The Horns of Dilemma

The second in a trio of papers for Gothic Disturbances class.

The night before this was due, I was at someone's house with my then-wife, and, around midnight, I said I had to go since I had this 5-7 page paper due in the morning. "How much have you written so far?" I was asked. "About a paragraph."

I finished it about three hours later and received the highest marks in the class. A fête I would repeat with the third paper in the class. Both the writing it in the last hours of its deadline as well as highest marks. But with the third one, I knew quite well what I would write about. With Orlando, I made it all up as I went along...

I love the way referenes to Phillip José Farmer (via the Donne quote), William Burroughs, and Lou Reed pop up in this.


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(1st draft)


English 490 - Gothic Disturbances
March 24, 2009


The Horns of Dilemma


At the round earth's imagin'd corners, blow
Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise
From death, you numberless infinities
Of souls, and to your scatter'd bodies go;
―John Donne


On Thursday, May 10 (year unknown), when Orlando was in the seventh day of his trance, he dreamed (hallucinated/envisioned) his own demise—

Would that we might here take the pen and write Finis to our work! Would that we might spare the reader what is to come and say to him in so many words, Orlando died and was buried. (133-34)

Like so much in Virginia Woolf's Orlando: A Biography, this death is only an affected circumstance in which the male Orlando metaphorically dies while the female Orlando will rise from the sleeping trace. What Woolf may intended with this analogy is that the male Orlando's death is his trance, and his body is not buried in a grave beneath six feet of earth, but in a bed beneath the sheets.

In directly addressing the reader, Woolf once again breaks the proverbial "third wall" between audience and performers (or, in this case, the author and her readers), which creates a sense of immediacy and an informational tone of conversation, almost like a friend relating a news article they had just heard.

Woolf then invokes her first trinity, which are named for three things which her text ironically obscures to a great extent:

But here, alas, Truth, Candour, and Honesty, the austere Gods who keep watch and ward by the inkpot of the biographer, cry No! Putting their silver trumpets to their lips they demand in one blast, Truth! And again they cry Truth! and sounding yet a third time in concert they peal forth, The Truth and nothing but the Truth! (134)

When she cites Truth, Woolf is calling forth the single most important content of this scene—perhaps the novel—yet a perspective which cannot be subjected to absolute analysis. Truth, in this case, lacks any veracity and is not entirely correct nor accurate. Even so, the truth here could still be seen as something of a troth, a betrothment of Orlando's aspects to each other; an alchemical marriage between him and herself (to mix the pronouns with which we can truthfully describe hir (sic)). And truth, in the case of Orlando, means not only different things at different times, but contradictory things at the same time.

(As we shall see in these examples, the juxtaposition of paradox is commonplace in the world Woolf shows us with the hermaphroditic Orlando.)

Candour is a truthful openness which also means to shine, (this latter definition is quite likely, at this point in the scene, the most intended meaning). Shining an austere light upon this confusing satire is much needed to critically analyze the state of flux Orlando hovers in amidst this cacophonous delirium of his transformation from him to her.

The use of the word Honesty in this context, like the original meaning of the word itself, has more to do with honor than being honest, represents Orlando's sense of worthiness to transcend his gender. So worthy in fact, that in his dream-state, the onset of change is literally heralded by a refrain of silver trumpets blowing forth their tintinnabulation.

But why silver trumpets in particular; why not gold?

Silver trumpets would indicate a certain civility, a certain delicacy that gold does not represent—silver requires more refinement in its smelting process than does gold, and Orlando is, at this point, in a state of refinement, a state of sublimation between being a male in his past and a female in her future.

Woolf continues, with her tongue placed firmly in cheek, to introduce her second trinity, which take the semblance of the Three Graces, or, considering the outcome their appearance has upon Orlando, they could be closely likened to the Moriae of Greek myth.

At which--Heaven be praised! for it affords us a breathing space--the doors gently open, as if a breath of the gentlest and holiest zephyr had wafted them apart, and three figures enter. (134)

They appear very much like the cloaked witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth, although these three Ladies have a very different agenda. They are not here to prophesy, but to obscure, and yet in obfuscation, they act as a Greek chorus does, and tell far more than they disguise.

The three are the Lady of Purity, the Lady of Chastity, and the Lady of Modesty. Each speak over Orlando's sleeping form, and their three speeches are followed by a pealing of trumpets which seem to banish them.

