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When you're raised on the river, washed in the blood
This is a logical train of thought. It starts with Pamela F. Service's Tomorrow's Magic—the recent omnibus reprint of Winter of Magic's Return (1985) and Tomorrow's Magic (1987)—which I picked up from the bookstore this afternoon and have just begun to re-read. The last time I read the books was age eleven, at the latest; I had remembered the post-apocalyptic Arthuriana, but completely forgotten that it takes place in Wales. This reminds me again that between the Prydain Chronicles, The Dark Is Rising, The Crystal Cave, The Owl Service, the Mushroom Planet books, and Howl's Moving Castle, it's probably some kind of miracle I ever realized that Wales was not in fact synonymous with the otherworld. Time out for a fragmentary, tangential recollection of the dream I had last night, which contained Merlin and Nimue (and someone had stolen my face), which zigzags back to wondering whether magical talent / sensitivity in novels and stories usually is ethnically tied: not to pick on Peter S. Beagle, Julie Tanikawa's ability to summon the goddess Kannon in The Folk of the Air; whether that's orientalism or merely a reasonable expectation that a god will listen most attentively to its traditionally affiliated kin-group; e.g., there are not many goyishe golem stories. I am too tired to draw up a proper list in my head (either for or against) and decide to stare at my bookshelves tomorrow. Nonetheless, the sentence that still resolves at the end of this contemplation is: I totally resent my genetic inability to sing golems into being. It's a good thing I like my brain.
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Interesting dream, that.
which zigzags back to wondering whether magical talent / sensitivity in novels and stories usually is ethnically tied:
Hmm... it does tend to be. At best, it... well, it somehow fits. Seems appropriate. Makes sense.
At worst... it's mock ethnic kitsch, and annoying as Hades on a pogo stick. Except Hades on a pogo stick wouldn't be annoying, he would be rather funny. Sorry, my simile generator is broken the now.
Nonetheless, the sentence that still resolves at the end of this contemplation is: I totally resent my genetic inability to sing golems into being.
It would be nice to be able to do that sort of thing, I suppose. Hmm, for some reason I didn't realise and/or remember that the process of making a golem required singing.
It's a good thing I like my brain.
Indeed.
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No, no. You win at simile. I picture the bouncing Hades with a stonily resigned expression.
Hmm, for some reason I didn't realise and/or remember that the process of making a golem required singing.
I don't think it does. Just if music is traditionally Welsh* and golems are traditionally Ashkenazic? There must be some way to fuse the two.
*Claimed by virtue of last name, despite the fact that I don't think I've had anything resembling ancestors there since the eleventh century . . . Eh. Ireland's also associated with music. I'm way too tired to figure out another combination. It still works.
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Thanks!
I picture the bouncing Hades with a stonily resigned expression.
I picture him with very much such an expression. I wish I could draw.
He'd not be annoying, I suppose, but definitely he'd be annoyed. And I'd feel sorry for whomever had forced him to get on the pogo stick, once he figured out a way to get back at them.
I don't think it does. Just if music is traditionally Welsh* and golems are traditionally Ashkenazic? There must be some way to fuse the two.
Oh, I see what you mean. Sorry about that; I'm tired as well.
It still works.
That it does.
And I rather hope do you find a way of singing them into existence.
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This sounds a lot like the Haiti-Sweden pipeline (this being the construct of an old boss of mine who was a world music buff - apparently there's a lot of musical collaboration going on [or there was] between artists in those countries, and for a while, Voudoun practice was growing rather quickly in the nation in which you would not expect Voudoun to be prevalent).
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See, that's wonderful.
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I think I concluded that otherworlds travel with the travels of people in this world--I think.
Regarding people's interactions with the otherworld(s), I do think strength-of-wanting can make some things happen; it works in this world after all, sometimes (though very definitely not others). If you want to sing a golems into being, and work hard enough at it, I'm sure you will. In fact, I imagine there are quite a few out there already that you've created, and you just aren't aware of where they've gotten to.
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. . . Can I make you write a poem about that? With mixed otherworlds?
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I'm down on my poetry right now. It seems so pedestrian. It's like a squeaky bicycle. (LOL, it seems pedestrian, so I compare it to a vehicle one rides on...) But practice leads to improvement :-)
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Wales isn't as exotic as you probably think. It's very peculiar for me when I meet Americans who think it is the Otherworld and are very surprised to find it's a real modern place with politics and industry and unemployment and more people speaking Gujerati than Welsh.
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I crashed before I read more than another chapter, but I remember liking them. There's a third one now, Yesterday's Magic, which I have not read.
It's very peculiar for me when I meet Americans who think it is the Otherworld and are very surprised to find it's a real modern place with politics and industry and unemployment and more people speaking Gujerati than Welsh.
