Another World (1)
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 at 6:11 pm(This place and some characters associated with it have been in my head for years. I thought I would write down a few things about them. I don’t think this is going to be a story so much as just a series of descriptions — though you never know what they might breed.)
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One of the happiest periods of my life was the interlude of two years that I spent in Bom Pastor, the last physical remnant of Atlantis. The island, which has a single large town that shares its name, is found in the warm seas of the South Pacific, “east of Nocturnalis and west of Alicornia” as the local saying goes. There is no airport or deep water port; one must come by small boat.
The town is built around a lagoon and on islands within, which guaranteed its European appellation “the Venice of the South Seas”. Its architecture displays Atlantean, Polynesian, Chinese, Portuguese and French elements, attesting to a history of multicultural occupation, not always peaceful, including a period as a colonial football in the 19th and 20th centuries that ended with independence from France in 1970. Of the Atlanteans nothing remains save their monumental ruins, which bear a resemblance to Victorian wardrobes, and the influences of these in the town, which possesses facades and porticoes that rival those of Petra for size and outdo them in elaboration. (The Victorian era appears to have an eternal establishment on the island, as Rosaleen Norton, “the Witch of Kings Cross” noted on a visit in 1963, an opinion echoed by Medlar Lucan and Durian Gray, frequent visitors, in their travel memoir-cum-guidebook The Decadent World.)
I was sent to Bom Pastor at the age of eleven to fulfil my parents’ wish that I should learn something of the worlds beyond the ordinary one. I was to stay with my mother’s uncles, Valentine and Veliath Carnegie, who owned a small hotel on one of the islands. Passage through the canals of the lagoon was by punted canoe. I had been met at the port by my uncles and a woman and a man who were, I gathered, their companions. This coterie in the canoe was much more interesting than I had supposed adults capable of being, and certainly not what I had expected. In fact, these four people in whose household I was to live were remarkable enough to distract me from the exotic scenery (for which I had in any case a child’s normal disrespect; I was impressed mostly by gaudy details such as I saw on the occasional Chinese roofs, the colourful bougainvilleas that decorated balconies, and above all by the parrots, which my parents had told me I would see and were, to my delight, as common in Bom Pastor as pigeons and blackbirds were at home.)
(tbc)
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Rosaleen Norton
more of her art (some links broken)
Medlar Lucan and Durian Gray at Amazon.com
February 26th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
Regardless of whether it’s story or a set of descriptions (and I’m disinclined to think the latter cannot in its way be the former), I’m certainly looking forward to more. I particularly like how the un-ordinary is fit into the ordinary — Atlantis’ last physical remnant being part of colonial history.
Have you read ‘Kalpa Imperial’ by Angélica Gorodischer? It’s a mosaic novel of parts of the history of a grand empire. Your talk of this piece being more a set of descriptions than a story reminded me of ‘Kalpa Imperial’, which is a set of story-history snippets that doesn’t have an overall plot but instead builds a sense of the empire. You might like it.
February 27th, 2008 at 4:45 am
That was enjoyable I demand MOAR NOW.
or when ever you get around to it.
February 27th, 2008 at 9:23 am
Colin said it first; MOOOOOAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRR. Just like a whinging cat. MOOOOAAAAAAAaaaaaAAARRR.
February 27th, 2008 at 10:54 am
I have nothing useful to add beyond “what they said.” ;D
February 27th, 2008 at 11:48 am
yes there is Laurie and that is “NOW NOW NOW GIMME GIMME NOW NOW”
February 27th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Alankria - I haven’t read Kalpa Imperial, but I’ve read The Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavic, which is another great imaginary history. As a kid I had an abiding love for Choose Your Own Adventure and RPG novels such as The Warlock of Firetop Mountain and its ilk, where the book gave you a world to explore (and adventures to have in it). I always wanted someone to write a similar book for adult readers - but maybe that kind of thing needs a young person’s imagination to make it work.
Other Cats - we here at the Heaviside-Bardot Home for Felines will see what can be done about the output of tropical-flavoured literary gruel (avec moloko, of course!)
February 27th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Well, there are IF/text adventure games that are for more mature players - admittedly there aren’t all that many IF games these days for any age, but there are a few. I’ve only played a couple, but I remember Galatea was very good. Pretty short, and it was more exploring a statue than exploring a world, but a great game.
February 27th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
!! I had no idea these things existed! I just went and played Galatea for a bit. Now I’m trying Savoir Faire. I’m impressed. I gave up computer games years ago, basically disenchanted with the literally bloody sameness of them all (except Myst) and the lack of meaningful interactivity, but these are actually interesting.
Somehow I’m not surprised that the author of Galatea and Savoir Faire is a woman. (My inner paranoid feminist explodes with delight.)
February 27th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
I’m book-swapping with a friend, where we’re buying each other a book we can’t find in our own countries, and I asked for The Dictionary of the Khazars. =D Cat Valente was talking about Milorad Pavic in her blog a while back, and I’ve been wanting something of his ever since.
I only ever read one choose-your-own-adventure book as a child. It required the reader to buy all 8 or so in the series, which annoyed me; I wanted something self-contained, rather than following a plot thread only to be told I should skip to book 6. But it was good fun to read. I have been wondering for a while whether I could write a novel in that style. (A friend of mine did a nanowrimo novel in a choose-your-own-adventure style and posted it on LJ, and it was wicked fun to follow through.) I may have to give it a go sometime, although there’s part of me that thinks I lack the knowledge that some people have about those books because I only ever possessed one.
February 28th, 2008 at 4:05 am
I live at Dethkolk’s home for wayward kitties.
I never got into choose your own death books.
every book like that i read i would die.
So i gave up and played super nintendo games.
February 28th, 2008 at 5:21 am
Alankria - you could try writing a shortish piece first and see if it’s a groove you like writing in. I remember there being two main kinds of those books, puzzle-oriented and character-oriented, on a sort of sliding scale between game and novel.
Colin - but death was never permanent; you could always start again.
February 28th, 2008 at 7:26 am
Every book every time.
it kinda makes you think you have no control and it isn’t really your adventure.
February 28th, 2008 at 8:04 am
I remember dying a lot. But eventually — if only through a process of elimination — I’d find out what to do in order not to die. I mean, I compulsively followed every possible permutation of the story anyway. Always wanted my money’s worth, I think.
February 28th, 2008 at 8:54 am
But the super nintendo had cool flashy colours.
and games that went ping.
and refernce to cake.
and name one book that i could use on my brother to look foolish and weak.
apart from hitting on the head with a dictionary.
February 28th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Nothing I can really argue with there…
February 28th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
A short story could be manageable.
I actually have an idea: wandering through a surreal shopping complex, where the outside changes depending which door or window you look through, you’re searching for an elusive something. The choose-your-own style would really play into the mazelike qualities of the setting, where you could repeat yourself, or think you’re repeating yourself but do something slightly different…
Just need to think on the something and a motivation for finding it, and I may have a story!
February 29th, 2008 at 4:24 am
I like that idea! I wonder if the thing is stationary or mobile?