Our Lady of Purity speaks first:
[...] I cover vice and poverty. On all things frail or dark or doubtful, my veil descends. Wherefore, speak not, reveal not. Spare, O spare! (135)

Purity is defined as that which is clean or unsoiled. So the veils of Purity hiding the dark and doubtful are perhaps the only things her nature is capable of hiding. And even as she covers the vice and poverty of the world, the Lady of Purity entreats us not to speak or reveal these things.

But are we not suppose to speak of her actions, or are we not to reveal that it is she who does so? Like so much else in Orlando, we are left with impressions of answers, and the intentional ambiguity which is an integral theme of the work.

As if sensing that the reader—the viewer of this dance of veils—wishes to ask questions of the Lady of Purity's enigmatical comments, Woolf dismisses the first sister and brings on the second.

Here the trumpets peal forth.
'Purity Avaunt! Begone Purity!'
Then Our Lady Chastity speaks:
[...] where my eyes fall, they kill. Rather than let Orlando wake, I will freeze him to the bone. Spare, O spare! (135)

The trumpets peal, she tells us, which is a loud summoning—peal being the shortened form of appeal—and then says "Purity Avaunt!" which, like so much else Woolf shows us in this quandary, means opposite things simultaneously; avaunt being a word that means both "to call forth" and "to send away," which is a paradox that was certainly not lost on Woolf in writing this.

The Lady of Chastity speaks of stones and stars, of dancing and the Alps, of lightning, eyes, and bones. Whereas the Lady of Purity spoke of covering vice and poverty, the Lady of Chastity tells us that she kills all she looks upon, and would rather freeze Orlando's bones rather than let him awaken from his fevered dream.

The connection between chastity and ice is entirely metaphoric—as so much else has been—involving the sexual frigidity of being chaste. Regardless of Orlando's physical experiences of sex, in the moment he is in the depths of his dreaming, Woolf is telling us, completely pure and sexually unsullied. Rather than allow him to awake back into a body that has been—in the eyes of the Lady of Chastity—defiled by sexual desires and encounters, she would just as soon freeze his bones.

But once again, there is a clamor of horns and the Lady of Chastity is banished, bringing forth the third sister.

Here the trumpets peal forth.
'Chastity Avaunt! Begone Chastity!'
Then Our Lady of Modesty speaks, so low that one can hardly hear:
[...] I let my mantle fall. My hair covers my eyes. I do no see. Spare, O spare! (135-36)

Modesty is self-control, a freedom from exaggeration and excesses; moderation and even measures. Sober. And the Lady of Modesty speaks of virginal things, as well as fertile things such as vineyards, flocks of sheep, apples, and fields of ripened fruit. The sort of things that are known to be associated with the very acts that show no modesty—once again displaying the paradox and contradictions contained within this scene and this story.

The Lady of Modesty lets her mantle fall, her long and sleeveless cloak that is wrapped around her. Her hair covers her eyes because, of course, she must be too bashful to even look about the sleeping form of this man (soon-to-be-woman). She too, like her sisters, ends her dialog with the repeated phrase, "Spare, O spare!"

The word spare could mean extra, additional, or even frugal, but in this case it is more likely to be associated with the definition of "to refrain from harming" and "to allow to go free."

Despite the threat of harm the sisters may appear to be harbingers of, none of them will, or, (since they may well be apparitions springing from Orlando's fevered trance) can harm him.

But what they do bring about is a profound and immediately noticeable change in the man.

Again the trumpets peal forth:
'Modesty Avaunt! Begone Modesty!' (136)

With the paradox call of come forth and be gone, the Lady of Modesty has spoken her piece and now, all three sisters begin to dance in unison, performing a sort of pavane around the sleeping form of Orlando.

And, again (a common refrain of our own in this discussion) we can liken an aspect of this scene to previous literature, this time it resembles that of Salomé's Dance of the Seven Veils, which both reveals and occludes the subject it addresses—

With gestures of grief and lamentation the three sisters now join hands and dance slowly, tossing their veils and singing as they go:
'Truth come not out from your horrid den. Hide deeper, fearful Truth. For you flaunt in the brutal gaze of the sun things that were better unknown and undone; you unveil the shameful; the dark you make clear, Hide! Hide! Hide!'
Here they make as if to cover Orlando with their draperies. The trumpets, meanwhile, still blare forth:
'The Truth and nothing but the Truth.'
At this the Sisters try to cast their veils over the mouths of the trumpets so as to muffle them, but in vain, for now all the trumpets blare forth together.
'Horrid Sisters, go!'
The sisters become distracted and wail in unison, still circling and flinging their veils up and down. (136)

They dance, and in singing about concealment, even as the trumpets blare in counterpoint about truth. This conflict shows us the conflict Orlando has concerning his gender, and the difficulties of understanding what is to be done about this.

