Behind the Fiction – Merely this and nothing more

“Merely this and nothing more” won the 14 November Flash! Friday competition.

My interview with Rebekah Postupak over at Flash! Friday can be read here.

For this prompt you had to include a famous writer and the photo below, and I took the chance to see how many I could refer to as I couldn’t decide which one to use. I’ll give the story first and then a breakdown of the intertextual references – these are writers and books I think everyone should read at least once.  So, here it is for those who have asked me which works it was that I used.

Barbary Macaque, Gibraltar. CC 2.0 photo by David Stanley

Merely this and nothing more

If on a summer’s day a Story Teller was to exit Hotel L—, she would find herself on the road leading to the harbour. If she walked, her mind would drift through centuries of memories. If she remembered, she would colour memories to adventures, hovels to palaces, obstacles to giants. If she stood on the shore she would recall all the memories of all the ages. Cities. Armies. Voyages. Adventures. Sorrow. Love. Fear. Beasts growing listless in ancient temples beneath the waves.

If she was to tell all these memories to the ocean, she would slowly sink into a story herself; her voice caught in sea foam, her secrets bound in a chest on the ocean floor where fifteen dead men danced, her stories travelling through countries, years, and centuries before being caught by ink.

She asked if her own words, those grains of sand, would be remembered.

  

She did not wait for an answer; lest it was “nevermore”.

 

Photo by Carin Marais

The Writers and the Books, or, some stuff to put on a to-read list

“grains of sand” – after my initial “I want to use an Afrikaans writer” idea, I realised no-one taking part in the competition will know who I’m refering to, but I did include Ingrid Jonker, specifically her poem “Korreltjie sand” (Little grain of sand).

This poem is one of my favourite Jonker poems and ends with the line “korreltjie niks is my dood” (small grain of naught is my death*). The English translation can be read here. Ingrid Jonker led a turbulent life, which ended on 19 July 1965 when she committed suicide by walking into the sea at Three Anchor Bay in Cape Town.

*Translation by Antjie Krog & André Brink

Here Chris Chameleon is singing “Korreltjie sand” and at the end of the post is the superb music video created for  her poem “As jy weer skryf”, also sung by him.

Edgar A. Poe – The title and last word are from his poem “The Raven”.

“If on a summer’s day a Story Teller” – that was me butchering Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler.  Read the book, is all I will say.

“hovels to palaces, obstacles to giants” – Cervantes’s Don Quixote. If you haven’t read this one yet, I can very highly recommend the translation by Edith Grossman.

“Cities…” – Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey

“Beasts growing listless in ancient temples beneath the waves.” – H.P. Lovecraft.  Audible has a range of audiobooks of his works (this is not an advertisement, I use Audible and find the books are of a high quality).

“sea foam” – Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid”. Do yourself a favour and read the original versions of the stories. You will never be the same again. This is a very handy resource.

The chest and fifteen men – “Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest…” is used in Treasure Island by R.L. Stevenson.

An interview and Making Mediocrity Acceptable

The last week truly passed in a whirlwind of work and (unfortunately) sinusitis. Although I did not get much studying or writing done, I did do some worldbuilding and told myself that watching Thor was a good way to look at the way in which Norse myths are changed to fit a specific story. I couldn’t think of a productive reason for watching all the other films, though…

A story and an interview

But, back to interesting stuff – one of the members of the Anomalous Sandbox (the writing group I am part of) had a story published in December and his interview is now available at the site as well. Read his story “Deprescience” over here and the interview over here.

Making Mediocrity Acceptable and other musings

I’ve also started to slowly but surely post over at Storylane. I am planning to do more non-fiction and opinion pieces over there. The first piece is quite close to my heart, and is titled “Making MediocrityAcceptable”.

*If you’re new to the blog – my dissertation is about the use of Norse mythology in Afrikaans and Dutch literature.