The Girl in the Abyss by Zinat Renesa
The story of my book The Girl in the Abyss is about a woman named Renee Phoenix where she is struggling with her mental health, her loneliness, her failures in life, her thinking of herself that she is a baggage in this world, a good for nothing creature, an extra in this world and in everyone’s life and her inability to express herself, the reasons why she started writing her diary. This novel, The Girl in the Abyss is written in a diary format by Phoenix herself and her conversations with her friends that too are included in her diary. She feels like each and every day she is being engulfed by a horrendous darkness, each day she is sinking into some deep and dark abyss from where she wants to come out but is extremely unable to do so. Phoenix feels like she is entrapped in a dark room, a cage and she tries to break the cage that has now chained her. She dreams of flying, once again. A time comes when she starts believing that someone else is going to help her in her dark times but then she is proved horribly wrong. She feels like somebody out there is going to help her escape the dark place but she is unable to find that too. There is no logic or reason behind her thinking but she feels it. She is in search of some freedom, happiness and peace.
The story of my novel The Girl in the Abyss is about Phoenix’s deteriorating mental health, her failures, her dreams getting shattered, the loss of her own identity, a life where she feels completely blocked, stucked and stopped, as if someone has pressed the pause button of her life and her inability to share her pain with anyone. She is trying to find meaning in her life, the meaning of her own existence, she is waiting for one door to open for her so that she can escape her prison but she is not sure when will she achieve it or whether she can achieve it at all or not. The story is about her attempts to survive, she is finding ways to survive, to live, to breathe and her attempts to be seen by others, to express herself for which she is trying to take help of creativity, making creativity her one and only refuge.
In this novel Phoenix shares her feelings with her friend Ash and sometimes with Ed and Wipoll, at the same time she is writing down her unsaid and unheard emotions in her diary. In this novel Phoenix is not giving any solution to her problems, rather she herself is searching for solutions. In another way, through this book Phoenix is actually asking question to the readers that whether she is suffering from depression or not, she is trying to connect with her readers and wants to know that whether there are other persons like her who are also going through the same situation or not, she wants her readers to feel connected to her and she wants to feel connected to her readers too. This novel is full of hidden meanings and symbols, personification, metaphors and simile have been used for the hidden meanings thereby making the readers fully engaged and involved while deciphering text. The readers need to find those meanings or interpret it according to their own life experiences.
Phoenix wants to express herself, she wants everyone to understand her but at the same time she does not want anyone to understand her and that is why she has kept many things veiled. She herself is a paradox. She wants something but at the same time she does not want it either. But no feeling of her is veiled. Her feelings her true, her emotions are true. For the time being she feels that her pain has lessened as she has poured her heart out, here, in this book. And this novel also ends in a note of optimism but no solution. She is optimistic about solution. Many letters have been used by Phoenix addressing her readers directly.
The one thing that makes this novel unique is that it is written in the format of a diary. Phoenix’s diary. In diary we generally know that it contains elements and events of a person’s real life, as it has happened, all the situations, the real life people. But in this book Phoenix has used both fiction (real events, real human beings, presented symbolically, through fiction and imaginary conversations) and non-fiction (real events, real situations, real conversations presented as it has happened). Phoenix has tried to give respect and keep private the identities of the people mentioned here, and some of the events and that is why she has used fiction. Without fiction she would have never been able to write her diary.
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Zinat Renesa
This book is a novel and is based on reality, on a real life person that is the author herself. This book can also be categorised in the genre of a Confessional piece of writing, a Realist Fiction or a Diary and in part a Memoir (written by Renee Phoenix who represents the author herself) where reality gets mingled with fiction. It is both a Fiction and a Non- Fiction. When Phoenix was lonely she started journaling her thoughts. She is in her initial days when she starts struggling with her mental health and witnesses darkness in her mind on a regular basis, she is struggling in life but is horribly confused about everything— her choice, her future, her decision, her own identity. She doubts her own self. She has a lot to say but there is no one to listen to her. Phoenix is not even sure that whether she is going through depression or not. Here she has described her situation, her mental condition that she has been going through and the events that has led her into it and it is a question for the readers to answer whether Phoenix is suffering from depression or not. She has now turned into a person with a lot of negative and pessimistic attitude towards life and low self- confidence but just like a little spark there is some amount of positivity in her which encourages her not to think of something drastic and keep a positive attitude. Little but present. So she starts journaling them, her thoughts.
This novel has no plot with many characters and complex relationships between them moving in a flow of a series of events as such which one finds in a novel. This has no proper beginning, middle and end as one finds in a novel or a play. Rather it is about a person’s feelings, emotions, thoughts when she is going through her darkest times, when she is at her lowest. And that is why there is no perfect description of the protagonist, that is there is nothing known about Renee Phoenix’s background, like her age, her family, the place where she lives in or the people she is surrounded by. Because these are not required for this particular work of writing which one finds in any novel. Those readers who are reading this book could place themselves in Phoenix’s position if they are truly going through their lowest and darkest times of their lives and has no one to talk to like Phoenix is suffering from.
