fiction | Marie Marshall

June 1, 2014

#amwriting

From My Cold, Undead Hand reached an exciting stage today, as I received the manuscript back from its first professional edit. Progress continues on the sequel, KWIREBOY vs VAMPIRE. In other news, I have just finished two short stories – ‘The Warlock’s Hat’ and ‘Gravity’ – as entries for the William Soutar Writing Prize. They have two entirely different settings, Dundee and South Africa, and are written in two entirely different styles. Let’s see how they fare. And I have written to the Ivan Franko National University of L’viv in the Ukraine, asking if I may have access to more of Vera Rich’s neglected translations. Watch this space.

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May 28, 2014

Vampires lurk in a future NY, murderers lurk in the Bayous…

I hesitated to share some of Millie Ho’s preliminary work on the graphic version of From My Cold, Undead Hand, featuring teenage vampire-hunter Chevonne Kusnetsov, because this is as far as we got with the project. It would be doable if we both had unlimited time and no other projects on the go. However, I agreed with Millie when she said that she should concentrate on her own immediate work, and I promptly took my cue from that and dived back into my own. Nevertheless, you’ll all be pleased to know that she has agreed to produce the cover for the text and e-versions of the novel.

Meanwhile the editing process has begun. The manuscript is with my publisher’s editor, and his eagle eye has already found an obvious typo on the first page! Chevonne is surprised at that, as you can see, but it shows that the process works. I can recommend it to any fellow authors who are thinking of submitting a manuscript, by the way. It might be costly without a publishing deal, but your submission will be more polished.

Another ‘meanwhile’ – I am busy writing the sequel, provisionally titled KWIREBOY vs VAMPIRE, upper case deliberate. I know where it starts – it starts with a 1960s-style beach party for vampire surfers. I know where it ends – in a devastated DC in the depths of a dark nuclear winter. I know a lot of the middle – blood is drunk, flesh is eaten, there is madness, there is a death cult, there is good, clean fun. How the story weaves from place to place is up to my characters. I allow them to live. Well, apart from the vampires who aren’t really ‘alive’ as such, but you know what I mean.

Watch this space, then, for more vampiric newsgrabs. It’ll be totally swagger!

Yet another ‘meanwhile’. Watch out for Hagridden, a novel set at the periphery of the American Civil War – a dangerous and murderous place to be, where escape from the battle does not necessarily mean an escape from the killing. It’s written by Sam Snoek-Brown, whom regular visitors to this web site will know is a contemporary American author whose writing I admire. There’s not long to wait for this novel, as it is due for launch in August of this year. Reminders here and here.

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May 1, 2014

Robin Hood and the Bishop of Hereford

Robin Hood and the Bishop of Hereford,

A story for May Day *

It happened that on the first day of May the Lord Bishop of Hereford was riding through the Great Greenwood that once covered most of England, on his way from the Abbey of St Hilda in Whitby to his own city of Hereford. Against the advice of the Abbot of Whitby, he was riding alone, for the Bishop was a man of great stature and courage and feared no man. “Besides,” he had said to the abbot, “who would waylay a man of the Church?”

As the Lord Bishop rode through the forest, looking around at the fresh, spring leaves on the oaks, the ashes, and the bonny rowans, and listening to the chaffinches giving their celebratory spring call and the jays laughing at them from deep in the trees, he too was filled with joy, and broke into a chant, in the manner of St Gregory.

“Te Deum laudamus,” he sang, in his great baritone. “Te Dominum confitemur…” and the birds seemed to increase their trilling and laughing in friendly rivalry with him. Here, where the forest was at its deepest and greenest, and the track wound in between the oak boles, he felt was a place of goodness, where no harm could come to anyone, and if anywhere was a remnant of the blessed Garden of Eden, then this corner of England was it.

“Hold!” cried a voice, of a sudden. The Bishop broke off his song, looked down, and saw that he was surrounded by men in Lincoln Green, one of whom – a bold, smiling villain in a feathered cap – held fast his palfrey’s bridle. All brandished stout longbows with arrows nocked, some of which were pointed at him.

“Who are you men who roughly and rudely interrupt my praises to the Almighty, prevent my travel, and disturb this blessed Spring day?” cried the Bishop. “And especially, who art thou, grinning in thy beard? Yes, thou, the knave with the pheasant’s tail in his bonnet, who hast laid hands on my horse.”

