The News for Parrotts

On Saturday Lindsay's group finally reconvened after a difficult period in which our drummer was suspected of suffering from death. This turned out to be a rumour, and we split up again... No, in fact, our six-month hiatus has been more due to double-bookings, the World Cup, people being away etc (unless there was one in September that I couldn't make - can't remember as that seems like a long time ago now). I also had the train journey from hell getting into London, which included a delightful hour at Swindon, where we were holed up while there was foul play in the air at Didcot (a fatality, police activity on the line - which sounded like a suicide, until we heard news of another fatality, which sounded more like trigger happy fascists shooting people they believe to be terrorists, but were in fact completely innocent, and just happened to be wearing a baggy anorak/non-caucasian/dark-haired/not wearing a Hitler-style moustache etc).

Once actually in London (and in our old haunt, the Fitzroy), I told Lindsay of my conceptual problems - i.e. the novel started out as an Utz-style short thing, and now, what with reading Quicksilver, I am thinking more in terms of sequoias than toothpicks - but Lindsay told me to fear not, and to think of the book as simply four short stories, that could be read independently of one another. To that end, he advised me to read Isak Dinesen's Seven Gothic Tales (which I have a copy of somewhere, bought many years ago) and Anecdotes of Destiny (which contains two titles I'm familiar with, 'Babette's Feast' and 'The Immortal Story', as they have both been made into rather good films) . I spent the train journey home - Didcot suspiciously quiet - going through the first episode with a fine toothcomb, feeling like I have a handle on the beast once more.

Quicksilver

When I originally started Elias, it was intended to be a novel of four chapters and an epilogue. That has subsequently grown to twelve and an epilogue, and I am feeling that, before I get back into the swing of things, I need to decide which way the book should go. I could revert to my original short-ish novel of 200 or so pages, or carry on with the 500-plus page version. Having just started Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver, which is 900 pages long and covers similar themes and roughly the same period, it might be an idea to return to the shorter version of Elias. I've always felt that it might be better to imply the beginning of the modern world, rather than to show it in exhaustive detail, as Neal Stephenson does. My other feeling has been that if I can get Part I finished, I will know where to go with the rest of it. Either way, it's a case of making time to write, which always seems to be harder than the actual writing itself; or, rather, the not making time means that the writing, when it happens, is harder than it needs to be.

The Knights who say Ni...gredo

Last week I finished shooting a film (more of which here). Now, as the material gets digitised and then Fed Exed to our editor in LA, I find myself this foggy morning reading the latest issue of Alchemy Journal, in particular an article about that old alchemical chestnut, 'Who was Fulcanelli?'. (My own theories suggest that he was, in fact, the French filmmaker Robert Bresson - but that's something to discuss with De Selby over inordinate amounts of alchemically produced whisky!).

The upshot of my reading is that it's high time to work on Elias as full-time as possible. I've been doing this blog for 24 (solar) months now, and it really is time to try and up the ante. True, this period has not been easy for personal and professional reasons, but try as I might, I can't bring myself to begin work on another novel. I've thought of a few potboilers - about the Templars mainly, but even one on alchemy that I was considering a month or two back, and over the weekend gave thought to turning an old screenplay about fairies into a prose - but as I now look through the various Elias drafts, it seems there is only one way to go: deeper into what I've already done.

I also feel I've been evading my responsibilities with this book - something I tend to do with commissioned books (the last three of which were all largely written after their respective deadlines had passed). But before I lapse into the slough of despond, or, perhaps worse, visit Slough accidentally, I've just noticed something in the latest issue of AJ, namely the article by John Reid III:

'If there is one stumbling block in the plant work, nay the entire Royal Art, I would have to say it is from the paving stone that thinks itself a cornerstone, thus occluding the work at its inception.'

Perhaps this has been true of my progress with the story so far; it was certainly a feeling I had on last October's Arvon with Adam and Lindsay. Perhaps the delays and general slowness of the whole thing are necessary. Maybe that's true of life generally, reminding me of something that Jennifer Lash said in her great book On Pilgrimage, namely that delays are good, because they slow us down, and we need to be slowed down in order to learn. Back to the paving stone/corner stone idea, and the alchemical circulata. Which in turn reminds me of something that Lindsay has said to me time and time again, that Elias should not be a novel about alchemy, but an alchemical novel. Certainly seems to be the case! Time to say 'Ni!.... gredo' and get back into the kingdom of plants, minerals, and words.

