“Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes. You must look into that storm and shout as you did in Rome. Do your worst, for I will do mine! Then the fates will know you as we know you”

So it happened when I got in touch with a company regarding representation. It was through a contact who I had never met. Their person at the company said that I wasn’t for them. What I did not realise that this no was not specific to that particular person (as it can be in London) but was on behalf of the company. So when I got in touch with someone else at the company (they’re a really good one), I was inadvertently causing all sorts of problems.

I guess that the The Three Musketeers’ motto of ‘One for all, all for one’ rings true in Hollywood too.

I have seen movies all my life that were based on this book. Sometimes I think it’s a shame that we allow ourselves to believe that watching the movie is even close to reading the book. Watching the various movies I should have gotten a clue just how funny the book would be, but was shocked, it is hilarious.

It follows the four Musketeers, because there are four and the most important and interesting, is the one who is not counted in the three, D’Artagnan. They are drunks, womanizers and bungle themselves into everything from the Queen’s love life to the Cardinal’s politics. They lie cheat and steal, but find it necessary to duel if they are called out for either.

And duel they do, even though it’s against the laws of the land of the time. If you’re looking for a historical account of France, look elsewhere, if you’re looking for a hilarious romp through France’s history where everyone is open game, this is it.

The three Musketeers cover all the good, the bad and the ugly, man has to offer and makes fun of all of it. It stands in testament to how good a bad man can be and how bad, good men will always be. Last but not least, it properly radicalizes the idea of honor and how totally without honor those who believe themselves honorable usually are.

This book is an exaggerated telling of the whole truth of man, past, present and future. Would I read it again? I believe I could read it every day. Truth in humor is the best truth there is. Remember, the truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.

“THE THREE MUSKETEERS” (1993) Review

Alexandre Dumas’ classic 1844 novel, “The Three Musketeers” must have been one of the most adapted stories in film and television history. I do not know exactly how many adaptations have been filmed. But I have seen at least four of them – including Disney Studios’ version, released in 1993. 

Directed by Stephen Herek, “THE THREE MUSKETEERS” is not a faithful adaptation of Dumas’ novel. David Loughery’s script utilized some elements of the novel, including most of the characters and d’Artagnan’s first meeting with his three friends and fellow musketeers. But in the end, he created his own story. In “THE THREE MUSKETEERS”, a young Gascon named d’Artagnan hopes to follow in the footsteps of his late father and join the King of France’s Musketeers in 1625 France. Unfortunately for d’Artagnan, several factors stand in his way. One, he makes an enemy out of a local aristocrat named Gerard and his brothers, who believe he has defiled the honor of their sister, and is pursued by them all the way to Paris. Two, upon his arrival in Paris, he discovers that the Musketeers have been disbanded by King Louis XIII’s chief minister, the power-hungry Cardinal Richelieu. And three, his encounters with Musketeers Athos, Aramis and Porthos results in him accepting a duel from each man.

Fortunately, d’Artagnan’s hostility toward the trio is short-lived and he ends up helping them battle Richelieu’s guards, who arrive to arrest Athos, Aramis and Porthos. But after they leave him, d’Artagnan is arrested by more guards and Richelieu’s lackey, Captain Rochefort. While in prison, he meets the Cardinal and overhears a conversation between the latter and spy Milady de Winter. She is ordered to deliver a signed treaty to France’s primary enemy, the Duke of Buckingham of England. Cardinal Richelieu plans to undermine the King’s authority, before assassinating him, taking the throne and Queen Anne as consort. When Athos, Aramis and Porthos rescue d’Artagnan from execution, the four men set out to expose Richelieu as a traitor of France and save King Louis XIII from death.

Fans of Dumas’ novel will probably be unhappy with this adaptation, considering that it failed to be a faithful one. I must admit that when I first saw “THE THREE MUSKETEERS”, I was surprised and a little disappointed myself. And there were a few aspects of the movie that I disliked. The addition of Gerard and his brothers into the story really annoyed me in the end. Mind you, I found the aristocrat’s determination to confront d’Artagnan at the beginning of the movie tolerable. But once d’Artagnan reached Paris, with Gerard still in hot pursuit, the subplot became an annoying running joke that refused to die. And it did not. I like Paul McGann as an actor . . . but not that much.

Even worse, McGann’s Gerard seemed to have more screen time than any of the major female characters. Although I never viewed Queen Anne as a “major character”, I felt otherwise about Milady de Winter and d’Artagnan’s lady love, Constance Bonacieux. I did not mind when Loughery’s script transformed Julie Delpy’s Constance from the Queen’s dressmaker to maid/companion. But I did mind that her role was reduced to a few cameo appearances. The same almost happened to Rebecca De Mornay’s portrayal of Milady de Winter. I personally found the reduction of the latter role rather criminal. Milady has always been one of the best villains in literary history. And nearly every actress who has portrayed her, did justice to the role. I can say the same about De Mornay, who was excellent as Milady. Unfortunately, Loughery’s script gave her very few opportunities to strut her stuff.

Despite the change in Dumas’ story and the reduction in the females’ roles, I cannot deny that “THE THREE MUSKETEERS”proved to be a first-rate and entertaining movie. It had romance – well, a little of it. The best romance in the film proved to be the long simmering one between Athos and Milady, whose marriage had earlier ended in failure. And I found the one between d’Artagnan and Constance rather charming, if brief. The movie featured some great action, including a marvelous chase scene in which the Musketeers are being pursued by Rochefort and the Cardinal’s men; d’Artagnan’s first sword fight, in which he allied himself with the Musketeers; Milady de Winter’s capture at Calais; and especially the final fight sequence in which the Musketeers prevent Richelieu’s plans for the King’s assassination.

Tim Curry made an entertaining, yet splashy Cardinal Richelieu. He came close to being all over the map, yet he still managed to keep his performance controlled. And Michael Wincott’s sinister portrayal of Captain Rochefort was superb. Rebecca De Mornay was superb as Milady de Winter, despite the role being reduced. And her Milady has always struck me as the most complex in all of the adaptations. Julie Delpy and Gabrielle Anwar were charming as Constance and Queen Anne. I wish I could say the same about Hugh O’Connor as King Louis XIII, but I must admit that I was not that impressed. He was eighteen years old at the time and probably a little too young and stiff to be portraying the 24 year-old monarch.

But the highlight of “THE THREE MUSKETEERS” proved to be the four actors who portrayed d’Artagnan and his three friends – Athos, Aramis, and Porthos. They were perfect. Chris O’Donnell captured every aspect of d’Artagnan’s youthful personality – the earnestness, cockiness, and immaturity. Watching the movie made me realize that he has come a long way in the past nineteen years. And he had great chemistry with the three actors who portrayed the Musketeers. Kiefer Sutherland was perfect as the commanding, yet cynical and disillusioned Athos, who regretted ending his marriage to Milady. The producers of this film certainly picked the right man to portray the smooth-talking ladies’ man, Aramis. And whatever one might say about Charlie Sheen, he did a superb job in the role. Oliver Platt was a delight as the brash and extroverted Porthos. Quite frankly, he made a better figure for comic relief than McGann’s Gerard. However, the best thing about the four actors’ performances was that they all perfectly clicked as a screen team. All for one and one for all.

Yes, “THE THREE MUSKETEERS” was not perfect. What movie is? And it is certainly not the best adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ novel. But I cannot deny that it was entertaining. And I have no regrets in purchasing a DVD copy of this film. If one can keep an open mind over the fact that it was not a close adaptation of the 1844 novel, I think it is possible to find it very enjoyable.

