This text was part of an address delivered at the Creative Writing Program of the University of Philadelphia, September 2005.
Fiction and the Dream John Banville
A man wakes in the morning, feeling light-headed, even somewhat dazed. Standing in the curtained gloom in his pyjamas, blinking, he feels that somehow he is not his real, vital, fully conscious self. It is as if that other, alert version of him is still in bed, and that what has got up is a sort of shadow-self, tremulous, two-dimensional. What is the matter? Is he “coming down with something”? He does seem a little feverish. But no, he decides, what is afflicting him is no physical malady. There is, rather, something the matter with his mind. His brain feels heavy, and as if it were a size too large for his skull. Then, suddenly, in a rush, he remembers the dream.
It was one of those dreams that seem to take the entire night to be dreamt. All of him was involved in it, his unconscious, his subconscious, his memory, his imagination; even his physical self seemed thrown into the effort. The details of the dream flood back, uncanny, absurd, terrifying, and all freighted with a mysterious weight—such a weight, it seems, as is carried by only the most profound experiences of life, of waking life, that is. And indeed, all of his life, all of the essentials of his life, were somehow there, in the dream, folded tight, like the petals of a rosebud. Some great truth has been revealed to him, in a code he knows he will not be able to crack. But cracking the code is not important, is not necessary; in fact, as in a work of art, the code itself is the meaning.
He puts on his dressing gown and his slippers and goes downstairs. Everything around him looks strange. Has his wife’s eyes developed overnight that slight imbalance, the right one a fraction lower than the left, or is it something he has never noticed before? The cat in its corner watches him out of an eerie stillness. Sounds enter from the street, familiar and at the same time mysterious. The dream is infecting his waking world.
He begins to tell his wife about the dream, feeling a little bashful, for he knows how silly the dreamed events will sound. His wife listens, nodding distractedly. He tries to give his words something of the weight that there was in the dream. He is coming to the crux of the thing, the moment when his dreaming self woke in the midst of the dark wood, among the murmuring voices. Suddenly his wife opens her mouth wide—is she going to beg him to stop, is she going to cry out that she finds what he is telling her too terrifying?—is she going to scream? No: she yawns, mightily, with little inward gasps, the hinges of her jaws cracking, and finishes with a long, shivery sigh, and asks if he would like to finish what is left of the scrambled egg.
The dreamer droops, dejected. He has offered something precious and it has been spurned. How can she not feel the significance of the things he has been describing to her? How can she not see the bare trees and the darkened air, the memory of which is darkening the very air around them now—how can she not hear the murmurous voices, as he heard them? He trudges back upstairs to get himself ready for another, ordinary, day. The momentous revelations of the night begin to recede. It was just a dream, after all.
But what if, instead of accepting the simple fact that our most chaotic, our most exciting, our most significant dreams are nothing but boring to others, even our significant others—what if he said to his wife, All right, I’ll show you! I’ll sit down and write out the dream in such an intense and compelling formulation that when you read it you, too, will have the dream; you, too, will find yourself wandering in the wild wood at nightfall; you, too, will hear the dream voices telling you your own most secret secrets.
I can think of no better analogy than this for the process of writing a novel. The novelist’s aim is to make the reader have the dream—not just to read about it, but actually to experience it: to have the dream; to write the novel.
Now, these are dangerous assertions. In this post-religious age—and the fundamentalists, Christian, Muslim and other, only attest to the fact that ours is an age after religion—people are looking about in some desperation for a new priesthood. And there is something about the artist in general and the writer in particular which seems priest-like: the unceasing commitment to an etherial faith, the mixture of arrogance and humility, the daily devotions, the confessional readiness to attend the foibles and fears of the laity. The writer goes into a room, the inviolable domestic holy of holies—the study—and remains there alone for hour after hour in eerie silence. With what deities does he commune, in there, what rituals does he enact? Surely he knows something that others, the uninitiates, do not; surely he is privy to a wisdom far beyond theirs.
These are delusions, of course. The artist, the writer, knows no more about the great matters of life and the spirit than anyone else—indeed, he probably knows less. This is the paradox. As Henry James has it, we work in the dark, we do what we can, we give what we have, the rest is the madness of art. And Kafka, with a sad laugh, adds: The artist is the man who has nothing to say.
The writer is not a priest, not a shaman, not a holy dreamer. Yet his work is dragged up out of that darksome well where the essential self cowers, in fear of the light.
I have no grand psychological theory of creativity. I do not pretend to know how the mind, consciously or otherwise, processes the base metal of quotidian life into the gold of art. Even if I could find out, I would not want to. Certain things should not be investigated.
The dream world is a strange place. Everything there is at once real and unreal. The most trivial or ridiculous things can seem to carry a tremendous significance, a significance which—and here I agree with Freud—the waking mind would never dare to suggest or acknowledge. In dreams the mind speaks its truths through the medium of a fabulous nonsense. So, I think, does the novel.