This man, who appeared to be the leader of the troop, let go of the bridle, showed the palm of his hand to be clear of it.

“Upon your parole, then, my Lord Bishop,” he said. Then, sweeping his cap from his head, he bowed low and made a respectful leg to the prelate. “I am known in these parts as Robin Hood, and these honest churls, on whose behalf I beg your pardon for the interruption to your journey, are my friends and fellow Foresters. We collect the toll from travellers who pass this way.”

“Never let it be said that I refused to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s,” said the Bishop. “How much is the toll?”

“Half of all you carry,” said Robin, “and an hour or so of your time to dine with us.”

The Bishop’s eyes opened wide. “I am a humble priest!” he protested, “but even half of what I carry is too much to ask, surely?”

“Your fine garments, your riding-horse, the ring on your finger, and the heavy pouch at your belt would all say that you are far from humble, My Lord Bishop. Besides, it is much less of an impost than some of my men here have had to pay, having lost all they ever possessed.”

Now the Bishop, large and fearless though he was and capable of standing a round of buffets with any man, was kindly at heart. He had heard of how the outlaws of Sherwood, once they had sufficient to keep themselves fed, would distribute the bulk of their pelf to the poor, and he himself was cognizant of the virtue of St Martin. He recalled the story of how the saint, while still a soldier and a worldly man, had freely cut his paenula in two and given half to a shivering beggar who – as it was revealed to him in a dream – was Christ in disguise. Well, the man with the feathered cap was no Christ, any more than the others of the green-clad band were Apostles, so the Bishop was of a mind to have some sport with them.

“I doubt me, Sirrah, that thou art truly Robin Hood,” he said. “And if thou art not, what is to prevent another band of robbers stopping me a mile hence with their own claim to be the Merry Men of Sherwood, then another band a mile further, then another and another, each taking half, until I am left with a groat, half a cassock, half a cloak, and one shoe? I hear that Robin Hood and his followers are great archers. Lend me for one minute one of your longbows – let it be the worst you have – and I shall loose an arrow, shooting it as far as I can. If you can shoot further, and thou, Feathered-Cap Esquire, furthest, then I shall acknowledge that I am indeed in the presence of Robin Hood and his men, and I shall pay the forest-toll.”

With these words the Bishop leapt down from his horse and took hold of the bow of Much the Miller’s son, nocked an arrow to it, drew it, and let fly. The arrow’s flight was long, and it landed in a field beyond the trees. The Bishop handed the bow back to Much, who nocked a second arrow, drew back the bowstring, and with a grunt of effort shot it into the same field, but a little further than the Bishop’s. The Bishop clapped his hands.

“Excellent bowmanship for such a young lad!” he exclaimed, and then pointed at Will Scatlock. “Now this fellow!”

Will drew back his bowstring and shot an arrow into the next field, to the Bishop’s delight. Each of the band had his turn, each shooting further and further, until it was the turn of the tall, powerful John Little. With his mighty arms he drew back his bow and loosed an arrow that went two fields further than the last man’s.

“Thou giant!” cried the Bishop, even though he was of a height with John Little. “I’ll wager no one can best that!”

Robin Hood stepped forward. He was no match for his great lieutenant in height and strength, but his skill was such that he knew well how to make the most of a longbow. He took his bow, nocked an arrow, drew, elevated the bow with exactness and, having waited for the wind to die a little, let fly. The arrow went a prodigious distance and landed one field further than John Little’s. The Bishop clapped and cheered, and then bowed to Robin, addressing him politely.

“You are indeed Robin Hood!” he said. “That I freely acknowledge.”

“Then pay the toll, my Lord Bishop,” said Robin. “That was the wager.” But the Bishop mounted his horse again and raised an eyebrow in a pretence of haughtiness.

“Who is to stop me? All your arrows are spent!”

Robin saw that the Bishop had bettered him, and he threw back his head and laughed. Then he bowed again.

“Well won, Well won! The freedom of the forest track is yours. Pass onwards free of toll, for you have taught us all a lesson today, and that is worth more than any toll.”

But the Bishop did not spur his horse. “I am determined to be magnanimous in victory,” he said. “These lands hereabouts are mine, and the field where the lad’s arrow landed I shall give to him, and it shall be known as ‘Miller’s Field’. The next, where Scatlock’s arrow landed, shall be his and shall be called ‘Will Scatlock’s Field’. And there shall be ‘John Little’s Field’, and ‘Robin’s Field’, and a field for all of you.” And this offer was a true one, because the Bishop was not only a priest but also a great holder of land in his own right, being of the line of one of the Conqueror’s barons.

