海角大神

'The Hidden Machinery' unveils the magic behind the literature we love

Margot Livesey becomes our guide into the hidden machinery behind great stories.

It almost goes without saying that working writers will benefit from Margot Livesey鈥檚 new collection of essays The Hidden Machinery,聽and for obvious reasons: This is one of our best contemporary writers candidly unlocking for us the tools in her workshop.聽

But for those of us who are not great writers but instead great聽readers, this collection also will unveil the magic behind the literature we love. To read this book is to spend time with Livesey 鈥� and in doing so, it feels like having a literary magician stop in for a cup of tea.

Here Livesey reveals the techniques of contemporaries like Toni Morrison and her 鈥渧oice,鈥� Tim O鈥橞rien and his 鈥渁nti-fiction,鈥� William Trevor鈥檚 鈥渕ini-scene.鈥� But mostly, and most memorably, it鈥檚 the classics that are decoded: We encounter Shakespeare鈥檚 鈥渟ocial characterization,鈥� Austen鈥檚 鈥渙rganized鈥� characters, Woolf鈥檚 capturing of the 鈥渟imultaneity of experience,鈥� or T.S. Eliot鈥檚 鈥渙bjective correlative鈥� used in Flaubert.聽

Livesey is our guide behind the veil, into these artists鈥� literary devices, or 鈥渉idden machinery.鈥澛犅�

And Livesey culls her own stories for examples. As her readers will recognize, Livesey鈥檚 characters tend to simmer with a quiet but fierce intelligence, and they evolve within the orbit of a shadowy, darker element that puts them to the test. She鈥檚 a master of creating suspenseful, subtle foreshadowings out of everyday domestic scenery 鈥� what she calls 鈥渟tuff鈥� 鈥� in books like 鈥淗omework,鈥� 鈥淭he Flight of Gemma Hardy,鈥� 鈥淭he House on Fortune Street,鈥� and her most recent, 鈥淢ercury.鈥�

In 鈥淢ercury,鈥� for instance, where foreboding descends on the landscape like the weather, one chapter ends with this: 鈥淗ow could any of us have known what would come of their conversation on that warm October afternoon?鈥� And another chapter begins with this: 鈥淚 blame the snow for what happened next.鈥� Weighted sentences like these are the 鈥渉idden machinery,鈥� the building blocks of what Livesey calls the long and short lines of suspense in action.聽

But Livesey is also funny and gracious about the techniques she feels less accomplished with: Character, for instance. Admitting that while intellectually she understands the tools behind creating characters, Livesey explains that nevertheless, when she鈥檚 writing, her inspiration sometimes doesn鈥檛 seem to get beyond hair color and eye color.聽

鈥淵es, of course our fictions need to be expressive of moral purpose, our characters to be consistently inconsistent,鈥� she writes. 鈥淵et here I am, beginning a new story, and here is Martine with her straight mousy hair and her narrow brown eyes. 鈥� When is the rest of her going to show up?鈥�

While all this is gold to practicing writers, 鈥淗idden Machinery鈥� is most glorious when Livesey tackles some our canon鈥檚 more inscrutable stylists 鈥� James, Woolf, Flaubert. These happen to be writers 鈥� especially Woolf 鈥撀爐hat break her rules. And Livesey, a teacher of fiction at the Iowa Writers Workshop and other places, is able to explain not only聽how聽they do so by聽why聽it鈥檚 OK, even brilliant.

A chapter on 鈥淭o the Lighthouse鈥� analyzes Woolf鈥檚 call for a new kind of fiction, one that echoed the innovations of Impressionist-era painters and their revisioning of 鈥渢he nature of reality.鈥� Livesey deconstructs the characters of Mrs. and Mr. Ramsay, the chosen setting of their house by the sea, the actions that reveal these characters, and her thoughtful insights illuminate new aspects of the story at every turn. Of Woolf鈥檚 writing in the final scene, where the characters and their inner dialogues come together, Livesey beautifully explains: 鈥淛ust for a moment the chaos of life is averted and everyone is caught in a golden net, merged and complete.鈥澛�

Livesey is equally eloquent on the techniques used by Austen, inviting us to reconsider the way Austen makes use of her ostensibly limited surroundings to create 鈥撀爐hrough characterizations and situations, through Shakespearian misunderstandings and misidentifications 鈥撀燼 world that transcends her time and place.聽

Austen鈥檚 characters, writes Livesey, 鈥渢ravel from a place where the self and others are poorly known 鈥撀爉endacity is mistaken for integrity; attraction for antipathy 鈥撀爐o a place where the self is seen and understood.鈥�

If good books allow us to choose the intellectual company we keep, there鈥檚 no better company 鈥撀爁or a budding writer or an avid reader 鈥撀爐han Livesey in these essays. Savor one at a time 鈥撀燽ut first put the kettle on.