Infinity: Eternity by numbers and the search for mile markers along the way

Recently I’ve been reading Nicholas Orme’s Medieval Children with an eye toward blogging about my study. I have been making progress but for better or worse have encountered countless interruptions (and, lately, mishaps) from a modern child who at various points in his life has been referred to as having no “off” button, a “blonde blur” and the “tornado who lives in my house.” But I also affectionately refer to him as “Turtle” because he is the kindest and sweetest child I have ever met. The mother of a friend in our cul-de-sac told me once, “Well, sometimes he is a little too much boy for [her daughter], but they get on really well.”

He also is an engaging conversationalist and, especially in maths, way smarter than I ever will be–which is as it ought to arrive. So recently when a conversation that actually commenced several months ago and focused on infinity was re-ignited, I thought once more of a uni paper I wrote on the topic. We explored it a bit and while our conversation branched off in many different directions, it tended to come back to one of his favorite topics: numbers.

“How many numbers in between one and two?” I’d once asked him. He shrugged his shoulders and said something like, “Probably five or six, and some fractions into the bargain.”  He was astounded and awed when I told him there were many, many more than that. Then came talk of fleas on fleas on fleas (a backwards travel he hadn’t anticipated), unending space. the speed of light and passing through it to end up in a different time.

One thing I’ve learned as a mother and a teacher is that children will never fail us when we ask them for ideas. I’ve lost count as to how many times I’ve presented Turtle with a dilemma and he pitched back a solution I hadn’t even explored. It makes me wonder how medieval mothers–and fathers, for that matter–approached and conducted conversations with their children, especially bright ones. I will learn more about this as I read on, certainly, perhaps learning from medieval children as I do from those who can actually talk to me now.

The paper re-printed below was written for Communicating Math Ideas, a class for teachers taught by one of the most magnificent professors I have ever had the great fortune to meet. In his classroom I learned a lesson similar to one I’d done several years before in an undergrad biology lecture hall. Because it was a GER and I considered myself “an English person” (in this world divided by language arts on one side and mathematics on the other), my heart wasn’t in it. Moreover it being packed full of students, individual attention was a pipe dream.

Both professors, however, have a gift in that they were able to singularly capture the attention of those whose walls were otherwise too thick to breach, and it is worth noting that humor had a privileged place in their respective techniques. Dr. Gary Davies (biology) persuaded me to realize the role played by affirmation, for better or worse: all our lives we were told or negatively supported in our own belief that we are not science people or not good at it–and that this was mere conditioning. Dr. Larry Foster (math) used less sentiment but possessed a wide repertoire of ways to fascinate us with mathematical magic. I still struggled with lots of the work and ended up with a C in both classes, but today feel better about those two Cs and the knowledge and interest I continue to carry, more than any A I earned regarding information I dropped off when I graduated.

I still find some maths challenging and didn’t miraculously become a whiz; in fact my ten-year-old child as mentioned above is way better at it than I am. But I remain interested and occasionally peruse the same library shelves (especially physics and astronomy) I did when in Dr. Foster’s class. Twice in recent months I entered into other conversations about infinity and time travel, bringing me back to those shelves and the paper referenced above. In some instances I haven’t a clue what I am reading but tend to follow the same pattern I did when reading Tears of the Cheetah: read carefully, write notes, find the links and be happily astounded. (It helped me, by the way, to create an on-the-spot lesson plan when once asked to substitute for a middle -school science teacher who had just gone home sick.) I try not to dismiss information that is above my head, but rather piece it together as best I can, finding at least one element I can understand.

There’s a small bit of background for the paper below, which is just now four years written. Individually it also didn’t earn me a fantabulous grade (B) and the professor told me I didn’t exactly address the question as he asked it. But he did enjoy the paper, including the weaving in of concepts as they relate to early childhood education. As it continues to carry me through ongoing and changing ideas and conversations, I enjoy it as well, even if I did, upon re-reading, have to stop and do some re-absorbing. There is still so much to know that I don’t, and this infinity is perhaps the best part.

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The Nature of Infinity: A Multi-Discipline Perspective Study

When I began to discuss this topic with someone more learned than I, he warned me to stay away from it: “It has driven men insane.” His comment summoned memories of driving through North Dakota and its immeasurable flatness, an experience I never wish to repeat, despite prior romanticism of all things prairie. The flatness as I drove went on and on, forever and a day, it seemed, except that at the time implied there would be an end to this drive. There were no indications to dispel the notion I began to entertain that I was not actually moving at all. No exits, no other cars, no mile markers, no wandering buffalo, nothing. I did not understand then they don’t roam around the streets like our moose do, and I cursed this endless country. Even the lone structure I thought I saw in the distance never got any closer. I started to worry about Zeno’s paradox (absorbed courtesy a childhood obsession with Lewis Carroll and discussions with my father) and that I might never get back home. I remember thinking, “This must be what it is like to go mad.” It enveloped me like a dark cloak that was only lifted when, outside Edmonton, I saw a green sign with an arrow and the printed word, “Alaska.” It was still three days and a drive through the Canadian Rockies away, but that cloak was off my shoulders.

Occasionally subsequent listeners of my yarn would talk about perception and how some people are used to such a land—even that they would have recognized natural distance markers—and I would respond dramatically, “You’ve not looked into the eyes of infinity.” They would laugh at the absurdity in my memory of driving towards Montana and the comfort and relief promised by its name. But even the learned Greeks had a word to represent fear of what Marcus Aerelius referred to as a “fathomless gulf, into which all things vanish”: apeirophobia (Tyler). I had not been alone with my feelings of displacement.

Infinity actually comes in two sizes, Tyson continues, the great and the small. The flea on a dog has pests on him, and they have pests on them, and so on down to the uncomprehendingly small, as he quotes Jonathan Swift. The largeness of infinity, on the other hand, can be contemplated in terms of numbers as well as in the forward moving of time that never ends, as in Van Loon’s 1921 musings on the topic in The Story of Mankind (itself a heady title):

High up in the North in the land called Svithjod, there stands a rock. It is 100 miles high and 100 miles wide. Once every thousand years a little bird comes to the rock to sharpen its beak. When the rock has thus been worn away, then a single day of eternity will have gone by.

If this bird, who for his size must have a rather small beak, comes once every thousand years to sharpen it, how many thousands will it take to wear the enormous rock down? On the one hand, our lives—roughly 70-75 years for each of us—is what part of that rock? Is the chip that represents each of us visible to the naked eye? How many of us can fit onto the tip of his beak? On the other hand, tedious as it may be, perhaps we could come up with some number and see that, indeed, at least infinity has a defined end. (Does that by definition disqualify it from being infinity?) But then again, can we really come up with a number of that size? Each time the rock is worn down, we will recall, is a single day. Children come up with words all the time to represent numbers they cannot yet grasp. How do we reach for such a tool? When we begin to have a grasp on the vastness, is the worry over smallness of ourselves in such a scenario mere conceit? And do we rarely encounter the type of fear the suicidal Buber (Tyler) did because we engage in lifelong avoidance of having to grapple with the terrifying enormity of it all?

In conversations about the unknown or frightening, sometimes we talk about how the process of naming something renders it understandable or better appreciated—or at least nerve wracking to a lesser degree. This seemed true as an experiment at the time of my journey, and helped me endure that difficult portion of it. For instance the numbers on my watch told me time was definitely passing, and the speedometer registered miles actually traversed. Bringing this idea to bear on infinity, rather than just imagining a vague sort of never-ending vastness, we can look at numbers to bring some concreteness to the idea. There is precedence for this line of thought: In ancient Greek cultural context, explains classics historian Reviel Netz, there existed a paradigm “that in order to understand things you should find the precise integer numbers that govern them” (Nova).

Unlike small children we as adults have internalized the idea of numbers, and don’t tend to understand them as something magical or unknown or vague; they mean more to us than to young children, who are busy cracking some kind of code by coming to understand these bizarre shapes. (If you don’t believe me, try writing in your checkbook register for a day using numerals hindiyyah:  ٠,١,٢,٣,٤,٥,٦,٧,٨,٩., and you’ll get an idea of children’s perspective.) So, if we take the familiar numbers, say, 1 and 2, we get a better idea of what lay in between without too much reeling; they keep us within a certain comfortable framework.

Even though there are infinitely many fractions between each pair of consecutive counting numbers, the arrows (Figure 1) show how to match the red counting numbers with the blue fractions (Bellevue).

Fig. 1

Perhaps it is a bit like the difference between knowing you have a great distance to cover but you don’t know how much, and knowing you’ve 600 more miles to go before you reach the border.

One of the things I frequently contemplated on the drive was whether I should have taken a different route. Ever since I made my way by Chicago via (mistakenly) Gary, Indiana, I started second-guessing myself. I’m fairly skilled at reading a map, but sometimes I stopped and looked for the straightest line from where I was to the next stop where I wanted to be. Some alternatives looked attractive, and while the time may have been shorter, the points crossed wouldn’t have.

For practical purposes that would have been good enough, but looking back as well as at some of the information at my fingertips now makes me contemplate the idea of superimposing a great triangle somewhere around Dickinson, North Dakota. If I began on one side to bisect the triangle, back then I might have thought that being near the apex would make the drive shorter than had I began at the wide angle of the triangle. Well, it would have, but in mathematical terms it is interesting to note that I still cross the same number of lines. So infinity in one sense, with a perspective towards time, can be much shorter or smaller depending on where you start and stop. But in terms of numbers, there are no shortcuts. Figure 2 below illustrates this.

(Fig. 2) [Image used in original paper no longer available; please see bijection, page nine.]*

Line segments with different lengths have the same number of points. (Schechter)

So, no shortcuts.

Then again, maybe there are. If you consider the numbers used to measure time, you’ve got it made. Closer to the apex it takes only two hours to get to Dickinson, while  from the other end it takes eight. But, again, time is an abstract concept. Is it more real than something that can be mapped out concretely? What if we measured distance in a non-concrete fashion? Is that possible? Well, as Vilenkin writes, “It is hard to reconcile oneself to the thought that a path a million light years long has only as many points as the radius of an atomic nucleus!” (63). As a grown up even I don’t have a firm grasp on the exactness of those distances, but I do have an awareness of what they imply, and I can understand that paradox in Vilenkin’s statement. Not to mention the time it takes to cover such distances (and the differences between space and Earth times). How could you ever explain such concepts to a child?

John Monaghan researched young people’s ideas about infinity and reviewed Piagetian studies on children’s understanding of the concept. In 1954 Piaget and Inhelder tasked children with subdividing geometric shapes, such as a line. They found that “[i]n the concrete operational stage children could continue a large but finite number of divisions” (241). The problem, however, was that the Piagetian framework, in which children develop, progressing from stage to stage, did not account for the internally contradictory nature of many of the children’s responses. Later, Fischbein et al. expanded the study with older children (10-15 at various levels of attainment) by taking intuition into account. They determined that “our intuition of infinity is intrinsically [emphasis mine] contradictory because our logical schemes are naturally adapted to finite objects and events” (243).

