A Million Years with You (38 page)

An autobiography should be truthful, or as truthful as possible, although a friend once said, “Why ruin a good story with truth?” But, at least in my case, actual events have been more impressive than anything I might imagine, so sticking to the facts was easy. My memory isn't perfect, though. If readers should find discrepancies between my chapters on the Kalahari and my mother's book,
The !Kung of Nyae Nyae
, they should go with my mother's version. My mom had an awesome capacity for accuracy. In that respect, if not in all respects, the apple fell some distance from the tree.

An autobiography should say what the author wants to say, so the advice of others should be ignored. My mother's fans, for instance, thought I should write about her, my father's fans thought I should write about him, and my brother's fans thought I should devote at least a chapter to his accomplishments. But I had enough trouble getting my own life sorted out. Nor did I take the advice of a friend in the publishing industry who thought I should include my “sexual development,” as he put it. Why did he think so? Because sex and violence sell books.

I'm sure that's true. But as far as I know, while romantic encounters are sometimes found in the memoirs of women, they're not often found in the memoirs of men. When my friend Judy Sullivan wrote
Mama Doesn't Live Here Anymore
—a fiery autobiography that boosted the women's movement—she was told by her editor, who was in a wheelchair, that she must include her sexual adventures. Judy didn't want to. The editor kept insisting until Judy slammed her fist against the wall, threatened to push him in his wheelchair down the stairs, and shouted, “There'll be no fucking in my fucking book!” That goes for me too. But there is a little violence. I hope it's enough.

Finally, an autobiography should not be an opportunity for revenge, however tempting. Grievances can be important, but to wheel them out can present the writer as a spiteful person, not a generous, forgiving person, and besides, clinging to grievances corrodes the psyche. Everybody has grievances and I've dealt with a few, but I'd rather be a sunbeam than a pail of dirty water so I've buried the rest.

 

My second set of rules concerns the writing itself, and Rule One starts with words. These can be weak, as in “Have a nice day,” or they can have enormous power. I'll always remember a man in a short-sleeved shirt with his forearms on a table when I said, “You don't need to shift gears if you leave it in second and ride the clutch.” I would never do that, of course. I merely spoke the words, but when I did, the hair on his forearms rose.

I try to use words that spring from Anglo-Saxon rather than Latin because Latinate words can be offish and can impart remoteness. Anglo-Saxon words have more power and also are closer to the earth. They make people happy, or most of them do. We use them to talk with, and resort to the four-letter ones when all else fails. On the other hand, Latinate words are helpful, so it's good to have them handy. Some require strings of Anglo-Saxon words to replace.

One good thing about Latinate words is that they can stupefy. You might not want to stupefy your readers, but what if you did? You could use a word such as
encomium
. One day I told an intellectual gentleman that I liked something he'd done, and he asked, “What prompts your encomium?”

Wow! But I had no idea what he meant. I've learned it means
praise
, but why use
praise
when you can floor everybody with
encomium?
I'd be afraid to use it myself, but I think it's spectacular, especially with an old-fashioned word like
prompts
in the sentence.

 

If words can stupefy, they can also enthrall. One night my little grandson, Jasper, looked up at the sky and said he saw a waxing gibbous moon. Wow again! My jaw dropped. The kid had just started first grade, so his informed observation surprised me. But the words
waxing
and
gibbous
are also surprising if you think about them, because both are almost exclusively moon words. You once could “wax lyrical” about something, but nobody says that anymore, and you could wax a floor, but that wax is different. The
waxes
all come from the Indo-European
aug-
, from which we also get
August
, but around 1066 the word went different ways and collected different meanings. As for the word
gibbous
, except on extremely rare occasions it now has one use only, to describe the moon when it's less than full but more than half full. And this, to the best of my knowledge, makes it the most specific adjective in English.

All three of the moon words thrill me.
Waxing
sounds like something getting bigger. The sound of the
x
makes it strong.
Waning
sounds like something getting smaller. That long
a
is like a cry from the soul, lost and disappearing. And
gibbous
is perhaps the best word I know. It comes from the Latin
gibbus
, which meant
hump
, and to some extent
gibbous
still means
hump
, but nobody uses it that way now, so the unpoetic past of
gibbous
is forgotten. Today the word is mysterious and exciting and the moon has it all to itself.

Perhaps the most exciting thing about words is the sound of them when they are put together; hence the inner ear should never be ignored. Take
A La Recherche du Temps Perdu
, for instance—di di di DAH, di DAH DAH DAH. It's strong. Beethoven's Fifth Symphony begins with di di di DAH. Also, in Morse Code those beats are
V for Victory
. The mind's ear finds something thrilling about them.

Now look at one of the English translations,
Remembrance of Things Past
, di DAH di di DAH DAH. It's nothing special. No great composer would use that rhythm. Another translation,
In Search of Lost Time
, is not much better. But if the first word,
In
, were omitted, it would be DAH di DAH DAH, another famous rhythm, as in
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, As the Crow Flies, Back to Square One, Live and Let Live, Submachine Gun
, and many other significant phrases. But rhythm isn't everything. That title needs the
In
.

