Hey guys, this is my first practise piece for Spies, the second out of the two "Whose Reality" texts that I'm studying. For me, the piece doesn't feel to be that great, and I do know that some improvements can be made.
Writing is an act that always involves a revision of reality.
Comfortable leaning back into the leather couch with a slight creak, Michael Frayn inspects the environment around himself, the inner workings of his mind functioning furiously as he calmly sipped the steaming tea from his porcelain cup.
“Although this house has not undergone renovation for almost thirty years, the house is maintained in such a way that triggers the deepest recollections of my childhood memories,” he muses to himself, as he stares towards the golden pens that sit befittingly on the neatly pile of yellowing paper, all of which have faint traces of ink. It has dawned upon me that over the course of his career, he has spent many hours, years in fact, sitting in front of that desk, with his pen poised readily in his hand, recording down the cinematic nature of his mind into a form where meaning was transcribed between letters, words, and sentences. I watch as his eyes flicker over the dusty photography frame that has become visible under the lamp’s dimming light. Mesmerised by his placid state of reflection, Frayn’s tone of voice is captivated with a dream-like quality.
“That is a photo of my family, including Uncle Sid, in 1943,” he tells me. He cordially proceeds to laugh.
“Little Michael was only 10 at the time, cheeky enough to not look at the camera, in his feigned nonchalance. I don’t know why his sister’s crying though.”
“Perhaps she was afraid about how she looked?”
“Perhaps – I think so.”
He was still stuck in that raw state of nostalgia. I could see that his eyes had been lost in in a different world, having transported his vision and mind back into the distant past, where he could see the visual movement of his black-and-white family as they stood against the vintage house.
“Recently, I have an intense desire to revisit my previous years as a child. To understand his thoughts, and his line of thinking. To see his perceptions of the world at his age. What went through little Michael’s feelings at the time?”
The question triggers a switch within my brain, and at once I can feel myself once again lying in the comfortable warmth of my bed, Frayn’s novel Spies held widely open by the dexterity of my right hand.
“Was this one of your inspirations for writing Spies? To show how our perceptions of our actions change with time?”
“Yes – as an adult, I find it very difficult to relate back to my emotions as a child. In writing my memoirs, and Spies, I had to refer to the diary which I had written in during my adolescent years. If you flick through my diary, you will notice that I have many long entries that are essentially long walls of text, and as the years go by I begin to write less and less. After my mother’s death on the 3rd of November, 1945 – I was only 12 at the time - the content of the entries in my diary had deteriorated to a timeline of the mundane jobs that I performed on each day. Yet, rather than the earlier entries, it is the later entries that provoke the most intense memories in my mind. Perhaps time has laid its relentless toll, and the events of the earlier entries lay buried in the deepest levels of my subconscious. Every time I glance at these earlier entries I feel no sense of familiarity with them; I cannot even slightly imagine myself in the shoes of my younger self, I cannot experience what he senses, and I cannot conjure his exact thoughts. It is extremely difficult to return to the mindset of a child once you have crossed the line into the world of maturity, and it is sufficient to say that I do not understand portions of my former self equally - just as Stephen endeavours to understand the inner working of the younger Stephen. “
My pen is furiously gliding across my notebook as I digest the information and break it down into sizable portions. The surprising amount of content has taken me by surprise; it soon dawns upon me that I could only, at best, summarise his content. I am resistant to leave out even the most meticulous details, as it could jeopardise the validity of the interview, but my mind is already selectively choosing which details to take note of and which to discard.
“In using your diary to draw your prior experiences to write Spies, to what extent did you base the characters in the novel from your memories of childhood?”
“The character who tells the story, Stephen, was based on myself as a boy, and Keith’s entire family was based upon the family of a friend that I had at the time. The emotions and new perspectives that Stephen experiences while he remembers his younger self seemed to mirror how I felt while I was consulting my diary – uncertain, surprised, and resistant. Memories are not the greatest primary sources you see – they are curiously susceptible to subconscious distortions. I am not speaking of semantic memory, which consists of merely times, dates, and places; rather, I reconstruct the moment with great sensory detail and am able to relive it within my head. Many psychologists describe such as “autobiographical memory”, a mental reconstruction that combines concoctions of sensory memory that is hastily spliced together to meet the needs of the present. Our minds continually edit our memories by selecting and revising them as they are elicited.
“This was one of the major difficulties that I had when writing Spies; did I know what I felt as a small boy? If my memories had been distorted with the perceptions of an adult, how could I properly describe Stephen’s naivety as a child? As humans, we only recall specific events from what psychologists call a “mental photograph” of the past; there are gaps of forgotten events in between the events that we remember. One has to retrieve certain emotions, thoughts and feelings that must be hastily sewed together in accordance to the demands of the present.
