Once I had decided on the setting for Golden Earrings, as I wrote about in my last blog, I decided to give myself the artistic challenge of telling a story from the different perspectives of three main characters: Celestina Sánchez; Paloma Batton; and Evelina Montella. 

It fascinates me how greatly a story can differ depending on who is relating the event – what is emphasised and what details are included or left out.

I’m also intrigued by how dramatically our perception of a person or situation can change when we are given more complete information about them.

Stephen R. Covey offers a poignant example in his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective people (I recommend his helpful advice for anyone trying to juggle a busy life!).

He tells the story of how he was waiting on a subway station when a man appeared with some small children. The children ran amuck and disturbed other commuters, but their father simply sat down and did nothing.

Finally, not able to tolerate the father’s lack of control over his children any longer, Covey leaned towards the man and asked him if he would mind calling his children to order, they were upsetting people.

The man looked up at him with sad eyes, took note of the situation and then apologised. He explained that they had just come from the hospital where his wife had died an hour before.

He apologised again and said he didn’t know how to take the death of his wife and he saw now that his children didn’t know how to either.

Boy, did Covey make a different assessment of the situation once he knew all the facts!

Through having made wrong assumptions myself many times about people until I had the whole story, I’ve come to a point in my life where I try to ask more questions about a situation before I make judgments about the motivations of other people.

I’ve found that acting on the notion that there are many perspectives besides my own has not only helped me to have better communication in my relationships but has also enriched and expanded my own view of life.

The idea was something that I played with in the novel. I hope the differing perspectives of the narrators of Golden Earrings, and their own giving or withholding of facts, creates enough twists, turns and surprises to greatly enrich the lives of my readers!

Belinda Alexandra, September 28, 2011

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Image © Philippe Ramette

All honourable causes eventually succeed even if at first they fail
- Xavier Montella, Golden Earrings

The reason I love history is that it tells us so much about ourselves and the human condition.

I’m a great believer in positive thinking and I’m an avid reader of books by Louise Hay, Susan Jeffers, Deepak Chopra and Jack Canfield.

But while thinking positively will definitely make our lives run more smoothly (it rids us of the negative chatter in our head that tells us we can’t do something when we can, means we don’t allow ourselves to get upset over trivial things, and improves our health and enjoyment of life, etc) I’m convinced that no amount of affirmations and visualising will completely eliminate our ‘shadow’ selves or mean that our life will be entirely free of struggle or tragedy.

That is the human state.

It’s in our darkest hours that our true characters are revealed: And that’s why I love history so much.

I am constantly fascinated by the idea of why it is that in extreme conditions, such as war, that some people become heroes and others turn into devils of the worst kind.

While researching my novels, I’m either full of admiration for the obstacles people will overcome in order to save another person that they have never met before, or am horrified over how someone could betray a friend or relative in order save themselves.

The Spanish Civil War was certainly a condition of such extremes with a country’s citizens pitted against each other and families divided.

The quote ‘All honourable causes eventually succeed even if at first they fail’ are the words of hope offered by the character, Xavier Montella, to his lover.

For me that is something that plays out in the big picture of history.

If you look beyond the atrocities of war and the repression of monster dictators and authoritarian regimes, somehow the human spirit does manage to rise up again – even if it takes many years to do so.

Positive steps in human history include the women’s movement, the end of slavery in Britain and America, and fairer political and social systems.

For me, it’s very important that we don’t deny the negative in ourselves because we can’t change what we don’t face.

That is the conclusion Rosa comes to at the end of Tuscan Rose, when she considers the true origins of war:

It occurred to Rosa that it was an odd thing to be doing: two German soldiers and an Italian patriot parting on such amicable terms. But she had come to the conclusion that while most Italians – and probably many Germans – had not wanted war, they had chosen a path of greed and pride and the result had been war. For where else did violence begin but within each individual human heart? It started with violence of thought and action, jealousy of others and a loathing of oneself. It had its beginnings in the daily choices one made, including the indifference towards the suffering of animals in what one selected to eat and wear, and towards the poor and oppressed. From there it escalated into a collective consciousness of competitiveness, selfishness, pettiness, spite and greed. Violence of even the most innocuous kind begat more violence. That was the origin of war.

In Golden Earrings, I take the theme of human responsibility further: That the love and goodness people put into the world or into a cause is never lost.

They may be defeated in their lifetime, but their spirits live on and rise again in future generations.

So while a study of history may force us to face the darkness and madness that human beings are capable of, I think it offers us great hope too that humankind is progressing and becoming more enlightened with each age and that indeed all causes motivated by love and human progress eventually succeed in time.

Belinda Alexandra, October 5, 2011

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