1984: Room 101

26 MAY 2018

George Orwell's 1984. If you haven't read it, go become a better human and read it. Scary how much George foretold the future. If you don't know, 1984 is where the phrase, "Big Brother is Watching You" comes from, among other things. There's an old movie version of the book too. I don't recommend it though, at least not from a teaching standpoint. Quite a bit of nudity in it. Not sure if there is a more recent adaptation for the big screen. Anyways, I do want to talk about the book today, specifically Room 101 from the book. What great writing. Below is an excerpt from 1984: about Room 101 and the rats...(comments afterwards).

****************

For a moment Winston was alone, then the door opened and O'Brien came in.

'You asked me once,' said O'Brien, 'what was in Room 101. I told you that you knew the answer already. Everyone knows it. The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world.'

The door opened again. A guard came in, carrying something made of wire, a box or basket of some kind. He set it down on the further table. Because of the position in which O'Brien was standing. Winston could not see what the thing was.

'The worst thing in the world,' said O'Brien, 'varies from individual to individual. It may be burial alive, or death by fire, or by drowning, or by impalement, or fifty other deaths. There are cases where it is some quite trivial thing, not even fatal.'

He had moved a little to one side, so that Winston had a better view of the thing on the table. It was an oblong wire cage with a handle on top for carrying it by. Fixed to the front of it was something that looked like a fencing mask, with the concave side outwards. Although it was three or four metres away from him, he could see that the cage was divided lengthways into two compartments, and that there was some kind of creature in each. They were rats.

'In your case, said O'Brien, 'the worst thing in the world happens to be rats.' A sort of premonitory tremor, a fear of he was not certain what, had passed through Winston as soon as he caught his first glimpse of the cage. But at this moment the meaning of the mask-like attachment in front of it suddenly sank into him. His bowels seemed to turn to water.

'You can't do that!' he cried out in a high cracked voice. 'You couldn't, you couldn't! It's impossible.'

'Do you remember,' said O'Brien, 'the moment of panic that used to occur in your dreams? There was a wall of blackness in front of you, and a roaring sound in your ears. There was something terrible on the other side of the wall. You knew that you knew what it was, but you dared not drag it into the open. It was the rats that were on the other side of the wall.'

'O'Brien!' said Winston, making an effort to control his voice. 'You know this is not necessary. What is it that you want me to do?'

O'Brien made no direct answer. When he spoke it was in the schoolmasterish manner that he sometimes affected. He looked thoughtfully into the distance, as though he were addressing an audience somewhere behind Winston's back. 'By itself,' he said, 'pain is not always enough. There are occasions when a human being will stand out against pain, even to the point of death. But for everyone there is something unendurable -- something that cannot be contemplated. Courage and cowardice are not involved. If you are falling from a height it is not cowardly to clutch at a rope. If you have come up from deep water it is not cowardly to fill your lungs with air. It is merely an instinct which cannot be destroyed. It is the same with the rats. For you, they are unendurable. They are a form of pressure that you cannot withstand. even if you wished to. You will do what is required of you.

'But what is it, what is it? How can I do it if I don't know what it is?'

O'Brien picked up the cage and brought it across to the nearer table. He set it down carefully on the baize cloth.

Winston could hear the blood singing in his ears. He had the feeling of sitting in utter loneliness. …Yet the cage with the rats was not two metres away from him. They were enormous rats. They were at the age when a rat's muzzle grows blunt and fierce and his fur brown instead of grey.

'The rat,' said O'Brien, still addressing his invisible audience, 'although a rodent, is carnivorous. You are aware of that. You will have heard of the things that happen in the poor quarters of this town. In some streets a woman dare not leave her baby alone in the house, even for five minutes. The rats are certain to attack it. Within quite a small time they will strip it to the bones. They also attack sick or dying people. They show astonishing intelligence in knowing when a human being is helpless.'

