Breath: From the Latin 'spiro': Respiration, inspiration, perspiration, expiration…
The great Irish playwright, Samuel Beckett, once wrote a play called ‘Breath,’ which I can’t quote, because it had no words – only an inspiration and an expiration. However, when I received an email from Shanghai informing me that the theme of this programme was ‘Breath’, it wasn’t Beckett that came to mind.
‘Breath’ is a pertinent word for writers, since, for most of us, writing is breathing – and I should know. I recently resigned my position as the Artistic Director of the West Cork Literary Festival in Ireland, because the job allowed me no time to write. So it is apt that, just as I return to full-time writing, I should have this opportunity to participate in a programme that not only allows me to breathe, but also has ‘Breath’ as its theme. But that’s not what I was thinking about either when I received that email from Shanghai.
The first thing that came to mind was the sheng, the Chinese reed instrument. In fact, the theme startled me, because playing the sheng requires, well – breathing, and the sheng is one of the reasons I applied for this residency.
Both Shanghai and the sheng will appear in my novel-in-progress, but why do I, an Irish writer – and not even a musician – want to write about the sheng? The English novelist, Rumer Godden, once wrote: “Every piece of writing ... starts from what I call a grit ... a sight or sound … that … quite inexplicably lodges in the mind.” I’d like to tell you about the sights and sounds that created the kernel of my novel and indirectly brought me to Shanghai.
The Music Department of University College Cork – UCC – has, for some time, been home to a Javanese gamelan. This ensemble of instruments is made up of sixty-six bronze gongs (known as kenongs and bonangs), metallophones, drum, flute, zither and a two-stringed, two-eared spiked fiddle. Dr Mel Mercier, Head of Music at UCC, is responsible for bringing the gamelan to Cork seventeen years ago. He had studied gamelan in California, but then returned to UCC where, of course, there was no gamelan. In 1994, he was sent to Java to commission the leading gong-smith to make a full gamelan for the university. He returned to Java a year later when the instruments were ready to be played for the first time as part of a traditional naming ceremony. Although every gamelan is unique, they are not all named, but this one was considered significant because it was taking Javanese gamelan to Ireland. It was named Nyai Sekar Madu Sari – Venerable Flower of Honey Essence. Afterwards, in the yard outside the forge, the instruments were blessed before their long journey.
They arrived in Cork in 1996, wrapped in Javanese newspapers, and after setting them up on the floor of a deconsecrated church, Mel and his students stood back in awe. This magnificent gamelan had quite an aura. It has been an intrinsic part of Music Studies in UCC ever since.
Students quickly acquire Javanese customs, such as leaving their shoes outside the seomra gamelan (“gamelan room” in Irish) – and never stepping over the instruments, which would be disrespectful. They acquire a deep respect for traditional Javanese music. Some compose new music for gamelan; many go on to study and teach it all over the world.
I came to love gamelan because my daughter was one of those students, and the UCC concerts became the cultural highlight of our year. Finola went on to teach at the University of Leeds in England, because she had found there, on a visit, an unused gamelan stacked away in an alcove. She dusted off the instruments and created a new, hugely popular, music module. Her interest in Far Eastern music subsequently led her to a conference in Amsterdam, where a Chinese musician introduced her to the sheng. She became determined to learn how to play this extraordinary instrument, and her enthusiasm infected me. So you could say that the Venerable Flower of Honey Essence led us to the sheng, and the sheng brought us both to China. These are the ‘sights and sounds’ that have inspired my novel.
The story of the UCC gamelan highlights the air that flows between cultural traditions – Irish composers writing for Javanese gamelan, rock stars playing Indian sitar – but what of writers? How can we dip into one another’s artistic conventions and thereby expand our repertoire, our scope, in the same way that a musician might? Does the universality of literary practices make it more difficult to create from within another established tradition? After all, the forms of modern fiction belong to no one culture. Narrative techniques are global, our tools and tricks are similar, and we use the same instrument: the written word. Literary fashions ricochet around the world like a shuttlecock, belonging to no one in particular – Flash Fiction, also known as One Smoke Fiction in China, has, for example, recently become popular with writers everywhere.
We write in different languages, yes, but translators dissolve that barrier, so the crucial differentiating factor between the works of authors who are otherwise doing the same thing the same way is not language. It is the ground beneath our feet. Our roots, our upbringing. Even if I could write flawless Mandarin, I could never write a Chinese novel, in the way my daughter might play the sheng, and Chinese writers might struggle to write an Irish novel. But what do these geographically-exacting terms mean?
Unlike “the Great American Novel,” there is no established literary concept as “the Great Irish Novel” – indeed the term has been appropriated by American literature – but of course there is such a thing as “the Great Irish/Chinese/Egyptian/Russian Novel.” James Joyce’s Ulysses is generally considered to be the greatest modern novel in any language, so I think it’s fair to say that it might qualify as a ‘Great Irish Novel.’ So too would any of the late John McGahern’s books, since they capture the zeitgeist of their time and cover those themes so prevalent in 20th century Irish fiction – the Catholic church, harsh rural living, and what we like to call ‘the miserable Irish childhood’. Contemporary authors have largely abandoned these outdated themes, but significant Irish works continue to be delivered by, for example, the peerless Kevin Barry, and Banville, McCann, Enright ... I, however, will never write a truly Irish novel, great or otherwise, even if I were gifted with Kevin’s brilliance.
We are our childhoods. My father was a diplomat, so we moved around a lot and Ireland, for me, meant Irish chocolate, my best friend Bernice, and toasting bread on one side under my grandmother’s grill. I particularly loved living in Australia, so much so that my father feared I would never leave, that I might lose touch with Ireland completely. So one summer he took me to Connemara – a moody and magnificent part of Ireland, with mountains, lakes, and beaches as beautiful as any in Australia, if a little colder – and he said, ‘This is yours.’ The Aboriginal people would disagree, since they believe we cannot own any part of the earth, but Ireland can, and does, own me. Since that day, it has never let me go. My novels have many settings, but Ireland has a foothold in every story. No matter where I travel or what I write, Ireland is where I keep my soul, and is therefore the soul in my work. And yet, I will never write an intrinsically Irish novel. My perspective is not well enough grounded in the Irish experience. I am my childhood.
Most of my fiction is set in foreign locations. I wrote about Yemen, for example, because I hoped to show the magnificent country and people that exist behind the clichés. And readers said to me, ‘I didn’t know Yemen was like that. I thought it was full of terrorists.’ Well, that’s what they used to say about Ireland, but those who read about Ireland knew otherwise. So even while writing from outside another culture, we can nonetheless draw our readers into our experience of it, and maybe change a few perceptions, open a few minds, start a few discussions.
Writers are story-tellers. That is our calling, our profession and our responsibility. The great Irish literary heritage comes from the oral tradition of story-telling, as indeed it does in China. For centuries, we gathered around fires and told each other tales during long, dark winters. This is why our most important cross-cultural activity, as readers and writers, is this: here and now. Literary events, residencies, festivals. Conversations. We must take every opportunity to share our folklore, our tales, exchange views and come away thinking a little differently, perhaps. Those of us who are visitors here will absorb your experience, your influence, and we will breathe your air – and I don’t mean literally. In time, this will inevitably infuse our work, so that our stories will grow out of your stories, and your stories, perhaps, from ours.
I may never learn to play the sheng, but I can write about it. You may never play the Irish harp, but you will know something of Ireland, and I will know something of China, because we have met and talked, and we will all be better off for that exchange.
©Denyse Woods
Cork
June 2013