How contradictory is infinity itself? In terms of numbers, my own musings of the comparison between positive and even integers still leaves me in awe: they are equal in amount. Richard Morris backs me up in this by affirming, “intuition would tell us there are twice as many positive integers.” Galileo came up with the same conclusion but referred to infinity as “inherently incomprehensible.” His conclusion that it is best avoided (4) didn’t help Giordano Bruno, who likely heard it from someone if not Galileo and was burned at the stake during the Inquisition for, it is believed, his ideas about an infinite universe (40).

Summoning images to my mind as I type brings ideas I am fairly certain I never contemplated while on the road. The geometry of the angles (and sometimes curvatures) produced when looking off into the distance, the great opening that lay before me through North Dakota, the Big Sky of Montana when I finally reached it—all of these are ideas that touch on multiple perspectives that can be repeatedly questioned or played with to look for different ideas. For instance, if I saw the above diagram, or this stretch of North Dakota as a work of art, but didn’t have any idea about its measurability, how would I gauge it? Geometry in art can be a bit like statistics—the outcome can change depending on who looks at the figures. This brings up the entire concept of visual literacy and how the eyes and sight work. Is eyesight passive—does it simply register based on things like shape or condition—or does what is recorded engage and process based on what the person has stored in his or her brain?  Is the structure in the distance on the other side of the field or many miles away? Is the sky in Montana actually big, or did it appear that way simply because I’d long heard that expression? Looking across a Montana prairie one sees, without being aware they are seeing, as if from a mountaintop.  However, from this perspective of flat land where one stands, there actually exists a drop, or curvature of the earth, on either side so subtle as to create the image of a sky larger than it is. Moreover, one could turn 360° and the effect remains constant; the perspective is not changed by direction. The mind of this observer perceives the horizon as being infinitely far away, when in fact the point they have focused on is closer than it appears.

Camerawork can be just as tricky with the way lenses make objects appear closer than they are and I’ve often wondered how that can be. Geometrical configurations are not manageable in the way numbers can be (Nova), and this may be why the subject unnerves many people. For the same reasons, perhaps oddly enough, this may also be why people revere art as they do: they are repeatedly trying to conceive of and interpret what they see.

As geometry seems linked to art, so too does it to astronomy. We’ve all seen the diagrams drawn around pictures of sparkling skies; how many of us understand them? Is the vastness part of, or an addition to, what baffles us? There are numbers to work with, although in this context they seem so unreal, unbelievable. Perhaps a bit more “down to earth” would be our modern understanding of how astronomy and space exploration is related to national defense. Galileo, after all, understood the implications of the telescope when it was still being sold as a novelty item (Couper, 136). When he looked through his he could see ships so far out to sea that the lookouts posted wouldn’t see them for two more hours (139). Galileo brought a seemingly infinite distance down to a manageable size for the safety of the city.

But what of those who watched the stars before the telescope? People have been doing this for millennia; the distances they marveled at left them perhaps as awestruck as my driving distance left me. Certainly, some may say, the drive across one U.S. state is no match for the distance between Earth and stars billions of miles away. Too right they would be, although I still might be able to claim an infinitive drive when the question of sizes of infinity is raised. Is an ancient star gazer’s infinity bigger than mine? Stephen Battersby writes that the infinity behind the idea of endless time and space is a “trifle.” Not only that, “multiplying infinitely many infinities together, the result is smaller than another infinity.” Does this mean all the galaxies together are smaller than North Dakota?

The numbers might be fun to play with on that, and it is interesting to note that beliefs on the universe’s infinity swung like a pendulum as time went on. Aristotle taught that it was quite finite, and his authority (Greek fear?) influenced Church doctrine. We will remember that Bruno lost his life over disagreement with contemporary authorities. But by the seventeenth century his idea no longer was so controversial (Morris, 158). The pendulum has swung back and forth and continues to do today: compelling evidence once pointed to an infinite universe, but many physicists and astronomers now believe we will never know because it is so close to the borderline (159). Perhaps most fascinating to contemplate, in opposition to the idea that can barely conceive of infinity, especially given Monaghan’s discussion on the finite nature of the human mind, is that we reject the idea of a finite universe. For it to be so, there is an indication that somewhere along the way it stops. And then what?

Works Cited

Battersby, Stephen. “To Infinity and Beyond.” New Scientist 179.2414 (Sept. 27, 2003): 31.

Bellevue College Science Division. “Counting to Infinity.” Bellevue College Science

Division. N.D. Bellevue College. 15 April 2009.

<http://scidiv.bcc.ctc.edu/math/Infinity.html&gt;.

ibid. 6 Apr. 2013.

Couper, Heather, and Nigel Henbest. The History of Astronomy. Buffalo: Firefly, 2007.

Monaghan, John. “Young Peoples’ Ideas of Infinity.” Educational Studies in Mathematics

48.2/3 (Oct. 2001): 239-257.

Morris, Richard. Achilles in the Quantum Universe: The Definitive History of Infinity.

New York: Holt, 1995.

Nova, Interview with Reviel Netz, Working with Infinity: A Mathematical Perspective,

Nova, PBS, Boston, Sept. 2003. 15 Apr. 2009

< http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/archimedes/infinity.html&gt;.

Nova, Interview with Reviel Netz, Working with Infinity: A Mathematical Perspective,

Nova, PBS, Boston, Sept. 2003. 6 Apr. 2013

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/working-with-infinity.html

Schechter, Eric. “Georg Cantor (1845-1918): The Man Who Tamed Infinity.” Vanderbilt

University Department of Mathematics. 15 April 2009

<http://www.math.vanderbilt.edu/schectex/&gt;.

Schechter, Eric. “Georg Cantor (1845-1918): The Man Who Tamed Infinity.” Vanderbilt

University Department of Mathematics. 6 Apr. 2013

http://www.math.vanderbilt.edu/~schectex/courses/infinity.pdf.

Tyson, Peter. “Contemplating Infinity: A Philosophical Perspective.” Nova, PBS, Sept.

2003. 15 April 2009

<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/archimedes/contemplating.html&gt;.

Tyson, Peter. “Contemplating Infinity: A Philosophical Perspective.” Nova, PBS, Sept.

2003. 6 Apr. 2013

<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/archimedes/contemplating.html&gt;.

Vilenkin, N. Ya.  In Search of Infinity. Trans. Abe Shenitzer. Boston: Birkhaüser, 1995.

*For an interactive illustration of this point (no pun intended), click here.

Richard and Anne: Painting and Passion by Karen King

Rather by accident the work of California artist Karen King came to my attention via her magnificent painting, Richard and Anne. Inspired by a passage from The Sunne in Splendour, Sharon Kay Penman’s epic novel of Richard III, it depicts the then Duke of Gloucester and his future queen, Anne, in a private moment as they attempt to forge their future. This is complicated by Anne’s previous tortured relationship with Edouard, her late husband and son of Richard’s enemy, Margaret of Anjou. They make their way outside, where Richard had

found for them a secluded retreat within a wall of willow and whitethorn; the sky was darkening into a delicately tinted violet and a crescent moon silvered the circling clouds over their heads. It was very quiet. She heard only the soft trilling of the night birds, was becoming aware of the heavy honeysuckle scents of spring. She should have been able to draw comfort from such surroundings; somehow, it didn’t help at all.

Anne begins to speak of Eduoard and just as quickly attempts to banish him and any reminders from their lives. “[S]he felt [Richard’s] fingers on her throat, caressing, tilting her face up to his. She let him kiss her, and rather timidly, put her arms around him as he drew her into a closer embrace.” It is this moment King captures on canvas, interpreting through her imagination the image she sees and all its vibrancy, including that felt by all the senses. Her Richard and Anne stand on a precipice, between the thick tension and surging relief of the moments that follow; not only can this be seen in the figures’ postures, but also felt. The lock of Anne’s hair falling over her cheek mirrors the ease and cascading looseness of her gown, yet the viewer can sense her stiffness and anguish as she leans into Richard. He, only somewhat relaxed, holds her in a comforting embrace, yet his eyes above her head, viewers can imagine, roam their surroundings, as if seeking elusive relief for the suffering she has endured.

I had the opportunity to chat with Karen, who so graciously shared with us some of her techniques, inspirations, personal favorites and passages as an artist.

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I would like to thank Lisl for giving me the opportunity to have a chat about the painting of Richard and Anne. While I was preparing for this interview I found just by chance a notebook where I had jotted down some notes regarding research for the painting. Chance? I think not. The first page was titled: “Understanding Richard III for a Portrait/Painting.” I had just finished reading Sharon Kay Penman’s The Sunne in Splendour and was so heartsick at the travesty that Shakespeare foisted upon the world regarding Richard Plantagenet that I wanted to read more. The first book referenced under the heading was Paul Murray Kendall’s Richard III. I wrote down one of his quotes, in which Kendall references Shakespeare’s play The Tragedy of Richard III:

What a tribute this is to art; what a misfortune it is to history.

I’d hope that my painting would be seen not so much as a tribute to art, but surely a tribute to the true Richard III.

Could you give us the basic technical information of the painting and tell us how you chose the materials for this particular piece?

The painting is done in acrylics. My pallet colors are Ultramarine Blue, Cadmium Yellow Medium, Cadmium Red, Raw Sienna and White. I don’t use pre-mixed colors such as green, orange, purple etc. because I like to create my own. I also never use black. If you’re wondering about Richard’s hair, well I made my own black. I prefer acrylics to oil because I’m not fond of using toxic products such as turpentine, which is needed to thin down the oils. The only down side to using acrylics is that they dry quickly. I keep a spray bottle of water handy to keep my pallet from drying out. I have a mixture of nice brushes (red sable) and cheap ones, which tend to lose bristles. I use the good ones for detail work and the cheap ones when I need to cover a lot of the canvas. When you have a 48 x 35 canvas, as is the case with Richard and Anne, there’s a lot of canvas to cover! I use masking tape to help me keep a straight edge. Really don’t know what I would have done without it on this painting.

I had wondered about the edges and other difficult parts away from them. I’d just assumed it was a dilemma only a non-artist such as myself would think to have.