“Alas,” said Robin, shaking his head, “ this cannot be, for we are outlaws and forbidden to hold land.”

“Some say, however, that you are heir to the Manor of Locksley.”

“Aye, and others that I am the son of the Earl of Huntingdon, and others still that I am a Knight of the Cross of St John. But the law is the law, and we are outside it,” said Robin.

The Bishop dismounted again and clasped Robin’s hand.

“Then your lineage,” he said, smiling, “matters nothing to me. We shall halve the contents of my purse. Now, I believe there was some mention of dining – dare I expect venison?”

Thus the Bishop of Hereford came to feast in Sherwood, and a merry May Day was had by all. The Bishop counted over half of the coins in his purse, as he had promised, and made sure he had at least his fair share of venison. He conversed in Latin with the good Friar Tuck, in French with Demoiselle Marianne who was Norman, and even in Arabic and Greek with ibn Hassan, Robin’s hostage-become-friend. At the end of the feast he went on his way with many a wave and a Pax Vobiscum.

From that day, in all the diocese of Hereford, no church from the Cathedral itself to the lowliest chapel would refuse sanctuary to any man dressed in Lincoln Green; and every May Day was a holiday amongst the outlaws, and in their feasting they never forgot to toast the Bishop of Hereford, the only man ever to get the better of bold Robin Hood.

__________

* In most of the Robin Hood folk-tales, the Bishop of Hereford is portrayed as an enemy of Robin and the outlaws. In this particular tale, which is based on a story I heard from a teacher when I was a little girl, the Bishop is a good character. This tale is retold just for fun, without any pretended literary merit – whoever heard of a folk tale having literary merit, for heaven’s sake!

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April 25, 2014

Taxonomy Domine

dogcat1

It’s funny how my own mind works, never mind anyone else’s. When I was invited to read Michel Foucault’s The Order of Things, basically a study of how our assumptions about the way we think do not depend on a continuous, recognisable rationalism, and that all periods of history have possessed certain underlying epistemological assumptions that determined what was acceptable as, for example, scientific discourse, I didn’t know how many harmonic strings would be plucked in my own mind.

In the Preface to the book, Foucault cites a piece by Jorge Luis Borges in which Borges pretends to have found in ‘a certain Chinese encyclopaedia’ a classification of animals into the following categories:

a) belonging to the Emperor, b) embalmed, c) tame, d) sucking pigs, e) sirens, f) fabulous, g) stray dogs, h) included in the present classification, i) frenzied, j) innumerable, k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, l) et cetera, m) having just broken the water pitcher, n) that from a long way off look like flies.

This taxonomy is, of course, fictitious and there is no such encyclopaedia – totally in keeping for Borges’s love of literary hoaxes, and his ‘magic realism’ – and Foucault knows it is. However that doesn’t stop critics of post-modern thinkers – critics such as Keith Windschuttle – from accusing them of ‘murdering our past’, on the basis that a few lazy post-modern thinkers don’t realise Borges was joking. Hmm… aye, right.

Anyhow, it got me thinking about how we decide to list things. Does the way we define an animal, for example – by phylum, class, order, family, genus, species – have any objective basis, or is it a product of human perception? No-brainer? Well that’s the point! Take the images at the head of this piece. How would you split them up, if you were asked to group together two that were most alike? This isn’t a trick question, there isn’t a right or wrong answer. Maybe before you read the all the foregoing you were already sorting them in your mind. It could have been by biological family (two dogs, one cat), but it could equally have been by mood (two placid, one angry), by direction (two looking right, one left), or by the chromatic value of the images (two monochrome, one coloured). There might be other influencing factors, such as the pre-existing order of the images along the conventional left-to-right reading path, so would there be any difference in your sorting process if I changed the order?

dogcat2

How about size?

dogcat3

Or if I inverted one of the images?

dogcat4

Perhaps if you now went back to the first set of images you would split them up differently. Like I said, there are no right or wrong answers here.

Why do I mention all this? Well it’s because, as a poet and author, I like to play around with meaning, beating the use to which we put words into a new shape which, even though it might be battered by my hammer, makes a reader sit up and take interest. I like to play with perception and challenge what we think we see. Some people like to see science as the final frontier, but for me it’s human consciousness, our perception, and the shifting ground on which it stands. Yes, there is an objective reality out there – let’s face it, we have to move beyond solipsism to be able to survive – but it ain’t necessarily what we think it is. Maybe not, anyhow.