Maybe they will read your not-Industrial Landscape of Elfland (I don't know what title it settled on), and the shock will not be so great.
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Interesting to read this just as I was researching ghost stories and urban legends from other countries. Ellen Datlow and Nick Mamatas--I think it was them, sorry don't have the linke now--are putting together an anthology of ghost story/urban legend retellings (with emphasis on making these stories feel real again, bringing new life to them). I think most stories were solicited, but they now have an open reading period. Anyway, there's a need for stories from countries other than the US and UK, and I started researching some South American legends. When it came to opening my imagination to the one that caught me, I realized I had to first feel immersed in the land, the culture, the colors of this country--rural village? city? what do the people eat, drink, wear?--then in talking to a friend from Brazil, I got his take and he brought the little magical trickster here to the States and had him at a Bulls game. And this was an easy trip for him; he knew the creature. I think he already understood his tricky heart.
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Awesome. Are you sending them a story?
then in talking to a friend from Brazil, I got his take and he brought the little magical trickster here to the States and had him at a Bulls game. And this was an easy trip for him; he knew the creature. I think he already understood his tricky heart.
Who is the trickster in your tale? Pedro Malasartes? Someone I do not know?
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The trickster is Saci, a one-legged black or mulatto boy with holes in the palms. He's blamed for all kinds of mischievous things, like spilled drinks, burnt dinners, stumbling. The holes in the palms is interesting ... and if I have some time it might start to draw out a story, but I've a feeling I won't make it.
Have you considered writing something for it?
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But I want to read it . . .
Have you considered writing something for it?
I hadn't even known the anthology existed! I'll have to think about it—I don't really have a strong regional current in my work.
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sorry if this double or triple posts
This has made me sad that I cannot raise the Midgard Serpent with my terrifying death metal skills, which went on to make me sad about my lack of terrifying death metal skills.
On second thought, I'd just as soon leave Jourmundgy where he's sleeping and have him know as little about me as possible.
This must be why I am not metal.
whether that's orientalism or merely a reasonable expectation that a god will listen most attentively to its traditionally affiliated kin-group; e.g., there are not many goyishe golem stories.
It's a strange feeling to consciously notice how important heritage is and always has been in fantasy. Magic and heroism are usually carried on the blood. The hero's journey usually isn't some person without antecedent doing something extraordinary, but the person who has something great or terrible buried in their heritage that they grow into or come to accept (or, in rarer cases, reject in heroic fashion). It's a trope so big, I'm looking back at the things I've worked on and realized how many times I've used it without knowing what I was doing. The importance of heritage as an invisible theme in a lot of fantasy leads pretty naturally to a pairing of ethnicity with the culturally expected effects.
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Story. Want.
The hero's journey usually isn't some person without antecedent doing something extraordinary, but the person who has something great or terrible buried in their heritage that they grow into or come to accept (or, in rarer cases, reject in heroic fashion).
I want you to read Patricia McKillip's Riddle-Master (The Riddle-Master of Hed, Heir of Sea and Fire, Harpist in the Wind) and then we must continue this conversation.
It's a trope so big, I'm looking back at the things I've worked on and realized how many times I've used it without knowing what I was doing.
So how does one work with it, rather than simply following its pattern?
Answering the Last Question (Okay, Trying to Answer)
Interact with it from without, possibly. The hero faces a heritage, but that heritage belongs to someone else. Granted, this is mostly the bus that mighty whitey uses to roll into town, but this is the principle behind the Blue Vervain ballads; pruning the tragedy out of the family tree with murder, using blood to wash up after blood.
Reject it, since it's technically an interaction. Okay, that's a cop out.
One thing I'm running into with PSwC is that Esther's heritage is as old as her parents. The Coyles are sly bastards and the Kapshaws are latter-day Sawney Beans, but those aspects aren't nearly so relevant as what her parents did to make her the way she is, and that responsibility is shared by seven others.
Granted, just because it's done a lot doesn't mean it shouldn't. What distressed me was not that I was doing it, but that I was doing it without knowing what I was doing. Heritage is a damned interesting thing. Knowing your own is important, I think (I envy people with a clear line back). Figuring out why your family is the way they are, why you are the way you are... or your characters, that's good stuff.
On the other hand, the thing that sprang first to mind was the travails of the virgin-born Anakin Skywalker from the prequel trilogies, a painful squandering among painful squanderings. Between that and spending too long reading blogs that keep tabs on the grotesqueries of hate groups and racists, it makes me wary of heritage, and feeling like I've stepped in the intellectual bear trap again.
I will read those books you mentioned. Soon.
Cannot promise anything on a death metal story, but it does feed into a cheesy, secret writer goal of mine.
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Oh, yeah. I wasn't calling for a moratorium on weird genetics. Just curious about the subversion potential.