I’m being constantly challenged by difficulties presented when painting something new. There are instructors that teach technique, but my main teacher thought it best to learn by trial and error. That way I’d know what to do the next time I was presented with the same problem. She also encouraged me to develop my own style rather than create paintings that are carbon copies of the instructor’s style, e.g. Bob Ross. I understand the principal of that philosophy but sometimes I think that I would have benefited by being an apprentice to a master painter and learned to paint the way one was taught during the Renaissance. I really don’t even know if they teach that way any longer. I probably would have been very impatient though. I remember when I first started painting I was given the assignment to pick a very simple object, divide the canvas into six equal parts, then paint the object in different ways in the six “panes.” Well I picked a light bulb. It was very challenging to make a cohesive painting using a light bulb for inspiration. Well after I completed that painting, the next assignment was to paint three more paintings using the six-paneled grid painting as their theme. So I had to paint three more light bulb paintings before I could paint something that I actually wanted to paint! Let me tell you I have not painted anything resembling a light bulb since!

This painting is inspired by a scene from Sharon Kay Penman’s The Sunne in Splendour in which Richard and Anne find a private space, away from the pressures bearing down on both of them, and work through some troubling history. What were some of the thoughts or feelings you had when reading the passage that eventually led to the painting?

What could be more peaceful and private than a priory garden for two soul mates to comfort one another? I was anticipating beautiful moments of shared love and intimacy, but it soon became apparent that as much as Anne wanted to give herself to Richard, she was incapable of doing so because of her horrific relationship with Edouard. My heart bled for Richard as he came to the realization that he and Anne had a long road ahead them. Unable to vent his anger against Anne’s tormenter, all he could do was be patient, and hope that his steadfast love would eventually heal her emotional wounds. Anne felt awful as well because although she loved Richard with all her heart she felt emotionally handicapped. The bittersweet scene touched me deeply. I truly felt their frustration and anguish.

How long did it take to complete?

To tell you the truth I don’t remember. At the time I was taking a painting class once a week for three hours. At that rate I believe it probably took me at least three months.

Is this the first scene to have moved you in such a way? Were there any others (in Sunne or elsewhere) you have brought or would like to bring to canvas?

That is an excellent question! There are quite a few scenes from other books that I wanted to paint, however whenever I really thought about actually doing them, I’d get overwhelmed by the magnitude of the endeavor. I really wanted to paint Ranulf’s marriage proposal scene from Sharon’s When Christ and His Saints Slept. It takes place in a lantern lit barn. Ranulf and Rhiannan are sitting on a bale of hay. She with a kitten curled up in her lap and he with his hand gently tilting up her chin to kiss her. It was such a moving scene but there was no way I could pull it off. Where would I find anything remotely resembling a medieval barn, and even if I could there’s no way that I’d be able to find two willing subjects to pose for me! I thought about finding pictures to use as references, but with such specific requirements they’re very difficult to find even with the Internet at your fingertips.

All that being said, I did paint a scene from an Edith Pargeter novel, Afterglow and Nightfall. Here’s the scene (I apologize for its length, but it’s one of the most moving passages that I’ve ever read. Just retyping it almost made me cry):

Lying as it does in a cleft of the northern hills, with the great mountain mass of Penmaenmawr to the east, Moel Wninon to the west and Foel-Fras to the south, the morning sun never enters Aber. But to look out at dawn to the north over the narrow salt marshes to Lavan sands and the sea, that is wonderful. The deepening light first tinted like feathers of doves, then flushing into rose, then glowing like amber, comes sweeping westward from Conway over the sea, to strike in a glitter of foam and sand on the distant coast of Anglesey across the strait from us, as if a golden tide had surged across the sea green tide, and flooded the visible world with light. That was such a morning. The only time that Eleanor’s eyes left Llwelyn’s face was to gaze at the morsel of sky seen through the open doorway, and he divined the last thirst that troubled her, she who loved the sun. If he could not take her where it would shine upon her, at least she might still look upon its beauty from the shadows.

He sat down beside her on the edge of the brychan, and lifted her against his shoulder, and carefully gathering the blankets of the bed about her, took her up in his arms. She made no sign of pain, but only a soft sigh and with his cheek pressed steadyingly against her hair he carried her out on to the guard-walk, and the few yards round the stony bulk of the tower to the northern parapet, and stood cradling her as the sun rose, their faces turned towards the sea.

There in the open the air was sweet and cool, and below us, beyond the shore road, the reeds and grasses of the marsh stood erect like small, bright lances, every one separate, going down in lush, tufted waves to where the sands began, with a great exultation of sea birds filling the air above. The level sunrays made all the surface of the strait a dance of darker blue in the centre, and the shallows where the sand showed through were the colour of ripening wheat. Along the horizon ran the purple line of the coast of Anglesey, and in the centre of that distant shore was the Franciscan friary of Llanfaes, the burying place of the princesses of Gwynedd. In the morning light it appeared as the distant harbour of desire, absolute in beauty and peace.

She lay content in his arms and on his heart, her cheek against his cheek, and her eyes drew light from the picture on which she gazed, and grew so wide and wise in their hazel gold that there was a moment when I believed he had won the battle. He knew better. Very still he stood, not to jar or hurt her and softly still he spoke, of Wales, that she had taken to her heart and that loved her in return and of a future when there would be no need of war, when this land would be free and united and honourable among the countries of Christendom, and kings and princes would pledge peace and keep it, and her child’s children, the descendants of Earl Simon, would walk at large as heroes among their own people, and equals among the monarchs of the world.

Her lips moved, soundlessly, saying: “Yes!” It was right that she should take her leave of the world, as she had greeted it in passing, with a cry of affirmation. The sun was just clear of the horizon, and the sky to eastward the colour of primroses, and to westward of cornflowers, when the faintest of tremors passed through her body, and her head turned slightly upon his shoulder, her lips straining to his cheek. One word she said, and this time not silently shaping it, yet on so feeble a breath that neither he nor I could have caught it but for the great silence in which we stood. But hear it I did, and so did he. We never spoke of it but I know.

“Cariad!” she said, and her breath caught and halted long gently began again, and again sank into stillness. He held her for a great while after that, but there was no more sound, and no more movement, and that was all her message to him. She did not leave him without saying farewell. Yes! Cariad!

This passage moved me deeply and I really wanted to capture the sense of tragedy. What I couldn’t capture was the beauty of the sunrise depicted by Mrs. Pargeter, for I’ve never been to that part of Wales to see it for myself. But I did try to get a feel as to what the area looked like by using Google maps. I also found pictures of the area on the Internet, but I could never get a true picture in my head. It also occurred to me as I was trying to compose the picture that Mrs. Pargeter was describing what they were seeing and so doing, does not involve the figures at all! So I had to combine the two; the figures and what they were seeing. In the end I think the figures are the true focal point of the painting and the sunrise had to suffer for it, All in all I’m pleased with the colors I used and never tire of looking at it. A magical thing happened though after I hung the painting up in my living room. One afternoon I was sitting across the room from the painting and happened to glance up at it and caught my breath. A beam of light from the setting sun was shining on the figures and it seemed as if they were lit from within. Yes! Cariad! So, Lisl, is there a favorite passage from a book that you’d like to see painted?

Well, with some exceptions I generally tend to see moving pictures in my mind when passages evoke images. For example in Sunne the night before Richard’s first battle, Sharon describes his facial movements in one particular instance, and I remember being struck by how easily I could see the exact movement of expression in his eyes and face based on her words. It’s an expression I’ve seen many times before in real life, but it’s the sort you never really stop to comment about. I was amazed at how such a small moment, an “insignificant” movement could leap out at me. I think it was made significant because, strange as this may sound, helped me to see more into this Richard.

I find it interesting that when you read you see moving pictures in your head. Don’t you love the way Sharon can describe facial expressions? There is so much subtlety in describing human emotions that it takes a very special author to bring the character to life; make them so real that as you said, “helped me see more into this Richard.” Writing, painting and music are very similar, in that when done well, evoke emotions that touch the heart.

Oh, I totally agree. Even small details can move hearts. Tell us about your Anne’s hair. If I recall correctly, it was described in the book as chestnut, yet you painted a rich red. How did you come to envision Anne in this way?

As a writer, have you ever had a chapter you were writing take on a life of its own? Your careful outline, suddenly gone astray? Well that happens with painting as well. I believe that I began to paint Anne’s hair a rich chestnut, but when painting the highlights I got carried away turning it red. I let it be because I liked the way it looked, knowing that I could easily change it later, but as the painting progressed I found that the color worked with the painting as a whole.

Also, I’m very aware that Anne should have been wearing a headdress. In fact I wanted to paint a headdress lying on the cloister wall, seemingly carelessly cast aside in the heat of the moment, but my art instructor at the time advised against it for she felt that it fought with the overall composition, so I left it out.

The painting and the way it came to be is a bit reminiscent of the Pre-Raphaelites, whose work was influenced in part by Romantic poetry. There is a great deal of detail in your painting, yet it is much more subtle than in most of the PRB’s works. Is there any particular influence in your artistic background that informs this piece?

As a teen I discovered Botticelli. I loved his linear style of painting. Fell in love with his portraits of young men. If you look at Botticelli’s Madonna and Angels, they are just exquisite, very ethereal and captivating. Later on I discovered the Pre-Raphaelite movement and became a fan of Sir Edward Burne-Jones. I wasn’t surprised to find out that he was influenced by Botticelli! If you are familiar with Burne-Jones’ work, it’s very linear as well. Lately though I’ve been drawn to the Pre-Raphaelite artist J. W. Waterhouse.

I have this fantasy of someday having the means to buy an old Tudor Style home in the English countryside where each room’s focal point and inspiration is a Waterhouse painting. We can dream can’t we? I believe that my style is a combination of Burne-Jones and Waterhouse. On a side note, the only painting that I’ve ever sold was a study I painted of the head of Venus in Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. I always found that pretty ironic. Lisl, do you have a favorite artists, or movement?

Well, I must confess I am not very artistic, and growing up tended to run into information on movements that really did very little to inspire me. (Sounds terrible, I know.) However, in high school I read a lot of Arthurian literature and simultaneously discovered the greeting card companies’ attraction to paintings by Burne-Jones and others. They were simply magnificent and the styles completely captured me. I loved Keats and tried to imagine “La Belle Dame sans Merci” brought to canvas in a similar fashion—which was a departure for me because my entire life until then had been spent focused on words. I happened to mention this to my English teacher, who possessed a treasure trove of books, and she showed the Waterhouse to me, which delighted me to no end.

I love the Arthurian Legend myself and I never cease to marvel over the magnificent art and superb literature that it has inspired. When I was in high school I read the book The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart and just fell in love with her version of Merlin.

I am still in love with those books.