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March 26, 2014

Order ‘The Everywhen Angels’ at Waterstones

Readers in the UK can now order a copy of The Everywhen Angels at their local Waterstones. It might not be on the shelves, so ask at the desk and they will get it in for you. My first novel Lupa can also be ordered from there.

I’m always interested to see reviews on Goodreads and Amazon, should you wish to volunteer one. However if you don’t have the time to write a review, please feel free to drop me an email or a comment below – a line of appreciation or recommendation from a reader is always welcome.

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March 17, 2014

Baal, Yamm, and Anath

Embedded in The Everywhen Angels is this tale, handed down from ancient Canaan; it is told by a Romany patriarch to a gorjo boy, as his wife paints a henna tattoo on the boy’s arm.
__________

Far away in the land of Canaan, many years ago, beyond the city of Ugarit, where they sang psalms to the creator El long before the Children of Israel came and stole not only their land but their psalms too, there stood a mountain. The mountain’s name was Zaphon, and it was the home of the great god Baal, son of Dagon, called ‘Lord of Thunder’, ‘Almighty’, ‘Rider of the Clouds’, ‘Lord over the Earth’. Some folk called Baal by the name of Hadad. Baal was never still – he could never rest – and thunder could be heard daily from Mount Zaphon, and flashes of lightning played around its summit.

From the summit of Mount Zaphon, where he ceaselessly paced to and fro, Baal could see the Mediterranean ocean, home of the god Yamm. Baal became angry. His kingdom now felt small, because he could see its boundaries. And in his anger he called out to Yamm, insulting him continually in his loud voice, hurling thunderbolts and making great winds, so that Yamm’s kingdom was constantly in turmoil, tossing this way and that in the storms and winds that Baal sent.

“Come out and fight me, Yamm, you coward!” shouted Baal, in a voice that echoed in a peal of thunder so loud it was heard beyond the southern border of Canaan. “Stop skulking in your slimy kingdom. Show yourself!”

And at last Yamm came up from the sea, his dark face rising like a tidal wave, and he set his great, green foot upon the shore, upon Baal’s kingdom. And he shouted back to Baal in a voice like the crashing of breakers against the cliffs.

“Here I stand, you blustering bully! Are you nothing but noise? I challenge you! Who’s the coward now?”

Baal saw that Yamm was indeed mighty, a great enemy, strong and fearsome. Baal himself was no coward, but he was very cunning, and so he went to Kothar, the blacksmith god, skilled in making any object a god could need. He asked Kothar to make him mighty weapons with which to fight Yamm. Kothar took all the metal that lay under the ground between Mount Zaphon in the West, and the Indus river in the East, and he worked it into a great, bronze sword. And he scooped up a huge piece of the Earth and made it into a stout shield; and the hole it left became the Sea of Galilee.

Armed with the sword and shield, Baal charged at Yamm. The battle between these two gods lasted twelve whole years, during which time there were such thunderstorms and tides as had never been seen in the Mediterranean*. Baal pushed at Yamm with his shield, and battered at him with his sword; and with every push of the shield and stroke of the sword there was a huge peal of thunder and flash of lightning. Yamm whipped Baal with waterspouts and showers of stinging rain and hail.

In the city of Ugarit, and throughout Canaan, the poor people cowered in their houses, only coming out when the two rival gods paused between rounds.

Eventually Yamm began to gain the upper hand, and roared with delight, beating Baal further and further back inland. One lash with a mighty waterspout was enough to send Baal’s shield spinning from his hand, to land on its edge in the sea, where it became the island of Cyprus.

By this time even the gods themselves had come to watch the battle, betting upon the outcome. The sun goddess, Shapash, was the only one to bet on Baal, and secretly warmed and dried him with her rays. Baal, who as you know was cunning, devised a plan to escape defeat. He waited until the sun goddess’s kindly gaze was on him and then angled his mighty, bronze sword so that it reflected the sunlight right into Yamm’s eyes. Yamm was dazzled and blinded, and Baal started to belabour him with the flat of his sword, raining blow after blow down upon the sea god, until he was beaten, and the sea became calm and still.

