musing....
Sep. 9th, 2002 12:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
breakfastofchampionsi visit many worlds in the course of my story-writing, but i suppose they fit vaguely into three categories.
first, there are those of my stories which appear to take place in the "real" world-- but of course, they don't. their origin is a place i consider a "mythicized" version of the real world, usually mythical america, but it also has links to other countries, other times-- mythical france, mythical italy, mythical czarist russia, and mythical ancient rome, for example.
the mythicized world often appears to be a version of the real world, but strange things happen there. there are ghosts and portents. people can change sex in an eyeblink, or turn into animals. animals can turn into people. men can give birth. old heroes return in slightly altered form. there are people there you won't find in the real world. the geography is slightly different, as is the history. this is the world i most often visit, as it lies so close to my own.
bob smith, private eye lives there with all his friends, in the city of new carthage, which is a little like new york. ruby redding and benny june live there too, in darker, earlier times. jack st. john's lonely house, and the even lonelier house of itzhak's grandaughter can be found there. caligula just moved in.
the second world predates the first. it is ancient, precarious, unmapped. it is a world of fantasy, ever-changing, never showing the same face twice. it contains numerous worlds. it has many names. relvan alteren lives there, and windsong and vithcjar and kysande... all the old names and the nameless. wilderness rules here. here there be dragons.
finally, there is a third world which bridges the first two. i don't know if it has a true name, but i call it the borderlands. the first two worlds leak into it, but it has something of its own character too. it is a bleak, harsh territory.
much of the borderland is wilds, wilds and a long stretch of coastland. gods walk there. there are cities, too-- victorian london can be found there, a victorian london where fauns and dryads live alongside men and women. there you will find the small coastal town of cordowen where christian, queen of the bandits once lived-- perhaps where she lives still. in the borderlands, it is as likely that a child will be born with wings or horns as without them.
most stories i write take place in only one of these three worlds... it might not be evident to readers which of the worlds it is set in, but it is evident to me. sometimes, however, a story in mythical america will cross over into the borderlands, or a borderland story will sink into fantasy.
orange pekoe, of course, crosses all the boundaries. it begins in mythical america, but slowly is infused with elements of the borderland-- when jack calls claude achilles, when the first mythos light visits claude and eithne, that's the borderlands. troix brings the borderlands with him wherever he goes. aday is the first to cross over into complete fantasy, because she is, of course, the archetypal voyager. jack and guy follow her later, and claude, of course, has been there all the time in his own strange way...
...that's part of why orange pekoe is so important to me. it crosses every boundary.
first, there are those of my stories which appear to take place in the "real" world-- but of course, they don't. their origin is a place i consider a "mythicized" version of the real world, usually mythical america, but it also has links to other countries, other times-- mythical france, mythical italy, mythical czarist russia, and mythical ancient rome, for example.
the mythicized world often appears to be a version of the real world, but strange things happen there. there are ghosts and portents. people can change sex in an eyeblink, or turn into animals. animals can turn into people. men can give birth. old heroes return in slightly altered form. there are people there you won't find in the real world. the geography is slightly different, as is the history. this is the world i most often visit, as it lies so close to my own.
bob smith, private eye lives there with all his friends, in the city of new carthage, which is a little like new york. ruby redding and benny june live there too, in darker, earlier times. jack st. john's lonely house, and the even lonelier house of itzhak's grandaughter can be found there. caligula just moved in.
the second world predates the first. it is ancient, precarious, unmapped. it is a world of fantasy, ever-changing, never showing the same face twice. it contains numerous worlds. it has many names. relvan alteren lives there, and windsong and vithcjar and kysande... all the old names and the nameless. wilderness rules here. here there be dragons.
finally, there is a third world which bridges the first two. i don't know if it has a true name, but i call it the borderlands. the first two worlds leak into it, but it has something of its own character too. it is a bleak, harsh territory.
much of the borderland is wilds, wilds and a long stretch of coastland. gods walk there. there are cities, too-- victorian london can be found there, a victorian london where fauns and dryads live alongside men and women. there you will find the small coastal town of cordowen where christian, queen of the bandits once lived-- perhaps where she lives still. in the borderlands, it is as likely that a child will be born with wings or horns as without them.
most stories i write take place in only one of these three worlds... it might not be evident to readers which of the worlds it is set in, but it is evident to me. sometimes, however, a story in mythical america will cross over into the borderlands, or a borderland story will sink into fantasy.
orange pekoe, of course, crosses all the boundaries. it begins in mythical america, but slowly is infused with elements of the borderland-- when jack calls claude achilles, when the first mythos light visits claude and eithne, that's the borderlands. troix brings the borderlands with him wherever he goes. aday is the first to cross over into complete fantasy, because she is, of course, the archetypal voyager. jack and guy follow her later, and claude, of course, has been there all the time in his own strange way...
...that's part of why orange pekoe is so important to me. it crosses every boundary.