On the other hand, the thing that sprang first to mind was the travails of the virgin-born Anakin Skywalker from the prequel trilogies, a painful squandering among painful squanderings.
The midi-chlorians! They burns us!
Cannot promise anything on a death metal story, but it does feed into a cheesy, secret writer goal of mine.
To write something with the Midgard Serpent, or something with mad metal skillz?
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Hoom...
The midi-chlorians! They burns us!
A tiny part of my brain has been taken over by this mad little gnome who works day and night to make those movies suck less. He's made it through most of Phantom Menace, but when he looked at Clones I think he just started crying.
Midgard Serpent, or something with mad metal skillz
See I had this dream where I was looking at an advance copy of a novel I wrote, entitled Jukebox Hero with the cover art being a person with a long coat and guitar, in sillhouette, jumping between two buildings, against a midnight blue sky.
I wish I knew what it was about. It sounds deliciously cheesy.
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I still want gills and retractile claws. Evolution has failed me.
Did you ever read a Dr. Seuss book called I Wish That I Had Duck Feet? By the end of the book, the protagonist had decided that he really doesn't want duck feet, a blowhole, antlers, a prehensile tail, he's happy just being himself. Which while this is a valuable lesson to teach small children, I always thought was a bit of a cop-out from a transformative point of view.
He's made it through most of Phantom Menace, but when he looked at Clones I think he just started crying.
Oh, God. Last night I watched the first forty-five minutes of The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), lately remade as Gladiator (2000). It's a great film whenever the supporting cast—Alec Guinness, James Mason, Christopher Plummer, Sophia Loren—are onscreen. Unfortunately, Stephen Boyd cannot act his way out of a grocery bag. And being the protagonist, he's onscreen a lot more than they are. My disbelief finally suspended to the point of snap when the dying Marcus Aurelius betrothes his daughter Lucilla (Sophia Loren) to the King of Armenia (Omar Sharif) and we're meant to take this as cause for grieving, because she's in love with our hero Livius (Stephen Boyd), the plain commonsense general, veteran of a hundred campaigns, whom Marcus Aurelius would rather see govern the empire after him than his own unstable son, etc., etc., and all I could think was: Come on. This is Omar Sharif. I've just seen you and Stephen Boyd play a love scene that gave Attack of the Clones a run for its money, which I didn't think was physically possible. You'd throw over Omar Sharif for a man who can be out-acted by a toaster? I despair of humanity.
See I had this dream where I was looking at an advance copy of a novel I wrote, entitled Jukebox Hero with the cover art being a person with a long coat and guitar, in sillhouette, jumping between two buildings, against a midnight blue sky.
Your dreams have the best publisher.
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Oh dear. That sounds dreadful, though the rest of the movie sounds awesome.
I have vague memories of I Wish That I Had Duck Feet, and lots of dreams in which I get to alter my shape a little, but it never goes back exactly the way it came. I have to wonder if my dream self resembles Clayface by now.
The retroactive heritage change struck me as a sort of Yekl (sp?) transformation. In that book the main character keeps saying he is various and sundry different ways that are demonstrably untrue. A recurring line about "my people do/are X" that changes as the character changes came up while I was thinking of it.
Your dreams have the best publisher.
I wish I had gotten a chance to peek inside. I want to know what that book was about.
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I taped it off TCM. My plan is to watch as much of James Mason, Sophia Loren, and Christopher Plummer as possible, while skillfully avoiding the same of Stephen Boyd. I remain floored that in 1964 they couldn't find an actor with at least a modicum of charisma to carry off the part.
The retroactive heritage change struck me as a sort of Yekl (sp?) transformation. In that book the main character keeps saying he is various and sundry different ways that are demonstrably untrue. A recurring line about "my people do/are X" that changes as the character changes came up while I was thinking of it.
By Abraham Cahan? I have never read the book; it looks like something I need to.
I want to know what that book was about.
Write it and find out?
Yekl
Write it and find out?
Oh, it's on the queue. Definitely on the queue.
Re: sorry if this double or triple posts
I've never particularly cared for my Italian heritage, I think because I see a cultural line back to the Romans, and I don't care for the Romans much. The Renaissance is interesting, I guess--and
I'm grateful to you and to traditional folk music for making me discover U.S. history as a place to look for stories. I never used to care for U.S. history--an aversion born of too much of it in grade school, I think--so I'm very glad to have it now in the yes!interesting! category.
Re: sorry if this double or triple posts
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That's very neat.
I'm glad to hear it has one, because I really felt there needed to be more.
I can't speak to Yesterday's Magic, which I have not yet read, but I have fond memories of Tomorrow's Magic—one of the reasons I liberated it from the shelf. What amazes me is how much of the plot I had forgotten.
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We'll always have libraries. I'll see what I can find.
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