Now Baal had a wife who was also his sister. Do not ask me how this can be, but such things were possible with the gods of Canaan. Not only was Anath his sister and his wife, but she was forever a virgin. She was greatly loved by all the gods, and she took Baal by the hand and led him to see El, the creator, to whom all psalms were sung. There she told him that the reason Baal paced to and fro on Mount Zaphon was that he had no house to live in. If El would give permission for Baal to have a house built, then all Canaan would be a place of peace. El readily gave his permission.

Anath asked Kothar for help, calling to him sweetly, using the pet name she had for him. “O Hasis the Skilful, Hasis the Wise, make a house for my brother-husband Baal and me, in which we can live peacefully.”

Kothar built a house for Baal on top of Mount Zaphon, and Baal was pleased. For a while all Canaan was at peace, the sun shone, and the gods dozed. Even Yamm forgot his quarrel with Baal, and visited him in his house. At such times the summit of Mount Zaphon was wreathed in mist.

One day Baal invited all the gods to a great feast. Yamm was there, and El the creator as the guest of honour. Shapash and Kothar sat together, and even Yutpan the deceitful had a place. The only god not to be invited was Mot, the god of death. When he heard about the feast, he strode up Mount Zaphon in a rage, and pounded so hard on the door of Baal’s house that the food and drink was shaken off the tables.

Mot burst into the house and cursed and ranted at Baal for the insult of not inviting him. Baal was so enraged at this that he forgot he was supposed to be living a peaceful life. He sprang to his feet, seized the sword that he had used to defeat Yamm, and rushed at Mot.

Their duel was a terrible sight. Even the mighty gods fled from Mount Zaphon, as Baal and Mot reduced the lovely house to rubble in their raging. But even the mighty Baal could not defeat Death, and Mot eventually swallowed up Baal, and spat him out on the mountain top, dead and cold.

While the gods debated amongst themselves who could take Baal’s place, Anath mourned for him. Not only did she mourn as a sister and a wife, but also as a mother and a daughter would, for she was all things to Baal. She wandered through Canaan looking for Baal’s body, and when she found it, she buried it and wept over his grave. But her tears, at first cool and sorrowful, turned to drops of fire, and became a rage such as creation had never seen. She turned and ran and ran until she came to Mot, flinging herself upon him in a murderous frenzy. Struggle as he might, Mot found he was no match for Anath, because as she had mourned Baal as a sister, a wife, a mother, and a daughter, she had become four goddesses in one. In her wrath she killed Mot, ground his body to powder, and scattered it over land and sea.

Then she took the place of Baal on top of Mount Zaphon, where she ruled for many years, no longer as Anath the gentle and beloved of the gods, but as the goddess of slaughter, whom some called Ashtoreth, with a hideous aspect.

Many lives of men and women passed. One night El, the creator, dreamed a dream, in which Baal and Mot were alive and stood before him. What El dreams always comes to pass, and so when he awoke, there before him stood Baal and Mot, restored to life. He charged them solemnly each to keep to his own kingdom, and not to fight any more. They bowed low to him and gave him their promise.

When Anath saw Baal coming again to Mount Zaphon, her heart was softened, and her face became beautiful once more. She painted herself with a dye made from her sacred plant, which she called Mehendi, making the beautiful patterns on her face and limbs, which brides do to this very day in India, and in Mesopotamia, and in all parts of Arabia.

And Baal and Anath lived in peace and happiness ever after. Some say that when the One God came they faded away. Others say they still live on top of Mount Zaphon, but now as an old man and an old woman, and have retired from being gods.

But one thing I know is this: Anath’s sacred plant, Mehendi, which we call Henna, still grows.
__________

* Yes, I know, I know!

February 23, 2014

Fearie Tales 2014

Last night, battling my agoraphobia, I made it for the first time to the final event of the 2014 Winter Words literary festival at Pitlochry Festival Theatre. This festival is the first in Scotland’s literary calendar, and each of five weekend evenings is rounded off with a couple of macabre short stories – winners of their annual ‘Fearie Tales’ competition. I made a point of being there because my short story Da Trow i’ da Waa – a chiller set in Shetland – was the climax of the evening, sending festival-goers away until next year with a shiver in their spines.

The regular readers are actors (man-in-black) Dougal Lee and (woman-in-grey) Helen Logan. Dougal is a big guy, and sometimes at a tense moment he seems to hunch over his lectern, and glower at the audience over his specs. Helen, who read my story, has eyes that glitter, and a grin of delight at every ghoulish detail.