Truth, in this as in most cases, is not an unchanging law, but something that is variable, circumstantial, and most times, hidden. Truth is something to be unveiled; revealed. Just as Orlando's nature and gender is a hidden truth that must surely be offered for display.

The circling dance of the sisters represents the yonic powers of women, smooth and supple and calm (feminine actions). The trumpets are described as blaring or pealing or blasting (all masculine verbs), and the very musical instrument itself is phallic in its design and appearance.

This is the internal battle raging within Orlando as he sleeps and dreams, until finally—

They retire in haste, waving their draperies over their heads, as if to shut out something that they dare not look upon and close the door behind them.
We are, therefore, now left entirely alone in the room with the sleeping Orlando and the trumpeters. The trumpeters, ranging themselves side by side in order, blow one terrific blast:--
'THE TRUTH!
at which Orlando woke. (137)

With a blast of the trumpets, Orlando's seven-day trance comes to an abrupt end. From the narrative, it would seem the trumpeters are real while the three sisters were not, but again, this is a metaphoric description drenched in the pheromones of paradox.

The phallic trumpets herald the awakening of a new Orlando, one that, it would seem, is minus a male appendage.

He stretched himself. He rose. He stood upright in complete nakedness before us, and while the trumpets pealed Truth! Truth! Truth! we have no choice left but confess--he was a woman. (137)

With this unusual and disconcerting paragraph, Virginia Woolf issues a statement about feminism, transgendered ideals, and a forerunner of sexual perversity that would not be matched for thirty to forty years when literature and music would once again take up the challenges of transgendered ambiguity, and such conflicts would arise (no pun intended) in the sexual ambivalence of William Burroughs' novels and Lou Reed's songs.

Like Orlando slipstreaming through time without apparent reason, we can connect the 1970s influences on Lou Reed from the likes of Virginia Woolf ("shaved her legs and then he was a she"—"Walk on the Wild Side") to the Jacobean poet who wrote the epigraph used at the onset of this discussion:

Orlando imagined these trumpets from the four rounded corners of his world (a combining of male and female geometric shapes), with the three graces of Purity, Chastity, and Modesty being like angels to him, he arises from a slumbering "death" back to his single body that is scattered between possible genders.

Conflict, paradox, and dualities overlay each other like veils upon this scene.

And here we, at last, write Finis on our own work.


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What is "Good" Writing?

This brief essay is particularly cringe-worthy. Perhaps not objectively, but certainly from this vantage point on the inside looking back in at a piece several years old. Whereas my fiction has involved significantly since 2007-8, it was already "good" and thus, improvement is a small percentile compared to the leap my academic writing has done in the past two years. I thank the challenges set forth by Dr. Boren [English Dept. UNCW] and the memoirist/guest teacher at UNCW last year, Peter Trachtenberg.

The second assignment from Fiction II (taught by the underestimated Jeff Jacobson), was to define what is that ephemeral and very subjective creature called "good writing."

Returning the paper Jeff told me it made him pull out The Big Sleep and read it again. Reference to Chandler tend to do that to some people. :)


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(1st Draft)


FICTION II
2/18/08
Journal II: What is Good Writing?

Ehem, let me get up on my soapbox for a couple minutes about this:

What is Good Writing?

Good Writing is when you can smell the mold growing on the floorboards of the room in the story.

Good Writing is when you forget all sense of self and know nothing more than what is passing through your head and heart via the words printed on a page.

Good Writing asks questions, it doesn't give you answers. If a writer has the answer, they usually end up lecturing you. They should probably skip fiction and go right on to writing religious tracts (Crews).

Good Writing is something that might not be evident upon first read. If the writing calls attention to itself with deliberately pretty words, it's probably veered over into the Bad Writing side of things.

Good Writing doesn't need to call attention to itself--you-as-a-reader are too involved in the story of what the words are telling to notice how pretty they are or how well constructed the sentence is. Which, as course means, that the words used are fitting the story they tell and the sentence is structured well, without grammatical problems.

