The Lost Suitcase Reflections on the Literary Life by Nicholas
If you love creative writing books this one is for you.
OK, OK, true: this book is a book of essays, but through these essays, you will discover also the meaning of writing for a writer and what it means to write and what it means spending the life in writing. And this book, trust me, itìs incredibly creative.
You can start exactly from the point where Delbanco started his reflections and his original story: how would you represent in words the so-called Lost Suitcase?
Imagine the wife of a potential to be soon great writer at the beginning of the 1920s. Eeeek... She loses all the written material of the husband. Why does it happen?
Give an idea of her, her dress, shoes, make-up (they're still poor, not rich people) the contingent situation; remember that she is on a train and she is arrived at destination. Define when she notices that the suitcase is not close to her. Describe it. Old, new, an item the husband is affectionate at. Give an idea of the content. Now, try to imagine: why did she lose the suitcase?
In the past the couple had hard discussions: can you write down an intimate reason for forgetting the suitcase irrationally somewhere as a sort of punishment for the husband without the desire of forgetting the suitcase at a conscious level? Not a voluntary act, just a resentment lived in her subconscious. Don't be too involute in a too much fantastic situation lived by the couple; be clear and linear.
Can you describe the feelings proved by Hadley, going on? Her terror, her most intimate fears, her inability of seeing clearly what happened. She thinks it must be an error. The suitcase can't be lost. What does she do in the immediate?
Define and imagine the people close to her; she will stop various people for asking for informations; describe the place, describe the people. She leaves the train station.
New scenario that we will call The Meeting: imagine an hypothetic meeting with the husband and his reaction. Try to describe where she meets him. It's a cheap restaurant. Gives a description of place, people, what he is wearing, his face, his hands, his smile, his mood, his enthusiasm; what they eat and drink in the while; what happened after that the communication is given.
Imagine now who found the Lost Suitcase. Who is that person? What happens to all that material?
Imagine and you will also create your short or long tale about a Lost Suitcase.
Just some suggestions for you.
Other chapters are Travel, Art, Death, Judgement, Rumford: His Book, Telephone, Letter to a Young Fiction Writer, A Prayer for the Daughter, Less and More, Scribble, Scribble, Scribble.
I love the last one, because it touches a chord I feel: literature and books are seen as a weird fact for some people. The example of Delbanco a farmer who worked for him.
I remember that when the first free press was born in our area the most enthusiastic ones, at first was shipped home, were old people, with less scholarization but galvanized by the idea of reading something of our city. In other cases people yes, think that books and reading are absolutely a weird land. It's a great pity and I dream a situation like the one of North European Countries where they are all bookworms.
You will notice, in each chapter the ability of the author of digging deep. It's like if Delbanco would want to reach the essence of the meaning of writing in the various and most diversified situation. I am sure that these lessons won't be forgotten.
Delbanco is Robert Frost Professor at the University of Michigan.
Highly recommended.
I thank Columbia University Press for the physical copy of this book.
Anna Maria Polidori
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