Of course I read the next two books that followed and found myself smitten with one of the minor characters she developed for the series. I would literally daydream about going back in time and meeting this character. Well eventually I put my daydream into words and wrote a complete story about me and this character. One day in my art class I mentioned my story and one of the students suggested that I try to get it published. I told her that it wasn’t possible because I used Mary Stewart’s story as a base for my story. Her character was one of my main characters. She then suggested that I write to Mary Stewart to see if she could give me permission to use her character. Well I did just that, not expecting to her hear from her. About two months later I get an “air mail” letter from Scotland in the post and could not believe that Mary Stewart sent me a hand written reply! She was extremely nice about it but, unfortunately her publisher advised her against my request. I wasn’t too disappointed because I really don’t think that I’m that great of a writer and even if she had given her permission, I doubt that it could have been of interest to any publishing house.

I have a small story somewhat related you may find amusing. The Crystal Cave was actually on a list of books we were required to read the summer before school started. I was in my “don’t-tell-me-what-to-read” phase and resisted. I thought I knew all I wanted to know about Arthur, and my mother despaired, but she bought the books anyway. One day when cleaning my room I picked one up and gazed at the cover illustration of a strapping and rosy-cheeked Merlin—he even had reddish hair. Or it may have been a teenaged Arthur. In any case the image intrigued me so much I began to skim through the book. I remember placing the cloth on the floor and sitting there as I actually began reading. That moment re-directed my life.

Speaking of direction, Richard and Anne are located away from the central spot in the painting, and there is not much view to the sky, which is described magnificently in the passage it depicts – is there a statement within that choice, or intent to use these visual cues to signify mood or other energies within the scene?

Regarding the composition, I’m very fortunate to have had some very good art instructors who’ve taught me a lot about composition. There’s a mathematical formula called “The Golden Mean” which will tell you precisely where to place the focal point of your composition. Strangely enough, it’s not the center of the painting. There are also ways you can move the eye around the painting in a way that leads the viewer to the focal point. If you look at the cloister wall at the right hand side of the painting, it leads the eye to the figures. Also notice how the arch above the figures leads the eye to them. Remember earlier when I talked about the difficulties involved in painting a scene from a book? Well, this scene is not an exact replication of the scene from the book. The scene takes place in a priory garden with an arbor. When I sketched out the figures in an arbor, I just couldn’t get the feeling I wanted. But I knew that priories had cloisters so I used my artistic license and went the with cloister setting. Perhaps this scene is a last embrace, their last moment alone before they have to return to the hall after they left the garden and walked through the cloisters? When I made the choice of the cloisters, I chose a setting that gave me very little opportunity to paint a beautiful sunset. Perhaps I’m not meant to paint sunsets or sunrises for that matter. I was hoping to get the feel of the beautiful sky in that little bit you get to see through the arch. I remember that there was mention of a sliver of a moon, so I enjoyed putting that in there along with the pink tinged clouds. I also liked the way the dark cloister roof and walls contrasted with the brilliant blue sky and clouds and the subdued colors of the cloister garden, giving the viewer a feeling of dusk. Do you find it easy for your eye to move around the painting?

I do, and your reference to “The Golden Mean” brings back some memories of art history class. I recall being astounded at these techniques, because I thought artists were these talented people who simply painted something and there it was. Beautiful at the first. Looking at the painting again, it is as if the arches not only lead the eye, but perform a double duty in actually framing the top of the painting. There also seems to be what I might call a “balance” to it. A framing seems to work at the bottom as well, but without a lot of detail to distract from the figures of Richard and Anne. Emotionally there seems to be much around them not necessarily seen by the eye.

It is very gratifying to hear your comments, Lisl. Such a lot of love and hard work went into this painting that it’s very satisfying to know that someone else can see and feel its meaning. Being an amateur, I always fear that my efforts will be seen as corny and simplistic. Your appreciation of this painting inspires me to keep painting.

How would you describe this painting to someone unfamiliar with Sunne in Splendour or Richard III?

Oh my. This is the best question of all for this would give me the opportunity to enlighten the viewer whose only exposure to Richard III has been from Shakespeare. First of all I would highly recommend that they read The Sunne in Splendour. But if they balked at reading the book, I would tell them of the real Richard, his unfailing loyalty to his brother Edward, his courage and valor in the battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury, and his brilliant administration of his duties as Lord of the North. His motto says it all “Loyaulte Me Lie,” Loyalty Binds Me.

I, Richard: Seeking the Haunts of the Living

This is a short story I wrote for the first booksigning of my debut novel, The Rose of York: Love & War, born of my belief at the time that Richard’s bones had been thrown into the River Soar and also my deep sense that Richard III cared what we here on earth thought of him. I’ve kept it close to me for many years, but perhaps the time has come to let it go. Thanks to Philippa Langley and the successful archeological team that unearthed King Richard’s body, he will soon have a proper resting place and lay his head on silk.

Requiescat in Pace, Richard III.

So reads novelist Sandra Worth’s introduction to her wonderfully expressive and heart-rending short story, “I, Richard.” Told from the perspective of King Richard III, brutally slain in battle on August 22, 1485, it conveys the deep wounds suffered not only in life, but also those Richard carries after his death. He seeks truth where there seems to be none, and contemplates what a finality may bring.

My examination of the story’s deeper layers began as a review, and slowly united with exploration of its reflection of events and their implications in the lives of the countless people Richard has touched, before and after his death. Many know of his alleged misdeeds; what seems lacking is awareness of how his reign influenced the freedoms we know today.

Recent events have unearthed a new beginning for Richard Plantagenet, known to some only as Richard III, the king who for 500 years has been accused, amongst other crimes, of murdering his two nephews in order to claim the throne of England. His case has been most actively and openly researched since the end of the Tudor dynasty, when it was once more safe to speak other than ill of this dreadfully maligned monarch.

His detractors have upheld the charges against him, many determined also to maintain for him a grotesqueness equal, as the medieval mind would perceive, to the monstrous blackness of his inner being. While these modern-day accusers stand before us claiming to discount this antiquated notion of the physical body as reflection of the soul inside, they have yet to throw off the shackles of this belief themselves. For they repeat the hunchback and other memes as if they were important elements of the indictment to murder.

But what of Richard himself? What would he make of these and the numerous other charges against him that today remain the subject of heated debate not only between scientists and scholars but also writers, professors, students, readers, even bloggers and those participating in social media? Being late, does he simply not care any more? Or does he somehow maintain a presence here amongst the living? And does he simply observe, unable or unwilling to interact? What if he did care?

Sandra Worth, award-winning author of six novels of the Wars of the Roses, explores this territory in “I, Richard.” Opening with a nod toward the inevitable, the hour of death, Richard’s voice speaks of the crumbling of worlds with the passage of time, and disintegration of beings, both the self and those others who might remember him. Devoid of kindred comfort, why, then, is he here?

It is said, of course, that spirits who roam the realm of the living do because they are bound to something in their previous lives that keeps them from advancing to the next. Well known are Richard’s reasons for his unsettlement; perhaps the surprise is he has been at it this long. When one seeks release, however, from an unspeakable mystery and “from which I will not be free until it is revealed[,]” 500 years is a grim reminder that what comes after the end may be much worse than anything one might experience here on earth.

Richard’s end was indeed horrific; following it he must have been shattered to see his body—never mind that of an anointed king, but even simply as a human being—handled in so degrading a manner. We knew already of the awful head trauma and unseemly transport, then lately of the humiliation injuries, perhaps being bound at the wrists and no evidence of a coffin to at least have a last rest in. In our pain and grief over this new and terrible information, we must remind ourselves that Richard knew and had to endure this sight of himself since the day it happened, so achingly long ago.

Who wouldn’t go in search of something different?

And so

[s]ince my death I have traveled many haunts of the living in search of those who sense my grief, and have been heartened not to find myself friendless. When night deepens, I sometimes see a face that regards me with kindness. Hope is born in my breast. I follow them into their dreams. . . .

Richard has not been friendless indeed, and the accounts for how many came to advocate for him might be fascinating reading, not least because some, this writer included, fell into the Ricardian camp somewhat accidentally—that is to say they weren’t looking to take sides, but the sheer injustice, or simply the weight of the absurd made them sit up straight and take greater notice. Truth has a way of alerting people in this manner, and finding those who regard him other than how he last saw people treating him when on earth, must be encouraging, to say the least.

The king is portrayed in a number of studies as having been a kind and considerate individual. This is not to say he was not a product of his time, rather that kindness as we define it in our own era is quite different from what it was acknowledged to be in his. Now we take it for granted that someone accused of a crime, for example, maintains the right to make his defense and ought not to rot inside or have his worldly goods seized without a conviction in place. Surely some citizens of 15th century England approved of this consideration; largely, however, it was a foreign ideal.

This regal man having in life been so concerned with the lot of others, including those far beneath his own station, it then comes as little surprise that he may choose to follow some into their dreams, being aware of the myriad perspectives and limitations of others. Not all respond well to outright apparition. Perhaps still others could withstand watching Richard’s memories because he takes them through the experience, riding whispers on the wind.

Richard tells us, though, of two he has followed that few in his or our own era would find so savory. Remarkably this passage, given its fright factor, seems almost more poetic than any other in the story. Worth brings us to it succinctly utilizing a method that mirrors the deception of fiends, what with her elegant language depicting a revolting seizure, and we leap straight away into a pair of Richard’s after-life memories. We learn of two people who know the answers the king seeks, but their refusal to divulge what they know, even upon seeing him at their bedsides as death waits to escort them home, contributes to the hideousness of their respective ends. As the woman breathes her last, Richard sees the physical manifestation of power that had overtaken her, something that

resembled the incantation of a fiend. An eddy of darkness swirled from her, and in my mind arose the confusing impressions of a vast mental power, of avarice, coldness and malice, and of joy, of triumphant moments—and supreme despair.

A power so terrifyingly vast that it persuades the woman to believe its evil is her joy, and though she is penitent at her end, she steadfastly seals her heart from the truth that would free her from the grips of this darkness. She knows this, makes her choice, and despairs.

Heartbroken, Richard finds this reality discouraging and wonders at the apparent fruitlessness of his sojourns amongst the living. If a woman faced with the blackest of afterlife terrors chooses them rather than confess her knowledge, what hope is there? Some things are best left unsaid, and our king contemplates the imprisonment of eternal wandering, to forcibly witness the ongoing disparagement of his unsettled soul.

It has been aptly noted, however, that there are two sides to every coin, and recent events bring this notion into the fore. We tend to think of spirits as those who do the haunting, yet Richard speaks of “the haunts of the living.” Potentially embracing a number of connotations, the phrase seems to bring special significance to bear also on the results of our own contemplations. This explains the perceived wisdom of letting some issues lie, while they never truly do.

