Book Review: The True Secret of Writing by Natalie Goldberg

Natalie Goldberg is the author of one of the classic texts for writers, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within. Published in 1986, it has sold over a million copies and has been translated into fourteen languages. She’s back with another book on word craft, The True Secret of Writing: Connecting Life with Language.

Goldberg is a long-time Zen practitioner, and her unique contribution is to blend Buddhist principles and practices with the writing life. The retreats she leads combining meditation and writing form the backbone of the book.

Goldberg’s expressed reason for writing this book is to record her retreat practices so others can use them, and this she does. In Part One: Basic Essentials, she describes her methods and the philosophy behind them: writing is for everyone, writing is a practice, writing retreats can be mostly silent and succeed. In Part Two: True Secret Retreat Essentials, she describes daily schedules and more details. (Reading lists and sign-up sheets for routine jobs shared, Zen-style, by students can be found in appendices.)

Part Three: Elaborations, tells retreat stories and provides some sample writing prompts for the reader. In Part Four: Encounters and Teachers, Goldberg describes more of her personal experiences and talks about teachers, authors, students. As the text progresses, more memoir appears.

In the introduction, Goldberg explains that the title “The True Secret of Writing” stems from a joke. Sometimes if a student is late, she will say, “I just gave the true secret of writing, and you missed it.” The joke is that there is no true secret; there is only the practice. And this Goldberg is willing to share in abundance.

Through her stories, Goldberg expresses truth as she understands it. “What is true? Maybe tomorrow I can sift down closer. What is essential? This practitioner’s life. Not to act and react, but to notice, to come close to ourselves--and others--close to all things. And also accept our mind where it is and meet it there.” (p. 160)

Goldberg sometimes comes off in her stories as the crazy Zen master. Spontaneously at a retreat she might say, let’s go walk outside in our bare feet (even in winter). Or she might jump and wave her arms while reading her favorite Zen poems. This is her training. If it’s not what you want in a writing teacher, best not attend her retreats. That doesn’t mean you won’t find her book interesting.

What Natalie Goldberg has done is present her retreat practice for anyone who wishes a sample it. I now feel like I have spent some time at a New Mexico retreat as an observer. I’m sure her methods and views are not for everyone, but I am also convinced anyone can learn something from her life’s journey and accumulated wisdom.

Book review: Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend

Budo is the imaginary friend of Max Delaney, an eight-year-old boy with autism. Imaginary friends look and function as their humans create them. Since little kids are the ones thinking them up, they often are missing ears or eyebrows, for instance, and they come in all shapes and sizes. Budo is very human in appearance and is especially smart and able, because Max has such a vivid imagination.

Aside from other imaginary friends, only Max can see and hear Budo, and Budo watches out for Max, within the limits of being invisible and unable to interact with the physical world. He can’t really help much when Tommy Swindon, a fifth-grade bully, comes after Max. And Budo can’t help Max’s parents, who disagree on how much help Max needs.

Budo is tested when Max disappears from school one day. Budo knows what has happened to his friend, but he can’t communicate with Max’s teachers or parents. Budo must muster all his courage and get more help from other imaginary friends than he has ever dreamed possible in order to do what he must: be there for his creator, his best friend, Max.

Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend is a sweet, poignant, and satisfying meditation on friendship and facing fears, with healthy doses of ideas on parenting on teaching along the way. It is also one of the most original novels I have ever read. I was drawn in immediately and loved hearing about how the world of imaginary friends works. The language is childlike, but this aspect lends the book charm and warmth. Because of the uniqueness of this world, I found it hard to guess what was going to happen.

Author Matthew Dicks is an award-winning third-grade teacher with a gift for storytelling. Memoirs is his third novel. His first, Something Missing, focused on a thief who only took items that would not be missed; his second, Unexpectedly, Milo, featured a home-health aid with multiple obsessions and a crumbling marriage. I look forward to seeing what springs from his fertile imagination next.

Article first published as Book Review: Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend by Matthew Dicks on Blogcritics.

Book review: Every Contact Leaves a Trace by Elanor Dymott

Alex is the grieving narrator of Elanor Dymott’s debut novel, Every Contact Leaves a Trace. He begins by saying that his wife Rachel has been murdered, and he admits he didn’t know her very well. He goes on to recount their first meeting, the meeting that lead to their marrying some ten years later, and a great deal in between.

Most of the action took place at Oxford University, where Alex and Rachel were students, Alex studying law, Rachel, literature. Alex was always smitten with Rachel, but the reverse was not true. Rachel had two close friends also studying literature, Anthony and Cissy. Their first two years at school, the three were inseparable and wild (parties at Rachel’s godmother’s house were particularly infamous).

 Told as I imagine a lawyer might (author Dymott studied literature at Oxford but then became a lawyer), the story is laid out slowly and painstakingly, which great attention to detail, too much for my taste. Alex and his Oxford teacher Harry come off a bombastic, and the story moves ahead at a tortuously slow pace. The “people and circumstances are not always what they seem” theme feels beaten to smithereens. I wanted to yell, “I get it already!” I also expected more from the characters. While I applaud the philosophical stance Dymott takes—in the end, we still don’t know what really happened, nor will we ever really know—it all feels very labored.

The book received positive reviews in the UK, so my take on it might well reflect my nationality. Judge for yourself:

• Review in The Independent
• Review in The Guardian (part of  a longer article)