Although I say it myself, I’ve had a pretty good run at ‘Fearie Tales’, and I’m not about to stop, either. I dare say I’ll submit entries as long as they run the contest. Here’s a run-down of my successful entires so far – might as well blow my trumpet a bit!

2008 – Chagrin – and old man remembering a demon lover.
2009 – Vae Victis – horror at Rome’s northernmost outpost.
2010 – The Place of Safety – a tale of love, magic, and insanity.
2013 – On the Platform – a haunted railway station.
2014 – Da Trow i’ da Waa – old stones possessed.

The festival has some marvellous speakers and events, judging by the programme. Both the competition and the festival as a whole are well worth supporting and visiting if you can.

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February 21, 2014

… a little touch of Branwell in the night…

I write in manic fits and starts. Not for me the discipline of a clock-timed hour set aside in the day, so don’t even suggest it. You will be familiar with my writing technique which is to ‘have an idea and throw words at it’ to see whether they stick. Often what results is a fragment that is laid aside. Sometimes I pick it up again and finish it (‘Lupa’ was written like that, as was ‘The Everywhen Angels’), at other times it lies unfinished. I throw none of them away, and I have several such works-under-scaffold that I’m concerned with right now, to a greater or lesser extent. The other day I found something I had started, fictionalising the life of Branwell Brontë, the under-sung brother of famous sisters. Here is an extract from it.
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Branwell Bronte self-portrait 2 “Would you forgive me if I loved anyone else?” I said as I lay with my head on Emily’s lap, she stroking my hair as though to straighten my curls. She laughed. I remember this well, I remember this with extraordinary clarity, better than I remember last night’s company or this morning’s desultory breakfast.

“I would be delighted if the Grand Prince of Angria found and married his one true love.”

“Say rather the Pretender! Say rather the Desdichado, the dark Prince disinherited and lost who has come back to fight for his kingdom, to take it back, to wrest it from the usurper. Say rather the revolutionary leader who will seize power in the name of the Commoner and rule justly and grant freedom.”

“Oui mon brave Napoléon, mon Empéreur!” That would have scandalized Papa.

“We should have been twins, thou and I,” I said, turning to look at her, making her pause in her stroking and poise her hand in mid-air – oh how I wished to paint her at that moment. We thou’d and thee’d each other often, like Yorkshire folk, like Walloons, like Quakers more. “Thou, my secret twin, Princess of Gondal in white satin embroidered with golden thread; for I am thee and thou art I.”

“We are one person, but one.” Our catechism, our sacred liturgy. Emily’s response was accompanied by a laugh. At that moment Bounce came into the room. We never called Charlotte ‘Bounce’ to her face, but often referred to her by that soubriquet in secret.

“Idling again?” This from Bounce, her hands upon her hips; but she wasn’t angry. She was the Grand Marshall of Angria, and even though she was not of the Blood Royal she governed as a Vizier might, directing our policy at home and our imperial adventures. She and I used to write together, but that stopped. Then I wrote with Emily, but that stopped. It all seems to have passed in the space of a week. All my life. Everything.

I am an Englishman and a Yorkshireman by birth and by breeding-up, yet on the stage I am always Michael Murphy, a broth of a boy bejabers, showing all the flash and dash of my Celtic blood and heritage, Cornish-Irish. I longed to see a dagger before me, to read words, words, words, to see a light from yonder window; I would have hunted the badger by owl light, or, if levity was wanted, I would have taken a part of Sheridan’s or Goldsmith’s. My best was – once – Shakespeare’s MacMorris and – once – indeed Sheridan’s Sir Lucius O’Trigger, and I was even banished from those roles when the Producer saw me silently mouthing the Principals’ lines. My rest was low pantomime, low comedia, come-soon-and-forgot-soon nonsense in which I was obliged to grey my whiskers, knuckle my forehead and give out, “Good luck to Your Honour, and will Your Honour be after wanting ‘tay’?” and very little else. The shambling servant or the bully with his Wicklow blackthorn. Thank God that Papa never saw me in such roles. It was his voice that I took and exaggerated, the voice in which he preached his sermons and, once a year, asked for a collection to be made for the poor of Ireland…

… Papa was never proud of me, even on the day when I rode into battle for him, as it were. I pushed my way through the crowd of people to get to him. He was elevated above them, at the hustings, speaking, his usual Tory nonsense. No matter, he was sincere and deserved respect, and that was what he was not getting from the crowd. There were interruptions, insults. I mounted behind him and then pushed my way to the front. I told them he was an honourable man. I told them they knew him to be honest and honourable, and that they should hear him. Even if they disagreed they should hear him out and let him speak the truth as he perceived it.