On the first Monday of the month of April, in the year 1625, the village of Meung (in which the author of “Roman de la Rose” was born) was in such an uproar, it seemed as though the Huguenots had come to turn it into another La Rochelle* of it. Many a citizen, seeing the women flying down the main street, hearing children crying at open doors, hastened to don his cuirass, and, supporting his (somewhat uncertain) courage with musket or a polearm, directed his steps to the hostelry of the Jolly Miller, before which was gathered a compact and rapidly-increasing group both vociferous and curious.     In those days panics were common; few days passed without some city or another recording an event of this kind. There were the nobles, who made war with one another; the King, who made war with the Cardinal; and Spain, who made war with the King. In addition to these wars – concealed or open, private or public – there were brigands, adventurers+, wolves, and Huguenots, who made war upon everyone. The citizens always took up arms against the brigands, wolves and adventurers; often against the nobles and Huguenots; sometimes even against the king – but never against the Cardinal or Spain. The result of their habits, therefore, on this first Monday of April 1625, was that the citizens (hearing the clamor and seeing neither the red and gold of Spain, nor the crimson and white of the Duc de Richelieu++) rushed toward the hostelry of the Jolly Miller..

(The clamor? It was an adventurer being a dick. There follows a lot of D’Artagnan-directed exposition. Another useful passage after the footnotes.)

*La Rochelle had been the site of several major Protestant/Catholic battles already. It was in fact in open revolt against the crown in April 1625, and had been for about 2-3 months depending on who you ask. The Huguenots wouldn’t be “dealt with” by the Crown until August. They were also known as the Rohan Rebellions, after  Duc Rohan de Soubise. Duke Buckingham would, in 1627, provide mercenary and other assistance to the rebellion – Rochelle had historically been a Plantagenet possession through most of the Hundred Years’ War, and staying Protestant and “independent” would give the English a solid foothold. Interestingly, the core plot incidents recorded in Three Musketeers actually happened closer to 1650, but Dumas put them in a more interesting time period. Food for thought for you DMs out there running a historical campaign, because most of Dumas’ readers over the years have literally never known the difference.
+ I’ve translated “mendicants and thieves” here as “adventurers”. It fits. Really well.
++ Interesting how he emphasizes the noble role of His (Red) Eminence Armand Cardinal du Plessis here, where “the Cardinal” was fine for the rest of the intro. I suspect he’s subtly showing the temporal power of the Cardinal independent of both his official title (Prime Minister) and spiritual role – and quietly lumping him in with the “nobles”.

…The same day, the young man set out on his journey, provided with his parental gifts. They consisted, as we said, of fifteen Crowns* the horse+, and the letter to [the commandant of the King's Musketeers]**…

(note that he also got a sword, which he broke in a duel and had rebladed in Paris; carried a single change of clothes; and got the recipe for a “certain Balsam, which [your mother] got from a Gypsy, and which has the power of curing all wounds that do not reach the heart”. He uses it a lot over the next few weeks, because he’s a teenager++.)

Tell me that doesn’t sound like an adventurer’s gear.

* Probably large silver pieces. He spends most of them on lodging and weapons repair over the course of the next few days.
+ A very, very bad horse, which still gets good time on the road; it starts at least one duel for our young Gascon, and he sells it against his father’s advice literally the instant he hits Paris – for three Crowns more.
** Stolen, by the Big Bad – because our hero is, wait for it, kind of a big-mouthed dickhead.
++As an herbalist, the healing ointment – insofar as they describe it – is mostly a disinfectant. It’d also keep you smelling fresh and clean. Would probably be an abortifacent if you gave it to a pregnant woman.

So, to sum up; we are presented with a fairly compelling vision of a young Fighter starting his career. He is poor, but pretty geared-up, especially with that healing salve. He dumps his sword on a “shall be splintered” roll (now there’s a thought. Letting a player “splinter” a weapon voluntarily to exploit his opponent’s honor and end a fight with a minimum of lost face)  and repairs it once he gets to town. The entire countryside is in an ideal condition for adventurers. War is everywhere, patrons seek out brave and/or stupid men to do their dirty work, and all manner of bastards exploit the timult to rob etc. The rest of the party is already established, if partially wounded, and he joins them by insulting all three of them by mistake or design (Porthos was totally on purpose, and mostly D’Artagnan being a dick) before having their (illegal) duels interrupted by a “random” encounter. He constantly wrecks or loses his shit, and what little he has rapidly becomes a motivator for the character. The DM, meanwhile, has merrily re-edited the source material to make the campaign more fun for the players, and is playing pretty damned fast and loose with continuity.

Tell me one little-known fact about Kari Sperring.

Last winter I skied the 2 km Piculin black run in Italy, which has an average steepness of 1 in 4, and whose steepest section — which is about 500m, has steepness of 48 degrees.
I didn’t fall over.
Given that I’m an intermediate level skier, I still don’t quite believe I let Phil talk me into this.

I was hoping for something along the lines of ‘I’m the lovechild of J. Alfred Prufrock’ but here are so few of them about these days.

 First real question:

 What started your interest in all things Celtic?

Prufrock? Certainly not. I’m the lovechild of Anne of Green Gables!

As to the Celts… I am one, or around 75% of me is. My mother is Welsh, my father is of Welsh descent on his mother’s side, and comes from Herefordshire which has been mixed Celtic-English at least as far back as the 6th century. My real surname is attested back to the 7th century as the name of a mixed Welsh and Anglo-Saxon population group in what is now the Shropshire borders and the area around Brecon. I grew up with Welsh folk tales told me by my mother and her sisters, and, to the age of 7, spent a great deal of time with the Welsh side of the family (after that, sadly, we moved away from where they were settled). So, even though I was born in Coventry, I’ve always had strong ties to Wales and the Welsh.

Which came first, the history or the fantasy?

The fantasy, definitely. My first ever favourite book, aged 3, was Alice in Wonderland, and by five or six I’d discovered C S Lewis. From there, I moved on to Alan Garner, Tolkien, Lynette Muir, Roger Lancelyn Green’s collections of myths and Andrew Lang’s fairy books, — any book with magic or a fantasy feel was a must read. I was also an sf fan from an early age, courtesy of Dr Who, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and Star Trek — I loved Andre Norton, Hugh Walters, Heinlein’s juveniles, John Christpher and John Wyndham. In my teens I discovered wider sf — Clarke, Asimov, McCaffrey, Zelazny, Delany, along with the early fantasy writers like H Warner Munn and William Morris (and Sir Thomas Malory). I set out to become a Celtic philologist, in fact, under the influence of Tolkien — he was my pattern for how to become a fantasy writer. But I discovered at university that while I could do the philology, I enjoyed the historical material far more, and in the end, that’s what I specialised in.

What led you into writing?

I don’t know. I’ve wanted to write — and have been writing — for as long as I can remember. I learnt fairly early on that books — which were magical — were produced by people called authors and I made up my mind that that was what I was going to do by the age of around 5.

When and what did you first submit, and to whom?

The very first story I submitted was a short piece called Autumn Is The Dying Time, to a small press magazine that my mother had seen advertised somewhere, which was asking for fiction by women. I was 17: the story was rejected, but nicely, as I remember. I’ve long forgotten the name of the magazine.

And where/when was your first publication?

My very  first publication was a little thing called ‘Cynan ab Iago and the killing of Gruffudd ap Llywelyn’ in Cambridge Mediaeval Celtic Studies 10 *1985). But I suspect you mean first professional fiction sale, which was a story called ‘Strong Brown God’, in the anthology Glorifying Terrorism, ed. Farah Mendlesohn (2007).

How long from your first sale to your first novel sale? And tell me about the journey to that landmark.

