Chapter 1 - "The Thomas Family" - Part 1

I wonder how many blog posts begin with "I haven't posted in a while?" I won't do that, I will just say that I am endeavoring to serialize the "novel" I've been working on for several years now in hopes that it will get me to think about it more concretely and eventually, if all goes well, get me serious enough about it to come up with an ending. Some of the chapters are long so I'll split those up and some are small so they will stay intact. Also it doesn't really have a title. I usually refer to it by its nickname "Persephone," though it was originally called "What Was Once Abuse" and I've been thinking lately of calling it "And Not We Ourselves."

I hope to add an installment every Friday.

Here goes nothing,

Ian

Chapter 1
The Thomas Family

Stanislavsky as Gaev in The Cherry Orchard

Few people remember that Eleanor Thomas was famous of her own right even before she gave birth to the most important playwright since Shakespeare. A self-improvement book she had written entitled, “Your life in Art” appeared on a few best seller lists and led to a number of talk show appearances. The book, “an insightful, even ingenious plan for living a well-ordered and inspired life,” according to the London Review of Books, was based on the writings of the great Russian actor and director Konstantin Stanislavsky. Eleanor’s method, however, had very little to do with acting. Instead she drew on Stanislavsky’s ideas about inspiration, relaxation and “lines of action” to create a philosophy from which, she claimed, “all people, through concentration and discipline can become commanding players on the world stage.”

Mrs. Thomas’ opponents criticized her ideas as overly simplistic and “advocating phonyism,” but the open-minded reader will find much about the book worthwhile, even when considered separately (impossible as that is) from the life and works for her son. Some of the stronger ideas in the work are Mrs. Thomas’ assertion that if a person desires a change in his or her personality he or she must behave as if this change has already happened and through discipline and practice this change will become an first an emotional truth then, shortly after, a truth in reality as well. The book also puts a great deal of emphasis on setting an ultimate goal and then defining a clear path in which everything one does moves one forward toward that goal. The most inspired chapter of “Your Life in Art,” however, is the section on inspiration itself. “We cannot control inspiration,” she wrote. “It is a force not unlike the weather. But anyone who cares at all about the great benefits of an inspired state will do well to be prepared for inspiration when it does decide to rain down upon us.” I would go so far as to say that anyone who cares at all about Oliver Fagin Thomas will do well understand this philosophy; at least as much as it pertains to his infancy and early childhood.

Eleanor Thomas’ first and only pregnancy occurred at a time of a harsh critical backlash against her book and it seems that she viewed her unborn child as the perfect proving ground for her theories. Eleanor spent most of the first trimester devising a system for giving birth to the most inspired child possible and over the final six months of gestation, she exposed the growing fetus to as much culture as possible. Some of this was achieved by the more obvious methods of reading and playing music into her belly but she also did a great deal of traveling specifically with the intent of breathing a variety of types of air. Some who knew her at the time have noted that the expectant mother could very often be seen simply describing out loud everything she could see in minute detail.

Eleanor knew early on that she was going to have a boy and, after careful deliberation, decided she would name him Oliver Fagin Thomas. Naming her son after the hero and villain of her favorite book, she thought, would create a child who could understand contrast and conflict--two ideas that in combination often lead to inspiration. She was often asked if the brutally evil Bill Sikes would have been a better choice of a middle name, as Bill was nothing but a negative character while one could feel sympathy for the crafty Fagin. “I would never associate my son with that horrible killer,” she would reply and hear nothing else of the argument.

The moment of birth was planned out in intricate detail. Oliver was to be born at home and a small party was arranged to welcome him into the world. A brass band was hired to play a welcome march and a group of fifteen friends were invited to attend. Noisemakers were to be distributed as the guests drank champagne and ate from a buffet table stocked with the finest delicacies of international cuisine. Although Oliver would not be able to eat any of these things, he could at least begin his life smelling them.

The room was absolutely dark when Oliver arrived. The doctor delivered him into a wading pool of warmed saline solution and the baby was allowed to float, still receiving oxygen from the umbilical cord, in absolute darkened silence for nearly five minutes as the band and the guests and the buffet were brought into the room.

Then, on Eleanor’s signal, the baby was lifted out and the strobe light turned on. The noise of the band, the cheers, the popping of corks and the fireworks drowned out his first cry.