The faerie-hunter, home from the hill

[sovay]

I have a copy of Cloud & Ashes. I got it tonight at nineweaving's reading at the Harvard Book Store.

It has a little sketch of Grevil on the frontispiece, with his masterwork Reliquiae Nebulosae—Remains of Cloud—in hand.

You will not know this character if you have not read the novel. I encountered him first in drafts and fragments four years ago in November, a small-gentry scholar with badly kept secrets: a neater refraction of Tom o Cloud by his faded hair and his distraction, but like anything well-loved, he turned flesh from sticks and leaves as the story branched around him; and he was very dear to me.

Here he is.



Turning to the window, he looked out. "'Tis a history," he said, "of Cloud its ancientry, high Cloud. There are remnants of it, that in custom and in vulgar memory, the common tongue, yet live." Still his back to her, his arm raised to the windowframe, his brow to the glass. "A kind of monument."

"A book?" He turned round at her voice. Her face now one astonishment. "You've made a book?" As if he'd said, I wrote this tree.

Pink to the ears now. "Pieces of one. That is, 'tis matter for a book . . ." He gestured at the table, helplessly. ". . . but in a sort dispersed."



She wrote that tree.

Comments

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Bless you. Now I'm crying and laughing all at once.

Nine

[sovay]

Now I'm crying and laughing all at once.

I think that's appropriate to the book.

*hugs*

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

My, this sounds fantastic. When I have funds, I'll have to secure myself a copy.

[sovay]

When I have funds, I'll have to secure myself a copy.

I recommend it in the strongest possible language.

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

It is good to know that the book exists, leaves bound for reading. I wonder when Small Beer will ship....

[sovay]

I wonder when Small Beer will ship....

I know some people who have received their copies already. It may be a matter of which batch went in the mail when.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

The book looks great. But the other picture's not showing: the drawing is withdrawn - at least from me!

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Me too--it was there and then it wasn't.

Nine

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

And now it's back. "First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is..."

Nine

[sovay]

But the other picture's not showing: the drawing is withdrawn - at least from me!

It shouldn't have disappeared: it showed up fine in my browser! I went back and reuploaded the image entirely. Can you see it now?

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Yes! Thank you - and very fine he looks.

[sovay]

- and very fine he looks.

I want nineweaving to illustrate her books. I think a formal gallery of portraits is too much to hope for, but her tinker and Mally are so good—and Grevil, even in sketch form—I am going to keep asking. I would like Margaret with her telescope, at least.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

I would love to try. I am very much an amateur at sketching: now and then, by chance, I'm fortunate.

Nine

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

You are just wonderful. Wonderful. You absolutely should do more.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I like this drawing, but I caught his expression more by chance than skill. Clearly if I did more, I'd gain in craft and confidence.

Nine

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Are you two sitting in the same room somewhere? Or are all three of us up, separately, at this hour? Do you, too, hear the birds beginning to sing?

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

All three of us are up with the birds.

Nine

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

All three of us are up with the birds

Wonderful! (though maybe not for Sovay if she hasn't slept all night...)

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

That's a beautiful sketch--I wasn't sure at first if you or Greer had put it in your book, but I see from comments above that it was Greer.

I love his thoughtful face.

[sovay]

That's a beautiful sketch--I wasn't sure at first if you or Greer had put it in your book, but I see from comments above that it was Greer.

I can't draw like that—are you kidding? I do little cartoon faces. Downstairs in my parents' house is a watercolor of a dragon dance with a real dragon passing overhead that I did when I was twelve or thirteen. There's a colored pencil illustration of my brother's now ex-parakeet on the same wall. Those are about the only pieces of visual art I have ever produced that were worth looking at. I just do words.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I seem, now, to recall your saying this before, but you have many many talents, so I just tend to extend them into every single field.

ex-parakeet :-) Like ex-husband or ex-con .... but different.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

It's joined the Choir Invisible...

Nine

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Indeed :-)

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

By the way, just now, though it's still dark, I hear the birds beginning their dawn chorus. So this is the moment when night begins to give way to day.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

They're singing sleepily, here, now. The sky is still dark.

Nine

[mer-moon.livejournal.com]

So beautiful! And also, love! She sketched that, all on-the-spot at a reading? And now I am even more full up with Very Impressed.

[sovay]

She sketched that, all on-the-spot at a reading? And now I am even more full up with Very Impressed.

I think she sketched it all on-the-spot at five in the morning before the reading, but it's still something to be impressed by!

It's a Secret to Everyone

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

http://www.sendspace.com/file/l1earm

I found it

[rose-and-ivy.livejournal.com]

What is that paper below the book? It has a lovely quote on music.

[sovay]

What is that paper below the book?

It's the back cover of the program for the 2008—2009 season of the Cantata Singers, all in honor of Benjamin Britten. The quote is his: "It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness and of pain: of strength and freedom. The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature, and everlasting beauty of monotony."