This is round two of looking at Bridge of Clay by Markus Zusak. In the last post, I looked at why it isn’t really a YA novel although it was marketed as one in the US. This time, I want to explore three elements of great writing that make Bridge of Clay engaging.
Elements of Great Writing: Literary Fiction is not Well Defined
I read and love all sorts of books, and I think a lot about what the difference is between the literary titles and the others. People in the know tell us that literary books are more about thinking or ideas and less about action. They might also place genre fiction (science fiction, fantasy, etc.) in the ‘not literary’ category for reasons that don’t make sense to me. If a novel is primarily about the life of a woman—say a woman dealing with a dysfunctional family—gatekeepers will generally think of it as ‘women’s fiction’ no matter what sort of writing it contains. Unless it’s written by a man, then good writing about family might be literary. Think Karl Ove Knausgård or Jonathan Franzen. Unfair bullshit, but a frequent reality.
Elements of Great Writing: Angles
Like Emily Dickinson, Zusak tells all the truth but tells it slant. He moves slowly through the reality of the lives of his characters, looking back on a family of five boys who raised themselves after their mother died of cancer and their father deserted them. There is so much pain in their story that it must be told in pieces, the present mingling with the past, with each of the boys (later young men) highlighted when their personalities matter most.
“Just as with Clay and the rest of us, there’s much to discover in the past.”
Bridge of Clay examines many facets of many lives. Greek epics (and a reminder of how heroes have epithets—Odysseus—the resourceful one, Agamemnon, king of men, Achilles of the nimble feet); a childhood in Communist USSR and escape (eventually to Australia); the difficult lives of jockeys; horse racing and training; young love; the building of bridges; Michelangelo and his sculptures; brothers who are prone to fighting, but who hang together when everything around them is falling apart.
This all-angles approach might drive some readers crazy. Some readers, like me, are suckers for it. Not all literary fiction takes such an approach, but it’s not uncommon. In Bridge of Clay, it also provides a sense of framing, but you need to read the novel to see it.
Examples of Multiple Angles in Bridge of Clay
Wide-angle: It’s me and the typewriter—me and the old TW, as our long-lost father said our long-lost grandmother used to say, Actually, she’d called it the ol’ TW, but such quirks have never been me. Me, I’m known for bruises and levelheadedness, for height and muscle and blasphemy, and the occasional sentimentality. If you’re like most people, you’ll wonder if I’d bother stringing a sentence together, let alone know anything about the epics, or the Greeks. Sometimes it’s good to be underestimated that way, but even better when someone sees it. In my case, I was lucky.
Closing in: The old town itself was a hard, distant story land; you could see it from afar. There was all the straw-like landscape, and marathons of sky. Around it, a wilderness of low scrub and gum trees stood close by, and it was true, it was so damn true: the people sloped and slouched. This world has worn them down.
Close-up: If before the beginning (in the writing, at least) was a typewriter, a dog, and a snake, the beginning itself—eleven years previously—was a murderer, a mule, and Clay. Even in the beginning though, someone needs to go first, and on that day it could only be the Murderer. After all, he was the one who got everything moving forward, and all of us looking back. He did it by arriving. He arrived at six o’clock.
Specific lives in the story: There were the spoils of the racing game, and a thousand pent-up dreams—of Crunchie bars and chocolate cake, and impure thoughts of cheese.
One Person’s Inability to deal with the major issue: The problem was, when he walked away, we saw him take hold of the curtains, and one hand on the piano; he hung on, his body was shaking. The sum was warm and wavy, and we were quiet in the hall, behind him.
Ultimate Push toward major characters having to deal with the major issue (angle widens again): It’s like learning another language, I guess, when you’re watching someone die; a whole new kind of training. You build towards out of prescription boxes, count pills and poisonous liquids. Then minutes-to-hours in hospital wards, and how long the longest night is.
