After a long hiatus I am going to start writing again on this blog, up until New Year anyway and then I'll have a look at things once more. I have been working on a long-form story since I last posted here and that remains ongoing. But there are a number of pieces which I had planned to write here which I kind of left hanging in the air when I stopped blogging. It feels like unfinished business and I need to get them out of my system and onto the page.
I hope before the end of this week to have posted my prose adaptation of Charles Williams' Taliessin's Return to Logres, the second poem in his Taliessin Through Logres collection. Then, around mid-December time, I've got an essay on the Romanian/French esotericist Jean Parvulesco (1929-2010) in mind - a study of his oeuvre in the light of another Charles Williams work, his novel War in Heaven, and also John Buchan's novel Prester John.
Jean Parvulesco - Our Prester John is my working title.
Then right at the end of the year a retelling of Canto XXVI of Dante's Inferno - Ulysses in Hell.
When I look at some of the stuff I did here earlier in the year, particularly those retellings from the Aeneid, I find it really hard to believe that I was ever able to write such things and I very much doubt my ability to hit those standards again. I felt so much in the zone back then and I seem to have lost so much since. But we'll see. Let's trust in the stories and have faith that some writing of value will emerge.
Thank you and God bless,
Under the Mercy,
John
I'm so glad you're back - even temporarily!!
ReplyDeleteI actually wrote a comment on your 'goodbye' post - just asking how you're doing and saying you were missed - but then it wouldn't 'send', and I gave up after a couple tries ;^)
I look forward to reading those, John. You've certainly picked some interesting subjects.
ReplyDeleteThanks Carol and William! Great to hear from you both.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to reading these posts.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that I was thinking about earlier this year is the increase of "deconstructive history". Not just leftists trying to deconstruct traditional understandings, but conspirologists interpreting everything through that lens. That is not to say that I haven't benefited from some of this research. And, indeed, I view the 20th century as a "lost century" from about 1914 on. But, the problem is that this view is only partially true: yes, in 2021 everything is fake, but it hasn't always been this way. That kind of thinking isn't anything that one can build on.
What you have done with this blog is the exact opposite of that. Rather than using the lens of the present to interpret the past, you are revivifying the treasures of past to enrich the present. So, for that reason, I think what you are doing here is important. Unlike deconstructive history, this kind of "rebunking" of history and legend is something that is actually constructive.
Thanks very much Kevin. I hadn't quite realised it was yourself behind the 'No Longer Reading' blog. I shall have a good perusal of it later today perhaps.
ReplyDeleteA 'rebunking of history and legend.' I like that. It suits me well. I've never been a debunker. That's one reason I never went into academia. Debunking's 'de rigeur' there. It's also why I could never be a professional historian. History and myth are too deeply entwined for me to be that person. History's too real - too vivid and alive - to be studied in a dispassionate, scientific fashion as if it was a beetle in a jar.
Thanks again for your words. Like the stars that accompany Taliessin, in my recent retelling, they bring me confidence and hope.
All the best,
John