Carol Bergman

I had an email exchange with a United States soldier deployed in Afghanistan. I got his name from “Adopt a US Soldier” http://www.adoptaussoldier.org/ after an item on the news last week. Apparently, more than 25% of US soldiers posted abroad never receive a communication from home. I couldn’t resist answering the call for correspondents.

I suppose I had expected a long and continuous series of email exchanges with “my” soldier. His “wish list” included a hunger for education, an interest in science and computers (science and engineering magazines and logic puzzle books, please) and more training while he's still in the army. He is also planning to marry his high school sweetheart while he’s home on leave. This last piece of information came to me in his first email which also shifted my idea of correspondence with a deployed soldier.

Stephen works 12 hour days. He has to stand in line to use a computer. I have no idea where he is or what he is doing nor is he free to tell me. When he told me he was applying for more training I asked if his need for math and science textbooks could wait. He said, No, he would be wherever he is until October at which time his deployment would be “over.” I realized that whatever I sent him to read—letters, magazines, books—would be a portal to home, a way to imagine a future for himself at home with his girl.

I bought three books on amazon and sent three magazines from the post office addressed to a base in Georgia which will reroute the package. Though I went way beyond my budget, I also felt gratified. How often do we make a donation to person we can “touch,” a real person with a history, a present, and a future?

I plan to continue writing to SPC Stephen Porter by snail mail, old-fashioned letters either printed or written in long hand. The adopt a US soldier site reminds all volunteers that these letters are portable, they can be taken into the field, and read over and over again.

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I received a letter from Orbis Books, the American publisher of my book, "Another Day in Paradise; International Humanitarian Workers Tell Their Stories," to say that the book, published nearly six years ago, is going out of print in the United States and Canada. I was not upset for several reasons: 1/ We had a long run. 2./ The book is still available from another publisher in the UK and EU 3./ There are several used and new copies available on amazon. 4./We live in the digital age.

Orbis Books had received an offer from a reprint house, Wipf & Stock Publishers, out in Eugene, Oregon. I took up their offer, a good one. The book will be available with a new cover, print on demand, within two months.

"Another Day in Paradise," is therefore still very much alive. An order has already been taken from the U. of Wisconsin and I will be working with the marketing department at the reprint house to begin another round of publicity.

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I had never appreciated John Updike until about a year ago when a story called “Outage” appeared in The New Yorker (1/7/08). I was impressed enough by the story and the clarity of the prose to transcribe a paragraph into my common book (of quotations). I am sure this story will be anthologized very soon as all of Updike’s formidable oeuvre is going into reprint. My local B& N was sold out completely the other day except for one hardback copy of “The Witches of Eastwick.” I will dedicate my class this week to this fine American writer. It was the transcription of one luminous paragraph that led me further into Updike’s work.

The origin of the common book is obscure. (If anyone’s research yields an answer, please comment here.) I first heard about it when I lived in England and began to keep one there. I now have several filled with quotations from books I have read. The quotations are often paragraphs and pages I have admired as writing, a kind of tracing of the writer’s mind as I transpose his or her own words into my notebook. And I also use the quotations as source if I am working on an essay, say, that requires a quote to give it universality and gravitas.

I think it was Anne Fadiman in her charming book about books, ”Ex Libris,” who said that when she finishes a book, she photocopies the paragraphs and pages she has enjoyed and admired and then pastes them into her common book. I do the same, but only if the passage is too long to transcribe by hand. That slows me down and keeps me away from the computer.

One way or another beautiful, well wrought words, thoughts, modes of expression are “copied” into my common book so that I can possess them and return to them easily.
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It’s been more than a week since I’ve written on/in my blog and for good reason: I’ve been working flat-out every day for several hours on the revision of my murder mystery. I’ve decided, reluctantly, that it’s not working as novel and stripped the story down to its armature. I don’t usually have the luxury of extended periods of writing time but last Monday, the 26th of January, I realized I had a string of free days before the NYU term began, and no other commitments. I retreated to upstate New York where it was so bitterly cold and icy I could hardly go outside. Nothing to do but read, write, snow-shoe, play with my daughter and son-in-law’s dog, and work out on their treadmill in between paragraphs.