The entire book is from the point of view of Phoenix herself. It starts with a feeling, Phoenix’s feeling, of what she is going through and ends with her telling the reason of writing this book and therefore justifying the title in the chapter The Germ and her desire and wish to fly, to be free once again as is told in the Epi(u)logue. The Epilogue is spelled in this way because it contains within itself the name of a real life bird whose name is Piu. The epilogue complements the contents in it and vice-versa. The chapters describe the imagination and thoughts, mostly the dark ones that exist in the mind of Phoenix. Some chapters start on the terrace where she is writing her diary accompanied by her friends, some start in a dark place which exists in Phoenix’s mind, some start and deal with her desires, her wishes which is never going to come true. The chapters deal with her dark thoughts, her desires and wishes, her experiences, sometimes on the terrace, at other times inside her bedroom or a nowhere place, a road or a train compartment. Among these places some exist in real while some are fictitious with symbolism like the train compartment that represents life in general and Phoenix’s life in particular. The room in the Prologue represents Phoenix’s life, her world. The flowers in the chapter My Error and My Constants are not just mere flowers. They represent human beings and also abstract feelings and desires of Phoenix. This book is one such book that one cannot understand by reading it on the surface level. One has to find its deeper meanings by trying to find the symbolisms or their hidden meanings to make it more effectual. Only then readers would feel connected.
From the beginning to the end, the book is presented from the point of view of and narrated by Phoenix. At times she is directly addressing to the readers, then suddenly she starts having a conversation with the other characters present in the book, from one situation (one character) to another situation (to another character), sometimes the scene shifts from an enclosed room to the terrace which indicates Phoenix’s broken thoughts, disrupted mind, sometimes she talks about her fondness for food and then her dance, then again she repeats her thoughts as if she is not aware of them which represents her disturbed state of mind. We see her disoriented thoughts because she writes in her diary whatever comes to her mind, in a flow. She is journaling and simultaneously conversing with her friends. Phoenix has a lot to say but no one to listen. So to Ash, her friend (a character that represents Phoenix’s inner voice and ash is that thing from where the mythical bird Phoenix rises after death, symbolising rebirth), she starts expressing everything that she wants to express without any inhibition. One moment she describes in fiction and the next moment she brings back the readers to the reality. Sometimes she paints her imagination, the world in her mind and makes the readers believe that she is practically going through them (symbolically presented) and the next moment she makes us realize that she is writing a diary and is having a conversation with her friend(s) or she is talking alone with herself and writing down her thoughts.
Suddenly she starts describing her past and her past conversations. In this sense this book could come close to the stream of consciousness technique (may be not proper stream of consciousness technique, rather a scaled down version, for that is what I believe.) At times the readers might get confused about the point of view or struggle to understand to whom is Phoenix addressing? Is it the reader? Or is it the character?
While having a conversation with the other characters, Phoenix is also writing her diary. She is conversing with the characters and writing down their conversation and as well as those that are not a part of their conversation. There are times when she also mentions that she is actually writing and is very fond of writing her thoughts because that helps her lessen the
pressure, the darkness, the storm that exists in her mind. Writing is like talking to a person for Renee Phoenix. Writing is a therapy for Phoenix.
This novel, from the beginning to the end is replete with symbols, simile, metaphors and personification. The names, the events, the situations all are filled with metaphors and symbolism, that is they say something but represent something else. The story has two characters whose names have been created through the use of anagrams—Wipoll and Ed. Many names have been taken from the gods of Greek mythology and given human attributes because their names have helped me, that is the author, to express my feelings, my emotions in a better way. The names refer to only human beings made of flesh and blood and not the Gods—
Eos (Goddess of Dawn ; in the book a human being that represents light and a new morning that I can no longer find in My / Author’s own life)
Apollo (the Sun God; in the book a human being that represents light)
Erebus (Greek God of Darkness ; Author is drowning in darkness, a negative energy, a blockage is surrounding me, in the book, a human).
Ceres (Goddess of agriculture ; Represents an individual of my life)
Hestia (Goddess of hearth ; Represents an individual of my life)
Libertas (Goddess of Liberty ; I / Author is searching for my own freedom, my liberty which I have still not found yet)
These are names of human beings in this book that represent their features providing further meaning to the work. And by no means do they represent the Gods. So in essence, the names, the situations, and the events all are symbolic. But there are also many events that have actually occurred in real life and they have been taken from the real life as it is, some conversations have been taken from the real life as it is but there are also certain events, situations, conversations that has no connection with reality. They are simply my, that is the author’s imagination. I have used both fiction and non-fiction to express my feelings, my thoughts. This book also has many letters. And so this novel can be called a Confessional piece of work, or a Realist Fiction or a novel in the form of a diary or partly a Memoir in epistolary form.
Through this book I want to express my unsaid, unheard, suppressed and repressed words in such a way so that those readers who are also going through some tough times in their life can relate with me and I can relate with them. I want to feel connected with those readers who have no one to talk to in their life and this novel, no matter how little, or how insignificant the effect be, can provide a safe place for those readers, assuring them that they are not alone, assuring myself that I am not alone. This novel is my therapy. Writing is my therapy.
#Definition of Confessional writing
- Confessional writing usually involves the disclosure of personal revelations and secrets, often in first-person, non-fiction forms such as diaries and memoirs.[2] Confessional writing often employs colloquial speech and direct language to invoke an immediacy between reader and author. Confessional writers also utilise this direct language to radically reduce the distance between the speaker-persona of a text and the writer’s personal voice.[7] Confessional writing can also be fictive, such as in the hybrid form of the roman à clef. (From Wikipedia)
- Confessional writing is often non-fictive and delivered in direct, first-person Confessional writing usually involves the divulging and discussion of ‘shameful matters’,[25] including personal secrets and controversial perspectives in forms such as autobiography, diary, memoir, and also epistolary narratives.[26][2] Confessional writing often involves emotions such as shame, fear of ostracism, social discomfort, and disorder;[27] as well as empowerment, self- expression, and liberation.[23] Confessional Writing thus also may serve as a literary ‘therapeutic outlet.’ (From Wikipedia)
- Confession, in literature, an autobiography, either real or fictitious, in which intimate and hidden details of the subject’s life are revealed. (From Britannica)
My book, The Girl in the Abyss has all the features that are highlighted in red in the above definition of a Confessional piece of writing.