Elements of Great Writing: A Language of Surprise and Delight
Figurative language exists in most pieces of writing. When it isn’t done well, it can range from humorous to kitschy to turd piles plopped in the middle of paragraphs. (Seriously, you want to throw the book in the outside trash can to get away from it. I have done this.) You’ve probably seen websites or blog posts that purport to be actual similes and metaphors from high school students. Usually they aren’t, but they will have you in stitches. An example: “She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.” (If you haven’t seen these, enjoy the hilarity and check out a few on Mental Floss.) Then there are figures of speech meant to be fun and silly. You can find lots of them in the bromance/Obama Biden Mystery Hope Never Dies (funny as hell).
An element of great writing is that figurative language will begin as a surprise, have a sense of freshness, but will immediately delight you with the sense that it is just what you imagined all along.
Examples of the Language of Surprise and Delight in Bridge of Clay
As for the Merchisons, they were honest hairy people.
They were a blue singlet of a man, with great big sideburns, like fur coat meat cleavers on his cheeks.
The downside was that his face looked hastily assembled, like the manufacturers were in a rush.
Up top, every time, was Ted Novak, his name in the paper, and his smile caught napping on his face.
He was flat on his back, and men in overalls, men in boots, men of cigarettes, agreed that they shouldn’t move him. They formed a scrum and showed respect.
She watched the blood and dirt, merged like traffic on his lips.
The sun flopped down and swallowed him.
This time when we’d stood for a while, the caravan shifted and shook, and a man came pouring outwards. He wore tired old pants and a shirt, and a smile of camaraderie. He walked as fast as he could, like pushing a Larry with a limp, uphill.
He had the physique of a dressed-up doughnut.
He kneeled like just more debris.
The sunrise looted the grandstand.
Their lungs were sore and hopeful, and did what they were there for:
Whole ecosystems in their armpits
He would live like this and die like this, no sun would rise in him.
In the very last crack, before the lift went down, she smiled through the closing doors.
And there was a time when they’d both traveled back there, to an old-backyard-of-a-town.
The pair of them were baked in sunshine, like kindling of boy and old man.
The mosquitos could barely keep up with us.
I stood there, helpless, hingeless.
The treatments came in waves again, and the first were wild and whiplike, like a body gone down in a riot.
Elements of Great Writing: A Run of Single-Sentence Paragraphs
This is an odd one. Most books I’ve read don’t have single sentence paragraphs one after the next. However, they are very effective in Bridge of Clay, causing the reader to stop and absorb each thought, idea, action, or image. Her are a few good examples:
We were blank and empty Iliads.
We were Odysseys there for the taking.
She’d float in and out on the images.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
A family of ramshackle tragedy.
A comic book kapow of boys and blood and beasts.
We were born for relics like these.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
I know—I’d beaten him up once, for leaving.
But it was clear he had to finish.
No one could live like this.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
He stumbled and laughed, then ran and picked him up, and tackled him into the ground.
Again, just one more history.
How boys and brothers love.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Her lips so dry and arid.
Her body capsized in blankets.
Her hair was standing its ground.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
But there was no more watery wilderness.
No more wine-dark sea.
Just a single boat gone rotten, but unable to sink completely.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Amazingly, no one moved closer:
All of us, totally still.
But then, quite quickly, we did.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
They were perched up high on the power lines, as he came to our front yard. What else could he do but walk on?
He did and soon he stopped.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
They ran a lap of the decimated track.
The stand gone to hell in the sunset; but a hell you’d gladly enter.
Bridge of Clay Quotes as Writing Prompts
A murderer should probably do many things, but he should never under any circumstances, come home.
I stood there, alone in the eucalypts, my feet amongst the bark.
The long belt of the sun in front of me.
That’s as one of many things not written or spoken about, years later, when they found her fallen, and dead.
See, don’t ever let them fool you, when people talk of the smell of hospitals. There’s a point where you go beyond it, when you feel it in your clothes.
Dazzle Gradually
Bridge of Clay is a long, multi-faceted novel that has a very broad range. It does what Emily Dickinson suggests:
“The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind –” (“Tell all the truth but tell it slant”—1263)