There was an outburst of squeals from the cage. It seemed to reach Winston from far away. The rats were fighting; they were trying to get at each other through the partition. He heard also a deep groan of despair. That, too, seemed to come from outside himself. O'Brien picked up the cage, and, as he did so, pressed something in it. There was a sharp click. Winston made a frantic effort to tear himself loose from the chair. It was hopeless; every part of him, even his head, was held immovably.

O'Brien moved the cage nearer. It was less than a metre from Winston's face. 'I have pressed the first lever,' said O'Brien. 'You understand the construction of this cage. The mask will fit over your head, leaving no exit. When I press this other lever, the door of the cage will slide up. These starving brutes will shoot out of it like bullets. Have you ever seen a rat leap through the air? They will leap on to your face and bore straight into it. Sometimes they attack the eyes first. Sometimes they burrow through the cheeks and devour the tongue.'

The cage was nearer; it was closing in. Winston heard a succession of shrill cries which appeared to be occurring in the air above his head. But he fought furiously against his panic. To think, to think, even with a split-second left -- to think was the only hope. Suddenly the foul musty odour of the brutes struck his nostrils. There was a violent convulsion of nausea inside him, and he almost lost consciousness. Everything had gone black. For an instant he was insane, a screaming animal. Yet he came out of the blackness clutching an idea. There was one and only one way to save himself. He must interpose another human being, the body of another human being, between himself and the rats. The circle of the mask was large enough now to shut out the vision of anything else. The wire door was a couple of hand-spans from his face. The rats knew what was coming now. One of them was leaping up and down, the other, an old scaly grandfather of the sewers, stood up, with his pink hands against the bars, and fiercely sniffed the air. Winston could see the whiskers and the yellow teeth. Again the black panic took hold of him. He was blind, helpless, mindless.

'It was a common punishment in Imperial China,' said O'Brien as didactically as ever. The mask was closing on his face. The wire brushed his cheek. And then -- no, it was not relief, only hope, a tiny fragment of hope. Too late, perhaps too late. But he had suddenly understood that in the whole world there was just one person to whom he could transfer his punishment -- one body that he could thrust between himself and the rats. And he was shouting frantically, over and over. 'Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia! I don't care what you do to her. Tear her face off, strip her to the bones. Not me! Julia! Not me!'

***

The last line of the book talks about how Winston gave in and lost/won...

“...it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother”

Outstanding writing. What a way to build up suspense with Room 101. 

Picture for today: Some good stuff from Mr. Carroll.

Kings & Pawns

23 MAY 2018

When I was in elementary school (I'll have to ask my mom for the exact grade one day), one of my teachers taught us how to play chess and sponsored a school chess match. I ended up taking to the game like a fish to water and I beat all my classmates and my teacher. I haven't played in a long time, but I've always loved the game. I can look a few moves ahead, and I can picture the forms of attacks and defenses involving multiple pieces, but that's about it. Well, at least I used to, lol. It's been a long time since I've played the game of kings.

There's an Italian proverb I heard a while ago that really hits home, and is very apt for this time of the year. This is my last week of work for my day job until the next school year. After Friday I'll be on break for a couple of months. Yay me! The proverb is:

"At the end of the game, the King and Pawn both go into the same box."

Such a cool way to say everyone is the same in the end. I added it to the list of random quotations at the top of my blog. 

I love proverbs and idioms. I love the insights they give into the way a culture thinks. I just heard another one about lying recently. We might say, back in the day, that "your pants are on fire." A Belgian acquaintance said the phrase they use is "Tell it to the cat." The meaning being because I don't believe it!

Picture for today: Six Swans Fable

Six Swans Fable, recorded by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
[This heroine in this story makes me think of my two wonderful daughters in regards to her strength of character and willingness to help her brothers. Love you Ari and Katie]

A king was once hunting in a great forest, and he chased his prey so eagerly that none of his men could follow him. As evening approached he stopped and looked around, and saw that he was lost. He looked for a way out of the woods, but he could not find one. Then he saw an old woman with a bobbing head who approached him. She was a witch.

"My dear woman," he said to her, "can you show me the way through the woods?"

