It was a hard half-story to tell, this one. ‘Half’ – because some parts are still naked fiction. Though I was trying to simply observe and state the facts. But words are just that, unreliable, unpredictable. It happens. And it is the best kind of illusion to pretend being an outsider with no influence on your surroundings, as it is impossible to trade in the market with no impact on it, however insignificant.
I remember once my father (and isn’t it another beautiful cliché, precursor of oncoming wisdom brought down on a reader with inevitability of an avalanche?) told me that I should only describe things I have an idea about. It was after I had made him read a piece of my writing I was especially proud of. About recent loss, grieve, pain and despair. And back then, in my early teens, I drew my insights on heart-wrenching pain from TV with its compulsory longest ‘No’ as a sign of fatal loss. So my father’s words actually made sense! Now, however, he stands corrected. For me, true emotions, realistic mental journey, lie as a core principle of writer’s talent. You have no right to fabricate the feelings, readers, who knows their business, would crack you mercilessly. Good news, emotions are genderless. The real trick is to get into the head of another person, assuming all (fe)male brains work the same is deadly arrogance. The rest is fine, just take care of the logic and get the setting right. If you’re writing about humans right (and it’s always about humans! unless you’re on a discreet mission on Earth), the book is believable. Context just sets the rules, makes this game of literature worthwhile. That’s why I love sci-fi and fantasy.
So, I am considered to be good with words. With brains? No idea, you can never tell with people. Words, on the other hand, a handful of sounds or letters, form the world. They have real power. Even when they supposedly do not. Too many useless sounds make you bored or irritated. Words are not enough? – it makes you communicate differently, apply extra effort. And to say nothing of enormous range of consequences words can cause when people really pay attention… Worlds – remembered and forgotten – are the skeleton of human existence through centuries (we are just not always sure which peculiar bone goes where). And a powerful tool… as long as whoever is left on the planet after us can find a key to their meaning. After all, Humpty Dumpty did not say for nothing: ‘When I use a word… it means just what I choose it to mean— neither more nor less‘.[1]
Of course, I am much better around words in Russian than in English. Russian, my mother tongue. As this particular body part was inherited straight from my mother, complicated DNA sequence precisely duplicated with all its genetic waste and atavistic excrescences, to be then put into my mouth. Language has them too, waste and excrescences no one has right to take care of. Language is a paintbrush, a music instrument, a chisel for writing. For self-expression. For creation.
Heimatsprache[2]. Also, language is tricky and deceptive. It’s not music with its wordless appeal and universal impression. The sound of unknown language may be alien, misleading, covering the true meaning and nuances of words with wrong perception of sounds. Confusing the expression of insult with singing and that of attraction with rage. The curse for sounds trying to be anything more specific than music, drastic loss of sense. Foreign languages for me are the pools deep with meanings and implications. You can have just a few drops from them landing on you and drying as quickly. You can walk against the shoreline feeling something excitingly unknown swirling around your knees. You can even swim diving as far as leash of your language experience would let you. But you can never become a fish there moving freely around the underlying themes and semantic layers. Mermaid, at best, which other fish and people would gape, astonished, upon.
I have chosen English for my purpose, regardless. I am not a mermaid yet, doubt if I ever become one. But this pool has the biggest number of swimmers and toe-dippers. Very merchant approach, guilty as charged: after all, it does expand the number of potential readers. The language of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, however rich, just does not stand up for competition. Anyway, I have another set of words in mind to be told in my mother tongue someday. More verbal lace and less sense.
Ok, all of this was supposed to be introduction. The exposition of me and my thousand-plus-first contribution to “little alien”-type of literature. It never hurts to read about internationals abroad, let crazy thing happen in their turbulent lives and present everyone else with the latter element of panem et circenses[3]. But the self-explanatory part went wrong from the start. I guess, expected mythbusting of Russian stereotypes would have to wait for the first chapter.
So, why am I writing this then? Why forcing my way through speaking with the wrong tongue in a vague hope my mistakes would be considered “charming” in the best case scenario?
It is apparent already. Use words to describe emotions.
[1] Lewis Carroll, “Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There”
[2] Heimatsprache (ger.) – mother tongue
[3] Panem et circenses (lat.) – or bread and games. Said by Juvenal to describe the simplicity of main concerns of common people, i.e. they only need food and entertainment.
Life observatory 