Ah, now that is complicated.
I’d written the first version of Living With Ghosts in 1990-91, while I was living in Dublin, and revised it extensively between 91 and 94, when I started submitting it to publishers. It was bounced as not commercial enough by several UK publishers and one US one, and sat unresponded-to with another US publisher for some years. In the mean time, I concentrated on non-fiction. In around 1999 or 2000, my friend Lisanne Norman introduced me to Sheila Gilbert at DAW, and said very, very supportive and nice things about LWG, which Sheila asked to see. I sent it to her, and heard nothing for some years (though Lisanne kept asking them about it). In 2008, I dug LWG out of a drawer, reread it, rewrote some parts and sent it to small press publisher Immanion Press, on the grounds that I knew them, I liked the sort of books they did and I thought it might fit. They accepted it, but asked me to write to the two larger publishers who still had it to let thewm know I was withdrawing it. One never responded. The other –DAW– asked for two weeks to look at it, which Immanion kindly granted. At the end of that time, they made an offer. Immanion very graciously told me to go with the bigger publisher. That was in May 2009. So this book owes a lot to other writers — Lisanne, who introduced me to DAW, Ian Watson, who pushed me to go back to fiction writing in 2006, and Storm Constantine of Immanion.

Do you write fantasy exclusively now?

I haven’t written a book-length work of non-fiction since 2006, but I still write articles on the Celts, on Dumas, and other things that are based on my academic background, Right now, along with rewrites on my 3rd book, I’m working on a piece on the poet Carol Ann Duffy for poetry magazine Stone Telling, for interest. And I’m writing a mystery novel, set in 9th century Wales as a blue-skies project.

What about short fiction?

I don’t write a lot of short fiction, but I have done a few stories, all for anthologies, including Fabulous Whitby, Myth/Understandings, After Hours: Tales from the UR Bar; The Modern Fay’s Guide to Surviving Humanity, and, most recently, The Feathered Edge.

What fiction/writers influenced you to being with?

Above all, Alexandre Dumas pere, who is my all time favourite author. The Three Musketeers is the book of my heart, and the book I always go back to. Otherwise, the usual suspects, I suspect — Tolkien, Ray Bradbury, Heinlein, Delany, Tanith Lee, in terms of genre. In terms of style, several rather out-of-fashion writers – above all Rumer Godden, who to me has the most beautiful, lyrical prose style, Elizabeth Goudge, and the poet T S Eliot. (I read him in my teens and he won’t go away.) Oh and some mediaeval writers, too: Sir Thomas Mallory, the anonymous author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and the author(s) of the Mabinogi. As as historian, my influences are my PhD supervisor, D. N. Dumville, the Anglo-Saxon scholar Frank Barlow, and the great Peter H Sawyer, all of whom taught me in one way or another to write clean, clear, complex prose.

What other media inspires or influences you?

I’m not one of those writers who writes to music and builds play-lists for particular books — I find music distracting when I’m working, in fact. I write to BBC Radio 4, which is a consequence of working for years in universities, which are noisy — you can hear people talking all the time and I’m used to them.
Having said that, radio is something of an influence: every once in a while a sentence will catch my attention or wind its way into my head and inspire an image or an idea. And I learn a  lot about all sorts of random things, too, which can be surprisingly useful.
Otherwise, there are songs which cued something for me about a character or a story sometimes — Alice Cooper’s ’Poison’ was the cue song for the character Gracielis in Living WithGhosts, for instance, and the Sandy Denny song ‘Late November’ has an atmosphere to it that is the sort of thing I’m aiming for in my book-in-progress.
And then there’s film. I’m a lifelong film fan, though I prefer older Hollywood films to the more recent ones (I love old black and white melodramas and any kind of swashbuckler). I particularly love swordplay films — Hong Kong makes the best ones — and I’m very influenced by the image of the honourable swordsman fighting against the odds and the system, like d’Artagnan or Scaramouche.

You mention Sandy Denny for atmosphere – do you think you would write very different books if you moved out of the UK?

I don’t think so, given how little my books are affected by where I live. I was living in Dublin when I wrote the first draft of Living With Ghosts, and it’s more French influenced than anything else. Grass King is influenced by a whole mixture of very diverse things, from academic folklore studies to Chinese wu-tang films to the Alhambra to book-keeping to the French revolution. My current new project is Welsh-inspired, which is a bit of a first for me (I regard anything to do with Celtic and Gaelic cultures as part of my other work, usually), but that’s more to do with an image that occurred to me, rather than a conscious move.

If you could choose any place, and time, in which to live what would they be?

Either Paris under Louis XIII (I always wanted to be musketeer), or else the imperial court in Tang dynasty China  — there were women historians in its internal hierarchy.

Now, some whimsy to finish.

You are on death row, convicted of murder (wrongly, of course) but tomorrow you hang. What is your final meal?

Food doesn’t interest me that much, alas. I’d probably want a family size package of good quality cheese and onion crisps, a glass of dry pink champagne and some houmous.

If you were an artist in any other discipline (actor, painter, singer etc.) and you were to be a one-hit-wonder what is the single work of art for which you would be proud to be remembered?

I’ve never wanted to be famous, so in a way I’d like to be one of the myriads who are ‘anon’, and for a beautiful embroidery of some kind — a wall hanging, perhaps.

Me reading a book while on holiday in the Norfolk Broads a couple of years ago

People are very funny about books – funny peculiar, that is, rather than funny ha-ha.

For example, the last time I bought a bookcase, the retail assistant informed me that the smaller compartments in the particular case I was looking at were handy for storing DVDs or displaying ornaments and other such fripperies. ‘No, I need all the space for books,’ I replied, and even as I said it, I knew what her response would be – and yes, it duly came – ‘Oh, yes, well, I’ve got far too many books myself. I never have enough space for them.’ Right, fair enough, but then why try to encourage me to use up valuable book-storing-space by plonking a vase where the books should be? The thing is, the assistant felt that I’d made some kind of imputation about her intelligence because I’d implied that I owned more books than she did, and she felt the need to correct me on this.

But – the number of books you own is not an indication of how clever you are. What sort of books do you have? Do you have a houseful of Barbara Cartlands and Jilly Coopers? All very well if you like that sort of thing, but I doubt it’ll do much for your IQ. And if you own books of a more intellectual nature, have you actually read them? Again, it’s all very well to own expensive hardback copies of the major works by influential western philosophers, but if you haven’t read them, then you may as well clutter up your bookshelves with china dogs and tea-light holders.

People say they don’t like giving books away: ‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly part with my books. It would be like giving away a little bit of myself.’ Would it? Of course it wouldn’t. There isn’t any part of my physical being that I would give away – at least not while I’m alive and still using it – but I donate books to Oxfam all the time, because I’ve read them. I give books away partly because I know I only have a finite number of years on this planet and it’s very unlikely that I’ll have time to read them again, but mostly because I only have a finite amount of storage space and I part with the books I’ve read in order to make room for the books that I haven’t read. (Of course, this doesn’t always work. I keep the books I know I will need again – textbooks – plus the books I know I will read again – mostly comic books – and just occasionally, I’ll give a book away and then decide that I wished I hadn’t: I did this recently with du Maurier’s Rebecca. Three weeks after having parted with it, I ended up trotting round the charity shops looking for a replacement copy.)

People like books as a physical object. Kindles and similar products have not really taken off as they might have done, despite some clear advantages over bulky hardbacks: Kindles take up less storage space (again!), and are not so heavy to hold. This latter point may seem frivolous, but I struggle to read Simon Schama’s A History of Britain mostly because it’s so bloody heavy and my hands start to ache after twenty minutes or so. The advantages to Kindles are obvious if you are travelling – no excess baggage payments and more room for insect repellent and stomach tablets. But I must confess here that I prefer a good solid paperback myself, although my own reservations about Kindles have more to do with the comparatively small amount of text shown on the screen and the continuous interruption to the reading experience that ensues as a result. We can’t use our peripheral vision when reading from a Kindle in the same way that we do when reading a book, and as far as I know, there hasn’t been any research into this area yet, so it’s possible that when using a Kindle, we might be missing out on a vital part of the reading experience. I do know that I always cover up the last page of ghost stories with my hand because I don’t want to glimpse the ending by accident before I get there.