"Oh, yes, your majesty," she answered, "I can indeed. However, there is one condition, and if you do not fulfill it, you will never get out of these woods, and will die here of hunger."

"What sort of condition is it?" asked the king.

"I have a daughter," said the old woman, "who is as beautiful as anyone you could find in all the world, and who well deserves to become your wife. If you will make her your queen, I will show you the way out of the woods."

The king was so frightened that he consented, and the old woman led him to her cottage, where her daughter was sitting by the fire. She received the king as if she had been expecting him. He saw that she was very beautiful, but in spite of this he did not like her, and he could not look at her without secretly shuddering.

After he had lifted the girl onto his horse, the old woman showed him the way, and the king arrived again at his royal castle, where the wedding was celebrated.

The king had been married before, and by his first wife he had seven children, six boys and one girl. He loved them more than anything else in the world.

Fearing that the stepmother might not treat them well, even do them harm, he took them to a secluded castle which stood in the middle of a forest. It was so well hidden, and the way was so difficult to find, that he himself would not have found it, if a wise woman had not given him a ball of magic yarn. Whenever he threw it down in front of him, it would unwind itself and show him the way.

However, the king went out to his dear children so often that the queen took notice of his absence. She was curious and wanted to know what he was doing out there all alone in the woods. She gave a large sum of money to his servants, and they revealed the secret to her. They also told her about the ball of yarn which could point out the way all by itself.

She did not rest until she discovered where the king kept the ball of yarn. Then she made some little shirts of white silk. Having learned the art of witchcraft from her mother, she sewed a magic charm into each one of them. Then one day when the king had ridden out hunting, she took the little shirts and went into the woods. The ball of yarn showed her the way.

The children, seeing that someone was approaching from afar, thought that their dear father was coming to them. Full of joy, they ran to meet him. Then she threw one of the shirts over each of them, and when the shirts touched their bodies they were transformed into swans, and they flew away over the woods.

The queen went home very pleased, believing that she had gotten rid of her stepchildren. However, the girl had not run out with her brothers, and the queen knew nothing about her.

The next day the king went to visit his children, but he found no one there but the girl.

"Where are your brothers?" asked the king.

"Oh, dear father," she answered, "they have gone away and left me alone."

Then she told him that from her window she had seen how her brothers had flown away over the woods as swans. She showed him the feathers that they had dropped into the courtyard, and which she had gathered up.

The king mourned, but he did not think that the queen had done this wicked deed. Fearing that the girl would be stolen away from him as well, he wanted to take her away with him, but she was afraid of her stepmother and begged the king to let her stay just this one more night in the castle in the woods.

The poor girl thought, "I can no longer stay here. I will go and look for my brothers."

And when night came she ran away and went straight into the woods. She walked the whole night long without stopping, and the next day as well, until she was too tired to walk any further.

Then she saw a hunter's hut and went inside. She found a room with six little beds, but she did not dare to get into one of them. Instead she crawled under one of them and lay down on the hard ground where she intended to spend the night.

The sun was about to go down when she heard a rushing sound and saw six swans fly in through the window. Landing on the floor, they blew on one another, and blew all their feathers off. Then their swan-skins came off just like shirts. The girl looked at them and recognized her brothers. She was happy and crawled out from beneath the bed. The brothers were no less happy to see their little sister, but their happiness did not last long.

"You cannot stay here," they said to her. "This is a robbers' den. If they come home and find you, they will murder you."

"Can't you protect me?" asked the little sister.

"No," they answered. "We can take off our swan-skins for only a quarter hour each evening. Only during that time do we have our human forms. After that we are again transformed into swans."

Crying, the little sister said, "Can you not be redeemed?"

"Alas, no," they answered. "The conditions are too difficult. You would not be allowed to speak or to laugh for six years, and in that time you would have to sew together six little shirts from asters [also known as starflowers] for us. And if a single word were to come from your mouth, all your work would be lost."

Asters, a type of daisy. Imagine having to make shirts out of these!

