Archie Wilson - Writer

Illuminating Light: My Reasoning for creating the Novel Water Lily

 

[Writen for a Creative Writing submission in first year at university]

To respond to Light, to draw on Light, take its concerns and create my own creative writing project. To approach this exercise I could look at the words of Light, take some of the themes and write my own work. Or, I could look at the words of Light, appropriate them and remodel them into my own work. Rearrange the book as a homage to the famed painter who it examines, then, capture some the key themes of the book by studying key quotes and illuminate them. ‘He makes us see, he thought, seeing himself and Claude and the others sitting round the table in the garden in the middle of a luminous cloud of changing light which was now, here and now.’ Like Claude I want to master light and make people see. How to choose these quotes? There are many, and what makes one quote more valued than another? My own essay looking at how Figes uses light within the novel has quotes that I have already justified. If I use these quotes how can I distinguish them from the other words on the page? Light is indiscriminate in its illumination. I must find a way to take control of light, govern its influence over the page.

 

I will drill into the spine of the novel, straight into the nerve centre of the book. From there I can install my own light source, it will be like the sun, ‘the bright light beyond the door had become an unbearable assault on her senses’, hopefully not unbearable but still an assault on the senses, covering the book and the room around it in light. Now the novel Light is a light source itself. We have a book set in light, but the pages are limited, only the two middle pages are exposed, 64 and 65, and they do not contain any of my sourced quotes. I must lacerate another copy of the text, dissect the desired pages and fuse them into my original copy.

 

Here, now we have a paper water lily. A representation of Claudes’s most famed subject, but is the meaning clear? Will people see the flower or just randomly cut pages arranged around a light bulb?

 

My Water Lily is complete. The light bulb at the flowers centre is a stamen irradiating its luminous pollen upon the flower and the room. The pages act as petals, arranged around the light source, guiding the onlooker, leading their eyes across the words. Still though, the light is not refined, the quotes are undistinguished from the other words on the page, ‘and the light was so dazzling, the colour so bright, he felt he wanted to shut his eyes to exclude the brilliant display.’ The viewer will also have this desire as the pages seem meaninglessly disconnected, but, they will have the power to turn the light off. I must find a way to focus the light to only the quotes. If I give the quotes the power of illumination themselves then in the absence of light they will stand out, ‘…drawing attention to her black gown, how it negated all things light and colourful in its texture.’ The pages are like Alice’s dress, but with the quotes shimmering off them. In light the water lily image is clear. In darkness the quotes become clear, like infrared markings on petals to guide insects to pollen, they shepherd the viewer.

 

As the ‘Insects flew from one to the other carrying light on their wings.’ I have carried light to specific places in the narrative. The words glowing in the dark are like an inverse to when ‘Auguste could see his bulky form outlined against the dim sky’. The quotes are outlined in their own light against the darkness of the page. Claude stalks light, ‘No sign of light so far. Good, he thought, I’m ahead of my quarry.’  Like the painter rising before the sun I use darkness to catch my quotes. The reader will expect to see nothing in the darkness, but in fact, darkness provides greater detail, highlighting the quotes I want to focus on. This might capture some of the sense of what Lily feels when she is just waking up; ‘For Lily, watching bars of light coming through the shutters, it was like the beginning of the world.’ The quotes are like the light, appearing in gaps between the other words.

 

But what is the meaning of the piece? Is it a visual art or a visual poem? Does the meaning depend on the words highlighted, or the sculpture? If one looks at the display it could be simply aesthetically pleasing, a clever way to take a novel based on a famous painter and turn it physically into the image of one of his most famous paintings. ‘But Jean-Pierre took [Claude] lightly, not being his son, untouched by his giant shadow and the umbilical cord of his authority’ Can we take the Monet theme lightly, clever inspiration or is his influence impossible to avoid when considering Light, as so much of the novel rests on his legacy? To look for a further metaphor in the Water Lily, into how we read books, and how we manifest their imagery within our minds. The piece takes this into the physical; it makes the book both the subject and the object. I have studied Figes’s use of language and her descriptive style, itself an emulation of Monet’s painting style. I have attempted to turn the book into a literal manifestation of that concept, back to the visual.

 

Looking at the meaning of the words, and the meaning behind the illumination of the quoted words in the dark, at how sometimes light can be overwhelming:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Much the same as Jimmy blinded by the outside light sometimes there is just too much to take in, so that everything becomes blurred and meaningless. We need someway to focus our attention. A skilled artist like Monet attempts to do this for us. His paintings explore different aspects of light on sceneries that might normally be overlooked. In the same way, my highlighting of quotes to glow in the dark focuses the viewer’s attention on them. These quotes I have considered key to Eva Figes’ use of light in her novel. Taken out of the context of my original essay the quotes might have an alternative meaning to the viewer. Octave hopes that ‘inventions like the automobile and the telephone will put an end to our militarist politicians and make the twentieth century the age of peace and the common man.’ While he discusses matters important to the time the novel was set in the context of the Water Lily it takes it out of the narrative. Someone looking at this quote might find more meaning into a reflection of our own age, a warning about our still ceaseless striving for development and new technology. As a visual art piece the quotes are allowed much greater interpretation into there meaning than in their original context within my essay.

 

I hope the piece is well received and I have justified its existence. The novel Light is a wonderful exploration of light through the medium of language. Its unique style takes interest in the light and description of a scene, not the action. My Water Lily is an attempt to take that inspiration and capture the style in a new way, creating a different approach to viewing the book. If we think to when, ‘Lily was staring at the light dancing in the water jug, trying to think how it had got into the clear shimmering liquid, what made it move and tremble so.’ The Water Lily is like the water jug, light captured within it, holding one’s attention. The inspiration of the language of the novel and Monet’s art, made me desire to create something that encompasses aspects of both the book and the painting into a new piece of art.