Friday's Forgotten Books: Angelica Lost and Found

When Russell Hoban died, I was among those who went first to Riddley Walker in mourning his passing. Somewhat neglected in the encomia was his latest book at the time, Angelica Lost and Found (though now Soonchild is out, too).

Angelica finds its inspiration from Ariosto's Orlando Furioso and from a painting of a key scene from the epic poem. Angelica is the woman chained to the rocks on the beach. The hero Ruggerio flies down on a hippogriff to rescue her from the sea monster, Orca. Girolamo da Carpi captured the scene in oils, now hanging in the Museum of Art in El Paso, Texas.

In Hoban's novel, our hero is the hippogriff who names himself Volatore and seeks out Angelica with whom he has fallen in love. How can an imaginary animal love a woman from a poem? He makes himself real, but finds she has become real, too, far away in San Francisco. Even when they find each other, their joy is momentary because reality just can't bear such dreams being made real. Some bon mots:

"Everything is real, Angelica. Reality is a house of many rooms, and sometimes we can enter more than one. Ariosto's words put real wind under my wings, made me fly. It was not only words on paper--I remember the air rushing past me, remember looking down on plains and forests, mountains and oceans. I lived, I flew over the sea in a painting by Girolamo da Carpi in a time long past."

"Why are you in my dream of reality?" 
"I don't know. Reality is a mystery to me and that's how I like it; an understood reality can only be an illusion." 

"Ok, Liv. If I told you I've had sex with an imaginary animal, what would your reaction be?"
"An imaginary animal?"
"That's right."
"What kind of imaginary animal?"
"A hippogriff."
"A hippogriff!"
"Named Volatore."
"Volatore!"
"Does repeating everything I say in italics help you to take it in?"

What can I say? It's Hoban-esque: playful, intelligent, sexy, irrational, thoughtful, sad, happy and fun. If you like that, you'll like this.

Look for the full list of overlooked books over at Patti Abbott's blog. er, Todd's blog.

Friday's Forgotten Books: Riddley Walker

Russell Hoban was a singular writer; when asked what kind of a writing I do, I have generally offered up Hoban as the "genre" in which I write. Sadly, his name didn't always resonate with people -- and that includes NY Times obit writers; though most memorials mentioned Riddley Walker, too many seemed to be speaking of his masterpiece second hand. While many of Hoban's works deserve the accolade of 'masterpiece' this is the one that resonated most deeply for me. I read Riddley first in high school around the time I also read A Clockwork Orange: these books cemented my love of languages in a fictional context, though when I re-read Riddley as an adult, it was as if I had never read it before. Becoming a medievalist brought a further level of amazement, and visiting Canterbury Cathedral to see the St. Eustace painting was the ultimate pilgrimage for me.

Along with the art of "being friends with your head" Hoban's books taught me to trust in my muse and just write the stories I had to tell and trust that somewhere out there might be readers who would find resonance with them (and that they wouldn't do so if I didn't write them). Fans of Hoban might not be as numerous as those of more popular writers, but my experiences with the Kraken show me they are extraordinary and devoted.

My obsessions with storytelling and ritual feature here. The essay originally appeared in Puppetry International back in 2006, one of the first academic essays of mine to appear in a  non-academic publication that I nonetheless listed on my CV. At the time it seemed a bit radical (is it peer reviewed?!) however since then  I have continued my slide into publishing with abandon wherever my words might be of interest. No regrets there. I suppose I could blame tenure, but I only got that last year, so I suppose it's just my lax attitude. (>_<) I recommend picking up the issue of PI  if you have any interest in puppetry: fascinating publication. I think there's more I have to write about puppets, even more about Punch, but things leak out of my brain at their own pace.

Here's the opening: I've put the rest up on Scribd (restoring my original title which I prefer). Be sure to see Todd's round-up of this week's Forgotten Books (Pattii's taking a break for the holidays).

Future Medieval Space: Performing “Punch” in Riddley Walker

Although he sets his novel Riddley Walker (published in 1980) in a post-apocalyptic future, Russell Hoban makes use of the medieval world to mark this future as a site of the “primitive.” For this stunted society, the most apparent aspect of the Middle Ages is the explicitly medieval legend and wall painting of St. Eustace, which still exists faintly on the wall of Canterbury Cathedral. Perhaps more important is his appropriation of the medieval mystery plays, which illuminate bibilical narratives and are traditionally performed on mobile wagons. As performed in Riddley Walker, the “Eusa Show” (a garbled version of the St. Eustace story) takes on many of the mystery plays’ aspects, transmitting the truths of the culture and entertaining people with education. This modified Punch and Judy show conveys the only narrative that remains after the apocalyptic devastation of English society. The ritual of the puppet show picks up the religious meaning of the mystery plays, but it also takes on a social and governmental function that medieval dramas typically lacked. Just as various dissenters from Lollards to Pelagians threatened the orthodoxy of Christianity in the middle ages, the young protagonist’s discovery of a real Punch puppet sets off a chain of events that destroys the carefully scripted Eusa show. Hoban’s use of Punch history gives this superb novel its authority, while the familiar art of puppetry provides a vivid connection to this bizarre future world for the modern reader...

