Many things that I am needing to keep me singing

[sovay]

I have awesome friends. A few days ago, deadcities_icon sent me his stunning cybersexpunk calendar del.ici.ous tension: a digital romance, and today in the mail I received a packet of decaf masala chai from strange_selkie. Oddly enough, I feel better already. You guys rock.

I'm re-reading Tanith Lee's Sung in Shadow (1983), which I first discovered in late high school and which has slunk into my subconscious from time to time since then. I can't shake the feeling that, as a retelling of Romeo and Juliet, it's drawn more from Zeffirelli's 1968 film than from the bare play itself—particularly in the contrasts and relationship of its Romeo and Mercutio, the dark and beautiful Romulan Montargo, who is more innocent than he likes to think, and the older, fair-haired, sardonically unstable Flavian "Mercurio" Estemba. If so, I suppose it's nice to know that I wasn't the only one who fell in love with John McEnery's Mercutio.

"Why not anticipate? What else have we of free will but anticipation?" Mercurio, arguing for the discussion's sake, questioning nothing, believing very little, mesmerizing the guardsman as a matter of course, smiled gravely at him. "A man, young or old, may go to bed healthy, wake at dawn with a pain like a knife in his side, and be laid in a box by sunset. Or a man may cut his thumb on an awl, a scratch no bigger than a cherry pit, and he may sicken of that, and take that road to a box. Or the earth may shake, as it did here, ten years past, stones fall on your noodle and brain you. Or a plague may breed in the very air. Who can outrun plague? Oh, all roads lead to boxes. It is a chancy business, life. And so, my friend, we kill each other on the streets, the pith of the thing being Surprise! Amazement! My Lady Death, we are before you."

"Death's a woman, then?"

"Love and death, women both. Trust neither."

The grinding, soaring street cry of the whores wafted up again from over the walls. Mercurio, taking it as a bizarre accompaniment, began to sing a courtly love melody of the Higher Town.

"Dance with me while time is yet slow,
Clocks run faster far than you know;
Wear your rose flesh like a glove
For roses wither. Fear it, love."

His voice cut through all like a gold wire, through time, place, dust, heat and faith. A girl on a balcony averted her eyes from him superstitiously, among the terra-cotta pots of flowers. Romulan looked at him, entranced. None of them had heard a verse sung better, or a love song more like a knell.

"A rose will bloom; it then will fade . . ."

Comments

[sovay]

There are a few novels of hers that really didn't work for me: primarily Vivia (1995) and White As Snow (2000), and Heart-Beast (1992) in places. I don't actually find A Heroine of the World that bad, only unexciting; it's too much travelogue and too little character. But these are a very small handful against an incredible corpus of literature, and so I don't tend to worry too much. : )

[norilana.livejournal.com]

Agreed with the unexciting part. With Lee it is so easy to expect the world (sorry 'bout the pun) that when you get a dull thing like A Heroine of the World, it stands out. I think the dullness of the character and the irony of the title juxtaposed with the content actually made me angry, that's why I tend to think of this one first as the least likable book of hers.

Heart-Beast was so-so, indeed, and Vivia -- you know I don't think I actually read it, though it's sitting on my shelf. White as Snow I liked, I believe, but did not find particularly memorable.

Look now, you started talking about Lee and I cannot stop posting! This is the secret magent to draw me out of lurk! Eeek! Sorry!

[sovay]

Vivia -- you know I don't think I actually read it, though it's sitting on my shelf.

Eh. It has a wonderful cover (which appears in the text), but the story left me cold: a girl who has become a species of vampire through a strange encounter within a mountain, the warrior-sorcerer who wants to use her for his own gain, and the artist with whom she falls accidentally in love; it starts and it goes on and then it just sort of stops. She's just written so much better.

Look now, you started talking about Lee and I cannot stop posting! This is the secret magent to draw me out of lurk! Eeek! Sorry!

No apologies necessary! It's good for you. : )

[norilana.livejournal.com]

Ok, one last itsy bitsy comment and then I put a plug in it.... ;-)

Thanks for the summation. Vivia shall probably remain on my to-read-someday shelf for quite some time.