People won’t write in books or deface them in any way. Why not? It’s your book. You can do what you like with it. I scribble all over mine. I like my books to contain my experience of reading them. For example, there are crinkly pages in my copy of The Three Musketeers because I blubbed all over the chapter in which Constance is murdered, and as for my copy of Watership Down – well, some pages have been welded together forever with snotty salt water. I like it when I buy a second-hand book and someone has drawn little pictures in the margin, or written a mysterious note to the previous recipient of the book. It’s nice if a book retains that small fragment of human experience.

What I’m getting round to, I suppose, is that a book should be a dynamic, not a static, object. It shouldn’t sit on a shelf gathering dust. It shouldn’t be used as a status symbol. It should be read and wept over and annotated, and then it should be passed on for someone else to read and perhaps spill coffee on, and then passed on again and again, until eventually all the pages fall out when the glue in the binding perishes and then it can be recycled and made into another book. Hurrah!

Title

Author Clifford Beal

Format Paperback
Number of pages 304
ISBN 9781781080832
Publisher Solaris Books

Publication date 28 February 2013

1653: The long and bloody English Civil War is at an end. King Charles is dead and Oliver Cromwell rules the land as king in all but name. Richard Treadwell, an exiled royalist officer and soldier-for-hire to the King of France and his all-powerful advisor, the wily Cardinal Mazarin, burns with revenge for those who deprived him of his family and fortune. He decides upon a self-appointed mission to return to England in secret and assassinate the new Lord Protector. Once back on English soil however, he learns that his is not the only plot in motion.
A secret army run by a deluded Puritan is bent on the same quest, guided by the Devil’s hand. When demonic entities are summoned, Treadwell finds himself in a desperate turnaround: he must save Cromwell to save England from a literal descent into Hell. But first he has to contend with a wife he left in Devon who believes she’s a widow, and a furious Paris mistress who has trailed him to England, jeopardizing everything. Treadwell needs allies fast. Can he convince the man sent to forcibly drag him back to Cardinal Mazarin? A young king’s musketeer named d’Artagnan.
Black dogs and demons; religion and magic; Freemasons and Ranters. It’s a dangerous new Republic for an old cavalier coming home again.

‘Gideon’s Angel’ is a historical fantasy novel about an exiled English cavalier, who returns to England to start an uprising with as ultimate goal to overthrow Oliver Cromwell and to put the rightful king back on his throne. When Richard discovers another plot to murder Cromwell, he has to change his plans and has to save the one he was determined to kill. And then all Hell breaks loose. And you can take that last sentence literally.

Clifford Beal’s first fantasy novel is a fast paced, fun and very entertaining read with no flaws. Or should I say: one little flaw? Because in my opinion was the ending a little too ‘Deus Ex Machina’, but don’t let that stop you from reading this book. Ok, the ending could have been a bit more worked out, but on the other hand is it an ending that befits the story and was satisfying enough none the less.

‘Gideon’s Angel’ is a novel about how men can do evil, while they’re convinced of their own good intentions. It shows us that, no matter how sure of your case you are yourself, you must always been prepared to change your course of action when it is proven that you’re wrong. This novel is about the confrontation of two men who are both misguided by their lust for vengeance. One of them saw his errors before it was too late and he changed his course of actions, while the other saw only his errors when it was too late. And so he paid the price for his deeds.

Take the adventure and time period from an Alexandre Dumas novel, mix that with some Robert E Howards’ sword and sorcery action, add a little of the horror of HP Lovecraft and you get a sense of the feeling I’ve had when reading ‘Gideon’s Angel’. So you can imagine the huge amount of fun I had when reading this novel and I wouldn’t mind to see this story translated into a movie.

Clifford Beal delivers with ‘Gideon’s Angel’ a fun, entertaining historical fantasy novel, that makes me crave for more adventures of Richard Treadwell. A must-read.

First Published: 1844-5
This Translation First Published: 1996
Pages: 1276 including notes  – plus introduction (Hardback)
Form: Novel

Rating:

A beautiful new clothbound edition of Alexandre Dumas’ classic novel The Count of Monte Cristo of wrongful imprisonment, adventure and revenge. Thrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Dantes is confined to the grim fortress of the Château d’If. There he learns of a great hoard of treasure hidden on the Isle of Monte Cristo and becomes determined not only to escape but to unearth the treasure and use it to plot the destruction of the three men responsible for his incarceration. A huge popular success when it was first serialized in the 1840s, Dumas was inspired by a real-life case of wrongful imprisonment when writing his epic tale of suffering and retribution.

From Penguin.com – no blurb on clothbound editions

Eeeeeh! Well it looks like 2013 is shaping up to be a good reading year. Not only have I liked pretty much everything I’ve read so far but I’ve discovered a new favourite. When I say that I loved this book, I really mean it. I can’t say it’s my favourite because picking a single favourite is too hard, but it’s definitely among the books  that I would take to a desert island or save from a fire. It’s got everything; revenge, wrongful imprisonment, murder, duels, bandits, drug-fuelled hallucinations, treachery, buried treasure… you name an adventure trope and it’s probably in there – as well  as one of the most scary anti-heroes/anti-villains in fiction. It’s a book that’s so high on melodrama and absurd plot twists it could easily become ridiculous, but it’s so utterly compelling that it never does. At approximately 1250 pages long, it never felt like a slog, in fact it practically zipped along and I’m actually a bit sad to have finished it.

The Count of Monte Cristo tells the story of Edmond Dantès, a young sailor about to be promoted to captain and to marry Mercédès, the love of his life, when, on the day of his wedding, he is falsely accused of being a Bonapartist conspirator by his jealous friend’s and rivals and thrown into Azkaban the island fortress of the Chateau d’If. While rotting away in his dungeon he befriends another prisoner, discovers the location of some burried treasure, and vows to escape and take his revenge on those who put him in prison. All this, and Dantès eventual dramatic escape, happen very early on in the book and from there on it’s almost a thousand pages of long, intricate, gloriously drawn-out revenge schemes as Dantès, transformed into the ‘avenging angel’, the absurdly rich Count of Monte Cristo, returns to destroy the lives of those who wronged him.

His enemies are all now very important men; Fernand, the young man who as in love with his fiancé is now a Count,the respected veteran of many wars,  and married to Mercédès, Danglers, the jealous shipmate who instigated the plot is now a rich and successful banker, and Villefort, the young prosecutor who buried the proof of Dantès innocence to further his own career, is crown prosecutor. But they all have weaknesses, flaws, ambitions, and guilty secrets in their past that the count exploits one by one to ruin them in a twisty-turny adventure of deception, secrets, murder, and betrayal in high Parisian society.

It’s gripping stuff not least because the Count of Monte Cristo is such a terrifying and compelling character. Hardened by his experiences he is cold, calculating, and cruel. Instead of taking a dagger and killing his enemies (as the ‘real life inspiration’ for the character is said to have done) he insinuates himself into their lives, expertly manipulates them, befriends their children, and then sits back and watches impassively as his machinations lead to their self-destruction, happily believing himself to be enacting God’s will. The sheer tension and dramatic irony as the reader watches these ‘friendly’ interactions, knowing, that the Count is plotting everybody’s downfall is what drives the book. He’s an impossible character to like - only towards end does he ever question his methods, his aim, and the collateral damage and innocent people harmed in his  schemes – but damnit he’s compelling. He’s compared, frequently,  in the book to the Lord Ruthven (from the Vampyre by Polidori) and it’s an apt comparison, there’s really more of the vampire and the villain about him than the hero for most of the novel. And that’s where the strength of the book lies, not just in relishing the nasty characters lives come crashing down around them, but in the growing horror of the person Dantès has become,  the lengths he will go to get his revenge. And how, just how, he can ever find redemption and peace or even reconcile himself to an ordinary life once his revenge is finally complete.

