Sir Terry Pratchett
starlings murmeration
This blog is published in honour of Sir Terry Pratchett, who passed away from Alzheimers’ at the early age of 66 today. I met him once in Northwich Library in the early 1990s with my son, Robert. He gave a talk about what inspired him and that he possessed too many story ideas than he’d have time to write. How true, sadly. We all like different styles in books but his first Discworld book, The Colour of Magic remains one of my favourites – the way he described dawn in terms of darkness reluctantly withdrawing across hills and dales inspired my own style – much to the annoyance of some in the Chester Fantasy Writers’ Group. I recommend too, The Carpet People. Pratchett populates a lounge carpet with tiny folk, who as in Truckers, live their lives as an unintentional parody of the human society above them. It’s this socio-political angle in his books that makes the apparent childrens’ books as most definitely for grown-ups and thinking teens.
The more poignant meeting with Terry Pratchett was experienced by my school pal, Trevor Taylor. Near his own home in the Mendips are water marshland areas such as the Somerset Levels and the Slimbridge Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust and Trevor stood there to watch thousands of starlings doing their air sculpture murmurations. To his astonishment he realized he was standing next to a dark-cloaked man wearing a large black fedora. They talked about the starlings. I wish I was there.
I couldn’t attend the monthly bookgroup meeting so here are the notes to my reading of:
In a Glass Darkly by Sheridan Le Fanu (1872)
Notes
This classic collection of ‘horror’ mysteries was chosen to be read and discussed at the Chester science fiction & fantasy bookgroup The Esoteric Bibliophilia Society (TEBS) that meets monthly in the Custom House public house.
The mysterious metaphysical with hint of paranormal cases of the German physician, Dr Martin Hesselius.
Green Tea
Rev. Jennings sees a black monkey apparition even after attempts to be ‘cured’.
He kills himself with a razor.
The Familiar
Captain James Barton hears footsteps behind him; a strange little man (kind of shape shifter as a bird?) sometimes singing, ‘still alive, still alive’ – but who is? Barton carried guilt of a foremast man Yelland whose daughter Barton appears to have had an affair with?
He dies of fright / guilt.
Another quite sad, dystopian story. (using dystopian not as a place here!)
Mr Justice Harbottle
Sentenced a forger to death but saw the man and now the judge has been charged with his murder. Judge found dead by hanging. Another sad case.
Great quote on p93 “that ancient haunt of crutches and chalk-stones, Buxton.” Chalk stones could be the deposits in joints from gout although the deposits are really crystals of sodium urate (diet rich in purines such as sardines and liver, and beer and spirits.
The Room in Le Dragon Volant
A period piece set in 1815 just weeks after the Napoleonic Wars in the Paris region. Based on the Mortis Imago affect where a drug induces apparent death. This idea is not new in fiction. I’m sure several ancient Greek dramas use potions to simulate death in the living. The Bruce Willis film Hudson Hawk (1991) has poison darts with curare to paralyze victims.
Young Englishman Richard Beckett falls instantly in love with a beautiful married woman who is allegedly a Countess. He is lured by entrapment to part with his money to help her by buying her fake jewels. However, a ‘secret service’ man who also befriended Beckett finally outed the scam and saved Beckett from dying inside a coffin after having taken a mortis imago drug for the second time.
Great quote on p125 “A bald-headed little military surgeon of 60, with spectacles, who had cut off 87 legs and arms to his own share after the Battle of Eylau, having retired with his sword and saw, his laurels and his sticking plaster to this, his native town, was called in, and rather thought the gallant colonel’s skull was fractured; at all events, there was concussion of the seat of thought, and quite enough work for his remarkable self-healing powers to occupy him for a fortnight.” (82 words!)
Although a period immediately after a war in an occupied country is fascinating, Beckett seemed too unconcerned at his dangers (compared to my dad after WW2 in Germany where occupying British soldiers and civilians had to be careful of Germans out for revenge – sometimes in desperation trying to find lost loved ones as I witnessed in Osnabruck in the early 1950s) and the events that befall him are too predictable for the modern reader. I was hoping for a better twist at the end. Awful POV switch when Beckett was in the coffin and so he couldn’t possibly know what was going on out of it.
Theme of an innocent in peril was popular in early and Victorian literature.
One interesting fact I learnt from this story is that nobles didn’t take their own horses on long journeys but rented them even though they owned the carriages.
Carmilla
Female vampire story where the innocent lone child, Laura, is besotted with a similarly beautiful Carmilla who has to stay at her schloss while her mother is away.
Hints of lesbianism. Again the clues are too obvious for the modern reader.
I hope this helps the book group to fill in where they gave up reading In a Glass Darkly. Apparently most gave up in boredom by halfway and so missed out on the atmospheric and more intriguing ideas in Carmilla, and in The Room in Le Dragon Volant – my favourite. Most of the stories were sad but the latter two at least possessed great atmosphere, a fascinating contrast read for me in sunny Lanzarote.
Thanks, Graham for suggesting it although I more enjoyed reading The Martian by Andy Weir.
Nelder News
I received my author’s copy of “Monk Punk & The Shadow of the Unknown” Edited by Aaron J French – a great collection of short horror / unusual stories including two by me. Kindle here
an be linked from
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