Goodbye, Russ

Sad news today that Russell Hoban has died. The author of Riddley Walker and so many other wonderful books has left this world without me ever having the chance to say how much I loved his books and how much I learned from them and from him. He taught me to trust being "friends with your head" and believing an audience would find you. If you are unlucky enough to be unfamiliar with him, drop by the Head of Orpheus and find out more. My thoughts go out to his family and to my fellow Krakenites.

I am that astonishment from which you write in those brief moments when you can write.
      —The Head of Orpheus in Russell Hoban's The Medusa Frequency

Friday's Forgotten Books: Kleinzeit

I find it amazing that Russell Hoban's singular book Kleinzeit seems to be out of print in the US. Amazon lists the version on the left as the most recent one (2002) but he doesn't seem to have the same popularity here as he does in Britain (where the Pennsylvania-born writer lives, no surprise). Most of you probably know the Frances books and I've certainly gone on at length about my love for Riddley Walker on various occasions, but I hadn't read Kleinzeit until recently.

While reading it in November, I decided to recommend it to everyone who was doing NaNoWriMo as the perfect inspiration for the difficult task of writing, especially for the first time. It mashes up a sort of Pynchon-esque mystery of coincidences and misheard words with a delightful surrealism: the titular character ends up in the hospital for trouble with his hypotenuse. His troubles begin on the most mundane sort of day when he begins to experience a sudden pain. But then something else happens:

Kleinzeit got out of the train, poured into the morning rush in the corridor. Among the feet he saw a sheet of yellow paper, A4 size, on the floor, unstepped-on. He picked it up. Clean on both sides. He put it in his attaché case. He rode up on the escalator, looking up the skirt of the girl nine steps above him. Bottom of the morning, he said to himself.

Little does he know that yellow sheet of A4 will take over his life: he loses his job, he's admitted to the hospital, he takes up the glockenspiel and he takes up with Sister (nurses in Britain are still referred to as "sister"), he meets a red-bearded man who lives in the Underground. And everything seems conspired either to kill him or turn him into a writer. It's not surprising that Hoban has said that this novel is where he found his voice.

One of my favourite passages comes when Kleinziet reads from Thucydides' The Pelopennesian War as he contemplates Athenians and the blank page of yellow A4:

I promise, said Kleinzeit to his dead mother, I'll be, I'll make, I'll do. You'll be proud of me.

Suppose [the Athenians] fail in some undertaking; they make good the loss immediately by setting their hopes in some other direction. Of them alone it may be said that they possess a thing almost as soon as they have begun to desire it, so quickly with them does action follow upon decision. And so they go on working away in hardship and danger all the days of their lives, seldom enjoying their possessions because they are always adding to them. Their view of a holiday is to do what needs doing; they prefer hardship and activity to peace and quiet. In a word, they are by nature incapable of either living a quiet life themselves or of allowing anyone else to do so.

Right, said Kleinzeit. Enough, He opened the door of the yellow paper's cage, and it sprang upon him, Over and over they rolled together, bloody and roaring, Doesn't matter what the title is to start with, he said, anything will do. HERO, I'll call it. Chapter I. He wrote the first line while the yellow paper clawed his guts, the pain was blinding. It'll kill me, said Kleinzeit, there's no surviving this. He wrote the second line, the third, completed the first paragraph. The roaring and the blood stopped, the yellow paper rubbed purring against his leg, the first paragraph danced and sang, leaped and played on the green grass in the dawn.

Up the Athenians, said Kleinzeit, and went to sleep.

It delights me to no end that Hoban fans go around on February 4th leaving sheets of yellow A4 in the tube and other public places with quotes from the author. I can't imagine a more wonderful tradition to have connected with one's books. This novel is quite wonderful and I recommend it highly -- and then go get Riddley Walker and the rest of his books! I love Hoban because his stories all make their own singular way, ignoring genres and rules and convention. What better way to write?

See more "forgotten" books at Patti Abbot's blog where you'll doubtless find friends like Todd.