Six Sentence Sunday: Horse Clock

This story was inspired by -- wait for it -- the clock on my mantelpiece and the Sekhmet postcard my friend Joey gave me. It started as a caption for the picture on my Facebook page. I liked the blue tone which resulted from the wrong setting on the phone ("fluorescent"? maybe). My friend Richard complimented me by calling it, "Hobanesque" which pleased me greatly. It will be in a collection soon; more as the details come together, but it will feature a number of writers all linked by the Burning Bridge theme.

My six:
 

At one time, there was another horse on the clock, but it fell in love with the chime and they ran off together, so the clock no longer keeps time. The horse that remains behind conceals his broken heart and keeps the ball ready in case anyone wants to play. Sekhmet awaits the desert breezes and the return of the rain.

"How does it begin?" The big hand asked the little hand.

"With laughter," said the little hand, "but it always ends in tears."

Drop by the Six Sentence Sunday blog to sample more writers.

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.

SA4QE Tenth Anniversary

"Everything is real, Angelica. Reality is a house of many rooms, and sometimes we can enter more than one."

Angelica Lost and Found

RIP Russell Conwell Hoban

4 February 1925 - 13 December 2011

SA4QE: spreading the words 

The Kraken: sharing the dreams

UPDATE: in situ, James Hardiman Library, NUIG (nestled next to Chandler; no Hoban in the library's holdings! Such a sad miscarriage.)

 

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

London with Four Essex Lads, Alan Moore, and Ruth

Because no one would want to travel ruthlessly, surely: I zipped off to London this weekend because I could. Is there any better reason? Well, I suppose fun and a couple of Alan Moore performances were also a good reason. I got in rather late, so Friday also got a late start but my pal Murphy and I kicked things off with a good English breakfast in Essex before meeting up with his mates in the pub, three of whom came to London with us to see the performance at the Horse Hospital.

It's a fascinating venue with an interesting history and provided a great space for an unusual performance. After a visit to the pub next door, The Friend at Hand, the guys were just happy there was a bar (although the ringing sound of empty bottles on concrete punctuated a few moments awkwardly). The opening act was the Scots singer MacGillivray. I'm not sure I'd envy anyone who had to share a bill with Moore, but it was a challenge to get into the mannered performance of overly earnest aggressively retro sensibilities. She announced after the first song it was for a wee child who died in 1842; while the Essex men may have led the giggles, they were not alone. It's the kind of thing that Dame Darcy and Rasputina do quite successfully with humour as well as a sense of the macabre. It probably didn't help that there were a number of rolling beer bottles as she sang about stoning mermaids, "wolf waters" and "steaming the eyes of hope."

Alan came out with his usual aplomb and fancy black & white spotted shoes. He introduced the reading by saying we seemed too nice a group to hear it cold, so he spoke a little about Jerusalem and its unbridled growth, now "bigger than the bible and, I hope, better" before turning to the chapter he would be reading from which had to do with angels, or as they were known in the novel, "builders" (a more neutral term). In part his depiction of the archangel Michael came from the image of the archangel atop the Northampton church bearing his name, which Moore says carries a snooker cue. He introduced his ideas about the afterlife, dismissing the typical depiction of heaven. "All that marble," Moore said, cocking an eyebrow at the audience, "It's a bit middle class." Instead he posited the idea that our lives repeat without our knowledge, taking us back to our happinesses over and over, "So, hello again."

The reading held the audience spellbound, rushing from onomatopoeic whoomphs to the builders' ambivalence about their charges and the nature of the all-encompassing holy perspective. Good stuff: I can't wait to read the novel -- well, when he finally decides it's done. The audience responded with laughter and close attention and sent him off with enthusiastic applause. While coming out of the loo afterward, I heard my name and turned to find Ruth, a fellow member of the Kraken, the Russell Hoban gang. She had seen my post on Facebook about the event and decided it sounded fun. She recognised me from my picture :-) I asked her to join us, then peeked around the corner to see if I could chat with Alan. Fortunately he was still there, so we had a chat and I mentioned finally meeting Pádraig last weekend as well as the Marvelman-like curse on his Marvelman book: Alan joked that maybe he should write a book about Pádraig's book and create a kind of infinite repeating loop. I mentioned I'd be seeing him the next night at the Barbican. Yes, got a hug and a kiss, too.

Ruth joined us and we all headed out for a tasty Indian meal then dropped by the Bree Louise for a pint before they closed. Then we hopped the last train back to Harlow, another late night. I'll have to write up the second day a bit later as this has grown long: more Moore, Occupy London at St. Paul's (the photo above from the old UK phone so poor quality), Rothko and Ruth. Anon!

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.