I could say more, but I don’t really want to go into any details that will spoil any of the intricate plots. I’ll just leave it by saying again that I loved it. Some of the characters are pretty sketched out and plot-devicey, sure – but then it also has great side characters like the ‘unfeminine’ Eugénie or the stroke victim Noirtier who will save his granddaughter from loneliness, arranged marriages, and murder attempts all while paralysed from the eyes down. It relies massively on coincidences, everybody seems to know each other in contrived, slightly incestuousy ways, and the Count is utterly brilliant at absolutely everything – but then that’s half the fun. Dumas doesn’t always get his continuity right in terms of dates and places but fuck it, with a book this good it just doesn’t bother me. It’s an absolutely wonderful page turner and I loves it. Would highly recommend it to almost anybody (though make sure you go unabridged! And I can’t speak for the quality of other translations).

Albeit the catharsis, I fail to find sentiment in many modern works. What come today under the banner of Literary fiction fail to astound and meet the requirements that push both heart and thought to feel and think differently than we’re accustomed to. Walking through a bookstore becomes as morbid as walking through a mausoleum of fetid thought, zombied books and a delirious crowd drunk upon silly,apallable emotion riffling through a stream of trash. Shelves decked with Vampire Diaries, Vampire School and alterations of a similar nature that revolve around a protagonist  (11 out of 10 times a girl, seemingly on her worst period or an equally bad case of constipation) falling in love with a moving diamond who if he ever went to Africa would be chopped and sold in carats by the kilo. And if the slew of inter-predator-prey passion was not enough one is assaulted to the point of harassment at the sight of E.L. James’s closet diary making it to the shelves of best sellers. And, if this wasn’t enough a reader is further forced to witness as these wile fantasies find host in a lot of 13 yr old girls who seem bubbling with excitement at having so successfully fooled their parents into buying them classic filth. Parents yippying, cheery and puff chested grin past and glower at me as I frown over the titles in the hands of their tots. Taking my skepticism or leer as condemnation or appraisal of their child’s action. I’m afraid that as the years pass by we shall have a mountain of filth barring us from genuine literature.

Ernest Hemingway once said ‘There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.’ and if this were taken in the context of what adorns bookshelves I’d say that Twilight is the product of a delirious bitch on a period. And Fifty Shades of Grey was written with secretion post a cocaine sex session gone bad. Most writing today is inexcusable filth and in order to navigate through it I wish to give you some sound advice, parents please take your children to Blossoms on Church Street and let them be. Landmark has gone bonkers. Watch what your children read (I shall post a list of instrumental works in the post script categorised by appropriate age ) Men and boys take up a bloody library membership at Goobe’s Book Republic on Church Street, it’s inexpensive and they let you borrow comics. Ladies, please burn any issue of Twilight you possess as it is known to cause a case of constipated coitus. And if my views don’t adhere to your literary tastes, do feel free to fuck yourself on a marble statuette.

Yours in all Literary Endeavors,

Nehal Vaseemuddin

With the recent success of the movie Les Miserables, people have been looking again at the author Victor Hugo.  What is it about Hugo that enabled him to write what Leo Tolstoy called the greatest of all novels? Who was the real historical Victor Hugo?

Every day around 3,000 words are published about Victor Hugo.  It has been said that to read the complete works of Hugo would take no less than ten years.  Every important poet, novelist and dramatist of his age was shaped by Hugo’s prolific endeavours.   Some call him the greatest of French poets.  He was the dominant figure in 19^th century French literature.  By the time he left France in 1851, Hugo was seen as the most famous living writer in the world.  Upon his return to France, thousands of people in Paris chanted ‘Vive Victor Hugo’, reciting his poetry, and throwing flowers on him.  On his eightieth birthday, six hundred thousand Parisians marched past his house in his honor.  At his death, a day of national mourning was declared.

By the time Hugo died in 1883, he had become a symbol of France with all its struggles and challenges.  Hugo lived through bloody uprising after uprising.  Almost a million Frenchmen had died during this revolutionary period, half of them under the age of twenty-eight.  Les Miserables with its passionate message about the barricades reflect this deep trauma of chaos upon unending chaos.

When Hugo was born, his parents were horrified by his appearance.  His own mother could not bear to look at him. His own doctor indicated that without a miracle, Victor would not last out the month.  With an enormous head and a tiny body, his father said that Victor looked like the gargoyles of Notre Dame.  Such an insensitive comment led to his second most favorite novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame.  Ironically after the success of his Hunchback novel, all the nouveau riche wanted their homes to be ornamented with gargoyles.

Victor adored his mother Sophie but she cared little for her children.  During his childhood, Victor deeply resented his father Leopold who was always away at war.  As an adult, Victor became his father’s closest companion.  His own parents had divided loyalties between the royalists and the republicans.  Hugo’s parents met in Brittany while his Napoleonic father was stamping out a local royalist rebellion.  Both of his parents were unfaithful to their marriage vows, something that repeated itself in Victor’s own marriage.

While only fifteen, Victor applied for the French Academy’s annual poetry contest.  His poetry was so advanced that the Academy refused to accept him until his mother produced his birth certificate. Victor loved to write, commenting that ‘every thought that has ever crossed my mind sooner or later finds it onto paper. …Ideas are my sinews and substance.’

His father Leopold saw Victor’s involvement in literature as being like ‘pouring good wine down an open sewer’.  So he refused to help fund his literary education: “If you were to elect a career as a lawyer or physician, I would gladly make sacrifices to see through university.”  Victor often went without food in his early literary years, saying ‘I shall prove to my father that a poet can make sums far larger than the wages of an Imperial General.’  With great talent and a strong work ethic, Victor became one of a very small band who could earn their living with their pens.  One of Victor’s closest friends was Alexandre Dumas, the famous author of the Count of Monte Cristo and the Three Musketeers.

One of Victor’s greatest sorrows was that his wife Adele was indifferent to his writings.  Even his passionate love poems for his wife, she ignored.  Adele warned Victor that ‘it is the fault of passionate men to set the women they love upon a pedestal. To be placed so high produces dizziness, and dizziness leads to a fall.’  Adele’s affair with her husband’s best friend Saint-Beauve crushed Victor, leading him into his own ongoing infidelity. There was great tragedy in Hugo’s life with his own brother Eugene having a mental breakdown at Victor’s wedding and his youngest daughter suffering the same fate after being abandoned by her lover Pinson.  One of the deepest wounds was the drowning of Victor’s daughter Leopoldine shortly after her marriage.   Out of this great sorrow came great dramatic writing, especially in his novel Les Miserables.  Andre Maurois commented that Hugo possessed and would retain all his life long, one precious gift: the power to give to the events of everyday life a dramatic intensity.

Ground-zero in Les Miserables was the gracious Bishop Bienvenue who transformed Jean Valjean by his generous act of forgiveness.  Victor Hugo’s son Charles was upset by his father’s choosing of Bishop Bienvenue.  Charles suggested instead that his father should have made Bienvenue to be a medical doctor instead of a clergyman.  Victor replied to his son: ‘Man needs religion. Man needs God. I say it out loud, I pray every night…”  Victor held that humanity is an ‘unspeakable miracle.’   Of all the French Romantics, Hugo made the most explicit usage of the Bible.

I thank God for the life and work of Victor Hugo who had such a passion for life, freedom and forgiveness, especially as seen in his novel Les Miserables.

The Rev Ed Hird, Rector

St. Simon’s North Vancouver

Anglican Mission in the Americas (Canada)

http://stsimonschurch.ca

-an article for the March 2013 Deep Cove Crier

award-winning author of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’

http://www.battleforthesoulofcanada.blogspot.com

p.s. In order to obtain a copy of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’, please send a $18.50 cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #1008-555 West 28th Street, North Vancouver, BC V7N 2J7. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD. This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $9.99 CDN/USD.

