in Search of a Wider AudIence: Stories, Essays, Poems and the Psychoanalysis of Dreaming

Title: In Search of a Wider Audience Subtitle: Stories, Essays, Poems and the Psychoanalysis of Dreaming. While awaiting the final editing of a book in production “Women: Biology, Culture and Literature”, I read essays by several accomplished authors, including Michel de Montaigne, who coined the word essays from the French essai (trials). While not in the category of acknowledged masters of the form (Philip Roth, Janet Malcom and Zadie Smith, I have published a chapter book of children’s stories “All Aboard” and a hybrid/compilation book, “Hide and Seek/Hidden and Found- In Search of a Balanced Life”- Psychoanalytic Memoirs, Stories and Essays”. With time to read essays it occurred to me to write “ Essays in Search of a Wider Audience” with the subtitled topics as a road map of what to expect or perhaps, a better analogy, a chef’s favorite dishes prepared for a surprise price- fixed sampling to be digested at leisure with a sampling of wines for each course, presented as Part I,II, and III. Part I is best introduced with amuse-bouches often accompanied by a complementary wine, are served both to prepare the guest for the meal and to offer a glimpse of the chef's style (see Wikipedia). So perhaps to start, “A dog named Duppy (ghost in Jamaican culture) that introduces the first course “ Nanny: The Ashanti Warrior” that is laugh-out-loud hilarious (no spoiler alert). Followed by more substantial fare about two fraternal twins raised in foster care telling each other in a Writer’s Workshop about their need to separate, each feeling concerned because they don’t want to hurt the other who is their best friend in the world. But forced to choose from Part I, I pick “Arnold’s Story: Halvah Moments” Arnold is me and it’s about how at age sixteen I dumped my girlfriend because of a new girl in town, more urban and with attitude, who attracted me more. “ Ace Powers Foils Plot to Attack New York” is as timely as today. Part II has so many favorites, including my granddaughter taking me by surprise asking me, “Grandpa, Am I Your Favorite?”, prompting a wide ranging essay on the philosophy of the tension between fairness and favoritism , various religious precepts and “To Kill a Mockingbird” (Who was Atticus Finch’s favorite, his ten-year old daughter Scout, who was a tomboy and didn’t want to go to school where she was told what to read, or her brother Jem who aimed to be a lawyer like his father and risked his life to save his sister?) . My granddaughter’s poems on mortality and courage will leave you in awe . My only political essay, after Dickens’ “The Pickwick Club” satirically identifies (for me) , our Pickwickian President. It will amuse or appall you depending on your political views. A long essay, perhaps ordering a la carte to take and read at home is worth the price of the book alone: Richard Cohen’s “How to Write like Tolstoy: A Journey into the Minds of Our Greatest Writers” ( Hint: write, read out loud to get the rhythm of the words, rewrite, have plenty of paper and a large wastebasket and perhaps a wife willing to copy by hand multiple rewrites- 2000 pages- of “War and Peace”.) Think, of Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener” who after dutifully doing his job for years one day simply said, “ I choose not to.” The last essay in Part II, “Dreaming Naming and Remembering- Reflections on Mortality”- introduces: Part III. A Psychoanalytic Paper I wrote in 1979 “A Note on Fire in Myth, Religious Ritual and a Dream at Easter-Time”, and a new Essay on Philip Roth: A Eulogy and review and comments on "Why Write and Patrimony" with extensive discussion of Roth's account of his dreams and associations.