Bonsai seems like such an obvious metaphor for editing a novel
manuscript. The tiny tree, tweaked and twisted to look like the real
thing, just as a novel strives to mimic life.
When I think of bonsai, I’m whisked back to a Zen temple complex
outside of Tokyo. It’s early in the morning and the place is deserted.
No, wait, there’s an old man bearing a zinc pail in one hand and a pair
of nail clippers in the other. For hours, the man shuffles from one bush
to the next, carefully examining the plant from top to bottom before making a single snip.
For some writers, this is what editing means. But it’s not my
process. I have to rewrite, over and over, from beginning to end until I
hear my manuscript crackle to life. I kill off characters and squash
narrative arcs. Like weeds, some of them return to infest my manuscript.
Or perhaps these characters are saying to me: “Listen! I’m the hero you
need.”
The heroes of my novel-in-progress Peace Court
are two old folks. Mrs. Yip is the local busybody who once worked for
Blind Bao when he owned a laundry. Neither of these senior citizens
possesses superpowers. They don’t even have a particularly upright soul.
All they can wield is their own conscience against struggle sessions,
police interrogations and the everyday violence that marked the start of
Communist China.
So I’ve got my heroes and a fine kettle of fish into which I can
dangle them by the feet. I have an evocative time and place: Shanghai
1954. There are colorful characters and plenty of salty language. Done
and dusted, you say?
cutting tools
Not quite, though I feel I’m close. I can hear my manuscript
breathing in the night. The problem is: it keeps on growing. New story
lines. New back stories for minor characters like Shao, the prostitute
who plies her trade in a green Chinese Army uniform. Where do I stop?
When do I cut and how deep? This is where bonsai comes in.
Bonsai tools. Image source: Bonsai Empire
Bonsai, it turns out, is not such a gentle art.
You start with a plant: one you’ve cultivated or sourced from
elsewhere. As the plant matures, the trunk thickens, branches spread and
leaves come (and sometimes go).
Then the real work starts. The tree must be shaped, both to keep it
small and to force it to grow in the desired direction. Bonsai gardeners
use a special set of tools that remind me of the dentist. These cutters
are supposed to leave hollow wounds that heal quickly.
maker trees
First Nation and Native Americans
once bent trees to create guideposts. The marker trees pointed the way
toward fresh water, medicinal plants or the safest route out of the
wilderness. These early trail markers were made from saplings bent and
staked with wild vines or rawhides. Nature would eventually take over,
causing the tree to grow past the bend tall into the sky.
Wires are today’s rawhide for shaping bonsai trees. The branch is
wired along the full length before it’s staked to the ground or another
branch. Unlike marked trees, the bend serves no purpose other than to
please your own sense of aesthetics.
The writer Yasunari Kawabata regarded bonsai as an ultimate expression of Japanese aesthetics.
Bonseki, Honen-In, Kyoto. Photo credit: Karen Kao
Nothing is more complicated, varied,
attentive to detail, than the Japanese art of landscape gardening. Thus
there is the form called dry landscape, composed entirely of rocks, in
which the arrangement of stones gives expression to mountains and rivers
that are not present, and even suggests the waves of the great ocean
breaking in upon cliffs. Compressed to the ultimate, the Japanese garden
becomes the bonsai dwarf garden, or the bonseki, its dry version.
But how to choose which limb to amputate and which one to save, if
only to mutilate it beyond recognition? My friend Tim tells me of a
harrowing moment at bonsai school. He and his teacher Yannick Kiggen examine a tree. A large knot, mostly filled with deadwood, mars one side. Should it be removed?
“No,” Tim says, “look at the beautiful circle it makes.”
“You’re right,” Yannick replies. “Get me the drill.”
Yannick proceeds to remove all the deadwood so that a perfect white circle is all that’s left.
bonsai: the book
Alejandro Zambra is a Chilean poet whose first novella was entitled Bonsai. I missed that one but I did read his second, The Private Lives of Trees. Both books use a circular narrative structure to lead the reader down a rabbit hole (or through a tree knot).
Bonsai in kanji. Image source: Wikipedia
The final stage in cultivating a bonsai tree is to choose the proper
vessel to contain the plant. After all, the Japanese word bonsai means tray planting. The vessel must be worthy of its burden and vice versa. Or, in the words of Zambra reviewer Elizabeth Wadell
Miniaturization is not the
defining feature of a bonsai; containment is, the strict boundary
between the bonsai and the rest of nature.
The novel Peace Court is my chosen vessel. Mrs. Yip, Blind
Bao and all my other characters form the tree. I’ve spent my time
pruning and wiring, applying the power tools and then waiting for the
stories to recover. Now it’s time to take a good hard look at the
vessel.
It must be striking and nourishing. Either in contrast to the green
life within or in utter harmony therewith. Unlike a bonsai gardener, I
have the ability to shape both vessel and tree.
Talk to me in a few more months. Maybe I’ll have something for you to see.
Note: Bonsai was first published by Karen Kao on her blog Shanghai Noir.
Your analogy and bonsai musings emerge as poetry. I'm taken by the analogy. If only I were a better bonsai surgeon. Perhaps I'd edit better - at least on my own work. I'm a constant gardener when providing that service to other writers, who have seemed reasonably pleased with the collaborative outcomes. I like to cultivate baby potted trees from seeds, especially fruits: lemon, orange, apple, avocado. Then I balk and dither at how and where to trim them, afraid of botching up my darlings, perhaps fatally. You're right: Bonsai (and editing) are not for the faint at heart.
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