Characters do things. They feel things. They hear things.
They say things. They think things. They go places. They can walk, run, leap,
and jump. They may sit and rock in a rocking chair. They may just lie in bed,
sleep, and dream. But the important thing is that characters act. And it is
precisely these actions that show us just what kind of imaginary people characters
are—friendly, sad, nosey, happy, confused, angry, or inventive. And we need to
know because something always happens in great stories. Character determines
the outcome.
Earlier this month, my son Søren sat on the couch chuckling
to himself, turning the pages of an old favorite. It’s Lewis Carroll
re-imagined. Christopher Myers keeps the text the same but re-imagines the
beast as a basketball-playing-Jabberwocky. And the protagonist? Well, he
becomes a small boy with basketball-shaped-stars in his eyes.
What fascinated me about the scene was what happened when
the book was closed. My son smiled, got off the couch to rummage around the art
cabinet for paper, scissors, and tape. Silently he concentrated, cutting shapes
and connecting them until the characters emerged. Then he swept up the scraps,
set his characters to hold the gesture, and walked away from the table without
a word.
I know what he was up to. This was literary analysis at its
best. Carroll’s Jabberwocky is a larger than life, but there is no doubt that the
storm of neologism and nonsense qualifies it as a very difficult read. To most,
Søren’s hive of post reading activity might be deemed at best a responsive
craft. But Søren was actually deep in thought. This post-reading activity was
uniquely contemplative, was Søren’s way of unpacking Lewis Carroll’s poem and
the consequent reimagining of Christopher Myer.
And I know where Søren’s pondering will lead. It will lead
to an idea. Sometimes we begin with a study of someone else’s idea to incubate
an original idea of our own. So it might not be this week, maybe not even next,
but I’m sure Lewis Carroll and Christopher Meyer offered fodder that has been
sufficiently tucked away in the mind of my son.
–Kim