| Notes November 2009 |
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THE MAPMAKER: Research Item #49 New blurb, integrating a thesis. It is now a story within a story, but of a quite different kind, and in keeping with the material. So we enter December with a clear focus as to where this book is going, and I'm already writing the first chapter. THE MAPMAKER: Research Item #48 I've added a geography page to ScribbleWiki. This is more than simply a nod to the fact that al-Idrisi was a geographer. Geography is liable to be perhaps the prevailing theme of The Mapmaker, both in terms of the academic discipline and its history, and by dint of the fact that geography is a living metaphor for my belief that exploration of the relationship between human beings and the world in which we live should be a paramount facet of human cultural evolution, whether it be investigating the meaning of maps or astronauts exploring the solar system. I would take this metaphor further, and suggest that each of us can and should be our own geographers -- investigating, exploring and making sense of our own ecology and community and self. THE MAPMAKER: Research Item #47
Berkey, J. P. (2002) The Formation of Islam:
Religion and Society in the Near East, 600-1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press) Clearly, identity is going to be a key theme in MM. THE MAPMAKER: Research Item #46 The Mapmaker remains autoethnographic, in that it is fundamentally an attempt to create a personal psychescape. But that is not mutually exclusive from the other themes I want to build into the work, such as "articulating a subversive vision of modernity." THE MAPMAKER: Research Item #45 Literary/Dramatic/Narrative devices/terms -- time:
THE MAPMAKER: Research Item #44 A stranger would be hard pressed to find the tunnel leading to Manuel's Pearly Tavern. It's entrance is solid subterranean shadow, but once you step across the black threshold, a glimmer of light leads you steeply back on yourself and down to the deepest pit in Marettimo. The lanterns on the mar and limestone tables glow yellow like egg yolks and the steamy air is loud with sour wine and sweaty mariners' bragging. Not a single head turned when I trudged in, but when Captain Ali stepped out of the perimeter's gloom, the whole place blinked silent. THE MAPMAKER: Research Item #43
Calypso and Odysseus constructing a ship , Jacob Jordaens In a quest narrative, the main protagonist should build something integral to his quest. The Odyssey also demonstrates a quest narrative does not have to proceed chronologically. Indeed a complex narrative structure is not only possible, but an important dramatic tool. THE MAPMAKER: Research Item #42
Interestingly, the tree of stature/grandeur used metaphorically by Ferdowsi is the Cypress tree. Thinking of the symbolic contrast between this, and immediate reference of stature/grandeur in England: The Oak.
I just want to blow the whole novel plan right open and write freely, but without dropping the central story or the research for it. No, I want Marettimo in 1148 to be at the nexus of a series of tunnels leading to different times and places. THE MAPMAKER: Research Item #40
Vertical-axis windmill, of the kind described by the 9th century Persian geographer Estakhri. I want such windmills to be dotted around Marettimo island, pumping air into the city caves. THE MAPMAKER: Research Item #39 Provisionally, I want Marettimo to be a bustling cave city, with four main quarters: Jewish, Muslim, Byzantine Christian and Latin Christian, plus sub-quarters representing the various divisions within those groups. Externally, it will look like an island with a castle and a few fishing villages. Merchant city: kiosks craved from the rock. More details like this. A good part of the book might be devoted to Marettimo. I want to create a fictional city in some detail. THE MAPMAKER: Research Item #38
December, 1148; 543 AH: a small band of assorted travellers gather on Marettimo, believed by some to be Homer's Ithaca, now a fortress island off the coast of Norman Sicily. Among them is leading intellectual luminary of Roger II’s court, Muhammad al-Idrisi, ostensibly on an expedition to complete his geographical grand treatise, Nuzhatul Mushtaq. In truth, al-Idrisi has been directed by the Brethren of Purity to deliver a book, "that will be in your hands hands on the day you first see the port of Bristol," to none other than the Empress Matilda herself. Finding safe passage on Captain Ali’s magical vessel, al-Jaariya, Idrisi shares conversation and adventures with an extraordinary array of characters, not all human, on a tumultuous voyage where the darkest encounters are not with sea monsters or storms, but with the desires and contradictions burning at the very heart of the age of enchantment. THE MAPMAKER: Research Item #37 A false lead - and an amusing if controversial one. The Captain has in his possession a secret, unpublished book by al-Ghazali, entitled, "The Revival of the Love Sciences." It details how divine love can be invoked through sexual congress with young men! The book is lost when the ship makes its underwater journey! THE MAPMAKER: Research Item #36 I want to move from reading-based research to writing-and-reading-based research. I have some idea where I'm heading now, and want to build the writing from research, and then use the writing to direct the research. I still have long way to go in getting to grips with both major themes and historical details, but I think the best way forward is to write my way into them. I want to open the book with al-Idrisi walking through Palermo, and with that in mind, I want my next piece of meaty reading to be Paul Oldfield's City and Community in Norman Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). I'm not too sure how wide open to throw the text. I don't want to detract too much from the core storyline and characters, but my inner-call to create freely around that disciplined centre is compelling. It's in the very nature of the creative writing process to be revealing of ideas and emotions and concerns and possibilities, and in the end, that is what creative writing should be all about. However, I would like to demonstrate some concern for the reader. Like so many things, I suppose, in the end, it will turn be a matter of balancing, and where possible integrating, different objectives. |
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October 2009 | ScribbleWiki | December 2009 |
NEW BLURB, changing (and further fictionalising) the port of origin: