Forty-Six Views of My Fuji | Isotope - Fall/Winter 2008

Forty-Six Views of My Fuji - Merridawn Duckler

Before you read this essay, go here and look over the 46 woodblock prints made by Hokusai in the early 19th century.  Hopefully, you will click on each image to bring up a larger version where you can see more detail.  As you look, contemplate the infinite number of ways the artist could view the mountain.

Merridawn Duckler, using this simple premise, has written an essay that takes a multi-viewed look at her family, with special attention to her younger brother, Geordie.  She paints a varied portrait of him over a period of years and personal interests.

Maybe, it isn't a portrait.  Maybe we are looking at the literary equivalent of a woodblock print.  Parts are in vivid colorful detail, other parts are distant, nearly wordless.  The writing has a peculiar rhythm about it, as if Ms. Duckler were publishing some compiled notes, a lifetime of sticky pad memories.

I found myself caught up in who Geordie is ("this is no memorial" after all) and what this family must be like.  They sound wonderfully strange; intelligent and odd; happy and independent, yet loving each other.  I was disappointed that the essay ended.  I wanted the journal through this print gallery to continue.

Accessible and experimental, this is a personal essay that you should read and then try to write for yourself.