Cinta Hari-Hari Kurungan (Hari Kelapan Belas)

Lydia Davis

Lydia Davis mempunyai kaedah kerja yang agak unik iaitu beliau agak menggunakan diari sebagai catatan, contengan idea, dan kerap kalinya draf awal kepada sebuah cerpen. Saya pernah baca (buku penyair Kenneth Koch kalau tak salah) pendapat yang mengatakan bahawa di mana kita menulis, di situlah bentuk karya akhir kita akan hasilkan. Sebagai contoh, William Carlos William menulis dalam buku nota kecil, maka puisinya selalu pendek dan kurus. Lydia Davis menggunakan diari, maka tidak hairan cerpennya pun pendek belaka: satu perenggan, kadang-kadang satu baris sahaja. 

Dalam koleksi esei pertamanya, Davis menceritakan tabiat baru beliau sedang amalkan iaitu membuat catatan diari dengan hanya menggunakan tiga baris:

"I recently had the idea of recording every day, once brief experience in the form of three fairly short sentences.  I haven't yet done more then two of these brief descriptions, and I am satisfied with only one of them, but I like the idea. Certainly it is an interesting way of imposing on yourself the daily diary entry - yes, I must make a daily entry, but it can be one that requires a careful choice of subject, and then a careful choice of how to express the experience, and it can remain short. 

Here is the first one I tried (since I did not write down right away, as I so fervently recommend to others, I lost some of the wording, which I think was better):

The wind blew hard across the fields behind the old farmhouse.

We were out for a walk, heading down toward the railway bridge.

Below the road, a woman filling some bottles at an artesian well looked up and smiled.

Very simple - Zen practice would say 'nothing much.' I first imagined this would be a little prose paragraph. Then, when I typed it out, I started each sentence on a separate line and found that had a different effect, something of the effect of a haiku. In an earlier version, the first and third lines were longer than the middle one, the symmetry adding to the haiku effect, and that could be part of the prescribed form, if you liked. Of course, in the case of the haiku, the middle line is longer, not shorter."

Tetapi minat Davis untuk mencuba penulisan tiga baris ini sudah tentu tidak datang dengan sendirinya. Selain haiku, Davis juga dipengaruhi oleh penulisan tiga baris yang dilakukan oleh seorang penulis Perancis bernama Felix Feneon yang terlebih dahulu mempelopori kaedah ini pada awal abad kedua puluh. Esok saya akan kongsikan tulisa-tulisan mikro Fenon.