September Reading

Thought I might do a quick review of what I've been reading this month - if for no other reason than keeping it clear in my own head. I already mentioned the Elric novels so that was a big portion of it.

The other big one was Robert Chamber's The King in Yellow. I got this from the University of Adelaide ebook site as it was mentioned in terms of Weird fiction and having influenced HP Lovecraft. It was weird all right but not always in the sense of the supernatural genre.

It's a collection of short stories, the first four of which make reference to a fictional play, the eponymous King in Yellow. This play is so artistically wrought that anyone who reads it, or at least the second act, is mentally disturbed by it or downright insane. This concept Lovecraft liked and he referenced the play or the places mentioned in it a few times. He also liked some of Chamber's style at times.

The rest of the stories in the book, which make up the other two-thirds or so, have nothing to do with The King in Yellow or Weird fiction whatsoever. They are predominantly romances about naive American art students in Paris. One of them, The Street of the Four Winds, was absolutely brilliant though. It wasn't about a student but was set in Paris. It's a simple tale of a man who is kind to a stray cat and tells him something of his history. The coincidence at the story's heart will break the reader's own, at least it did mine.

I confess the concept of a play so powerful it affects people's psyches to the point of madness did rather rub the bells of synchronicity. I've been thinking about Artaud's Alchemical Theatre and the role of theatre to create a reality beyond our own mundane existence. The 'liminal' space and the greater truths of myth and story than everyday banality. Anyway, somewhere in that idea is my Masters thesis, one day.

The other things I've read, in full, are W W Jacob's The Monkey's Paw and some Lovecraft shorts. The former is a classic of the Weird too, and I believe Lovecraft thought it such as well. It works on the premise of less is more, terror over horror, suggestion over detail. And it works well. Reminiscent of a Buffy episode too, I suspect it was involved somewhere.

The Lovecraft were Pickman's Model and The Shadow Out of Time. The latter is one of his slightly longer works, a whole 76 pages in eight chapters, and is about a man possessed by a mind of a Great One from several epochs before humans evolved and consequently possessed the body of the Great One for a few years. Like In the Mountains of Madness, his longest work I think, it's less gripping than some of his shorter pieces but the atmosphere of dread slowly works a pervasive spell over you and the history of the world and the Great Ones and Elder Gods etc is quite fascinating.

Pickman's story has a more immediate effect, following in the Poe mode of first person 'I know this is unbelievable but it's what happened okay'. The plot itself is quite see-through these days but the descriptions and atmosphere are classic Lovecraft who truly knew the language of nightmare.

Keep dreaming - but not about Great Ones I hope.

The Eternal Ramble - A Haphazard Rave about Elric

I said in a previous post that I might write about the Elric novels I've been reading and to stop myself from debating whether I will or not I am. Many of you will already know something about them even if you've never read them but for those who don't I'll give a quick idea.

Elric is the last emperor of Melnibone, an ancient and decadent empire. He can summon aid from demons and elementals and has a sword of mystical origins which forms a love-hate symbiosis with him. All of this is part of Michael Moorcock's multiverse where Elric becomes just one facet of the Eternal Warrior.

It's epic fantasy but in episodic form. Every novel (of the first five which is all I've read so far) is divided into three and each section is its own story which was published in a slightly different version (or not) in journals. At least that's how they're designed. So the chronology occasionally jumps slightly but the stories do follow one after the other even if some events happen at different points in other characters' lives, by which I mean Corum who pops up twice but is actually also the Eternal Warrior.

With that in mind I have to say I found Elric less compelling overall than Erekose and Hawkmoon who are two other facets or forms of the Eternal Warrior and whose sagas are told in a continuous flowing story. However the shorter format provides for more variety and interest, and if one story isn't so great there's always the next one.

The format also puts Elric into the tradition of Conan, Solomon Kane and other "pulp" figures (those being Robert E Howard's most famous creations). But this is early 20th century pulp in the mid 20th century, which is to say slightly nuts. You never know when Elric is going to leave his own plane of existence, or time stream. He meets demons, crazed agents of chaos, plenty of women who he has wild sex with, and brave heroes like Rakhir the Red Archer - so named because he's an archer who wears red from head to toe, bright crimson at that.

In all I can see why Elric has such a cult following, but while I enjoyed his stories - and will read Stormbringer, the sixth volume which was the last one till there was a seventh - I'm not as fanatical. It's classic, it's fascinating but it's not world-shattering. I remain a Hawkmoon fan first and foremost; long live the Eternal Warrior ... yes that's a redundant comment, although he does die too, frequently actually.

Keep dreaming!

A Promethean Symphony

So I've been thinking today about my playwrighting and where it's going/hasn't been going. Aside from numerous personal factors, I think one reason so little happened for as long as it didn't, was that I can never seem to produce anything that would be deemed a full-length play. This strictly speaking shouldn't really matter - Samuel Beckett only wrote one, his first. After that his works got shorter and shorter as he tried to produce a pure theatrical image. However, outside festivals of 10-minute plays and the occasional special event of one-act wonders there's little call for shorter works.

But I've also realised I'm not interested in writing a long play. I have stories to tell and theatrical images to attempt, and my style of telling these stories is generally very quick. My longest play actually suffers from its size I think - that and it has a light and a dark side that don't mesh.

What does excite me is an idea I've tossed around in my head a few times but until now never gotten fully into. Basing my works on other structures borrowed from other mediums. I got the idea listening to classical music - well Romantic probably but that's a pedantic argument - and the prevalence of short pieces in collections. Three Sketches; Two Poems for Orchestra, etc. Why not turn a shorter piece of mine into a 'movement' of a greater work?

So comes my idea to write A Promethean Symphony. My first movement is Prometheus Rebooted, an Andante if you will as it does move along fairly slowly and isn't high on the action front. It will be followed by three more movements, I haven't figured out what, based on the general nebulous theme of Promethean/Frankenstonian lore.

I've also come up with the plan to finish part one of the first book of The Scarlet Ring by the end of this month, work on one or two movements of the symphony in October then get into NaNoWriMo before finishing both works over December/January. I should get back to Five-Fingers too ... hold that thought.

Keep dreaming!

Retreat by the River

Just spent a few wonderful days relaxing with my wife on the South Coast. We needed a getaway so we took one. We stayed at Bewong River Retreat which is a series of bungalows right in the bush. It's designed for couples - no kids allowed - and I'd certainly recommend it if you want to get away from the world. It really does feel like you're in the middle of the bush, largely because you are. There are birds aplenty, kangaroos all around and even some wallabies. It's also right on the river.

While there we went for a bit of sightseeing and saw Green Patch, which is just idyllic, and Sanctuary Point. There were many birds and another wallaby but the echidna was the biggest thrill. It was by the side of the road at the end of a National Parks road and was very intent on some tasty ants so didn't mind us at all.

I managed to get some writing done too, adapting an earlier version of a scene in The Scarlet Ring and writing the following scene which I had no idea how it would pan out until I did it. Pretty happy with all that. Finished reading two books too: Michael Moorcock's The Vanishing Tower and ER Eddison's Worm Ouroboros. The former is one of the Elric novels which I'm working my way through, may blog about them later. The Worm however was the ebook I was reading and it's an older fantasy novel written like a chivalric romance. It's quite bizarre in its way and the style of it won't be to everyone's taste but it's well worth reading if you're a fan of fantasy and/or romances (not the modern sort but Arthurian/Charlemagne etc).

Keep dreaming!