“I guess that this does somewhat link in with the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre. Sartre, a French existentialist, believed that fallible tales stem from our desire to present our ego and history in the best possible light. One may lie about themselves, out of malice or defensiveness, in order suit the needs of one’s self, whether it would be denial of guilt, or to project a good impression towards other people. The circumstances change between each individual. In Spies, it is difficult to deduce whether Stephen’s vivid and detailed memories are imagined or concrete. However, in telling his story, he weaves together aspects of his own personal experience, emotional impressions, and the minutiae of specific contexts, and integrates them into a believable, refined story by attaching a framework of historical fact. To some extent, Stephen and myself recreate previously non-existent memories in order to fit the needs of our narratives, such as their capacity to interest the reader, while attempting to remain as close as possible to what we feel is the truth as an adult.”
He has spoken for an exceptionally long time. I begin to contemplate how much I knew of my own, true identity, beneath the obstruction of veiled, secret lies which enclosed my tender heart. I can feel his gleaming eyes stare into me as I contemplate; I am tempted to raise my eyes and see myself through his eye’s reflection, to see myself in the eyes of others. Perhaps this would denounce the notion that the person who knows you best is yourself. My identity had been as formless and shapeless as my selective memories demanded, reconstructing itself with the errors propagated along the chain of remembrance.
“So, hypothetically, if one were to revise their memories, one would additionally change his perception of his own identity?”
“Correct, I would think so. Memories become so worn down and manipulated throughout the years that it is impossible to know whether they are true or false, clouded by our established beliefs and understandings. Our individual views of our identity are influenced by its indissoluble links to our selective memories, and therefore our understanding of ourselves varies as we age; as we grow older, our interpretation and attitudes towards the past may grow more cynical, or we may reflect upon our previous selves with tearful sorrow. Stephen continually speaks of his younger self as another person, referring to himself in the third person. By returning to his hometown in the shoes of an elderly man, the lack of certainty and accuracy in his memories disconnects him from his childhood self. He writes as if he is examining himself from the shoes of a stranger, with an adult’s perspective; there is a sombre tone of regret as he reminisces upon his own naivety for believing Keith as a boy, a naivety that he was not aware of as a child, yet he cannot bring himself to explain how the younger Stephen had felt. While I was reading through my adolescent diary, I had very similar sentiments of confusion and convolution… I would say that reflecting and interpreting our past is an important mechanism which drives the evolution of our individual perceptions, and writing is the perfect medium for recollection.”
Slowly rising from the leather couch, he has begun to limp towards his battered drawer, pulling out an old diary that has been coated with a thick level of grey dust. He is about to open it, but he pauses; after a moment of immobilisation, he returns the book back to its original resting place and quietly shuts the drawer. He is comfortable with his current understanding of himself. The man’s physical being belongs to the present, but nevertheless, his mind is caught in the web of the past.
Written Explanation:
For my second “Whose Reality” piece on Spies, I have written an imaginative interview with Michael Frayn from the perspective of the interviewee. The first-person account of the interviewee provides an alternate voice and viewpoint to the ideals that Frayn elaborates upon, and his thoughts demonstrate the application of Frayn’s theories of memory upon the interviewee; he begins to feel unsure of the validity of his memories, and hence his personal identity, after they have been questioned by Frayn.
Michael Frayn’s dialogue is written to sound intentionally casual in order to maintain rapport with the reader, while also projecting a sense of intelligence to his ideals. I have interpreted the prompt to mean that although memoirs are utilised as a basis for writing about the past, their vulnerability to distortion may consequently affect the piece of writing’s relevance to reality. However, Frayn suggests that examining and learning from the past will confer more positive benefits that will meet the demands of our present selves.
I have aimed to draw parallels between the storytelling methods of Stephen and Frayn in order to draw the reader’s attention to the emotional pathway of writing and reminiscing, while also emphasising the fact that Stephen ‘s perception is based upon how Frayn views his childhood memories.
The interview is set in the house of Michael Frayn, in which he has lived since he was a little child. The descriptive language used by the narrator is intended to create an atmosphere of time and age; the house is maintained as it has been for a very long time, yet the inevitable effects of aging can be inferred by the “yellowing” papers and the “dusty” drawers. The house itself is a symbol of memory; the structure of memories may remain unchanged, however specific details will deteriorate with age. This leads to some details becoming obfuscated and lost throughout time, and thus the truth will become increasingly difficult to discover, represented by the “faint” traces of ink and the “coating” of Frayn’s diary with a thick level of dust.
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