In 1974, English songwriter Nick Lowe wrote and performed it. Soon Elvis Costello covered the song like he owned it. And I like both versions of Peace, Love and Understanding. Acoustic and electric.
As I walk through
This wicked world
Searchin’ for light in the darkness of insanity
I ask myself
Is all hope lost?
Is there only pain and hatred, and misery?
And each time I feel like this inside
There’s one thing I wanna know:
What’s so funny ’bout peace, love and understanding?
And every time I sit down to write a story there’s one thing I wanna know: What’s so yummy ’bout theme, plot and conflict resolution?
I don’t want those hated forensic words invading my mind right when I have a story in mind. Honestly, I feel polluted by them.
Of all the books I own about the process of writing I keep going back to one over and over. After Flannery O’Connor’s death from lupus at the age of 39 some of her previously published essays and lectures were collected in Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose. It is a treasure trove. The mother lode. A window opening on the mind of a genius.
Her chapter, “Writing Short Stories,” is a recap of a lecture delivered at a Southern Writer’s Conference, so she was preaching to the choir. Every word stands out. In its clarion pitch Flannery’s “voice” bears unmistakable authority.
“People talk about the theme of a story as if the theme were like the string that a sack of chicken feed is tied with. They think that if you can pick out the theme, the way you pick the right thread in the chicken feed sack, you can rip the story open and feed the chickens. But this is not the way meaning works in fiction…When you can state the theme of a story, when you can separate it from the story itself, then you can be sure the story is not a very good one.
“I feel that discussing story-writing in terms of plot, character, and theme is like trying to describe the expression on a face by saying where the eyes, nose, and mouth are.
“Of course, the ability to create life with words is essentially a gift. If you have it in the first place, you can develop it; if you don’t have it, you might as well forget it.
“After all, you begin to hear and tell stories when you’re a child, and there doesn’t seem to be anything very complicated about it.”
And that is only a sample.
To think there is a movement to “cancel” her now. But I’m afraid there is no way to cancel Flannery O’Connor. She is too inimitable. She is too irreplaceable. She is too valuable to every new generation of aspiring writers.
So. What’s so funny ’bout peace, love and understanding?