-Click to download a complimentary PDF copy of the Battle for the Soul study guide : Seeking God’s Solution for a Spirit-Filled Canada

You can also download the complimentary Leader’s Guide PDF: Battle for the Soul Leaders Guide

In this bicentennial year of Verdi’s birth, you can expect Verdi masterpieces being produced left, right and centre, especially here in London. Here are my thoughts on the first of these celebratory productions – La Traviata at the ENO. La Traviata is Verdi’s take on the Alexandre Dumas story of the unlikely love that blossoms between the beautiful courtesan Violetta and the naïve but ardent nobleman Alfredo. The oh-so complicated life of Violetta, and the unparalleled beauty of Verdi’s score is usually more than enough to pull at the heart strings but I left Peter Konwitschny’s production feeling impressed rather than moved. During the beautiful, fragile opening bars of the prelude, the sumptuous drapes of the Coliseum were drawn back to reveal yet another set of beautifully lit red drapes. And so from the get-go, the theatricality of Johannes Leiacker’s set, underlines the idea that Violetta is constantly performing. Dressed in a gown that matches the ever present drapes and sporting a series of wigs, she becomes a poignant figure, jumping through hoops desperately trying to please others – whether these ‘others’ are her hedonistic Parisian friends, or her new lover Alfredo, the costumes never quite suit. The lumberjack shirt/alice band combo she wears to play the role of ‘happy country wife’ in act 2, is painful to look act, let alone wear.

Despite some glorious vocal performances (Corinne Winter was outstanding) I found it hard to get emotionally engaged in the story. Not enough space or time was given to finding the truth of the supposed connection between Alfredo and Violetta that should be the driving force of the opera. Peter Konwitschny’s production privileged comment over storytelling, it seemed to rely on the audience having a prior knowledge of the narrative. I think it is important that a director brings their own point of view to their work but this should never be to the detriment of the story, and this story in particular is about love – the kind of unselfish love that is too good to be true. I’m not a romantic but opera is no place for scepticism. While I have nothing against being required to think about what I am seeing, my instinct is that Opera, arguably more than any other art form, should make its audience feel. You have to feel that the connection between Alfredo and Violetta has been real (even if just for a moment) otherwise what is the point?

A wise theatre director once said – “If you need to explain your production to the audience in a programme note- then it hasn’t worked” – and so, as I wandered down to Charing Cross tube after the show trying my best to explain to my perfectly cultured and perceptive companion what the invisible curtains of the last act had been about, I wondered A) whether I should have bought a programme (although at six quid a pop it was never likely) and B) whether Peter Konwitschny’s production was a little too clever for it’s own good.

More from the English National Opera.

I have always been an avid reader. If I am feeling low, or feeling like things are getting top of me, the mere prospect of getting home and sinking into a chair with a ‘comfort’ read fills me with joy and, unsurprisingly, comfort. I think I was about 15 when I discovered Harry Potter. I was on holiday with my family, and my mum and brother were listening to HP1 on their Walkmans. I refused to read or listen to the story because I was convinced it was a ‘children’s’ book and was beneath me (what a lovely age 15 is )… Until, one day I grew bored of the music on my Walkman… So I started listening to HP, and that was it. I was converted. What an imagination JK Rowling has! And the way she managed to correlate this beautiful, magical world with the mundane and humdrum life of us ‘muggles’. It was brilliantly done. I was swept away on the tidal wave that was ‘Harry mania’, and I have not yet grown out of this. I think I must have read each book 20 times.

Anyhow, I digress. The point of this blog was to recommend some of my favourite reads. Just a few to tide you over whilst I catch up on my bedside table material, where we currently have pending:- The Perks of a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky; The Rise of Nine, Pittacus Lore (which is the third book in the Lorien Legacies); and The Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett. So… watch this space for my low down on these gems

In the mean time…..here are some of my most gratifying reads thus far.

The Count of Monte Cristo

Alexandre Dumas

Wow! This mammoth read is worth every sweat droplet that you lose trying to work your way through the 1200 odd pages. It is a tale of love, jealousy, revenge, patience, friendship, bravery, justice, forgiveness and pretty much every other human emotion that you can fathom. It focuses mainly on the story of a young man who is wrongly accused of a crime and imprisoned as a result. It then follows his life and lessons in jail, his escape, his acquisition of an enormous fortune, and then his crusade to reek revenge on the people that had him sent to prison in the first place. The book scans a long time period, and I can recommend the journey to anyone! This is by all means one of the most rewarding books I have ever read. Yes, it’s long, yes it does require a certain level of concentration (it’s no Danielle Steel), but it is so brilliantly written, and the story is so encompassing. And tragic. And romantic. This is a book for everyone’s book list. No exceptions

The Book Thief

Marcus Zusak

“It’s just a small story really, about, amongst other things:

• a girl
• some words
• an accordionist
• some fanatical Germans
• a Jewish fist-fighter
• and quite a lot of thievery.”

This is by no means a small story!!!! This was a recommendation from my brother, which I read in New Zealand, and I remember very distinctly calling him in floods of tears when I had finished it. We were just arriving at my brother&sister-in-laws house, and I had read it all the way there trying to finish it before we arrived, and it was so earth-shatteringly beautiful and upsetting that I just balled my eyes out for about 20 mins before I could go inside. This book is poignant, and so haunting in the way that it is written. I read a real mixture of reviews on the net before I embarked on the Zusak journey. Some were not fans, saying that the narrator’s voice was ‘intrusive’ and made the book seem ‘disjointed’. Most, however, like me, were absolutely dumbfounded by what a unique voice this book had, and how it could break your heart and mend it again all on the same page. Be prepared to commit greatly to some spine-tinglingly beautiful characters.

Me Before You

Jojo Moyes

One point I have to make straight off is that I greatly disapprove of the cover of this book- it gives the impression that this book is a fluffy chick flick, or ‘romcom’. Both of which it is most definitely not. This is a book with a very serious message at the heart of it, and I felt the book design really undermined this. The story is based around a young, charismatic and adventurous young man who becomes a quadriplegic after a dreadful motorcycle accident. His mother hires a young girl called Louisa to assist with his around-the-clock care. Louisa is very likeable and easy to relate to, but is a lost soul, and doesn’t really know what she’s getting herself into by taking on this job. Will is wounded, inside and out, and the development of their relationship is both fascinating and well written. We as readers get to watch as both Louisa and Will’s lives are changed irrevocably over the ensuing six months.

When I read the notes at the end of this book, Jojo Moyes was asked how she decided to write a book like this with such a serious subject matter, and she mentioned how she had read a tragic news story about a young man who was paralysed from the chest down at the age of 23 after a rugby training incident. Over the next 18 months he tried several times to end his own life, and in the end his parents succumbed to his wishes. In 2008 he went to the ‘Dignitas’ clinic in Switzerland where he passed away. This story really struck a cord with Jojo Moyes, and she wrote this book without even having a publishing contract.

In my humble opinion, Me Before You covers a very taboo subject with great sensitivity, and does well to remind us that nothing in life is simply black or white, or should ever be taken for granted.

____________________________

Being a writer and a hypochondriac is a hard thing to deal with sometimes. You see, writers have this thing called a vivid imagination. The two do not mix well as the moment someone with a vivid imagination hears of a medical problem, they begin to imagine that they have it—and to make it even worse than is actually possible.

For example, once a coworker of mine explained to me that sinus infections (which I’m prone to) can become so bad that the bacteria will hollow out little spaces in the facial bones comprising sinus cavities and live in them. I didn’t sleep well for two nights, kept awake by envisioning those microscopic little buggers creating homes for themselves in my face. This soon gave way to thoughts of facial bones so riddled with holes they would eventually begin to crumble, essentially causing one’s face to cave in at the slightest touch.

