The most important questions in life can never be answered by anyone except oneself.
– John Fowles
The word quell floated into my consciousness a few weeks ago. I had no idea what it wanted from me. I envisioned the fury of a storm at sea. Over the next several days quell kept surfacing, until one night a figure standing on the edge of a quay, with back turned, emerged through the mist. Ah, the French Lieutenant’s woman, I thought. Where did that come from? The past? The present? Life as film?
In his “Notes on an Unfinished Novel” John Fowles chronicles the genesis of his 467 page work of fiction, The French Lieutenant’s Woman. Four or five months before he began, a visual image rose in his mind one morning when he was half asleep – “a woman stands at the end of an ancient quay and stares out to sea. An outcast.” He didn’t know her crime, but the image kept recurring until he began to fall in love with her.
Divided between a Victorian setting in 1867 Dorset, England and a contemporary 20th century backdrop, parallel storylines of a romantic relationship between a scientific gentleman and a mysterious woman play out to two possible endings. Mirrored a century apart, the tale deftly slips back and forth with Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons the protagonist(s) in both time periods. The contemporary version explores the actors making a film of the Victorian version. Ultimately a psychological study of an individual’s struggle for selfhood, Fowles critiques the restrictive conventions of society and of novels themselves.
From a single captivating image, Fowles’ postmodern historical novel published in 1969 has been translated into many languages and adapted into an award winning film in 1981. The painterly cinematography stays true to the origins of the tale and amplifies the characters’ quest(s) and transformation.
Why did the word quell arrive in my consciousness? Why did I stumble on Fowles’ quote? How did that lead me to revisit The French Lieutenant’s Woman, an investigation of the relationship between life and art, the artist and his (her) creation?
Fascinated when a word, an image, a touch, a sound, a memory appears and won’t let go, I follow the urge to create, uncertain what it may hold. First, I have to quell the swirl and flotsam in my head to identify the quest. Then I can begin to ask the true and difficult question(s).
And you? Is there a catalyst waiting for you to grasp? Do you harbor the seeds of a creative quest – a short story, a novel, a memoir, a painting, a song, a discovery?
A few years ago, a musician, creative writer student of mine praised me for harassing him. “You may not always have the answers,” he said, “but you always have the questions.”
Is it true that the most important questions in life can never be answered by anyone except oneself? When the madness of uncertainty strikes, will you quell the churning of the unknown in search of the quest? Will you ask the challenging questions? Yes, you could quip or quiver. But…what’s the real question? What do you really want?
We thought we had the answers, it was the questions we had wrong.
– Bono
My quest is to downsize my life so that when I leave this earthly coil, my children will not have to do that.
My quest, to follow that star,
No matter how hopeless,
No matter how far hahah
Actually, it's to live in the creative world, that it will sustain me. Inspire others, and not only keep the wolf from my door but bring success and bounty.
Martha, it's a beautiful piece. It hit home for me as I spent a good deal of my life quelling my feelings and am now dealing with them through my memoir. I am also intrigued by your description of the film which I saw years ago and now want to see again. I see the profile of a beautiful woman as she emerges out of the mist.
Quietly, yet quickly, you distill the questions down to their core, Martha. As far as the answers. . . let me sleep on it. . . for a vision or visage surely awaits at the recursive curves of my unconscious mind.
As a species we are very inquisitive and always wondering what something means, what is around the next corner, what will happen if we do this or that. A quest is a search for meaning and that is what so many of us seek. The more we stand in awe and wonder of the universe the more we seek to grasp it.. My personal quest is for clarity and understanding the bigger picture of how everything interrelates and works… The Cosmos series with Neil deGrasse Tyson is a great show if you want the big perspective!!!
Alliterative "Q"! Quintessential Martha. I love it when you are haunted by visions!
I like the photos of you facing the sea with your arms outstretched. It gives me thought about what happens to me emotionally when I sail out of harbor into a wide open ocean, with its non-existent land-marks or topographical qualities, or even, when cloud cover exists, no view of the sun or moon or stars to guide me while making a multi day trip at sea. North, East, South and West all look the same. All I really have for direction is the compass and as the hours pass, the compass and my emotions become connected. I start thinking about the questions which you, Martha, have so thoughtfully articulated:
· Who am I and what do I want to achieve?
· Is it constructive or potentially destructive?
· How do I achieve it?
By the time I make landfall my resolutions are reformulated and re-energized. One voyage ends and a new one begins.
Beautiful post.
I love how your mind works.