Rescuing Richard’s reputation is not a post-modern invention; people have been questioning the party line—even if in extreme secrecy—since his battered body first fell. These persons, our ancestors, had to endure life with knowledge passed to us that remains in shadows, frightening us with its power and secrecy, much of our fear residing in the realm of the unknown. At least in part it has been a willful haunting, because even after it became safe to speak of the dead king favorably, information is still withheld, defamation continually spread, academics infected with the partisan teaching of successive generations instructed to repeat rather than question.

In the end it may be King Richard himself who restores his own reputation, or at least becomes the significant stimulus that shifts enormous barriers. It was, after all, his own remains that yielded substantial clues, not least the absence of any withered arm. Other indications, noted above, also speak to the self-haunting of Henry Tudor, who required a degradation so extreme it had to commence with a bound corpse tossed into an unremarkable grave. We may never know all the answers, but there seems great hope that Richard’s truth shall set him free.

Book review: We Speak No Treason by Rosemary Hawley Jarman

Because I sometimes have a tendency to borrow too many books from the library, it happens on occasion that I tire of keeping up with conflicting due dates and end up tossing the lot into a bag to haul them back, unread. Such was nearly the case with an older, non-slipcovered edition of Rosemary Hawley Jarman’s We Speak No Treason, a novel I’d ordered on recommendation, but didn’t remember as I was deciding my returns. I made to rid myself of this unknown book, thinking it a pity I was unaware of its content; it could be a rewarding read. Alas, could all the rest be, and so I sighed and continued with my task.

Something stayed my hand, however, and it actually hovered over the return pile as I hesitated and then finally withdrew, my curiosity unwilling to let go of what I might find between these covers.

Curiosity in the Middle Ages could be a dangerous trait, as we see the characters here hover before even simple scenarios they know about or wish to know more of, perform secret observations, listen in on others’ conversations, purposefully or perchance. They, too, draw back, aware that even small choices could change the course of their lives while circumstances around them scheme to propel their destinies in other unknown manner.

The language of the tale is indeed magical yet ordinary. Many of the words we associate with medieval speech appear, and at first, perhaps, readers may perceive them as curious, though the mournful aura of the tale hangs heavier than unknown lexicon. This is perhaps especially as the deeper readers make their way into the telling, the lexicon begins to take on a more ordinary aspect. Words begin to be recognized as cousins to those we use today, their associations and nuances easily understood in the passages they inhabit. Jarman repeats them enough—in the manner people would in ordinary parlance—for us to become accustomed, while avoiding the heavy-handedness that sometimes traps medieval novels in stereotype, and she does with grace and variety, each character at times revealing his or her own patterns of speech.

Forbidden stories of King Richard III, We Speak No Treason is narrated by three who had been close to him though furthest now from any safe position to engage in such discussion: the Maiden, Richard’s former leman-turned-nun; the Fool, perilously serving under Henry Tudor following service to both Richard III and his elder brother, Edward IV; and the Man of Keen Sight, condemned to die for the crime of loyalty to his king, by way of Henry Tudor’s backdating his own reign.

We are led through the events of the years leading up to that terrible summer of 1485, which sees the slaughter of the last Plantagenet king at the hands of Henry Tudor’s impossibly outnumbered army. Treason aids the usurper, whose paranoia is so great that even in the age of Elizabeth I, his granddaughter, no Plantagenet association is too small to remove the threat of execution. Small wonder the characters, revealing to us their secrets in Henry’s time, are “diverters of necessity,” secret personal writings or whisper their tale despite an already appointed date with death.

One’s own choices do not always a destiny make, though sometimes they can seem to seal fates. The Maiden’s remembrances draw us into the tale, by way of a book she had written in and hidden for over sixteen years, knowing she should have set it ablaze long before. Like the garden she tends and loves as her own, she once knew Richard Gloucester and tended him in secret, away from the curious and prying eyes of such like Elysande, who shields her from their common mistress, Jacquetta of Bedford. Friendly with Elysande during the reign of Edward IV, she nevertheless lives within a “cold season,” as she does when telling her tale under Henry VII. For Jacquetta is the mother of Edward’s Queen Elizabeth, of the Woodvilles, Lancastrians whose enmity with Edward’s York branch of the Plantagenets is bitter and long lasting—and later allied with Tudor.

Elysande creates diversions for the lover she knows exists, though she is unaware until later this lover’s Plantagenet name. The Maiden is savvy enough to have created her own strategy to get herself to court with her mistress, but later falls victim to Jacquetta’s and the Queen’s dangerous fright when Edward is taken prisoner by his rebellious Warwick cousin. She is spared death, but packed of to a nunnery, being the only one aware that, as she journeys she “safeguard[s] one last small and secret joy. The royal child, the Plantagenet. The child of my beloved.”

The Maiden’s tale at this point is broken, and prior perusal of the book would indicate that her tale picks up again in the fourth section, “The Nun.” Not necessarily meant to be a surprise, for the Maiden herself references her nun status at the start, and modern readers have at least small awareness of medieval nunneries as a destination for widows and some women without means.

The baton thus passes to the Fool, and as we move deeper into his version of events, we begin to grasp the scope of Jarman’s skill in handling multiple narrators. Until now we have lived the Maiden’s tale with her in linear fashion, which may be the safest method but also the most effective given the sheer volume of detail. Familial relationships, names, events, rivalries, all this and more are referenced in a narrative that spans from the Maiden’s childhood, and prepares the reader for a slight shift in storytelling method as, fittingly, an actor takes the stage.

As such, the jester does not merely talk about disguisings; his life is lived as one. He “hides his wit behind idiocy and keeps a well-tuned ear,” talents that no doubt help ensure his survival under the reign of Henry Tudor. Moreover, Jarman’s technique with his storytelling reflects these methods he utilizes, giving the reader occasional pause to wonder under which King or moment the Fool now speaks. He tells of the Tudor’s paranoia manifest in a demand made after witnessing his mastiffs take on and kill a lion: ‘Hang them…Traitorous dogs shall not rise against a king.’

Piers—he reveals to us his name as well as internal conflict—nevertheless must at times strain to bear the load his lot in life has given him. “I live in past and present, then suddenly both come together with a fierce clash like an axe on armour and I am shaken into confusion[.]” He tends to confide in us some of the most horrific scenes at natural stopping points, or such when one must cease for the moment, the weight of his knowledge being too difficult to bear. We read these passages and then stop, the silence sitting with us as heavy as the terrible words preceding it. While talking about Anne’s pregnancy with the beloved Edward, Piers remembers Richard’s bastard son, and discusses at length the family’s living arrangement. John of Gloucester, he tells us, went to the block at age twenty, “brave Plantagenet. Traitorous dogs shall not rise against a King.”

If seeing so deftly into past and present while juggling to maintain a future is a curse as well as blessing, so too is there a downside to the acute vision possessed by the aptly named Man of Keen Sight, who, incidentally, meets briefly with Piers, who initially writes him off as a braggart.

However, it is so; the man has the ability to see into a long distance with greater acuity than most any other person. This aids greatly in his riding skills, but is “the archer’s enemy,” owing to the deficiency in spatial differentiation it causes. Perhaps akin to or presenting in conjunction with a proprioceptive disorder, it disorients the vision so receptors provide misinformation as to distance. “How,” the man asks, “can an archer study the nock and the unwavering hold when already the fat white cloud dangles close to his nose?”

Nonetheless, he develops technique to conquer this “useful fault” and it leads to riding with the Duke of Gloucester, whom he comes to love. The Man goes into exile with Richard, Dickon, who assigns him a pseudonym, “Mark Eye,” fitting for an archer and pleasing to the Man. He grows to love Dickon, and life, good, moves on.

It is not to last, however, as readers are aware from the time the Man is introduced by way of a penitent verse of The Nut-Brown Maid, one of many sung to us through the course of the novel:

 It standeth so; a deed is do

Whereof great harm shall grow;

My destiny is for to die

A shameful death, I trow.

Or else to flee, the t’one must be,

None other way I know

But to withdraw as an outlaw

And take me to my bow.

Wherefore adieu, my own heart true!

None other rede I can;

For I must to the greenwood go,

Alone, a banished man.

Indeed, we are privy from the start to the understanding that herein lies a condemned man, one even who hears the construction outside of his own gallows. Frequently, as he relays his story to us from his cell, he accepts defeat and fault. He condemns his actions, though not for having ridden at the last with King Richard, but rather for the shame that stayed with him for having neglected his friendship and duty to the king, indeed for having betrayed him by teaming up, cowardly-like, with those aiming to destroy Richard after King Edward’s death.

It is also he who receives the prophecy depicting the end of the Plantagenet line, and: “your King. . . the foot that strikes the stone shall turn into a head, and the bones tossed on a dunghill, to stink forever.” He tries to shake off memory of it, as he tried to dismiss it when it is first told him. But his ability to do fails, as increasingly does any sort of sight that may have aided him to perceive the darkness in men, as Richard himself comments upon, after regaining the upper hand from those who aim to thwart his protectorship: “How strange are the hearts of men!” That Richard chooses time and again to forgive those who seek to do him ill—or are too lazy or cowardly to protest such—provides a vision in itself, the “natural” consequences, some might say, of allowing those who seek his destruction to roam free.

If Richard possesses such a failing and declines to admit it, the Man does not. He speaks in hindsight of his acuity dimming and recalls grievously instances when, even then, he ought to have wondered. In moments such as these, again, the author weaves her own storytelling skills by presenting the same event from different perspectives—and how different they at times are! Comparison of the passages indicate clearly what is important to each teller, by way of what each highlights (or leaves out) as well as their brevity or length.

There is a sort of deja-vu to these scenes, ghostly almost, until readers realize in fact they have been here before.

 He summoned a sleepy young man to escort me back to the castle, one who had but lately come on duty, so that none should know, for the greenish dawn was rising over the fens and the camp would soon be stirring. He raised his hand to me as he stood between the tent-flaps, and there was a light about him that was not earthly; or it may have been their marsh fiends dimming their night-lamps behind him; I did not know.

*********

It was at Fotheringhay, and I had gone down into the camp, late, with some message. Everything was steaming with damp summer heat and in the musky darkness I discovered him with a young maid, whom he bade me guard through the ranks and deliver to the Duchess of Bedford’s apartments.

. . . I had thought it prudent to offer the damsel my arm, as she struggled through the trailing briars. . . . She stopped suddenly when we had gone a few steps and turned to look back.

‘Ah Jesu!’ she whispered, ‘How he shines!’

I fixed my sight upon the pale Duke, bringing him near in the lanternlight. A moth flew round his face and he lifted his hand to brush it away. The maiden smiled, in tears.

‘There is a light. . . a light,’ she sighed.

‘What then, mistress?’

She had looked up at me from the cavern of her hood.

‘A light about him not of this world,’ she said.

I could see naught but the fen-fires, burning malefically.       