Words that stir the inner ear open the lower layers of the mind where our emotions hide. But to do this, a word or phrase must come as a surprise, as poets know. For example, the poet Stephen Spender when referring to people who were no longer living wrote, “Born of the sun, they traveled a short while towards the sun, and left the vivid air signed with their honor.” The phrase
Born of the sun
, as far as I know, is unique in literature, but the image conjured by
traveled a short while towards the sun
is even more surprising.
Vivid air
is also splendid, even though the word
vivid
is somewhat dangerous and no longer in much use. These phrases come from Spender's poem “I Think Continually of Those Who Were Truly Great,” which in itself is a knockout title (and is also the first line of the poem) because the businesslike, overlong, unpoetic word
continually
is in the middle of it. Imagine having thought of that! It makes me think of Spender when I think of those who were truly great.

The surprise element applies throughout the verbal spectrum. I think of the third verse of “I Know You Rider.” The music is familiar country blues, but it's the words that make this song.

 

Wish I was a headlight on a northbound train

Wish I was a headlight on a northbound train

I'd shine my light through the cold Colorado rain.

 

There's nothing rational about wishing you were a headlight. The image connects because the line scans beautifully and also resonates. It doesn't hurt to have a train in there, though. By now the train image is deep in our culture.

Incidentally, I know it's sometimes
cool Colorado rain
, but
cold
is better. Also some versions of the song say
California rain
, but the versions with
Colorado
are better because the word
California
sounds upbeat and festive, and the long
o
sounds in
Colorado
make it lonely and far away. That's good because the message of the song is about distance and departure. As for what resonance can do, consider the fact that the above verse has just twenty-seven words—nine of them repeated—which are vastly more evocative than the hundred and fifty words that follow in my effort to discuss it.

Meter and vowel-sound progressions can make or break a manuscript. We tend to associate such sound effects with overwritten descriptions of landscapes and storms at sea, but that's our mistake. Some of my favorite prose was written by George V. Higgins in his novel
The Friends of Eddie Coyle
. Higgins presents all kinds of information mostly with dialogue, but more quickly and with more punch and color than any other writer I know. Placing his book spine down on the table and letting it fall open revealed the following sentences, which, like all the others, scan like a dream and are as far from overwritten as it is possible to be.

 

“I got my fucking insurance bill,” the bearded man said. “Then I went out for a ride and I had to fill the goddamned thing, and it cost me nine bucks worth of superpremium, and I said the hell with it. Goddamn car was eating me blind.”

“Went like a bird with a flame up its ass, though,” Jackie Brown said.
¹

 

There's a breathless, cantering effect in the words spoken by the bearded man, a discouraged sigh (
was eating
) in the sentence about the goddamn car, and a blast at the end—
blind
. Then comes Jackie Brown's observation, which just sends me. Forceful, repeated rhythm in the words spoken by Jackie, all with muted vowel sounds except for the
a
in
flame
, which jumps up at you, then the famous DAH di DAH DAH rhythm at the end. Perfection.

 

I try with everything that's in me to write sentences that scan like that. And speaking of rewards, my favorite came from the poet Maxine Kumin, to whom I had sent a copy of my book
The Old Way
and who found a poem therein. She said, “On page 122 you wrote a poem and I have given it a title and lineated it.” And she did. Only when I saw it, I thought she had written the poem based on information from
The Old Way
. So I looked on page 122 to find the information. But, oh my god, the poem was there. It just wasn't lineated.
⁹
Maxine found it, so I gave it to her.

 

Specific meanings are the heart and treasure of language, so choosing the right word is essential. Everyone has an opinion about usage and can hardly wait to air it, and I am no exception, thus it has been my great privilege to serve on the usage panel of the
American Heritage Dictionary
. I'm well aware that English is somewhat fluid, its forward motion determined not by linguists but by all who speak it, and I'm also aware that the dictionary is not the voice of God but will alter its definitions as the language changes. However, I do love words as we know them now, and want us to cling to their present meanings as long as we can. So I was glad, for instance, to be asked about
disinterested
, as in
he is disinterested in solving the problem
. No, no, no! He is
uninterested
. A disinterested person has no involvement with the problem. I was equally glad to answer a question about Los Angeles being
no less unique
than New York, and for the opportunity to say that as far as I'm concerned,
unique
is still an absolute. You can add more words, of course—unique in this way, unique in that way—but that's a different sentence.

Yet we must accept the fact that meanings shift. The language police have much to say about that, but I don't necessarily. Nouns such as
contact
that became verbs long ago don't worry me one bit, although I'm not sure I'd use them.
Friend
became a verb very recently, but it's also okay as far as I'm concerned because, at least for now, it's exclusive to Internet communications, which being so new and widespread will develop their own vocabulary.

The decline of certain words is troublesome, however. For instance,
incredulous
seems to be replacing
incredible
, at least among television newscasters, one of whom, when referring to floods and extensive wind damage, said that Hurricane Irene was incredulous. But who knows? Perhaps even the hurricane could not believe what it was doing. A similar problem has appeared with
nauseous
, which is no longer used exclusively for things such as spoiled food that cause vomiting, but is also used for those who eat the food and feel like vomiting or, in other words, are
nauseated
. It hurts me, though. I'm always saddened when perfectly nice people say they feel nauseous. “You're not nauseous, you're delightful,” I want to tell them. But I'm not a member of the language police, and that word is already in transition.

A few words, such as
majority
, have slipped so far that they're poisoned. For some reason,
a majority of the water
sounds even worse than
somewhat unique
. Of course,
majority
fits with something that has a number, like
a majority of the voters
, as long as we're speaking of more than half of the voters, but these days you sound illiterate if you use
majority
for any reason. The exception would be for idioms already set in cement—
majority leader
and
majority rule
, for instance. As for me, I'm now afraid of the word
majority
and find that
most of
does the trick.