“Oho. We’ve had Patrick O’Brunty and now we’re to have Branty Fitzpatrick… What a fine dish of potatoes… Get dahn, tha Irish puppy!”

I told them I was born and bred and Englishman, a Yorkshireman like them.

“Mim, mim, mim! Harken ter thasen! Airs and graces nah, is it… Sure and begob Oi’m after bein’ an Englishman at all… Being born in an oven does not make you a biscuit… I owe thee fer a blow or two at the boxin’!”

Someone threw a stone which hit my left cheek and stung like a wasp. I began to feel cold, my mouth was shut fast, my fists were clenched and I was about to leap amongst them and do murder. Hands, probably Papa’s, maybe someone else’s as well, pulled me down, back. Later Papa was ungracious: “I acknowledge your intentions, Branwell, but I fear you made the situation worse, much worse than it already was,” were his words. That night a bonfire was lit in Haworth, and a Guido placed upon it, a potato in one hand and a herring in the other, a piece of card around its neck saying ‘Branwell O’Prunty, the Fighting Irishman’. Murder. Revenge. Shame, hot tears in my pillow more like, as I murdered the pillow – “Englishman!” with a punch, “Yorkshireman!” with a punch. Emily’s hand on my shoulder quieted me. Emily’s, not Charlotte’s. I remember. I remember her scent, her voice…
__________

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February 10, 2014

Something ghostly from Shetland…

Da Trow i' da Waa

… is coming to Pitlochry on 22nd February, in the shape of my short story Da Trow i’ da Waa. It will be rounding off the prizewinning stories of this year’s ‘Fearie Tales’ competition at the Winter Words literary festival – the first of Scotland’s literary season – at the Pitlochry Festival Theatre. ‘Trow’ is a word which has survived from Shetland’s Nordic past into its modern tongue (which is maybe less than a language, maybe more than a dialect, not unlike Lowland Scots), and it is roughly equivalent to the Scandinavian ‘troll’. My story is all about what happens to an author with writer’s block, who takes a cottage on the remote island of Yell, in Scotland’s most northerly archipelago.

The story will be read to an audience by Scottish actor Helen Logan. Just checking out the events for the rest of the Festival week, you could say I was on the same bill as Sir Chris Bonington, Mike McCartney, Sally Magnusson, and Neil Oliver! Here you can watch a short video about the festival and the venue.

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January 22, 2014

Comic books, cultural catastrophes, and juggled balls.

All images shown under ‘fair use’ provisions.
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I own only one graphic novel, Alan Moore’s V For Vendetta. Of course I do – why wouldn’t I own a book in which an anarchist superhero goes mano a mano with a fascist government in Britain? I notice that Alan Moore distanced himself from the film version, exciting though that was (and it starred the wonderful Hugo Weaving!), saying that it had been ‘turned into a Bush-era parable by people too timid to set a political satire in their own country’. Having read the script, he said,

“It’s a thwarted and frustrated and largely impotent American liberal fantasy of someone with American liberal values standing up against a state run by neoconservatives – which is not what the comic V for Vendetta was about. It was about fascism, it was about anarchy, it was about England.”

If this does nothing else, it points up the difficulty in adapting a work of art in one medium for another. Perhaps the greatest irony about both the graphic novel and the film of V For Vendetta, is that whilst the Guy Fawkes mask of the protagonist has become instantly recognized worldwide as a symbol of radical protest, it must be making a pretty good profit for someone.

I own three DVDs that are adaptations of graphic novels or comics (if you don’t count assorted Batman flicks in the back of the drawer). These are 300, based on Frank Miller’s and Lynn Varley’s fictionalization of the Battle of Thermopylae, and Kick Ass and Kick Ass 2, based on the comics of Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.

