Posts by David Benjamin
The evolution of a character
by David Benjamin Once a writer has created a character, given him or her a history and subjected said character to the rigors of an entire novel, breaking up is hard to do. This brainchild has very likely taken on a life of his or her own over the course of a long story and……
Read MoreL’épitaphe d’Au Chai de l’Abbaye
“Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back everything is different.” — C.S. Lewis PARIS — We’ve lost an oasis. We had a pretty faithful routine. Each time we’ve flown into Paris, we climb to our aerie atop the Fifth Arrondissement, settle in and take an afternoon anti-jet…
Read MoreNotre escalier
by David Benjamin “Stairs can kill us, if we do not walk circumspectly.” — Blaise Pascal PARIS — When I’m out and around, I don’t think about the stairs. I just face them when I get home and slog my way up—more slowly than when we bought this place—five floors up and just beneath the…
Read MoreWhy writers talk about movies
By David Benjamin This edition of Write Away was delayed, with the author’s apologies, by travel and Covid-19. Here I discuss a force that has changed, mostly for the better, the very nature of literature—the invention of the motion picture camera. Just as literature before film referred backward to previous writings, mingling old stories with……
Read MoreMandela? Is that a Muslim name?
by David Benjamin “They framed an ad that is chilling and kind of classic in its way. It features a portrait of this very scary looking, disheveled, wild-eyed black man. As [Lee] Atwater once said, by the end of this campaign, you’re going to think that Willie Horton is Michael Dukakis’ running mate.” — Bill…
Read MoreTogether again, for the first time
by David Benjamin “A clear conscience is the sure sign of a bad memory.” — Mark Twain MADISON, Wis. — Last weekend at my 55th-year high-school reunion, I drifted from the crowd and found, alone at a table, a woman whose name tag—featuring her 1967 yearbook photo—read Linda. Hesitantly, I sat with her.…
Read MoreAre you ready for some foopball?
by David Benjamin “On TV the people can see it. On radio you’ve got to create it.” — Bob Uecker MADISON, Wis. — I’m not Ohio State. I’ve been an avid Green Bay Packers fan since I was twelve, but, despite repeated suggestions by TV color commentators like Daryl Johnston, I am not—personally—the…
Read MoreThe first ‘graph Blues
Starting out a story is a challenge that tempts the author to overwrite, to unload his or her whole vocabulary, to deploy an arsenal of literary devices in a sort of prose blitzkrieg. tThe author also faces an implicit market demand to hit the reader with razzle-dazzle, blood and guts, right off the bat. This……
Read MoreThe offshoring of conscience
by David Benjamin “We are going to have a long-term worker shortage. So, bringing back high-labor content products doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.” — Sen. Ron Johnson MADISON, Wis. — One of the capitalists myths punctured by the Covid-19 pandemic was the efficiency of the global supply chain, which allowed corporations to…
Read MoreGuy Montag, eat your heart out
by David Benjamin “If they give you ruled paper, write the other way” —Juan Ramon Jimenez, quoted by Ray Bradbury in Fahrenheit 451 MADISON, Wis. — Nobody is quite sure whether the school board in Keller, Texas has “officially” banned from its libraries the Bible and The Diary of Anne Frank. They seem to…
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