Like I said, hypochondria and a vivid imagination do not mix well.

The one thing an imaginative hypochondriac should never do is read the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders). I had a wide circle of friends in College which included a couple of Psychiatry majors, so I made the terrible mistake of doing just that. Within an hour I had “diagnosed” myself with all sorts of things, ranging from Narcissistic Personality Disorder to Antisocial Personality Disorder. Thank God I had friends to talk me down, friends with classroom experience. They were quick to explain that the first thing their professors had warned them of was that reading through the DSM would often cause a person to think they had many, if not all, of the disorders.

The interesting thing about this is that people who actually suffer from disorders of this type would not recognize themselves upon reading the symptoms. To have such a disorder almost always coincides with a complete lack of self-awareness, which is interesting as these people are also extraordinarily self-involved (how’s that for paradox?). The lack of self-awareness is due to an inflated sense of self, one that grows so large it obscures their actual state of being. Sometimes I wonder if this is also a defensive mechanism. I’ve always thought that insecurity is the root of ego.

Anyway, even after the “talking down” it took years for me to accept that I wasn’t crazy. A lot of this is related to my history. Having grown up in the shadow of a major sociopath, I often questioned a lot of my behavior and the reasoning behind it (though for a while I simply blundered into terrible situations). I don’t think people who suffer from NPD/APD spend any time questioning themselves. I’ve even read that they don’t, however this didn’t stop me from worrying that I had it (stupid imagination!).

One day I hit upon another interesting bit of information. Sociopathic personality types are often unable to grasp literary devices such as metaphor and simile as they are unable to connect abstract feelings with something concrete. This got me to thinking about the nature of conscience and imagination. In my mind, empathy is born of the ability to thoroughly imagine yourself in another person’s shoes until you are able to feel every emotion that person feels. While I believe sociopaths have an imagination, I also believe that—much like their way of loving—it works differently than the average bear’s (or person’s for that matter).

I once made the statement to my fiancee, as he was attempting to explain Starcraft 2, that my mind works more in plots than in maneuvers. I think this statement represents the major difference in imagination between someone who suffers from APD and everyone else. Not that everyone’s mind works in plots, but that some people’s minds work almost solely in maneuvers (not my Fiancee, there’s a huge difference between employing this type of thinking in your life and being ruled by it). Instead of imagining how someone might feel in a situation, someone who is ruled by this would imagine situations in which they can obtain their own desires and, if they so desire, hurt others in the process.

A perfect example of this is the character Danglars in The Count of Monte Cristo. He supposedly loves Mercedes, yet feels no remorse over having the one she loves wrongfully imprisoned just so he can have her. There is no thought to how she or the one she loves might feel, or the others he involves in his scheme for that matter. His only thought is of how he might obtain her. His imagination is limited by his own selfishness, as is his ability to see himself clearly.

So, while there may be days I find myself cursing the fanciful and extraordinary whims of my imagination, I will never lament having such a developed sense of dreaming. Though some nights I’m kept awake by Stephen King, or the words of a coworker, there are also nights I’m kept awake by caring too much: I wouldn’t have it any other way.

_____________________________

Now that you love PonderingSpawned as much as I do, check out her blog for philosophy, poetry, and artisty.  If I were you, I’d start here:

http://ponderingspawned.com/2012/11/29/through-our-eyes-an-invitation/
http://ponderingspawned.com/glossary/hearthole/
http://ponderingspawned.com/2013/01/20/i-got-a-message-from-god-today/

Jules Verne

Just the facts:

• Full name – Jules Gabriel Verne
• Lived 1828-1905
• Born in Nantes, France (of Beirut song fame) – a busy maritime port.
• He was one of five children born to Pierre, an attorney, and Sophie Verne.
• In his childhood he was closest to his brother Paul – as might be expected since not only were they the eldest, separated by just a year, but they were the only boys.
• The family would summer at Brains on the banks of the Loire where Paul and Jules would regularly hire a boat to go exploring.
• At the age of nine, he and Paul were sent to boarding school at the Petit séminaire de Saint-Donatien.
• He seems to have enjoyed school, learning Latin which he went on to use in Le Mariage de Monsieur Anselme des Tilleuls, a short story he wrote in 1855.
• Though, shouldn’t that have been Conjugio magister Anselmus Tilleuls?
• Brutus de Villeroi taught drawing and mathematics at the school in 1842 and would later design the US Navy’s first submarine, the USS Alligator. It would be wonderful to be able to say that this influenced Verne’s conception of the Nautilus in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, but there’s no record of the two having met. So close, and yet so far… Let’s pretend it happened anyway.
• Continuing with the philosophy of “when forced to pick between truth and legend, print the legend”, according to a biography written by his grand-niece, he had become so obsessed with the sea and adventure that he stowed away on a ship to the West Indies, but was caught by his father just one stop into his journey. Wouldn’t have been so easy to find him on a submarine, so perhaps this was his influence…
• It is true however that he spent a lot of time at school writing poetry and short stories, perhaps to the detriment of his studies.
• His father sent Jules to Paris to study law after he finished boarding school, but again he was drawn to life beyond litigation…
• Although he ultimately completed his degree and set up a practice in 1850, from 1848 he had begun writing libretti with Michel Carré, including several for the prominent composer  Aristide Hignard.
• Gradually he became more and more distracted by the world of the theatre, and was encouraged by his friends Alexandre Dumas and Victor “so good they first-named him twice” Hugo to become a full-time playwright.
• His mind was concentrated perfectly on this when his father withdrew the financial support that had allowed Jules to live his double life.
• Although he wrote a couple of not dreadfully received plays, including The Companions of the Marjolaine and Blind Man’s Bluff, he was forced to take a job as a stockbroker to support himself. To this day, the world’s trading floors are presumably filled with such frustrated authors.
• The stability afforded him by his new job did however allow him to marry Honorine de Viane, a young widow with two daughters in 1857, the year his first book  Le Salon de 1857 was published.
• In 1859, the couple took the first of around twenty trips to the UK that would influence his future work, including the semi-autobiographical Backwards to Britain.
• In 1861, the couple’s only child Michel Jean Pierre Verne was born.
• Though he would ultimately come to play an important part in the publication of his father’s later work, Michel was to be a reasonably wild youth whose behaviour, eloping with an actress before leaving her for a sixteen year-old with whom he had two children, resulted in Jules having him sent to a penal colony for six months. A Voyage Extraordinaire indeed…
• With the help of editor and publisher Jules Hetzel, Verne’s career finally began to take off with the publication of Five Weeks in a Balloon in 1863. Some puns cannot be resisted, apologies.
• Hetzel had encouraged Verne to lighten up his style, which had been criticised by those publishers that had previously rejected his work as being too dry, political and scientific.
• Though it didn’t sell in great numbers, the critical reception was such that Verne immersed himself in his writing from then on, publishing two to three volumes of work a year.
• His work was no doubt influenced by Felix Nadar who introduced Verne to his group of scientifically curious friends and later made him a board member of his  Society for Encouragement of Aerial Locomotion by Means of Heavier-Than-Air Craft.
• This period saw the publication of many of his classic works, particularly the  Voyages Extraordinaires series: From the Earth to the Moon, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,  Around the World in Eighty Days and Journey to the Centre of the Earth.
• Verne could not only now afford to live off his writing, but to buy himself a small ship, the Saint-Michel (which he upgraded to the Saint-Michel II and III as his wealth grew) in which he and his wife were to explore the British Isles and Mediterranean.
• In 1867, he and his brother visited America, via Liverpool, although they only stayed for a week. Presumably he was put off by the lack of ocean to explore the country by and wimped out on going by balloon.
• In 1886, Jules’ favourite nephew Gaston attempted to murder him, shooting him twice with a pistol.
• Gaston was placed in a mental asylum for the rest of his life, whilst one of the bullets, which entered his left leg, gave his uncle a limp for the remainder of his.
• Keep your enemies close, and your crazy nephews locked away…
• A year later, in 1887, his mother and Hetzel both died.
• Although this no doubt contributed to a darker mood in his writing, Hetzel’s son was a less attentive editor than his father and perhaps let Verne’s propensity for melancholy get the better of him.
• In 1888 Verne was elected a councillor of the town of Amiens and served for fifteen years before he contracted diabetes and died in 1905.
• His wayward son Michel, who had since rebuilt his relationship with his father, oversaw the posthumous publication of several of Jules’ novels over the coming years, even making significant changes to the stories themselves.
• Jules Verne remains one of the top five most translated authors in the world.

