The Esoteric Artist

Part One of the Esoteric Reader & Writer Club

Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash

Did you ever think of yourself as an esoteric reader or writer? It means that you understand or follow complex, secret, or specialized knowledge intended for a select circle (often connected to the mystical, spiritual, or occult ideas). But I think creative stories and thinking of narrative stories is exactly that. If this sounds like you, welcome to this inner circle. We are questing for stories that change us, like magic, words and ideas interconnected through figurative language to see the world in a new way. What better way to explore something spiritual or mystical.

If you’ve read some of my other essays and writings, you will understand that I think the creative act of writing a novel is putting your faith in art. Suspension of disbelief is so close to faith that it is interchangeable.

Being an esoteric reader, it is common to find books that are really off the beaten path for mainstream readers. Sometimes, it makes complete sense that these books aren’t consumed by a lot of people because they fall into the experimental, obscure, or disconnected genre where they may have originated. But it is from these lands of “esoterica” that some fascinating stories, ideas, and designs emerge from writing. If there is a land of writing and thinking that is worth exploring, to me it is on the edges. It is from these places that new ideas, new approaches come into focus. And while they may remain obscure and strange, they may also push the form and act of the storytelling into new places.

Take that vision of reading to Mikhail Shishkin’s Maidenhair, and consider what you are reading and why. It isn’t for the faint of heart or the casual reader. The story is based on the life of Swiss officers who guard the border and interview Russian asylum-seekers where they are subjected to the stories of the oppressed. The book is written in a long prose question and answer style that meanders and moves through ideas and connections. Some of it seems like myth and tales. Other stories are complex and dark. And it begins this complex tapestry that takes its toll on the guards.

While reading this novel, which is not difficult to read thanks to the translation from the Russian by Marian Schwartz, it begins to feel like something else. Shishkin is doing more than crafting a plot. He is plotting to change the reader in a different way. The conclusion? What if this isn’t a novel, but an ethical guide to understanding why we write, why stories are important, and the significant weight of being in possession of the stories we tell. There are times in this book when I am reading and following the life a soldier or hearing some sad story from an orphanage. And then suddenly, there are one hundred ideas coming to mind, or the basic weight of truth as it pertains to fiction. And suddenly, you don’t care about the story, but only in that, it happens to you. And you start to think about the unwritten stories you have yet to write, and you start to wonder why you haven’t valued your own stories like your life depended on them.

“Those speaking may be fictitious, but what they say is real. Truth lies only where it is concealed. Fine, the people aren’t real but the stories, ho, the stories are! It’s just that they raped someone else at the orphanage, not fat-lips. And the guy from Lithuania heard the story about the brother who burned up and the murdered mother from someone else. What difference does it make who it happened to? It’s ways a sure thing. The people here are irrelevant. It’s the stories that can be authentic or not. We become what gets written in the transcript” (24).

Make the point that the transcript is an official document of record, making it feel important and factual, although this is all about the way things shift and move in terms of fiction, stories, and the world. What part of this do we accept? It isn’t about facts, but accepting truth as it is. We know that rape, violence, war, and other terrible things happen, and it validates the story. So, what part of belief do we accept? The line between the plausible and implausible is based on the writing, the style, and the ability of the writer to tell that story into plausibility.

“In the wee hours the interpreter woke bathed in sweat and with a pounding heart; he had dreamed of Galina Petronvna - except the boys all called her Galpetra, out of sheer meanness - and it had come back to him - the lesson, the blackboard - as if all these decades lived had never been. He lay there looking at their brightening ceiling and returned to himself, clutching at his heart. Why be afraid of her now? And what exactly was in your dream - you forget right away and are left with just your schoolboy fear. It’s a nasty feeling, too. You never know what empire you’re going to wake up in or who as”(26).

It is fair that books find us at the right time. Sometimes, it is the writer that draws the connections from the material in front of them. But often, I gravitate to books that I need based on some inkling to understanding their ideas or structure. That is part of the esoteric reader that connects the elements that you need as you construct your creative work.