WHERE TO FROM HERE?

By Bonnie Stanard

I’ve been preparing comments to make when presenting a scholarship at a high school awards ceremony at Pelion (where I graduated many years ago). The students of the Class of 2021 are looking ahead to college, jobs, and hopefully careers. I can’t recommend that a student take up writing (or any art) as a career. Artists have historically depended on benefactors to survive. Even today, to succeed it is more important to know the right people than to be talented.

In any case, there are those of us who call ourselves writers based not on the number of books we have written or sold but on the hope that we will make a difference to some reader somewhere. And for myself, I can say that my books make a difference to at least one person, and that’s me. Each book has been a learning experience. Each one has forced me into uncomfortable emotions. I have grown not just emotionally but intellectually. Research for writing historical fiction (17^th Century France, antebellum South) has made me appreciate the adage that the past is a foreign country.

As an aside, I’ve noticed that we criticize our ancestors based on expectations of the present with little notion of the cultural and moral differences that separate us from them. A hero is not a hero today if they don’t conform to the sensibilities of the 21^st Century. But that’s another story.

We writers have inherited meaningful books that have prompted us to look at ourselves. It’s no exaggeration to say that our culture has been changed by gifted writers. Jane Austen pointed out that patriarchy is oppressive (it’s taking a long time to sink in). Charles Dickens told the world of child labor and abuse of the poor. Dostoyevsky questioned our view of morality. H.G. Wells gave us a guidebook for imagining the future. Mark Twain, notably a humorist, took on politics.

It takes genius to be as clever as those authors, but that’s not to say our writing doesn’t affect readers for better or worse. Even romance, sci-fi, mysteries, or whatever, they have moral moments. It may be one sentence. It may be the tone.

Some contemporary writers have made their priority entertainment at whatever the cost. The resulting plot lines go from erotica to mayhem to retribution to violence. What of worthwhile values? What of conscience and justice? I’m not talking about polemics as a plot, not about what we “ought” to do. I mean novels that surprise us with courage, honesty, and toleration.

Our attitudes and values are daily shifting in directions based on what we see, hear, and read. In what direction are we going? Will our writing cave to trivial expectations? Will it throw light on destructive trends? Will it give readers a reason to look around and assess what is going on with our world?

Back to the awards ceremony. I’ll ask the students to look about themselves. What have they contributed to their safety and convenience? Did they make the shirt they’re wearing? Sew a seam or button? Make the chair they’re sitting on? Build the house they live in? Did they hammer a nail? Saw wood? Install electricity or plumbing? Did they make their iPhone, Twitter? What have they actually done to bring about virtually everything they use, need, and enjoy?

The answer of course leads us to the realization that we are indebted to the people who came before us. Some of them were creative and hard working and brought about the many things we easily take for granted. Some of them were destructive and left ruins in their wake.