, I was hooked on this book. It doesn’t take long to understand that the speaker of that line, Mwanito, has been hustled by his father out to an abandoned game preserve where they have lived with Mwanito’s brother Ntunzi, a soldier named Zachary, and a donkey for eight years–ever since “the world had come to an end and we were the only survivors.” The only contact this odd group has with the outside world is Mwanito’s uncle, Aproximado.

This is not a dystopian novel. Instead it is the story of a man who could not deal with the real world and so he ran away with his children. It is the story of a son who from the age of three was assigned the vocation “to take care of this incurable absence” left by the death of his mother. And it is the story of the other people around them who are trying to cope with the world Mwanito’s father created.

Here Boys Come to Be Made Men

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve found myself reading a lot of coming of age novels about boys. From A Separate Peace to Out Stealing Horses to The Tuner of Silences and The Storyteller, there’s a definite trend. Perhaps the big milestones and emotional growth spurts happening around me, not the least of which is my baby brother’s wedding this coming weekend, are calling me to better understand the men in my life.

“Some people have children in order to get closer to God. He had become God when he became my father.” – Mia Couto

Of all these books, the boys in The Tuner of Silences become men in the least desirable circumstances. Although their father is present physically, Mwanito and Ntunzi have the doubly difficult job of finding their own realities inside (or outside) their father’s delusion. It’s a sad circumstance, but an all-too-common one. Part of the magic of how Couto engaged me with this book was setting me up to think about what these boys would miss along the way to manhood and who they would become. I thought a lot about my childhood and those of the people around me. I thought about the kind of parent I would want to be.

Reality Intrudes

It’s obvious from the first sentence of this book that the outside world will intrude. But I kind of wish it hadn’t. As much as I wanted the boys to escape their father and find control over their own lives, I didn’t love the way it went down. I won’t go into details, but it does involve a woman and the story changes significantly from there.

The Aphorist

“Every silence contains music in a state of gestation.” – Mia Couto

Every sentence in this book sings and I found myself wanting to underline section after section. I also started to wonder about aphorisms in this age where so many of us are seeking wisdom and guidance. The first aphorist who comes to mind, one I see quoted frequently, is Paolo Coelho. But although Coelho’s lines often seem deep at first glance, sentiments like “Stop being who you were and become who you are” quickly start to feel pat and hollow.

Meanwhile, there’s a world of thought contained in Couto’s subtext. One of the pleasures of this book was returning to some of his lines to mull over their full implications. I guess when I look for guidance it will be from someone who teaches me how to think rather than telling me the answers he or she has found.

I loved this book and I will read it again. I have a feeling because so much of the experience of this book is the merging of the text and what I bring to the text that it will never be the same book twice. I will be very interested to see what Couto inspires me to think about next time around.

If you want to make up your own mind about this book, pick up a copy of The Tuner of Silences from Bookshop.org. Your purchase keeps indie booksellers in business and I receive a commission.