Suzy Davies's Blog: Book News - Posts Tagged "reflections"
"Johari's Window" - A Kaleidoscope!
It is nearly two years since my debut novel, “Johari’s Window,” was published. I have been re-reading my book, and now time and distance have given me new insights into what I have written.
The novel which, elsewhere, I have described as a love letter and a game, is also a kind of quest novel, not only about the quest for love, but it also charts the quest of one woman to discover what life is about, and the unintended consequence of her soul-searching is in her discovery of herself as a writer.
The central chapter in the book is, “The Window,” chapter, which describes the genesis of the artistic imagination in a kind of natural “fire walk” in the Forest of Dean, England. This walk of fire, through grassy woodland, is created by the rays of the sun, which burn through “The Cathedral” window sculpture, suspended between two giant trees. The grass appears to burn with fire, like the artistic imagination set alight, and inspired.
Of course, the memory of this vision also contains the memory of the artist as a child; that of spinning round and round, in circles, in the “Brookie Fields” of her childhood, the dizziness and euphoria recreating the world as a kaleidoscope, with the ecstasy of whirling forms of light-saturated color. The patterns and forms are dynamic. They reform and change, thrilling and surprising us, and such is life.
My novel is postmodern in form, and the mimetic text is playful, mirroring the color and chiaroscuro shades of a world which is always changing in the memory of the writer, and which always reflects back the essence of who we are, and who we may become.
The famous psychological theory of personality was the idea behind the title. And life is a quest, in which our memories are stories we tell ourselves, and others, about our personal journeys, our personal quest. We are always recreating, and layering, our memories as current scenarios remind us of our past. We may be drawn to echoes of the past, even as we step bravely forward into new lives and new futures.
The “Journey Beneath The Stars” chapter in my book, is without a doubt, pivotal to the spirit of the novel. In“Johari’s Window” I wish to foreground the “unsung heroines” who charted a course to prepare the way for their sisters to voyage. To draw an analogy, the woman sailor Jeanne Baret, navigated and sailed on “L’Etoile” to be the first ever woman to circumnavigate the globe, and journey into New Worlds, yet, in her time, her story was never brought to light, because this woman sailor, disguised as a man, could never tell “her” story.
I use artistic license to say her journey was through darkness.
And it is under the cover of the night, that we foreground our feelings over thinking, subjectivity over objectivity. It is only in a voyage of dreams that we may return to the wild, and know ourselves as primitive. In this, “primitive,” is everything, “known before,” and deep in our collective conscience. This territory shows forth in the language of dreams, and it is with this language, in stories of archetypes, myths and legends, that we may better understand who we are.
Copyright Suzy Davies, Author, 08/10/2016. All Rights Reserved.
The novel which, elsewhere, I have described as a love letter and a game, is also a kind of quest novel, not only about the quest for love, but it also charts the quest of one woman to discover what life is about, and the unintended consequence of her soul-searching is in her discovery of herself as a writer.
The central chapter in the book is, “The Window,” chapter, which describes the genesis of the artistic imagination in a kind of natural “fire walk” in the Forest of Dean, England. This walk of fire, through grassy woodland, is created by the rays of the sun, which burn through “The Cathedral” window sculpture, suspended between two giant trees. The grass appears to burn with fire, like the artistic imagination set alight, and inspired.
Of course, the memory of this vision also contains the memory of the artist as a child; that of spinning round and round, in circles, in the “Brookie Fields” of her childhood, the dizziness and euphoria recreating the world as a kaleidoscope, with the ecstasy of whirling forms of light-saturated color. The patterns and forms are dynamic. They reform and change, thrilling and surprising us, and such is life.
My novel is postmodern in form, and the mimetic text is playful, mirroring the color and chiaroscuro shades of a world which is always changing in the memory of the writer, and which always reflects back the essence of who we are, and who we may become.
The famous psychological theory of personality was the idea behind the title. And life is a quest, in which our memories are stories we tell ourselves, and others, about our personal journeys, our personal quest. We are always recreating, and layering, our memories as current scenarios remind us of our past. We may be drawn to echoes of the past, even as we step bravely forward into new lives and new futures.
The “Journey Beneath The Stars” chapter in my book, is without a doubt, pivotal to the spirit of the novel. In“Johari’s Window” I wish to foreground the “unsung heroines” who charted a course to prepare the way for their sisters to voyage. To draw an analogy, the woman sailor Jeanne Baret, navigated and sailed on “L’Etoile” to be the first ever woman to circumnavigate the globe, and journey into New Worlds, yet, in her time, her story was never brought to light, because this woman sailor, disguised as a man, could never tell “her” story.
I use artistic license to say her journey was through darkness.
And it is under the cover of the night, that we foreground our feelings over thinking, subjectivity over objectivity. It is only in a voyage of dreams that we may return to the wild, and know ourselves as primitive. In this, “primitive,” is everything, “known before,” and deep in our collective conscience. This territory shows forth in the language of dreams, and it is with this language, in stories of archetypes, myths and legends, that we may better understand who we are.
Copyright Suzy Davies, Author, 08/10/2016. All Rights Reserved.
Survival!
I am grateful to all those hardworking people at shelters in Florida who fed and watered people who had to evacuate their homes.
Life for me is back to normal, but I am thinking about those less fortunate, and those who lost their lives.
Life for me is back to normal, but I am thinking about those less fortunate, and those who lost their lives.
Book News
"The Flamingos Who Painted The Sky," our new picture book is NOW fully available to bring in #Christmas #sunshine, #flamingo #sunsets, and #happiness #worldwide Illustrated by the talented Shirin Mass ...more
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