After the brothers had said this, the quarter hour was over, and they flew out the window again as swans.

Nevertheless, the girl firmly resolved to redeem her brothers, even if it should cost her her life. She left the hunter's hut, went to the middle of the woods, seated herself in a tree, and there spent the night. The next morning she went out and gathered asters and began to sew. She could not speak with anyone, and she had no desire to laugh. She sat there, looking only at her work.

After she had already spent a long time there it happened that the king of the land was hunting in these woods. His huntsmen came to the tree where the girl was sitting.

They called to her, saying, "Who are you?" But she did not answer.

"Come down to us," they said. "We will not harm you."

She only shook her head. When they pressed her further with questions, she threw her golden necklace down to them, thinking that this would satisfy them. But they did not stop, so she then threw her belt down to them, and when this did not help, her garters, and then -- one thing at a time -- everything that she had on and could do without, until finally she had nothing left but her shift.

The huntsmen, however, not letting themselves be dissuaded, climbed the tree, lifted the girl down, and took her to the king.

The king asked, "Who are you? What are you doing in that tree?"

But she did not answer. He asked her in every language that he knew, but she remained as speechless as a fish. Because she was so beautiful, the king's heart was touched, and he fell deeply in love with her. He put his cloak around her, lifted her onto his horse in front of himself, and took her to his castle. There he had her dressed in rich garments, and she glistened in her beauty like bright daylight, but no one could get a word from her.

At the table he seated her by his side, and her modest manners and courtesy pleased him so much that he said, "My desire is to marry her, and no one else in the world."

A few days later they were married.

Now the king had a wicked mother who was dissatisfied with this marriage and spoke ill of the young queen. "Who knows," she said, "where the girl who cannot speak comes from? She is not worthy of a king."

A year later, after the queen had brought her first child into the world, the old woman took it away from her while she was asleep, and smeared her mouth with blood. Then she went to the king and accused her of being a cannibal. The king could not believe this, and would not allow anyone to harm her. She, however, sat the whole time sewing on the shirts, and caring for nothing else.

The next time, when she again gave birth to a beautiful boy, the deceitful mother-in-law did the same thing again, but the king could not bring himself to believe her accusations.

He said, "She is too pious and good to do anything like that. If she were not speechless, and if she could defend herself, her innocence would come to light."

But when the old woman stole away a newly born child for the third time, and accused the queen, who did not defend herself with a single word, the king had no choice but to bring her to justice, and she was sentenced to die by fire.

When the day came for the sentence to be carried out, it was also the last day of the six years during which she had not been permitted to speak or to laugh, and she had thus delivered her dear brothers from the magic curse. The six shirts were finished. Only the left sleeve of the last one was missing. When she was led to the stake, she laid the shirts on her arm. Standing there, as the fire was about to be lighted, she looked around, and six swans came flying through the air. Seeing that their redemption was near, her heart leapt with joy.

The swans rushed towards her, swooping down so that she could throw the shirts over them. As soon as the shirts touched them their swan-skins fell off, and her brothers stood before her in their own bodies, vigorous and handsome. However, the youngest was missing his left arm. In its place he had a swan's wing.

They embraced and kissed one another. Then the queen went to the king, who was greatly moved, and she began to speak, saying, "Dearest husband, now I may speak and reveal to you that I am innocent, and falsely accused."

Then she told him of the treachery of the old woman who had taken away their three children and hidden them.


Then to the king's great joy they were brought forth. As a punishment, the wicked mother-in-law was tied to the stake and burned to ashes. But the king and the queen with her six brothers lived many long years in happiness and peace.

END

UPDATE: I took a peek through the interwebs recently to satisfy my curiosity and found much about this story and other fairy tales. I have to spend more time with fairy tales. I forgot how much I love them and how much history is behind them!

