To read...or rather, what to read?
As some of you who know me will tell you, I was never going to keep away from writing for too long, despite my resolve to keep the pressure off the pen and only pick up my laptop for work writing (as opposed to writing fiction or poetry or writing for pleasure). But at the start of the month, I figured that taking a pause and reading might be a good way to ease my way through lockdown anxiety and the ensuing writer's block.
The only thing I needed to do was decide what I was going to read. Should I do the usual thing I do of reaching for whatever is to hand, which makes my reading choices varied but not necessarily focused? Should I set out to read a genre I don't usually read? Should I avoid reading anything off the best seller lists and stick to a catch up on those classics I always meant to read but never got round to? Should I nose around books by writers from a particular country, or go non-fiction and gen up on the conversation around empire and its legacy? So many choices and thank goodness for e-readers, much though I prefer paper books (can't wait for the library to reopen after lockdown).
I opted to catch up on Gibraltarian literature. There are plenty of books about Gibraltar or set in Gibraltar, some by Gibraltarian writers, some by non-Gibraltarian writers. But which to choose? Which would fall under the banner of "Gibraltarian Literature"? Does it comprise non-fiction as well as fiction and therefore include all those history books written about Gibraltar, mainly by English writers but also by Spanish writers and some Gibraltarians too? Would I be reaching for works by Dr Joseph Garcia, Dr Clive Finnlayson, Ernle Bradford, Nicholas Rankin, Lesley and Roy Adkin, Gareth Stockey and Chris Grocott among many others? Or by "literature" do we mean fiction?
What is "literature"?
There are all sorts of open discussions going on between academics and writers around the world about how to define a national literature. I am not remotely qualified to add anything of use to that discussion but felt I needed to define the parameters of it for myself - simply so that I could decide what books to select to read that I could comfortably call Gibraltarian lit. - you know, like you would call the subject English Lit. if you were picking it as an A level subject.
I made that my starting point, since I never did study English Lit for A level. What is English Literature? That might help me head in the right direction.
When I think of English literature, I generally envisage William Shakespeare wielding the quill, Charles Dickens, Geoffrey Chaucer, Jane Austen, Byron, Keats and Shelley, George Orwell, Iris Murdoch, Beryl Bainbridge, A.S. Byatt, Zadie Smith, Carol Ann Duffy...so many...But I tend not to include Charles Darwin or Edward Gibbon, and much as I adore so much of his work, even Sir David Attenborough doesn't tend to feature as a literary figure.
So I have narrowed the list down to fiction - prose, poetry, short stories, novels, plays and scripts. To me, literature isn't just a body of written works, a collection of words; to be literature, the written work needs to rise above the telling or imparting of a fact to deeply engage the imagination and the emotions, which is precisely what a good poem or a good novel does.
Yes, I agree that this is simplistic and there are grey areas and blurred boundaries, but this is my thinking given voice and you are very welcome to add your thoughts (politely) in the comments section.
What is "Gibraltarian" literature?
The next step for me was to decide what would fall into this category as Gibraltarian. When we speak about "Gibraltarian literature" do we mean only work written by people born and living in Gibraltar? Or people born in Gibraltar and perhaps living and working somewhere else in the world but with family ties to Gib? Or people who are born in another part of the world to a Gibraltarian family? Or people with none of those links but who have spent some time here and have been inspired by the place and the people to let their writing be influenced somehow by Gibraltar.
In other words, I could take either a narrow view or a broader view. The latter might dilute the concept of literature that is somehow deeply linked to Gibraltar, the former might mean only being able to select from relatively few publications. Because Gibraltarian literature in its narrow sense of works written by people born and living in Gibraltar, about Gibraltar and using Gibraltar's languages is not replete with published works.
I'm not sure I have fully answered this question. To me the term "Gibraltarian literature" is as yet undefined, and maybe that is a good thing, because it means that as writers, we can fuel our writing energy with the impetus born of an urgency to add to the body of literature that is ours, our stories, our experiences, our emotions, our evolving culture and identity.
I would, however, love to know your thoughts on this. Please engage through the comments section, on the Gibraltar Writers Facebook group, or via my email address: jackiegirl@hotmail.co.uk
In the meantime, I have just finished reading the masterful novel "Gooseman" by Mark Sanchez, am halfway through "The Girl you Forgot" by Giselle Green and have also started "El Agente Aleman" by Humbert Hernandez. All three very different, and all an indubitable pleasure to read.
"The Girl you Forgot" by Giselle Green
"El Agente Aleman" by Humbert Hernandez
Interesting contribution to what is an interesting debate Jackie - and one which we have discussed before. I would pose a further question: does “Gibraltarian literature” have to be about Gibraltarian concerns when it is written by a Gibraltarian (whatever one’s definition of this may be)? Few of my plays have anything to do with Gibraltar (though it could be said that even my other plays do reflect some underlying Gibraltarian anxieties beneath the surface) - are they less Gibraltarian because of that? Perhaps this is something for some kind of panel discussion...when we’re fully open again, of course.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jackie.