Slowly, ever so slowly, I accepted that my novel might not be a novel after all but a novella or a very long short story. Discouraged one morning, I popped an email to a writer friend and to my agent; they both quickly wrote back words of encouragement. No writer can work in total isolation. But why do we all—fiction and nonfiction writers alike—hope, plan, attempt and assume that we will write a novel or two sometime in our career? I have no idea how this “myth” began and/or by whom. Maybe it was Norman Mailer. He always said he was going to write the “great” American novel. In the end, his body of work was formidable and the longest and greatest of all his books was nonfiction: “The Executioner’s Song,” which is what we would now call creative nonfiction or literary nonfiction or literary journalism or narrative nonfiction. In other words, it combines fictional devices(setting, character, descriptive detail, dramatic tension, plot, etc.) with journalism (interviews and research).

In sum, my murder mystery, the first I have ever attempted, is not a novel. But it has merit and I will press on. Perhaps it will become part of a “novel in stories,” or a “story cycle?” Stay tuned.

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A new Presidential and academic term begins. The excitement of the inauguration over, we can all return to work, commitment revitalized, and write our hearts out. An African-American friend said, “I have no more excuses.” I said, “Neither do I.” Onward. Let's write as though we were going to die tomorrow. Let’s write because what we write is important to us and others.

I listened to President Obama’s speech twice and look forward to reading it soon. I was struck by its words, all carefully chosen. Words matter.

After the toasts, the phone calls, the emails, the IM’s, and the Facebook news feeds, I opened a hate-filled email about “stupid Americans” from a European relative and then deleted it without a reply thinking, Every family has an incendiary. I eventually did reply if only to say that hate speech is not welcome in my “in box.” Private hatreds must remain in the private sphere. It has been well documented: Hate speech leads to violence. Not allowed.

That night I recounted the email exchange to a good friend who works for the United Nations and has traveled and worked in more countries than I can name. Words matter, he agreed, and continued with this profound thought: “I hope we can eliminate the prefixes attached to the word American now. We are all Americans.” Indeed.
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I’ve heard discussion this week—at two social gatherings—about our President elect's eloquence and incisive intelligence. But there have also been some questions raised about the authenticity of his memoir, “Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.” Did he write the book himself? Was it heavily edited? Was it ghosted? Recent egregious instances of false memoirs have made us skeptical about the word “memoir.” This is a shame because it makes every memoir suspect and there are many memoirs, including “Dreams from My Father,” that deserve our trust. It was written on commission by the first African-American President of the Harvard Law Review, published in 1994, and then re-issued ten years later with a new, eloquent and incisive preface. The warm, calm voice in this preface is the same voice we now hear every day, the one that will lead our country for the next four years, perhaps longer. Whether reading from a prepared speech or speaking extemporaneously, our President elect, two days away from inauguration as I write, is articulate, thoughtful and blessedly educated on the challenging issues of our time. He is rarely seen without a book in his hand--poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Read this article in the NY Times for further comment: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/books/19read.html?pagewanted=2&ref=todayspaper

It's a week of celebration for many of us.
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I am always touched by still photographs of students in poor countries bent over their books or slates, pencils or chalk in hand, earnestly, eagerly studying, writing, listening. There are news reports about such children and young adults daily. Yesterday, there was one about a school for girls in Kandahar, Afghanistan where the Taliban had flung acid at a bunch of girls on their way to school last November. I have written a letter to the Headmaster commending his courage and that of the girls. I offered a connection to me and my students at NYU this term, if they are willing, as well as a donation of books. I am mailing this letter today and I have also sent it out via email to the NY Times reporter who wrote the story.

If you are interested in helping me “adopt” the Mirwais School for Girls, please contact me.

Here’s the link to the article :
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/14/world/asia/14kandahar.html?ref=todayspaper
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I have just heard from my agent about the murder mystery I wrote over the summer. She likes it but it needs work. Hard to believe, this is music to my hard working writer’s ears. If she’d said, “It’s awful. No way can I handle this,” I would have cast the manuscript aside and started again.

My agent is a literary lawyer who reads hundreds of books every year and knows the marketplace well. She’s not particularly nurturing so far as my literary efforts are concerned but I’m experienced so I don’t need a nurturing agent. I needed that at the beginning of my career, but not now. So it’s fine with me that my agent’s goal is to sell my book, period. As it happens she's a very nice person and I like her and she likes me. But she's not my editorial Mama. We both are practical and get on with it, I'd say. When I hand her work, I know I'll get an honest assessment. I trust her. Therefore, even though I might not like what she has to say, or I might not agree with all her suggestions, I have to remain open to them and not take suggestions as a personal rejection of my efforts. Critique and criticism are not the same.

