Senses and Sociability by Steve Way

Via the internet I teach students in Madrid and one student seems to have been infected by the Covid-19 virus. Fortunately, she only had mild symptoms but experienced the curious form of these that had been described in the media of temporarily losing her sense of taste and smell. Once her senses began to gradually return, I asked her how she would describe the experience. There were two things she particularly noticed. One was that whilst the symptoms persisted she ate far more vegetables than usual – we joked that that might have been a habit that speeded up her return to health! – and also, a possibly linked factor, that she became acutely aware and appreciative of the different textures of her food.

I was reflecting on this and about how when writing we might easily neglect aspects of our common experience that we normally more or less take for granted but which could add depth to our writing if we thought to describe them, when by serendipitous good fortune I attended a (virtual!) get together of writers here in south-west France hosted by writer Sarah Gungum. Sarah really encouraged us to focus on how describing the reactions of our many senses – of which she pointed out includes far more than the ‘Famous Five’ – can help illustrate and enhance our work in a multitude of ways.

Not unsurprisingly the topic of the interplay between our senses and our experience of eating came up and I was reminded of the description of the feast the dwarves prepare in Bilbo’s house at the beginning of The Hobbit. Published just before the deprivations of the Second World War and the rationing that followed it, to his readership at the time the description of the sumptuous meal must have been mouth-watering and may have contributed to his audience’s enthusiastic engagement with his wonderful story. The detailed and careful preparation or description of food seems to have been a significant component of many classic children’s books, written in times of less abundance, such as the contents of Ratty’s hamper in The Wind in the Willows and Edmund’s temptation with Turkish Delight in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Nowadays, even if only sub-consciously, I think many of us would worry about the cardiovascular consequences of the feast on the health of Bilbo and his comrades and feel less inclined to focus on the sensory experience of food and eating in our stories. Maybe because nowadays, if we were so inclined, the majority of us could almost daily consume the calorific equivalent of the dwarves’ banquet.

Thinking about this led the other members of the group to speculate about what effect our current dearth of social contact might have, consciously or otherwise, on future writing. Will stories be more likely to include large social gatherings? Will characters more frequently be able to hug and kiss each other… or just (gasp!) shake hands? Instead of endless ‘man walks into a bar’ jokes will there instead be endless ‘man walks into a bar’ novels?

I don’t know what your opinion is – but it’s ‘food for thought’ perhaps? He he.

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On a more serious note, which could be worth consideration regarding post-pandemic writing, might be the long-term psychological effect of ‘lockdown’, particularly on children. One of my other students in Madrid told me about an experience of a friend of hers. As you may be aware in some regards the ‘lockdown’ in Spain has been more restrictive than in the UK and children under the age of fourteen were only allowed outside for the first time in seven weeks last Sunday. Perhaps alarmed by seeing his parents only going outside occasionally for the last month and a half and wearing a mask when they did so, their six-year-old son was terrified by the prospect of going outside. Maybe there’s a place for some stories that make the outside world a relatively safe and exciting place to be most of the time?
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Recent publications; Bongo the Armadillo Volumes 1 -3. 'Surprising things happened to Bongo the Armadillo, usually when he was sitting in his garden having his cup of tea. Short stories with a regular format but quite different 'surprises'. Appealing (though not exclusively) to reluctant readers and useful as a resource to inspire creative writing.