Abundance of a Gracious Spirit
Louisville-based freelancer Carrie Wright jumped at the opportunity to interview her teacher and University of Louisville writer in residence Sena Jeter Naslund. A doctoral student studying composition and rhetoric, Wright has known and studied under Naslund off and on for several years. The two met for lunch at Wright's Old Louisville home and chatted about Naslund's critically acclaimed new novel Abundance.
Sena Jeter Naslund has enjoyed the kind of success and acclaim that most writers wouldn't bother to fantasize about. Instead young writers hope to write pieces in alumni magazines, earning a few bucks doing so.
Naslund, however, has earned more than a few bucks through the last decade. More than actual dollars, her literary currency has accumulated great value, especially with her national bestselling novels Ahab's Wife and Four Spirits. Other recent fiction includes a short story collection, The Disobedience of Water, and of course her new book told from the first person perspective of Marie Antoinette, Abundance.
She's the recipient of the Harper Lee Award and has received various grants, among them support from the National Endowment for the Arts. A faculty member at UofL since 1973, she currently teaches as the university's writer in residence, edits The Louisville Review and directs Spalding University's brief-residency MFA in writing. Oh, and lest I forget, she's also Kentucky's poet laureate. In other words, she is the writer's version of a rock star.
She agreed to meet with me after the fall semester ended, a semester during which I was lucky enough to work with her again in a graduate writing class—this time as a doctoral student studying composition and rhetoric.
Carrie Wright: You're working on a musical version of Abundance?
Sena Naslund: Yes, I'm writing the script and working with a Broadway director who says so far that he's "blown away." I love having the chance to recreate Antoinette in yet another form. It's instructive to me to see what the form of a musical can do that a novel can't do, and vice-versa.
CW: A musical version seems appropriate, especially considering the novel's scenes at the opera.
SN: Marie Antoinette certainly was a lover of music and really of various arts.
CW: And a harpist herself.
SN: A fine harpist.
CW: So, how did the University of Louisville work with you in writing Abundance, conceiving Abundance?
SN: Being appointed writer-in- residence made it possible for me to spend a lot more time with my writing. In fact, Abundance came out a year early. And it was very lucky for me that it could be speeded up a year ahead of contract because there's been a lot of Marie Antoinette hoopla recently with the Sofia Coppola film and the PBS film documentary. Kirsten Dunst [star of Coppola's Marie Antoinette] was on the cover of Vogue. Did I bring that to class to show you all?
CW: No. You brought People though; the review with your photo on the lion in Central Park.
SN: Oh! (she laughs) To show you me. Never mind Kirsten Dunst!
CW: You're the fabulous one! In fact, you've always been so gracious. I'm noticing graciousness in Marie Antoinette's character too.
SN: She did have a knack for saying surprisingly appropriate things at times. I always cite—at this point—her statement when she first came to Strasbourg, France. They spoke to her—to make her welcome—in German, and she said "Please don't speak to me in German. From now on I wish only to speak in French." That was an amazingly appropriate thing for her to say. At the time, the French people adored her, and this was a mark of her affection for her new country.
CW: What can you say about yourself, as far as being a gracious teacher, or even—dare I imply—that this graciousness is related to being a Southern woman?
SN: Certainly I'm from the South and I've written about Alabama. I've written about Kentucky. But my mother was not a southern woman. She was from Missouri, and perhaps because of that I don't think of myself as being a southern woman. I've never particularly tried to be a southern woman. I've wanted to embrace all kinds of art no matter what its geographic origin. I think to be strictly regional is to limit one's self unnecessarily. I don't think of my stance as a teacher as reflecting my southern-ness.
CW: I'm curious about that quality of graciousness because it's something that I strive for [in the classroom], because it's something that the character [Marie Antoinette] is strongly about, and it's nice for students.
SN: I think the chief tool in being a good teacher is an active intellect; being able to think about what the student has done in an insightful, analytic way and then to communicate what I understand about the work that is useful to the student. Now, being useful to the student means letting the student know that I support and appreciate the effort that's been made, that I see the wonderful things about the writing and then, after some trust has been established, that I can talk about things that one might want to change in the writing. But I don't think being honest requires a person to be cruel. You can be kind to people and be just as honest.