In addition to being my agent and my lawyer, my agent is also an editor. She knows what works and what doesn’t work in a manuscript. I respect her commentary and, for this project, I have my eye on the marketplace as much as she does. I still write literary short stories, poems, essays, and consider myself a journalist at heart. I send things out, I get them published, or they are rejected and I file them away. I sometimes get paid for my efforts and sometimes I don’t.(The literary marketplace pays very little or not at all.) P.S. I want to sell this book.

Have I mentioned that the difference between a published and unpublished writer is someone who can work with an editor, an agent, or a publisher, without complaint? We can stand up for our material, but still be cooperative. There’s no other way except the self-publishing route, not a bad one nowadays. I’ve used it myself (twice) and will write about it here eventually I suppose.

As for readers, they are important also. I don’t know a professional writer who works in isolation. Everyone needs feedback before revision. I’ve been in many writer’s groups over the years but don’t have one at the moment. I do, however, have three friends—one is a writer, the two others are avid readers—and they don’t seem to mind reading my work. I give them guidelines as I hand them the manuscript; I remain silent as they talk to be about my work, just like in a workshop. Then I get to work on a revision, send the work out or, in the case of a full-length manuscript, hand it to my agent. And I don't worry. If this project isn't viable, I'll move on to the next one. That's the writer's life.
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Time collapses online and so it is with my visits to Facebook this last week, or two, or three. I have been consulting both my daughter and my niece about the proper security settings and continue to tweak these. Because I had chosen e-mail notifications for everything, I was receiving links all day on my email account. I could not resist clicking on these—more friends!!—but did not notice for several days that I did not have to log-in to Facebook, my Home Page came right up with a click off the email notification. This was alarming particularly as I seemed to be getting more spam, unfiltered by my Norton security system. I then received three junk cell phone messages and a spam message from an email address (I thought I knew) referring directly to the phone calls: “I called you three times last night.” Who called me? I have no idea. Needless to say, I have revisited all my settings and re-set them, and changed my Facebook password.

So, what have I enjoyed? Mostly, contact with relatives who live far away. There is a sense of immediacy in status updates, wall posts, photo albums, and so on. I even sent my son-in-law’s mother a sunflower yesterday as she wasn’t feeling well.

Whereas my first blog entry on the subject of Facebook was light-hearted, this one is less so. I am still perplexed about the nature of Facebook friendship and its rules. Who do we invite, block, or remove? Who does the same to us, without notification? Does a friendship have a chance to deepen and evolve? Two old, dear friends I had a falling out with over the summer have taken me off their “list.” I have removed their daughter because I was getting her news feeds, saw pictures of my two, old, once-dear friends, and was reminded each time of them and our rift. Too painful. And no opportunity to discuss at length on Facebook, or resolve, or move forward. A line firmly drawn in cyberspace would have to be erased another way. Has the “removal” on Facebook exacerbated the problem? I’m not sure.
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Is it my imagination or are there more scanned books available on the internet than before the holidays? I’d seen the movie “Doubt” and was curious about its author, John Patrick Shanley. I Googled, and found a sample of the stage play with its Samuel French cover. This play is still copyrighted, of course, so it was only a sample. I am not sure but I think I could have purchased an electronic version right then and there. Instead, I walked to my local Barnes & Noble and bought a hard copy of the play and sat with it—in my hand—at a café. I suppose if I had a Kindle, the Amazon wireless reading device, I wouldn’t have taken that walk. I’m waiting for the price to come down and the technology to improve before buying one. With the amount of reading and research I do, it makes economic and environmental sense. How long do books last? The paper I mean. Just a few days ago, I pulled out a copy of Nancy Milford’s biography of Zelda Fitzgerald, a book I probably have not looked at in a decade, and as soon as I opened it the brittle pages shredded onto my lap. Then this morning, trolling the internet again, I went through a portal into the University of California at Berkeley library ( my alma mater) and found a memoir by Alphonse Daudet, the French Dickens (1840-1897), fully scanned and available without a fee. I confess I was extremely excited to be able to flip the “pages” with a click on a forward arrow. Legibility was not an issue and even the photograph of M. Daudet was clear.

So what will happen to the books on our shelves or the bookcases that hold them and warm our homes? Or bookstores? Stay tuned.

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