In any kind of literary studies, readers are frequently instructed in the import of every single word; in no other novel has this reviewer found this to be quite as so as in this one. It is, as Jarman herself states, “a mammoth work,” though by no means in size alone. The information, understanding, historical references, implications—every single sentence contains something to inform another passage or reality, or brings to bear somewhere else. And the author not only weaves it all together, but does so via three different complex personalities. An additional result, for better or worse, is a greater awareness of the psychology of humans. Readers begin to grasp the scope of differences, the pathways in lives, and understand a bit more about the why in some of them. We may never understand why Richard makes some of the choices he does, though we can more competently assess the reality in which he lives, and leave judgment off for someone else.

Nevertheless choices do lead people, as they do for this Man of Keen Sight. Greater awareness of his own choices leads him to the cell he now occupies, willingly, for he chooses not to quit the field alive. That he leaves alive became the choice of an Other, and it is to lead him to his death. He speaks plainly of the books about Richard he shall never read, though he is sure they cannot invent hateful propaganda, for “[t]hey would need to invent a devil in human shape, so great was his glory.”

And so they did. The Maiden, following escape with her royal daughter from the pseudo house of God the Woodvilles had imprisoned her in, learns so very quickly when she quite by chance sees, on that terrible summer day in 1485, the prophecy become true. As the Tudor men’s victory train passes by, approaching the Bow Bridge,

             they surged on to [it], packed tight, their horses struggling in fear. The mule [hauling Richard’s ill-treated body], now nearly dropping from weariness among the foaming destriers, the steel-clad thighs, its flanks sodden with bloody sweat, staggered against the side of the bridge. The King’s head was crushed upon the stone. I heard the sound of rending bone, saw the bright new hurt done to the head which once did lie so sweetly in my lap. And I went mad.

*********

 But who was comfortable in the choices that led to this moment? Perhaps even not Henry Tudor, who worried these moments, some say, for the rest of his life, and not just in fear of his reign on this earth. The paranoia he created, not so uncommon in some royal circles, lived still when the one called Perkin Warbeck appeared, indeed still when the last Tudor monarch ruled. “They”—not only the Tudors—did indeed create a devil in human shape, taken up by others in fear for their lives.

What of us, then? We no longer have such fear stalking us. We can speak freely of Richard now, yet we, over 500 years later, have been taught and still teach our children of this “devil.” This is the choice we have made, save for some who have dedicated themselves to the truth, from the moment it was safe to do. So the threat over life is no more, but the pain lives on.

‘How strange are the hearts of men!’ Jarman’s Richard had cried out. For in addition to the dreadful memories exist some perceived threat to the power of theory, perhaps, or sense of relating. These people seem to want Richard to remain in the form that has been created for him, and although honest debate has been made, there are others who are not quite so.

In less than two hours from this writing the University of Leicester archeological dig team will reveal to the world the results of the DNA testing they have done on remains found that may be those of Richard, so unceremoniously treated in 1485. For Richard they seek to reverse the prophecy, at least that which relegates him to stink forever.

We cry for him at such inopportune moments, argue his case and in some instances find animosity developing around us. Some, including the author of We Speak No Treason, never wished for this dig to proceed—plainly and awfully spoken, it is indeed the digging up of an anointed king. Others argue they want to give him the dignified burial robbed from him. I cannot help but remember the Mother’s words to our Maiden:

 ‘Have I not said that this life is a transient thing?’

Whatever our position, it may be our only consolation.

********

We Speak No Treason by Rosemary Hawley Jarman

• ISBN-10: 0965005429
• ISBN-13: 978-0965005425

Also in Kindle edition:

We Speak No Treason, Volume I: The Flowering of the Rose

ASIN: B009YLIV7A

We Speak No Treason, Volume II: White Rose Turned to Blood

ASIN: B009YLIQUW

Book Review: Vivaldi’s Muse by Sarah Bruce Kelly

When I first come into possession of a book, whether novel or text for a class, I am in the habit of exploring it, savoring the cover art or the book’s girth, even sometimes flipping through and smelling the pages in anticipation of the deliciousness of turning each one, periodically registering my awareness that I still have a huge, fat section in front of me to read. Joy will go on.

In this case, the pattern was not different: I admired Lefebvre’s “Young Woman With Morning Glories in Her Hair” for quite some time and took a few moments to allow myself to absorb the epigraph. The story actually opens in a later time period and we journey back, at the end returning to this latter period when Annina has a personal conversation with someone we, as we come to learn, already know.

Though I studied a small portion of this period in school, little of it was devoted to art or music–mostly to what then was within the boundaries of what was considered “history.” Warfare, Habsburgs, archdukes, and so on. And so “Baroque” to me had a tendency to be somewhat shadowed, even complicated and incongruous.

Accompanying Antonio and Annina on their journey, however, I felt anything but, and soon came to understand why, unlike many other works of historical fiction, Sarah Bruce Kelly really has little need of a glossary (often one of the first elements I look for) or lengthy afterward, because so much of what a reader needs to know or even finds helpful is embedded in the text. Better, even those passages are not lengthy, nor do they distract from the narrative. Kelly has a talent for telling us bits of information without us being aware we’ve just absorbed instruction–and she does it succinctly, leaving no trail behind.

The only regret I have following finishing this book is that I have finished it. In discussion with my nine-year-old son I mentioned that there is an earlier book, The Red Priest’s Annina, which is sort of an abridged version of Antonio and Annina for younger readers, and invited him to read it with me. The smaller book is a great idea, and can provide an introduction to younger readers that they otherwise might have to wait a few years for. Moreover, given that, as it has been shown, boys’ reading starts to level off at a particular age and they fall behind girls in their skills, I am attracted to the idea that they can read about something that interests them and expand upon it later with the same author.

So for anyone with children, younger or older, or who themselves enjoy historical fiction, music, a heartfelt story, language (as in delicious sounds that come from the combination of particular letters or phrases, such as chiaroscuro), or playing with the understanding of foreign words (and speaking of Italian, delicious is the right word!), do yourselves or someone you love a favor: Get it.

Picture yourself a time traveller, having been removed from your 21^st century comfort and familiarity to be placed alone in the middle of enchanting but unaccustomed surroundings: An 18^th century Venetian street scene, rife with sensory stimulation in the song and smell of roast pumpkin hawked by one vendor, while another creates the captivating image and mouth-watering sensation of pear juice dripping down your chin, and the fiery melon hearts you long to reach out for.

Later you may recall the sumptuous smell of roast chicken as you settle into a hungry sleep and the outside chill seeps into your bones. You remember the gondolieri-filled canal, their bravado and charm as you were swept by the magnificence of a life in which all people, coarse and refined alike, appreciate opera as easily as they would the Carnivale introduced to you by the sweeping arm of the gondolier who piloted you to your destination. Magnificent and marvelous it all is, though you are periodically reminded by circumstance of your aloneness in the midst of strangers and their coldness—and the ways of one whose singular goal appears to be your failure.

Having read much of 18^th century Europe, few of us would be prepared for such circumstances, and such is the bewilderment of Annina Girò, who is to become longtime protégée of Baroque composer and virtuoso violinist Antonio Vivaldi. Now, however, swept by her surroundings and captivated within the dream of becoming an opera star, the non-yet teenaged Annina perhaps frustrates the reader with her naiveté as much as this delights her tormenter and rival, Chiara Orlandi. Author Sarah Bruce Kelly keeps readers riveted not because we wonder if Annina will ever make it to Vivaldi’s studio, but how on earth it will happen—and brings us along for the ride as we share Annina’s ups and downs on her journey to stardom.

While at least one of Chiara’s early setups is almost amateurish in its transparency, Kelly brings us better to appreciate and understand how it is Annina could fall for it, by first introducing us to her world. Although Mantua and Venice share a common language, where the young girl comes from couldn’t be more different. Her family’s breakdown nonwithstanding, Annina loves her distant and now-absent mother, whose energy is drawn from music. “The only times [Bartolomea] came to life were when she sang her beloved opera arias…[s]he was happiest when she sang, and Annina would joyfully sing along with her.” The girl is looked after by her elder half-sister who acts as surrogate parent, as well as her pushover French father whose largesse towards his adult sons angers Annina’s mother. Now, however, despite Paolina’s company in the first hours of her new Venetian life, and the promise of what the future holds, Annina no longer has at least a loving family in which to find comfort.

Having at an early age been mesmerized by the great maestro Vivaldi, Annina determines her own destiny: to become an opera singer—and how could she not, if the way the author describes her experiences captures even a small portion of how the young girl sails through those few moments.

The music of the small orchestra billowed beneath the singer’s shimmering voice like a surging tide…She shifted her gaze to [Vivaldi, who] was filling in the pause between the aria’s two major sections with a violin solo that sparkled with fire. She watched his fingers fly like lightning over the strings as his swift bow thrusts brought the music to unimaginable melodic heights…Her rapture grew as the music of the violins blended with the singer’s voice and flooded the theater with exhilarating sound.

A brief meeting with Vivaldi, her mother’s abandonment, death of an empress and her family’s poverty pave the way towards a tuition sponsorship for Annina to study music in Venice, the city in which her sponsor’s protégée and she come together in the rivalry that starts long before Annina’s own awareness of it. While many of us modern readers tend to believe nothing could surprise us, and certainly not the cruelty of an older singer towards a twelve-year-old girl, Kelly masterfully leads us from event to event as we find ourselves lamenting Annina’s foolish act of writing her feelings in a letter just waiting for Chiara to rummage through her trunk in search of anything damaging to use against her, or the satisfaction rising when Annina’s matured intuition prevents a wicked plan from coming to fruition.

Perhaps one of the most outstanding scenes in which the author displays her gifts is that in which Chiara comes to show Vivaldi, by now aware of her destructive jealousy, a music score she has set up as Annina’s undoing, one the newer student had been instructed to copy, yet allegedly butchered. Vivaldi’s coolness towards Chiara, the way he holds back on telling all he knows or doles out with deliberate timing, his sparse sentences that nevertheless cause the singer to sputter and over-explain herself—all are done with words that ring off the page like the musical notes to a hypnotic and flowing melody that captures our emotions with the ups and downs not unlike the ones that had first enthralled Annina. As elements of the natural world had been displayed then, so too is this scene infused with fiery tension, thrust to and fro as the dangerous electricity within Chiara grows like the ribelle Annina recognized at that first opera, until at last her departure is in sync with “the sinister echo of the seagulls’ cries, an echo that resounded in the emptiness of her heart.”

