Write Like You're About to Die
Lessons from Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak on creating urgency in our writing
An Exclusive Writing Lab on a classic novel by a Russian master that asks bold questions about literature in this era of “me” vs. “we” and a prompt that asks what story (or stories) are you telling as a means of justifying your life
Hi and welcome:
In this era of individuality, many of us live in what some might call “the ego-drama,” which is defined by Bishop Robert Barron as “…a play that I’m writing, I’m producing, I’m directing, and above all, that I’m starring in.”
“We see this absolutely everywhere in our culture. Freedom of choice reigns supreme. I become the person I chose to be.”
There’s nothing wrong with becoming the person we are supposed to become, it’s the self-centeredness and self-absorption of “me-ism” that creates the problem. We can see this me-me-me reflected in the literature of our time, too, but because we’ve been at this rather degenerate place in our storytelling for quite a while now (the last two hundred-plus years, according to Christopher Booker’s thesis on story titled The Seven Basic Plots) we don’t often realize that it’s happening.
Like fish swimming in a river that becomes increasingly polluted over time, we have become acclimated to these me-me stories that we don’t give them a second thought. Too often, we find ourselves cheering for heroes who are anything but heroic.
A case in point is The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell, which is a novel we have studied for the last three weeks at The Blackbird Studio for Writers. While it is gloriously written by a true talent of our time, the final act is…shocking. The heroine walks out the door and leaves, knowingly, her beloved, loyal, and devoted maid to die a brutal death.
While analyzing and discussing Portrait, which is an imaginative story laid over a true-life historical character, many found themselves cheering for this plucky, misunderstood, lonely girl. Once we broke down her choices, though, a strange silence followed, and then a few justifications: She was young. She was abused. She didn’t know what she was doing until she did it. All are legitimate explanations, but these were not part of the closing act. If the author wanted us to see such reasoning for the fatal decision, it could have been easily laid in as part of the denouement.
Literature, great literature, is designed to make us think. To make us work. To help us (if we dig deeply enough) learn about the complexity and challenge of the human experience. Yes, it reflects our situation, but it also asks us to consider our being from the highest level possible, that of maturation and individuation, of an evolution to our highest selves that can contribute to the greater good.
Which brings me to Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak. (Boor-eece Past-ah-nak).
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