Key work: Although it’s difficult to pick out one enduring work amongst so many which came to define a genre, it’s perhaps Around the World in Eighty Days which has most deeply penetrated popular culture. Even during Verne’s lifetime he made a great deal of money from stage adaptations of Phileas Fogg’s adventures – although for every Michael Palin documentary it may have inspired, there’s a Steve Coogan and Jackie Chan movie…

Anecdote: Jules Verne’s love of science was such that he could neither stomach nor understand why writers should want to “make up” things. On reading HG Wells‘ The First Men In The Moon he declared it nonsense. “Where is this magical “Cavorite” that can resist gravity? My book uses real technology!” He was here referring to From the Earth to the Moon in which his protagonists reach their destination by being fired into space from a giant gun… Pot, kettle, black?

DO say: “The law’s loss is Science Fiction’s gain.”

DON’T say: “Where can I see one of his plays performed?”

You can find all of our past cheat sheets here.

Dan Lewis, for Waterstones.com/blog

Is there an author you’d like a cheat sheet to feature? Let us know in the comments below…

This work at home business is really getting to me. I used to hate when teachers came to class unprepared and gave stuff to do in lieu of discussions. But I tell you, there was no voice to be had  at all and it hurt to speak. Rushed home shortly after and was about to nap when I got a call from my mom. They wanted to catch the final screening of Les Miserables–and as it was their 39th anniversary, I didn’t think twice about saying yes.

So there we were at a theater viewing this epic of a film about redemption and next to me were two people who, forty years ago, eloped and made history–or at least that’s what it must have felt like, right?

I’m digressing from travel today to talk about dating and other pursuits. Had a few stories lined up but I feel funky this weekend and this deserves some contemplation. If this isn’t up your alley, you can stop reading at this point. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

–

Arrived home tonight after having eaten only a Spam sandwich for the day. I was in bed, fighting off a mild fever, the aforementioned sore throat and the shock at having the chance to even do this–lie in bed all day. I haven’t done this in at least a year and the body pines for what it wants so well sometimes, all we can really do is give in. The tv, which I can’t live with where I moved, provided the much needed company and I ended up watching a special on the making of Fatal Attraction. This plus the trailer of Anna Karenina–played yet again by Kiera Knightley who looks a wee bit too young to be Anna–got me thinking about relationships again. It’s usually like this: there’s talk of infidelity (which could be my one single commitment issue), some reminiscing about previous relationships, some more thoughts on current predicaments, the idea of marriage floats by and is soon turned away by the singular realization that I can’t be the marrying type–or at least I won’t do it if it means settling, if it means I’m scared of being alone.

–

Obviously, I fit the hopeless romantic category. I love Faust, read a lot of Keats and Blake and really only feel understood by Jane Austen and Alexandre Dumas. I understand what Feist sings about when she belches “I feel it all” too. I feel it all too much.

–

Sometime ago this person cautioned me about being too smart and being too good. Says it wasn’t normal for people to be like this and it would just intimidate the guys and I’d be lonely forever. Naturally, that person no longer exists in my circles and is dead to me. Lately though, people have made comments about my Twitter feed and how it’s too smart–I shrugged and wondered about what they meant. Surely they were kidding, right?

–

A few nights ago, it became known to me that a certain couple who’d been married some time now were having marital problems. They’re younger than most who do and everything else considered, it just seems too tragic to be stuck so soon–and to be stuck at all.

–

I am dating. Quietly and from afar. It isn’t the best situation as I’m never sure what’s going on but I do know that things are okay and that commitment need not worry me just yet. However, due to the looseness of the set-up, I still can’t help but think about dating in general and how it plays out here. I hate to judge but after going out with some guys here, I noticed that conversation was either dry or too easily caught up in the who-do-you-know net. It could be argued that perhaps I haven’t met the right people but if this means having to date a lot of the Manilafolk, I think I’ll pass. The circles are tight and even before anything remarkable happens, people are already making haste and talking. Then there’s the case of the man attached to his mother. Thankfully, the guys I end up meeting are a little less attached but still, a lot of them will only make decisions with either their dicks or their mothers (not a pleasant set of things to put in once sentence, I know). It’s revolting.

–

Tonight, at the dinner table, I had to come out with it and tell my mother that really, I’d be happier alone than married and stuck. I told her I wouldn’t settle. I told her I’m still holding out for the guy who reads, likes music, likes art–makes conversation. I’m still holding out for the person who’ll tell me he likes me because I have an opinion (unpopular as it often is) and I’m not afraid to share it. I’ll wait for someone who’ll look past convention and say, “We’re timeless and we need not conform.” Or something like that. And if he doesn’t come, I’ll grow a garden, make stuff bloom and be happy, you know?

In the meantime, some more Tolstoy and the infinite pleasure of text.

(c) sketchjam.blogspot.com/

Movies inform or misinform:

Alexandre Dumas wrote The Three Musketeers. I’d never really thought about who Alexandre Dumas was. It was settled somewhere in the recesses of my consciousness that he was some European writer, like Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky. I’ve also never read the book but I’ve seen an edition of the movie, the one starring Orlando Bloom.

The book, The Three Musketeers, has been mentioned severally at different times and has inspired more than 200 movies. I especially remember that it was mentioned in the movie, Slumdog Millionaire where (if i remember properly) Dumas’ name was a 10 million dollar answer. I watched Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained a few days ago where this book was again mentioned. Viewers were also helped to a piece of the author’s history. Dr Schultz, a character in the movie, told Calvin Candie, the brutal slaver who’d before then savagely set his dogs on a slave he’d named after one of Alex Dumas’ musketeers, that Dumas was actually black!

Black? Now like I said earlier on I’d never really thought about who Alexandre Dumas was. This declaration set me a-thinking. Alexandre Dumas? Black? I’d been assuming the wrong almost all my life, I told myself. Dr Schultz’s assertion had unsettled dogs sleeping in my mental kennel, broken webs that were hanging calmly and set trapped flies in motion. I couldn’t just agree easily so I Googled Mr Dumas’ name and opened his Wikipedia® page. Before clicking on that Wikipedia® page, however, I’d opened Google Images® only to behold the ‘white’ features of Mr Dumas. With a little disappointment planted in my heart as to why Tarantino should feed me incorrect info about Dumas’ race I continued the search by opening that Wikipedia® page and after reading its first few paragraphs I confirmed that Alexandre Dumas was black . . .

Actually for the sake of accuracy Alexandre Dumas was mIXed-rACe. He had for a father a mixed-race French General who was born in Haiti and eventually married a black slave who bore the great Alexandre Dumas. So somewhere in time, white keys had to play music alongside black keys to produce the harmonious melody that earth’s piano should produce.

After all that has been done to the story of Cleopatra, Nubia and Kemet, I’m thankful that Tarantino’s Django Unchained didn’t at least distort that piece of history . . . it isn’t such a bad idea to just learn that Dumas was black.