Kelly’s treatment of Chiara’s character saves that particular role from sinking into a mere “bad person” stereotype, and allows for the focus on the reality of Venetian opera at this time—a perilous world in which young boys were mutilated to retain their voices, women would destroy one another for the privilege of being owned by the one in power and politics persuaded it all to occur in a back and forth manner, events that fed off of each other for the pleasure and ambition of the characters in an opera larger and more shadowy than any they could possibly imagine.

It is perhaps this growing awareness, as well as her love for priest and maestro Antonio Vivaldi that saves Annina from the darker side of this world, though to be sure she is required to develop clever management skills to avoid the pitfalls and traps, without falling foul of those she needs to avoid offending. Her refusal to part ways with him and endure the vicious slander surrounding her relationship with her mentor creates a support of its own as the two learn to trust each other despite the larger attachment they can never have.

At various points in the novel Kelly approaches the topic of sexuality with a method this reviewer wishes were employed more often: she utilizes words with grace that imparts the dignity of such attachments, without falling into coyness, avoidance or the removed language of a distant and staid century. Young adults will be able to relate to what the characters endure because many of them, too, are just beginning to approach the emotions and questions of this nature presented in the novel.

It must be stated clearly that opera as a backdrop should not frighten those unfamiliar with the topic or any of the players, many of whom really lived. For starters, we all know Vivaldi’s music without knowing we do. In a way this is a new sort of shame (following how history nearly forgot him until the 1927 discovery of many of his original manuscripts) because making the connection between the music and the man disposes of many of the operatic memes that tend to turn people away. Listening to Four Seasons just once brings on recognition and even a sort of joy that we have been part of this world all along.

Further, the book indeed is a novel, and tells a story with a cast of characters that rivals most Hollywood movies. People in all cultures and throughout history have always wanted to hear stories; it is one reason opera itself developed. The movie industry, really, is simply another form of storytelling, though one would be hard pressed to create on film the kind of tension, aura and magic that results from the merging of this novel and one’s own imagination and internal conflicts. Given the powerful effect music tends to have on human emotion, adding that element creates a greater strength to the story. Having said this, it should be added that while it is a novel, the book presents a journey, and not just a story, which always makes for a more rewarding read.

It is easy to see why Vivaldi’s Muse is an award-winning novel: bringing together music and the passion of human interactions (for better or worse) in a format accessible to a rather wide audience—a young-adult novel that is absolutely suitable for adults of all ages—brings to mind the thought that Sarah Bruce Kelly loves us. Meticulously researched, she has brought her expertise to bear on the lives of people who lived and loved, and who likely wanted to be remembered, as do we, amongst the creations we leave behind for progeny. Annina knew this as well.

At that instant, she became aware that there was something much bigger at stake than her personal fears or desires—even bigger than her relationship with Antonio: His music. The music he’d been moved to compose so furiously and prodigiously all his life would outlive its creator. It would outlive them all. She smiled as she realized she’d known that all along.

By 1930 all Vivaldi’s original manuscripts had been recovered, thanks no doubt to the collection and cataloguing work that had been done before they disappeared for two centuries, likely in preparation for their archival. Getzinger and Felsenfeld, in Antonio Vivaldi and the Baroque Tradition, tell of an oral tradition known to Alberto Gentili, which spoke of a Piedmont monastery in possession of Vivaldi’s works. In the late 1920s, as Kelly also addresses in her Afterward, following two decades of searching for this part of a music library hidden during the Napoleonic wars, the works were found. The painstaking efforts of Gentili and others brought Vivaldi and his works back into the public consciousness, and there they stay.

With Vivaldi’s Muse Sarah Bruce Kelly continues this noble pursuit by bringing to us a portrait of Vivaldi as seen through the eyes of Annina Girò, in historical fiction written with such style readers feel as if they have stepped into the story, such is the sensory integration, emotional impact and depth of detail following a journey that lasts almost a lifetime, as we meet Annina as a little girl and bid our farewell following Antonio’s death many years later. Kelly’s hope is realized when, as Vivaldi’s music touches a special place in our hearts, so close we never knew it at one time wasn’t there, so too has this journey.

Vivaldi’s Muse by Sarah Bruce Kelly

2011, Bel Canto Press

ISBN 978-0-9836304-0-1

Halloween lives on!

…in the spirit of Turtle’s Emo Frankenstein…he comes up with the quirkiest cool stuff.

WANTED!

(text on black strip reads:)

WANTED

Sirius Pumpkin Black

This mask murderer was acused of beeckuming headless and killing 13 people & blowing up Wormtail pumpkin Pettagrooe.

(NO REWARD)

Sighned,

Cornelius Pumpkin Fudge

(Craft work and public message by Turtle)

(Actual post date: Halloween, waiting for trick or treat time)

*********

I love this piece of artwork in particular because the text written on the black strip (in chalk) totally screams the writer’s voice–both in the way it is written as well as the word choice. I can practically hear him portraying someone bellowing out, “NO REWARD!!!!” But it’s also fun and silly in combination with the Halloween playfulness.

Happy Halloween, everybody!!! For those back East, stay strong and safe!!!!

Book Review: The Beltane Choice by Nancy Jardine

Today’s review moves us away from my usual literary time travel further back to an era many of us know even less about: A.D. 71. Celtic Britain is familiar to wide swaths of societies in such icons as Stonehenge and the famous cross; the rest often remain shrouded in historical mist, and efforts to cross through it can be intimidating or confusing. Nancy Jardine beckons us back with a romantic adventure that does touch on history–Boudicca, the warrior queen who led forces against invading Romans, is mentioned–and repelling occupiers inform the protagonists’ lives. However, she brings it closer to home with her focus on individual choices and the personal impact they will have for Nara and Lorcan. Although the Celts of so long ago lived very differently to us, the way Jardine’s characters relate to our own lives reminds us that in particular ways, humans have never really changed. We are still attracted to favorites, value our identities and resist invasive change. A gripping scene of struggle–in more than one sense–opens the novel and by the end you’ll want more. The great news: There is a sequel in the works. For a Q & A with author Nancy Jardine (accompanying the review as appears below), check out Layered Pages. As you can tell by the ASIN following my review, the book is also available on Kindle, so you can start straight away. Happy reading!

In ancient Britain bitter weather, harsh conditions and tribal inter-fighting conspired with other elements to make life difficult and cumbersome. Beltane, therefore, was a welcome diversion, certainly for many reasons, amongst them the community-wide celebration of oncoming summer and the freedoms it ushered in.  Occurring in May, modern peoples could relate to the anticipation and joy of the season, replete with symbols of new life, light and plenty. Lovers united, the sun waxed its power and people prepared animals and household goods for the time when winter would once more secure its chilly embrace. It is in expectation of this time in A.D. 71 that Nancy Jardine sets her account of Nara of the Selgovae, whose first words in the book are uttered to a wild boar: “You have my spear and my sword, but you will not have my life.” Nara’s declamation immediately tells of her strength as well as humor, despite being wracked with frustration at her predicament—namely being stuck in a tree, shortly to be felled by a boar she had the misfortune to encounter.

As The Beltane Choice opens Nara playfully foresees reality when a handsome stranger rescues her, resulting in immediate mutual attraction, despite her own inexperience with the opposite sex. Nara, however, is reticent about divulging her own information apart from her general identity, and the would-be lovers discover they come from enemy tribes. Believing he may have a worthy bargaining tool in Nara, Lorcan of Garrigill takes the girl as his prisoner; over the course of several days the two head for the Garrigill stronghold, where he plans to develop his strategy for repelling the approaching Roman army. During this time the pair slowly begin to learn about one another and both are beset by conflicting and confusing sentiments. It is a journey rife with displays of anger and emotional outbursts on the parts of Lorcan as well as Nara.

Here Jardine expertly establishes in her narrative the method of cross perspectives, a potentially tricky technique given the confusion that so often results in the attempt to streamline characters’ perceptions into dialogue and passages. No such difficulty here, partly because of the protagonists’ opposing viewpoints, but also owing to the smooth flow of their dialogue. The author masterfully handles the speech with language that feels genuine without being foreign. Months are measured in moons, age in winters. She also maintains a masterful balance between a reader- and writer-friendly storyline, utilizing such words as bannock and bratt, terms that may be unfamiliar but which populate sentences that draw us into the world they inhabit. Within this journey the reader so often instinctively comprehends, frequently without the registration that this was ever lacking in the first place.

As inhabitants of this world, that is the 21^st century, it would be difficult not to be aware of the divide between representations of men and women in an earlier era, and those of our own time. Men who treat women with respect often are believed to have only recently popped into existence; before their arrival, males of the world were cruel or indifferent, without exception imposing their will onto the females of their societies.

Unfortunately, in many or even most instances, this was indeed true. However, history does tell of not a few women who broke from their received roles and the men who valued their subsequent contributions. While these men and women may be statistical anomalies, historically speaking, they are not unusual. Therefore, to happen upon men in The Beltane Choice who show consideration towards women strengthens the story, especially given Jardine’s treatment of them. They are in fact products of their time, but the author is clever enough to recognize that an insightful man intuits value where he sees it. None of the characters pretend to pander to our sensibilities: Lorcan’s father is an irascible old man, short and stinging with his words, but an able leader who is dismayed and disgusted when he learns of another chief’s horrific treatment of his own daughter. Tully is wise enough to know the worth of a gifted woman, even if her own father did not.

But Jardine also keeps it authentic: as in real life, it takes all kinds, and readers come across able and productive men, as well as those who simply take from life without thought to the consequences, for themselves or others. In Garrigill Nara the Selgovae is attacked by two who resent her presence—perhaps also her beauty—and are later punished for the deed. While an important episode that highlights the suspicion of and willingness to harm anything foreign, the episode and its aftermath remain undeveloped, which is unfortunate owing to the import of recognizing such episodes that mar or weaken unity against common enemies. Nara’s beauty, recognized by all, exists on multiple levels, and despite her sometimes-poor choices with regard to action or response, she is shown to be keen and level headed, thoughtful and deliberate.

Such is her way in how she considers the upcoming Beltane festival and the choice she will have to make regarding a lover. Will she have a choice?  What of the Roman army marching on the settlement where she is held captive? And her native estate? How does all this impact the array of emotions she feels in response to Lorcan, her captor? He is absolutely smitten with her, though he, too, experiences conflict within and without. He is dedicated to his father and the safety of their tribe, but wants to have Nara as well. He realizes his plan has gone awry and he, too, considers the future with apprehension.

Nancy Jardine has woven a tale as complex as the Celtic knot that graces the book’s cover. Winding and illusory, readers may see one circumstance, but events intercede to disabuse us of any notion that this is a simple story. The endless and unified nature of the cover illustration reflects the events occurring in the lives of those in The Beltane Choice, individually and as humans who experience these occasions across time.  And, like the winding knot that appears as sheer simplicity but is much more beneath, the smooth passage from Nara’s entrapment by the boar to her ultimate choice, the author utilizes language in a way both straightforward and elegant.