CW: What did you think of our class this past semester?
SN: This particular class was a wonderful one because of the variety of students coming from many different kinds of backgrounds and levels of writing. There was a wonderful balance between honesty and tact in remarks that students made. It seems to me that my last class is often my favorite class. When I was a kid I always thought I wanted to teach the very grade that I was in; that it was the best of all grades. I'm really sorry to have the class disband. I would like for it to just go on and on. I see the semester end as an artificial barrier.
CW: Do you really? Some university instructors talk about getting burned out, and over the years personal investment in students lessens. When I teach, I'm very relational and I get emotionally invested. Do you find that's true for you?
SN: Yes I do, but I would say that I have a strong pull to do my own writing now maybe more so than when I first started teaching. Then, all time seemed to stretch out ahead of me. I gave my students everything I had and thought my own writing will come later. That time is now—when I need to focus a great deal on my writing.
CW: As an undergraduate I found that our English department was very strong. I worked with you, Paul Griner and Jeff Skinner. I was amazed at the talent and the level of commitment to teaching.
SN: They're both wonderful writers.
CW: As a writing student and nonfiction writer, I'm interested in intersection between nonfiction and fiction. Will you talk about that?
SN: You know in some cases there's really no way to tell from a piece itself whether it's fiction or nonfiction. There can be, but there isn't always overlap between fiction and nonfiction. I've written some creative nonfiction myself. The most recent essay I wrote appeared in an anthology published this year by University of Alabama Press called All Out of Faith. These are essays by women about their spiritual lives. It was a kind of relief to write without a fictive mask. I find it easier than writing fiction. I'm not saying it is easier. I just find it easier to write nonfiction than fiction, but my primary investment is in fiction writing.
CW: Back to Abundance. I've marked some places to ask you about (I begin flipping through marked pages.) Oh! Gosh! This killed me: "I never liked busts. Who wants to be depicted as only a part of one's body? Only half of oneself?" That foreshadowing! (More page flipping.) "I wonder if the king thought to turn at all to the yoke settling upon his grandson kneeling on the hard marble. When asked once what he thought might be the future of France the king muttered, after us, the deluge." What exactly does "After us the deluge" refer to? The revolution?
SN: Yes. The deluge in the sense of the flood that is the destruction of the order as we know it.
CW: I see. After us. The "us" there refers to?
SN: Himself. His royal self. This is actually a fairly well-known phrase associated with Louis XV, "After me, the deluge."
CW: (We're both quiet as we enjoy dessert.) The bread pudding has silenced me!
SN: (She laughs.) It's so good! We're now complete. We don't need to say or do or breathe even.
CW: All has come around to the delicious confection in front of us! Well, it's no longer in front of me because I ate the entire plate.
SN: I think bread pudding is rather French; they invented bread puddings to make use of bread that had become dry and so they put these delicious sauces on it.
CW: Much like you did with Marie Antoinette in Abundance. You took her from being ill thought of into splendor and spice.
SN: I really see her as a kind of tragic hero in the Shakespearean sense. I've divided the book into five acts to emphasize her evolution through time. She is a person in an important position who, through her suffering, loses her power and position, but she gains her soul. She gains her spirit. By the time she comes to the end of her life she is not quite 38. She knows who she is. This is an accomplishment for her and for all human beings. She is who she is whether she's surrounded by the splendor and abundance of the court, or whether she has a grim world around her and relies on the abundance of her own generous spirit.
CW: Yes, and your characterization of her from the novel's beginning suggests this spirit as being a very real part of her true nature.
SN: That's quite true, that even as a young person she is generous, but she's naïve. At the end of her life she has learned a great deal about the way of the world. I wouldn't say that she's returned to her original goodness, but that she's evolved toward a mature understanding of what it means to be a good person.
CW: I'm looking forward to spending time reading the rest.
SN: I do hope you enjoy it. My favorite part is at the end when she is in prison. She's creating a little reign of courtesy in the midst of the reign of terror not by doing anything flamboyant but by moment-to-moment courtesy.