Sure, cite Shelby all you want in regards to why you shouldn't be constrained to using the commonly accepted rules about punctuation and quotations marks, but chances are great that you don't have as strong of a narrative voice, internal consistency, and as powerful subject matter as Shelby did. Sure, you probably do within the confines of your own genius head of yours, but queers, transsexuals, junkies, and whores was new in literature with Algren, Selby, and Burroughs, and Irving Welsh managed a go of it, but only two of those four ventured very far from the accepted rules of grammar. Unless you can lay down your pedigree as powerfully as they did, you might want to learn the rules before you break them. Find/Replace is a brilliant feature of word processors.

After the grammar-thing, one of the next flashing neon signs advertising a piece as Bad Writing would be the use of adjectives and adverbs. Bad Writing is often carelessly, needlessly, atrociously rife with myriad, horrid, eldritch, and often incomprehensible adverbs and adjectives. If you spot more than a handful per page, you've probably veered off the Good Writing highway into the purplish vistas of pedantic typing. Which doesn't mean don't ever use them, it means ration them. They're powerful things, like compost. A little bit helps make a garden become lush and beautiful. A lot of them together creates a pile of shit. The road to hell is paved with adverbs. [King gets credit for this, but I've seen it written previous to his On Writing. Aw, hell, he can have the credit if you're gonna argue about it.]

I can think of at least one example that violates a lot of guidelines I have for Good Writing, and which I still found it to be one of the most amazing bits of writing I've ever read: Nabokov's Lolita. I don't remember exactly (and don't have the book at hand to check) but there was a passage about the dandelions in the yard turning from suns to moons that just floored me and then continued to kick me with poetic words while I was left drooling in amazement.

That's Good Writing.

One of the most dangerous aspects of writing, and a particular razor's edge between Good|Bad Writing (and one rife with potential for cliché): Metaphors.

Ah, the foetid cliché. A bad cliché sticks out like a sore thumb. A red-headed stepchild in a black family. Clichés are horrible. Their use without precise care is a huge indicator of piss-poor writing. Not unlike showing up at a klan rally in a Boy George outfit (Hicks).

Which brings me back to metaphor. A poorly wrought metaphor usually doesn't travel alone and falls upon the reading psyche like a rapid ton of bricks; knocks the clipper ship of Good Writing right off its hinges. Some Bad Writing not only mixes metaphors, but cross-breeds those suckers. ("Damnit, Jim, I'm a wordsmith not an ontological geneticist!")

On the other side of that, Raymond Chandler spun some of the greatest metaphors in the English language:

"She smelled the way the Taj Mahal looks by moonlight."

"Her voice trailed off into a sort of sad whisper like a mortician asking for a down payment."

"A wedge of sunlight slipped over the edge of the desk and fell noiselessly on the carpet."

One of my favorite things about a story is the opening line. Not every good story has a good opening line, but maybe the great ones do.

"It was Friday the thirteenth and yesterday's snowstorm lingered in the street like a leftover curse." William Hjortsberg, Falling Angel.

"Horselover Fat's nervous breakdown began the day he got the phone call from Gloria asking if he had any Nembutals." PKD, VALIS.

Perhaps one of the most quoted by the under 30, 40, 60 crowd, "We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold." Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

One more: "What's the worst thing you've ever done? I won't tell you that, but I'll tell you the worst thing that ever happened to me...the most dreadful thing..." Peter Straub, Ghost Story.

There have been a few books over the years that I read in one sitting because I couldn't pull away from it--in one case staying up all night before having to start a three-day road trip. The first time this happened, I was twelve or so. The culprit was Douglas Adams's The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. Years later a book I've read more than a few times, including reading it aloud as a serial on two occasions. Falling Angel by William Hjortsberg. Then I picked up Lewis Shiner's Deserted Cities of the Heart. Shiner got me again a couple years later with his next book, Slam.

A book that can hold you in it despite what is going on outside of it is a fine example of Good Writing.

So I guess that's what Good Writing comes down for me.

Story. Storytelling.

Good Writing has nothing to do with good literature. In fact, good literature is sometimes completely at odds with Good Writing.

And Good Writing has everything to do with good storytelling. If your story's good enough, and told well enough, it can break any rule there is and be, not only Good Writing, but Great Writing.

Good Writing is when there's magic in them thar words. Words are magic. Why else d'ya think it's called spelling? (Barrett)

Of course, asking the question, "What is Good Writing?"(a question only slightly more interesting as being asked, "Where do you get your ideas?") has as many different answers as there are people with vantage points atop their proverbial soap boxes.

And it's time I hopped down from mine.


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