Kick Ass is fun. It came in for a lot of abuse on account of the bad language, less for the violence – with the exception of one teenager, no bad guy is left alive by the end of the film. Its killing-spree violence is in the tradition of Peckinpah and Tarantino, subverting the bloodless wrong-righting of The Lone Ranger and Batman. I think people missed the point that it is highly satirical of the superhero genre, and simply spares no effort to de-bunk its ‘zap’ and ‘pow’ fisticuffs. It is, as the cover of the comic book says ‘Sickening violence, just the way you like it’, signaling that it does not take itself seriously and shouldn’t be taken too seriously by readers and movie-goers. The satire of the film is taken further by the character Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) adopting the phrasing of Adam West, one of the film’s Batman references along with the parting Jack Nicholson quote from Chris D’Amico (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) “Wait till they get a load of me”, and Hit-Girl’s (Chloë Grace Moretz) “Just contact the mayor’s office. He’s got this giant light he shines in the sky. It’s in the shape of a giant cock” (the bird! the bird! Omnia munda mundis!).

Alan Moore is, I guess, entitled to take pot shots at the genre from his position as an insider. If anyone knows the genre he does. In his latest diatribe, possibly his public farewell, he not only curses the modern craze for superheroes, but also tackles such issues as the depiction of rape, and the right of an author to use characters of a different race, class, or gender from his or her own. Specifically on superheroes he says:

“To my mind, this embracing of what were unambiguously children’s characters at their mid-20th century inception seems to indicate a retreat from the admittedly overwhelming complexities of modern existence. It looks to me very much like a significant section of the public, having given up on attempting to understand the reality they are actually living in, have instead reasoned that they might at least be able to comprehend the sprawling, meaningless, but at-least-still-finite ‘universes’ presented by DC or Marvel Comics. I would also observe that it is, potentially, culturally catastrophic to have the ephemera of a previous century squatting possessively on the cultural stage and refusing to allow this surely unprecedented era to develop a culture of its own, relevant and sufficient to its times.“

Angels Amazon cover Having fallen almost by accident into writing for young adults, I find myself skirting superhero territory. The teenagers in my novel The Everywhen Angels have powers that they don’t quite understand, and the protagonist in my recently-completed teen-vampire novella, From My Cold, Undead Hand, is a girl who has been trained to hunt and destroy vampires. Consciously or unconsciously, however, I seem to have made these characters break a mould, or break out of a strait-jacket. Unlike traditional heroes, they don’t necessarily win, they don’t necessarily triumph over a force bigger than they are, their tales do not have a clear resolution where all is explained in a neat and tidy way. Good does not necessarily triumph over evil, and where it does it may well be by accident rather than design. Why?

I guess it is because so many action adventures in any medium, where makers justify their violence in terms of the triumph of good over evil, are little more than morality plays and wish-fulfillment fantasies. If I’m to get readers close to the characters, and the characters close to the danger, everyone is going to have to realise that kids don’t get to be kings and queens of Narnia, and they do get to screw up. I mention all this because one of the balls I’m currently juggling is scripting From My Cold, Undead Hand for adaptation into a graphic novel. It isn’t all that easy. As I was writing it I never had anything in my mind apart from painting pictures with text. In order to script it, I have to take a huge step back, almost throw out the entire manuscript, and re-tell the story a totally different way. I have to imagine how it might look on the page. Take the following note I have made about the initial image:

Exceptionally, this should be a full-page picture, opening on the right-hand page. Chevonne is striding towards us, sword strapped to her back, carbon-pistol in her hand. Her face is rather grim and determined. The angle is fairly low – we’re slightly looking up at her. She’s striding between the stacks of a library. Text in a rectangular box, or maybe two, says something like: ‘The time is a little way into the future. This is Chevonne Kustnetsov – by day a student at PS#401, New York, by night a vampire hunter. Here she is, pursuing a vampire through the University Club Library, tracking it down to destroy it…’ Perhaps change that to 1st person speech, as the text novel is in 1st. Maybe not. We can take that final decision later.

Compare that with the opening paragraph of the novella:

There’s an art to this. When a vamp de-korps I only have a split second to guess where it’s going to re-korp. This one’s tricky, clever, powerful. As I just beaded my carbon-gat at it, it blew into a thousand-thousand little bits in front of me. Thought it could fool me, but that de-korp happened too quick to be the result of my bullet.

In that opening there is no detail of who the character is, where she is, or when the story is set. Such detail is revealed within the text when it needs to be – her school, for example, is not referred to until the second chapter, and the time in which the story is set is implied by things such as the technology depicted. You can easily see that this is a total departure for me. It’s quite a challenge and I think I’ll have to put other projects on hold while I tackle it. But you know me – I’m liable to pick up and put down my writing projects in a rather haphazard way. Wish me luck.

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Category: fiction