I would be remiss to omit any sort of detail about the sexual tension that runs through the entire book and moments in which Nara and Lorcan’s indecisive attractions teeter on a precipice. The suggestive nature of the wording is very much like the Celtic knot as discussed above: on one level very evocative and at times openly sensual. But to leave it at that would be less than honest, because it is also lovely and metered, occasionally blatant, as reflected in the pair’s actual experiences. More suitable to the abilities of a mature reader—one who can rise above mere titillation—it is the poetry of two bodies, articulated perhaps as those of the era, with their sexual sensibilities, may have expressed it. It is also crucial to note that Nara and Lorcan both see it as much more than a mere physical act—though they are honest with themselves (and us) and do not deny this aspect—incorporating into their possible union the future at the heart of the Beltane choice—and The Beltane Choice.

The Beltane Choice by Nancy Jardine

2012, Crooked Cat Publishing Ltd.

ASIN: B009372608

Exciting days ahead for before the second sleep

Posting has been necessarily paced for me thus far, though it has been picking up a wee bit. Lots of this has to do with other obligations, though often I am prepping or working on ideas for the blog. As you can see, so far I’ve covered a few random topics, plus book and music reviews, and I’ll continue to do this.

I am delighted to share a few of the upcoming features to be found in before the second sleep:

This weekend I’ll post my review for Nancy Jardine’s The Beltane Choice, a romantic adventure set in Celtic Britain. August saw the novel’s release in e-book version; today it comes out in paperback. Nancy and Crooked Cat celebrate with an online release party at Facebook. Do join the festivities and enter to win an autographed copy!

Next up is another entry with Sarah Bruce Kelly, this time with a review for her award-winning Vivaldi’s Muse, an account of Annina Girò, Antonio Vivaldi’s longtime protégée. The book is an expansion of her previous novel, The Red Priest’s Annina, detailing life in 18th-century Venetian opera.

I am also preparing for a re-read of We Speak No Treason, which I absolutely fell for the first time. I loved this book so much I decided to re-visit and share with my readers. I am also delighted to announce that the best-selling author of this Richard III novel, Rosemary Hawley Jarman, has so very graciously agreed to an interview, which will be featured when the review is published.

In coming weeks I will begin a series of posts regarding Nicholas Orme’s Medieval Children. I hesitate to label it an “analysis,” as such an undertaking is not in my purview. However, as an early childhood teacher, mother of a young boy and a Middle Ages aficionado, I am very keen to learn more about this phase of life as it occurred in medieval days, and plan to take a more deliberate, studied approach to reading the book–what might be called an “exploration.” Share the journey with me!

I’ve been re-visiting some older poetry of my own from school days, as well as topics of study in university. Why am I so very proud of my C in Communicating Math Ideas? Who knew statistics could be so much fun? What does Tagore write about the preservation of memories? Also: Is baking art or science? A favorite Persian dish, on learning to play the piano, children’s art, amateur photography and my favorite medieval game, Nine Man Morris.

These, dear friends, are just some of the topics you can read about in coming weeks, and I look forward to you joining us as we explore them and others.

For now I say goodnight with my current favorite silly phrase, one I repeat a lot with my son (cue dramatic voice):

When good llamas go bad…

Anybody know where that comes from?

Re-Discovery & Music Review: The Year of the Cat

“The Year of the Cat”

Lyrics and Music by Al Stewart & Peter Wood

As a small child I was fascinated with my mother’s tales of Scottish ghosts, and I lived to allow her to terrify me–especially with ones that involved stairs, profiles and castles. It was some time before I came to understand more of what I now call ghostliness amongst the living–memories, smells, sounds or even gesticulations that merge the past and present or hint at the wispy other selves that exist amongst us. I’ve written before about the power music has to engage the human soul in ways I can’t quite explain, though perhaps I could say it somehow draws from both the mind and the heart, what we logical creatures so often try to separate, to create sensations that can indeed be rather haunting. At times it settles on me like a melancholy, or it simply might lead me to a contemplative state. Often in those moments I remember the most unlikely events, passages in life that have no real reason to have permeated and settled in my consciousness, at least not to occupy a place as prominent, if you will, as they do.

“The Year of the Cat,” tale of a traveler coaxed by an enigmatic woman to abandon his pre-arranged tour is one such song; it lulls me onto a flowing passage of time in which scenes drift before my eyes, my inside eyes as I call them, as if I am meandering through the barras and experiencing those images whilst passing from one stall to the next. The lyrics at their face value have no relation to any experiences of mine, though these market-stall memories appear at certain phrases, lovely groupings that, given the right emotional state, cause people to weep at the sort of beauty that is simply too large for them to comprehend, or elicit joy that comes from experiencing an utterly amazing gift:

She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running

Like a watercolour in the rain

And it is like a gift, remembering as I do my four-year-old self surrounded by an ongoing parental gratitude for my life, for shortly before this time I had swallowed enough bleach to clean the privy for several months. The rounded hospital chairs alternated orange and yellow, and perhaps I remembered them as I sat by a window, staring at the sun’s fading orange mirror in the sky over a freezing, rainy evening, watching it drip down the glass. “I shall write poetry one day,” I announced to no one in particular, to which my mother responded, “Aye, that you will.”

While I have no memory of even being aware of the song at this time, I had in fact already been nurturing an appreciation for words. I would have noticed the sun’s hues, and been swept by them, even at that small age, but what to call them occupied me the most, a task often informed and influenced by the emotions music elicited. To the tourist in the exotic market, the words above perhaps represent dangerous excitement, a quest he simply must pursue. For me it was a newfound feeling of safety coming on the heels of an experience that brought visible terror to the eyes of my unflappable mother. To this day I treasure the moments in which I am curled up inside during a good, rollicking blizzard; I feel safe and protected even while I am given a glimpse of the cruel mistress that nature can be.

Now is a good moment to state my reticence about using videos to contribute towards any music review, formal or casual, despite my wont to mix up audio with visual sensations. Call me old fashioned, but it seems a song worth its salt should be able to stand tall without extra baggage to weigh it down, for this is what video so often does. Mind you I do agree many videos are clever and funny, but a song that captures listeners on its own merit, especially if it draws you in to it, as this song does, not unlike how the market woman persuades the tourist to follow her, well, that song has a bit of the magic to it, as we used to say. Indeed, there was an immediacy when I heard and felt this song, and although Stewart’s distinctive voice raised my awareness as it played on the radio, it was the melody that captured me first.

Having said that, I confess to some accidental video appreciation, although in fairness I would argue it is related to the methods in which my spirit is soothed by the ghosts emerging, attracted to the energy. I YouTubed the song, so anxious was I to hear it again; what I saw and heard deepened my belief that this song is very probably the most beautiful I have ever experienced.

At about the :50 mark we see simultaneous strumming of two guitar players whose in-sync motions, captured so perfectly at that moment, that it was at that moment that makes it so right, following as it does the opening, a piano solo joined in unison by the rest a few seconds later, relieving a lovely sort of tension and giving rise to a sensation of…perhaps a small eruption, great and stormy emotions suppressed and then released. This is followed by a closeup of one of the band members keeping time as he plays: strum, tap, strum, tap, strum, tap…and a heart beats to its own music, its body’s fingers acting out the time in a way that makes me re-remember all the loveliness of the human form, how math (which I adore) and music contribute to the holistic nature of human movements and my heart melts in both joy and inability to comprehend how the beauty of something created by man can be so large.

After the first time Stewart sings the title words the sound of the tambourine signals the excitement of the tourist’s state as he sees the silk-clad woman.

These days, she says, “I feel my life

Just like a river running through”
The year of the cat

And her eyes shine like the moon in the sea

If I didn’t fully understand what it meant to arrange music, I have a better appreciation with this song, for every single note without exception is measured and well-placed–nothing is accidental. I’ve heard it countless times in my literary studies: Every word is deliberate and means a great deal to the story. I find this same sense of purpose here: As the mysterious woman locks arms with the tourist, a tinkling of the ivories indicates a rising exhilaration. It grows more pronounced and wild as she speaks, not unlike the river current referenced in her words, and the definitive musical beat is accompanied by a tidal sequence of keystrokes reminiscent of the moon’s pull of the water against the earth’s gravitational resistance.

Following this section comes, for these metaphors, the aptly-named bridge (sans the formulaic song setup), a passing of time during which the tourist crosses from one side to the other, and the next morning finds him left behind–the bus has departed–and his ticket lost. His choice thrown away, he now must stay on.

But the drumbeat strains of the night remain

In the rhythm of the new-born day

This particular passage mirrors what was discussed earlier, in which a memory and music are intertwined; the mathematical parts of both are inseparable as the dawning day inherits the legacy of the previous night. He is new in the sense of his passing into another world, yet the ghosts of yesterday remain to remind him that one day this, too, shall pass away to become echoes of who he once was.

Given the extremely strong pull I felt to write about this song, it still gives me pause when I recall that I stumbled upon it only in recent weeks. Unlike another song I posted in these pages, I have actually heard this one before, though only in snippets across a number of years. I hear it in a way I see some of the memories it brings up: though a lens, slightly distorted as I sit stiffly on a wall on Hamilton Road or methodically follow the newfangled washer (suds leaking from the bottom) across the floor of my auntie’s kitchen. They are strange memories of my childhood, but there they are, images of who I once was, brought on by a song resting in my consciousness, waiting for its moment with me to arrive.

Where now is the tourist? Does he ever hear the song about him or wonder of that man who crossed continents and worlds? Does the man contemplate what became of the traveler? Does he feel the ghosts swirling around him? Or is he unsentimental, dismissing it to focus on here and now?

Stewart himself, so I have read, is somewhat weary of the song, in the sense that he has done so many others since then, yet this one remains his signature piece. He prefers to move along and focus on newer songs–again according to what I have read, though I could not produce a reference, given my deliberate cessation of any research on the song, including how old it actually is. (At this point I just know it’s “old,” and that’s all.) Once I heard it in its entirety, however, I simply had to dig, and now, having studied it as I have, I wish to hear more of this singer. But my heart remains attached to this song and will do, even when I have discovered others.

I probably could have written on about the video, because it is simply that gorgeous, though I’m thinking now of the saying about too much of a good thing, and don’t want to spoil it for those un-inclined to analysis. In that case, listen to and watch the video, and then hear to it with your eyes closed, for it truly is a magical gift for all the senses, wherever in time you may be.

Update: I replaced the first YT clip with one I came across at Stewart’s Twitter feed. It’s essentially the same clip from Old Grey Whistle Test, but runs through the complete ending, with fade out as opposed to the abrupt cut off the one I’d originally posted had.