Alchemy & Alchemists - Another Revised Version

I have about a week to revise a book I wrote back in 2000 on alchemy. As usual with these things, it's going slowly.

To help me get my rewrite done, I've been reading Patrick Harpur's The Philosopher's Secret Fire, and will then move on to Jean Cooper's book about Chinese alchemy. I've also ordered a book on Indian tantric alchemy from Amazon, plus a dictionary of alchemical symbols. I'm hoping both will arrive in the week.

When I started writing the book - the first version, that is - back in July 2000, I thought it was possible to sum the whole subject up in one book. It was only in doing a second, revised edition in 2003, that I realised that it's an impossible task. Alchemy is a life's work, and is also the work of life. Anyway, the 3rd edition is due out in October, and will hopefully be slightly more modest in its aims...

Still, it has at least got me back in the Zone after spending a summer with the Gnostics, so my thoughts are back with Elias again. I bet he's been wondering where I've been. Come to think of it, that makes two of us...

It was 340 Years Ago Today

...that Sgt Pepper... Sorry, couldn't resist.

Today is in fact the 340th anniversary of the creation of one of the alchemical medallions that Elias shows to Helvetius when they meet for the first time.

Here is a world premiere of a draft of the scene:

"The man handed Helvetius one of the pendants. On it were inscribed the words AMEN. Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord our GOD, for all things are full of his Power. It felt heavy enough to be real gold, and when Anna came back with his purse, Helvetius compared the pendant with a gold coin. It seemed dull and lifeless against the medallion: had the man really made it himself? The inscription on the second pendant, when it was offered to him, seemed to confirm it: The wonderful wonder-working wisdom of JEHOVAH in the Catholick Book of Nature. Made the 26th day of August 1666.

Helvetius's mind began to reel. The date seemed somehow full of portent: what had he himself been doing on that day? Was he in England, concerned with the goings-on at Ragley? Was that the day of Lady Anne’s collapse and Greatorex’s attempts to revive her? Or was it a day like too many others when nothing of import had happened, when his own soul-gloom descended upon him as he tried to balance the books? Why had he not been aware that on that very day, this man had attained the mastery? People had come and gone about their business as he himself had, all of them unaware. All of them unaware. "

And happy birthday, Chris!

The Hack in Space

Well, nearly finished the Gnostic tome. Just need to finish up the section on Jung, add a bit about Gnosticism in literature - e.g. Hesse's Demian, Durrell's Alexandria Quartet, the complete works of Philip K. Dick - and a section on the Matrix movies and computer games, then it's more or less done, thank God (the real one!).

Am yearning to return to Elias and write something that I really want to write. Although I am extremely sympathetic towards the Gnostics, it's still a commissioned book and not one I would have written otherwise. Have been doing almost nothing but the Gnostics for the past few weeks and am as a consequence feeling a bit adrift from reality in general.

I've also been toying with the idea of getting a collection of poems out via Lulu.com. But that's another post, or even blog. Right, time for yet another coffee, and then it's either back to Jung, or I might watch The Matrix, which I've never seen all the way through. (Only seen the second film so far. Just bought the Ultimate Matrix Collection - 10 DVDs with 35 hours of bonus material!)

The Mystery of Time

I am listening to Keith Jarrett's remarkable 1977 album SPHERES (originally a double LP called HYMNS SPHERES containing twice as much music as the current CD). I've rarely been as transported to the age of Elias as I have with this album. If anyone has the original double LP, please let me know. I'd love a copy! This is music about time, it seems to me. More than that, I can't say at present. (I'm not sure Keith could, either, come to think of it.)

I'm not sure what music will appear in the novel. The oldest extant complete opera, Peri's Eurydice (1600) is hermetic; Monteverdi a practicing artist (in the alchemical sense as well as musical). Work by Lully may also appear, and, given my current enthusiasm for Keith Jarrett's organ music, an organ improvisation may also appear.