Shadows of the Sea

22 MAY 2018

Anthologies are great practice for beginning writers. Sort of like training wheels. You don't have to do all the work on your own. You're given a point of reference, some guidance to the end of your journey and off you go. Case in point, the new anthology by a Facebook group I belong to called Fantasy Writers, led by the indomitable Jade Feldman. I have no horse in this particular race, but I love the title and the premise. The back blurb reads thus: 

Pirates, mermaids, monsters, oh my!

The depths of the ocean hold many untold secrets. Some are beautiful tales of mermaids who ride seahorses, and others are massive monsters bent on destroying every ship crossing its path.

Delve into these seven stories by the following authors:
A.M. Cummins, Marcus Bines, Joann M. Shevock, Hui Lang, Irina Ivanova, Layne Calry, Angel Blackwood

Who doesn't love a fantasy-based sea story? I loved the idea so much I wrote a story based on the premise and released it on my own. So today I want to share two links. One for the new anthology, and I hope they have the biggest of 'sails':
Shadows of the Sea

It's available through Kindle right now. Seven stories for $3.99.


The second link today is to my story based on the premise: 
Pirates & Demons: Eye of Dog

Mine is still free with Kindle Unlimited. I might change that in the future, but it won't be more than a dollar. Go get it and enjoy a taste of what I like to write about. It's got pirates, and demons, lol. And a great cast of characters I'll write more about in other stories. Sea Dog is my favorite character among the ship's crew, but don't tell the others!

Picture for today: A cover for The Dreaming City, by Michael Moorcock. Elric, the main character in the series, is one of those complex characters who lured me deeper into the myriad worlds of fantasy. He is so different from the good vs. evil of your 'standard' fantasy characters, such as Gandalf from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings characters. Nothing against Tolkien, his world-building is second to none. But if you've only read Tolkien-like stories, give Elric a try, see what you think.  

As always, I hope you have a great day. Be well and of good cheer.

Chimp Refuge

10MAY18

There is a chimp refuge nearby! Well, not nearby, but close enough that I'm going to have to arrange a trip down there. Looking forward to taking pictures and getting a good, first-hand feel for what the primates are like. 

The place is Chimp Haven. You can find them at  Chimphaven.org and other social media platforms. Check them out and give them some love. 

In writing news I've toned down the writing pace in response to work ramping up. This month is always hectic as we get busy with end of work year wrap up duties to close up shop for the summer months. I've done a little bit here and there though. A fellow writer took a look at one of my stories, taking it one step closer to release. I really appreciate his inputs and thorough edits. I also worked on consolidating some of my background material. Want to make sure nothing conflicts. Looking forward to really stepping on the 'writing' gas come the end of May!

Picture for today...An example of truth being stranger than fiction...

Reminds me to go ahead and using my imagination to its fullest potential because reality is strange!

May. Finally!

05MAY18

Happy Cinco de Mayo and a late May the Fourth be With You!

Seems like we are witnessing the slow birth of a new holiday. But it's right up against Cinco de Mayo. Will the Star Wars holiday overshadow the very popular but 'sort of Mexican' holiday? Who knows. I would think so. Star Wars is global. Cinco de Mayo is not even that popular in Mexico, which actually has a real Independence Day in September. The Fourth is only based on movies though, so who knows. 

It's May! Which means I'm getting ready for the summer break. My regular job is coming to an end for a couple of months, during which time I'll have oodles of hours to write and edit. I have a few stories that I've been editing away on, looking forward to building up the number of stories out there for sale, leading up to a short story collection in a couple of years. For the next short story release, I'm searching for an artist with a different look than my last cover. I really like the way woodcuts look, so hopefully I'll be able to pair up with a great artist. If not, then I might make the cover or ask my wonderful wife to. In any case, by the end of summer, I will have two more stories out there. 

Picture for today: A sample of the woodcut type of art that I am targeting for my next short story release. Ursula Le Guin, one of my favorite artists, used woodcuts for her chapter openings for a print of her Earthsea series. The short story I'm working on has some similarities to the Tombs of Atuan. Though I must say upfront that her story is way much more better than my little piece. I have a ways to go before I reach her level of writing, but that won't stop me from trying!