The writing of fiction is far more than the telling of stories. It is an ancient, an elemental, urge which springs, like the dream, from a desperate imperative to encode and preserve things that are buried in us deep beyond words. This is its significance, its danger and its glory.
end
An Scéal Agus An Aisling
Dúisíonn duine ar maidin, ábhairín éadrom sa chloigeann, néal fós air. Ar chuma éigin, cé go bhfuil sé ina sheasamh ina éide oíche sa mhaidneachan teimhneach i nduifean na gcuirtíní, taibhsítear dó nach eisean é féin ina lánmheabhair go slánchruinn. Samhlaítear dó go bhfuil cló eile de féin fós sa leaba, agus gur geall le scáile mhíshocair éiginnte déthoiseach de féin atá ann. Cad tá air? An é nach bhfuil sé ‘istigh leis féin’? An bhfuil imir den éagruas air? Ní hea in aon chor, dar leis, ní cúram corpartha de shaghas ar bith atá ag cur air. Is amhlaidh go bhfuil rud éigin bunoscionn lena mheabhair. Cnap trom is ea a intinn, amhail is go raibh sí rómhór dá bhlaosc. Ansin, ina ruathar obann, tagann an aisling chun cuimhne chuige.
Ceann de na haislingí sin a bhí ann ar ghá di maireachtaint ar feadh na hoíche ar fad. Gach uile phioc de páirteach ann, idir a chuimhne, a shamhlaíocht, agus a raibh fochoineasach agus neamhchoineasach ann in éineacht; ba dhóigh leis go raibh a chorp fisiciúil féin istigh i lúib na hiarrachta. Tagann sonraí na haislinge ar ais chuige ina slaoda, iad éarthach, gan chiall, scanrúil, iad mar a bheadh siad luchtaithe le meáchan rúnda éigin – meáchan ba dhóigh leat nach bhféadfadh ach an saoltaithí ba dhomhaine den bheatha mhúscailte féin a iompar. Agus ina dhiaidh sin, bhí an chuid ba thábhachtaí is ba riachtanaí dá shaol san aisling ar shlí éigin, iad fillte go dlúth mar a bheadh bachlóga an chocáin róis. Nochtadh fírinne mhór éigin dó, ach i gcód éigin nach mbeidh sé cumasach ar a scaoileadh. Ach ní hé scaoileadh an chóid is tábhachtaí; go deimhin féin, sa saothar ealaíne, is é an cód féin brí an tsaothair.
Cuireann uime a fhallaing sheomra agus a chuid slipéirí agus gabhann an staighre síos. Tá cuma aisteach ar gach a bhfuil ina thimpeall. An bhfuil an claonadh sin i súile a mhná céile tar éis fáis oiread na fríde, is é sin an ceann ar dheis beagán níos ísle ná an ceann ar chlé, nó an amhlaidh gur rud é nár thug sé faoi deara riamh roimhe sin? Tá an cat sa chúinne á ghrinnfhaire sa chiúnas diamhair. Gluaiseann isteach ón tsráid fuaimeanna éagsúla, iad inaitheanta go maith, ach mistéireach ag an am céanna. Tá an aisling ag galrú na beatha atá ina dúiseacht.
Cromann sé ar éirim na haislinge a aithris dá bhean chéile, ach tá sé ábhar scáfar ina thaobh óir is maith mar a thuigeann sé a bhaoithe is a bhíonn eachtraí aislinge nuair a insítear iad. Tugann a bhean cluas le héisteacht dó, a ceann ag aontú leis feadh an ama. Tá sé ar a dhícheall an treise chéanna a chur lena chuid focal is mar a bhí san aisling. Tá sé ag teacht go dtí cnag na cúise, an mhóimint sin nuair a dhúisigh a aigne aislingeach i lár na coille dorcha, monabhar na nguthanna ina thimpeall. Gan choinne, leathann béal a mhná- an amhlaidh go bhfuil sí ar tí impí air stad, an bhfuil sí ar bhruach a éamh amach leis go bhfuil á rá aige ag cur sceimhle thar fóir uirthi? – an bhfuil sí chun scread a ligean? Ní hea: déánann sí meánfach mór, osnaí ciúine laistigh á scaoileadh aici, lúdracha a géille á síneadh aici, agus ansin fiafraíonn de ar mhaith leis an ubh scrofa a chríochnú le haon ochadh creathánach fada amháin.
Titeann an lug ar an lag ar fhear na haislinge. Tá rud éigin luachmhar leagtha amach aige, agus tá diúltaithe dó. Conas nach féidir léi tábhacht a bhfuil ráite aige léi a aithint? Conas a bhfuil sí dall ar na crainn loma agus ar an aer dorcha, agus a bhfuil a cuimhne anois díreach ag leathadh smúide ar an aer ina dtimpeall – conas nach gcloiseann sí monabhar na nguthanna mar a chuala sé féin? Gabhann sé go tromspágach an staighre suas arís, á réiteach féin i gcomhair lae leamh eile. Tosnaíonn léaspairtí míorúilteacha na hoíche aréir ar dul ar gcúl. Aisling a bhí ann, tar éis an tsaoil.
Ach in ionad talamh slán a dhéanamh de gur trí chéile ar fad ár gcuid aislingí anordúla dá thábhachtaí iad dár lucht cumainn, cuir i gcás go ndúirt sé lena chéile, Sea má sea, taispeánfadsa duit! Suífeadsa síos agus scríobhfad an aisling amach ar shlí chomh háititheach is leis an oiread sin díocais go dtaibhsítear duitse, leis, go raibh an aisling chéanna agatsa, go bhfaighir tú féin i ndiamhair na coille le titimín na hoíche; cloisfirse, leis, guthanna na haislinge ag glaoch is ag gairm rúin na rún agat féin. Téann díom fáthscéal níos gléine ná seo a sholáthar maidir le ceapadh úrscéil de. Is é is cuspóir don úrscéalaí go mbeadh aisling ag an léitheoir – ní hea go díreach go léifeadh sé mar gheall air, ach go díreach go mothódh sé í: go mbeadh an aisling beo; go mbeadh ina úrscéal.
Áitimh chontuirteacha iad seo. Tá sagartacht éigin á lorg go práinneach ag daoine san aois iar-chreidmheach seo – agus solaoid air sin is ea na bunchreidmhigh, idir Chríostúil, Mhoslamach agus eile gurb aois iarchreidmheach is ea a mairimid ann. Agus tá rud éigin ag baint leis an ealaíontóir go ginearálta, agus leis an scríbhneoir go háirithe a bhfuil dealramh na sagartachta air: a thugtha is atá do chreideamh éigin neamhshaolta, an cumasc sin den ardánacht is den umhlaíocht, na deasghnátha laethúla, é a bheith toilteanach freastal ar bhaois agus ar uamhan na dtuataí. Gabhann an scríbhneoir isteach chun a sheomra féin, tearmann naofa an bhaile nach sáraítear – a staidéarlann – agus fanann ann uair i ndiaidh uaireanta an chloig sa chiúnas éitreach. Cé hiad na déithe a mbíonn allagar aige leo, laistigh ansin, cad iad na deasghnátha a chleachtann sé? Ní féidir nach bhfuil nithe ar eolas aige a bhfuil daoine eile aineolach orthu, na neamhthaithígh; ní féidir nach bhfuil teacht aige ar ghaois lasmuigh dá dtuiscint?
Tá breall go brách orainn, gan amhras. Níl tada thairis an gcoitiantacht ar eolas ag an ealaíontóir ar cheisteanna móra na beatha agus an spioraid – go deimhin, is dócha go bhfuil níos lú. Paradacsa is ea é seo. Dar le Henry James is ag obair san doircheacht atáimid, déanaimid ár ndícheall, agus cuirimid ár mbundún amach: níl sa bhfuíoll eile ach buile na healaíne féin. Agus cuireann Kafka trína gháire tirim féin leis sin: Duine nach bhfuil faic le rá aige is ea an t-ealaíontóir.
Ní sagart é an scríbhneoir, ní áirím seaman ná físí naofa. Ach fós féin, aníos as tobar sin na doircheántachta ina bhfuil an duine mar dhuine ag cúbadh chuige féin ar eagla an tsolais, tarraingítear é.
Níl aon teoiric mhór síceolaíochta agamsa timpeall ar an gcruthaitheacht. Níl tuairim agam conas mar a chruthaíonn an aigne ór na healaíne as táirmhiotal an tsaoil i bhfios nó i ngan fhios di féin. Dá bhféadfainn féin, ní theastódh sin uaim. Tá nithe áirithe ann nár cheart dúinn iad a thaighdeadh.
Fearann aisteach is ea domhan na haislinge. Is fíor agus ní fíor gach a bhfuil ann. Is ann is féidir leis na nithe is suaraí nó is áiféisí éirim mhór a iompar – agus is sa mhéid seo a réitím le Freud – éirim nach leomhfadh aigne an lae a aithint ná beannú di. Nochtann an aigne fírinní san aisling i gculaith na háiféise gan teorainn. Is é a dhála céanna ag an úrscéal é.
Ficsean a scríobh, is fairsinge go mór é ná an scéalaíocht féin. Ar nós na haislinge, tulcann sé aníos as tobar bunúsach sa duine a bhfuil éileamh fíochmhar aige ar chruth a thabhairt do na nithe sin nach féidir iad a shloinneadh i bhfocail. Is é seo is ciall leis, idir chontúirt agus ghlóire.
John Banville